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Bait-and-Switch Credits - TV Tropes
The program's opening credits promise wondrous things — its images of stupendous beauty, righteous butt-kicking, and noble heroes make it clear what's to come in the story. Except, once you get into the program, you never see those things again — and sometimes, you see the
*exact opposite*.
A way of countering the Spoiler Opening trope. Sometimes a show will mix the two just to confuse the viewer horribly, or to create a dramatic or ironic contrast (a subtrope of Soundtrack Dissonance). Or sometimes they just want to create something really cool that will draw a lot of viewers, Canon be damned.
Note that extremely heavy symbolic content may sometimes resemble Bait-and-Switch, but only if the audience is too dense — or the creator too clever — for them to figure it out.
Compare Fake-Out Opening, Action-Hogging Opening, Never Trust a Trailer and Covers Always Lie, which covers posters too. For when a character prominently featured in the credits of an early episode suffers a shockingly rapid demise, see Dead Star Walking. Contrast Spoiler Opening.
## Examples:
-
*.hack//SIGN*: We're treated to an Electronica-esque opening song with a ton of technicolor visuals. The major characters come onto screen one at a time looking like they're dancing, as well as falling through a data-field while their clothes gradually disintegrate. There's also a female character in a red and blue bodysuit and visor featured VERY prominently. None of this appears at all in the show. The girl in the body suit doesn't even EXIST. The only things that come close are the screen gradually "breaking" over a face shot of Tsukasa, and a very brief shot at the end showing the sleeping Aura (and the bodysuit girl in what looks like the REAL world which makes even less sense). The show itself is more brooding, and introspective than anything else with most of the very Mind Screw-y plot handled via exposition which only serves to make the upbeat opening even MORE jarring.
- It's
*possible* that the opening is symbolic of the fact that the show takes place in a virtual world, hence the girl in the VR goggles and suit and the dissolving clothes while falling could symbolize the shifting of realities. It's also possible the unnamed girl represents ||Tsukasa, who's hiding his true gender||.
-
*Ah! My Goddess*:
- The opening credits of the OVA series briefly show Mara but she never actually appears in the series itself. This was apparently due to the animators being unable to animate her hair correctly.
- Those same credits also show
*a lot* of characters from the original manga that do not appear in the OVA. This includes Banpei the robot, Yoko the ghost, etc.
- They also show Demon Belldandy spreading dark wings over the city, while her friends watch below. That never happens. Instead, Belldandy's pureness turns the demon into an angel within minutes.
- Both openings to
*Akahori Gedou Hour Lovege*, fitting to the Quirky Work nature of the program, are really only true in the protagonists' minds. Kaoruko and Aimi never destroy anything that poses an actual threat to the city, and the Gedou Otome Tai never summon an army of demons to wreak havoc on the city.
- The opening of
*Asobi Asobase* has a cute and fluffy song with visuals of the three protagonists in white sundresses with copious lilies everywhere, suggesting that it's an easygoing Slice of Life Schoolgirl Series. In actuality, the series is a surreal comedy featuring the girls being moronic jerks to each other and everyone else. The ending theme, "Inkya Impulse", which is a heavy metal song featuring surreal neon scribbles of the girls while Hanako screams about popular girls, is more in line with the series' true tone.
- In
*Attack on Titan*, the OP shows people heroically fighting and killing Titans — most of the fights with Titans don't go that way, and a lot of people die in every fight. Also, one part of the opening specifically shows Eren, Mikasa, Annie and Jean fighting a Titan together — this never happens. Also, ||Eren never kills a Titan as a human until the second season||.
-
*Baccano!* looks like a funny, lighthearted (albeit chaotic) romp about 1930's America; complete with a lovable, happy-go-lucky cast and a series name that means "big ruckus." Hell, the anime's opening, with its sitcom-esque cinematography, is catchy enough to get anyone revved up to laugh at some silly, old-timey antics and kick back with a show that's fun for the whole family. While not without a sense of humor (especially with Isaac and Miria's antics), the anime is darker and more violent than the opening suggests. Also, ||despite being a main character, Claire goes unnamed in the intro to avoid spoiling the surprise — though he's there for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment||. His significance is spoiled very subtly as ||the shot of him does a slight stutter|| as it does for the main cast.
- The opening animation to
*Battle Spirits Shonen Gekiha Dan* shows the protagonist Dan using the DarkDragonEmperor Siegfried. Throughout the series, he's never even in possession of this card.
- The opening theme to
*Berserk (1997)* shows very little of the plot, being mostly comprised of various shots of Guts walking around and posing, his equipment, a flower bursting into flames, and a split second of blood splatter. The only actual image that informs the series is a shot of a tree with bodies hanging from it. It tells very little about the series, but more relevantly, the opening theme is a rather upbeat rock song mostly comprised of Gratuitous English (with its most prominent lyrics being "put your glasses on, nothing will be wrong"). Anyone familiar with *Berserk* will tell you that it is *not* an upbeat show about how things are going to be okay. Particularly funny is that "Even mother will show you another way!" plays over the aforementioned shot of the tree—those familiar with *Berserk* will tell you that tree is important because Guts's mother *was hanged there*.
- The fourth ending of
*Black Clover* has Noelle, Mimosa and Kanoho dressed as schoolgirls in an ending that makes it seem like a Slice of Life or Shoujo.
- The third ending focuses almost entirely on Noelle, even though she's not the most important character of that particular arc.
-
*Bleach* is rife with these, showing characters in different costumes and situations that you would never expect. The worst offenders were the second and fourteenth openings, which promised many really cool battles in the Soul Society that never happened.
- The eighth opening shows filler captain Amagai fighting his third seat, Kifune, after the latter's FaceHeel Turn. It's misleading because Izuru ends up fighting Kifune and also because ||Amagai is the real villain and was manipulating Kifune||. Not to mention the part where Renji attacks Byakuya with his signature move, only to have it deflected, which never happens in the show at all.
- The 10th opening is similar, as it's essentially just a music video featuring Rukia, Orihime, and Rangiku dancing, with a few shots of the Shinigami and Ichigo just to remind us that we're watching the right show.
- The last opening shows Ichigo fighting Tsukishima and Shishigawara ||alongside Ginjou||. While it seems to be true considering how ||Ginjou subjected Ichigo to a Training from Hell to fight Tsukishima||, we later find out that ||Ginjou was actually in a Big Bad Duumvirate with Tsukishima||. Furthermore, ||Ichigo never even fights Shishigawara at all, nor does he fight with fullbring outside the Xcution hideout before achieving his second stage||.
- Although the general wackiness of the openings fit the theme of the show,
*Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo* includes the character Battleship among the main cast, yet after his run as a villain he disappears, except for occasional appearances, usually knocked out by the current villain. The same occurs with Suzu in the second opening, who only joins the main crew for one arc, and doesn't really do much. But then again, it's Bo-Bobo. It may have also been an attempt to subvert the Spoiler Opening.
- The fourth season opening to
*Boruto* shows an alliance of school-age ninjas from multiple villages coming together to fight a giant ice monster which resembles one of the Tailed Beasts. Nothing remotely like that happens in the series.
- Season five's intro has Boruto and his team going up against a mysterious cloaked villain with a metallic arm. Who is he? He's nobody, because no one like that appears anywhere in the series.
-
*Brain Powerd*'s opening consists of naked girls flying around everywhere, but the actual series is a Humongous Mecha show with minimum nudity. Faux Symbolism ensues.
- The first opening of
*Brynhildr in the Darkness*, used from episodes 1-9, prominently features Valkyria, who doesn't appear until episode 10. It also shows Hatsuna, who doesn't appear until episode 11, and Hexenjagd who, aside from a (mostly) incomprehensible cameo in episode 7, don't appear until episode 12. Both openings depict an Ax-Crazy Valkyria fighting Neko, which never quite happens. On the other side of the coin, the second opening (used in episodes 10-13) features Nanami, ||who is killed off *five minutes* into Ep.10||, and the female student Murakami tutors (Kikka), who doesn't appear at all in those episodes.
- The opening for
*Campione!* prominently features all four main girls, despite Liliana only showing up past the halfway mark and Ena making her only appearance in the final arc.
- The OP for the
*Shin Captain Tsubasa* OAV features two girls alongside the guys: Tsubasa's Love Interest Sanae and Misaki's female friend Azumi. Azumi was actually Adapted Out, and only Sanae shows up in the story proper.
- Sakura never actually wears any of the costumes she wears in the
*Cardcaptor Sakura* openings, aside from one of Tomoyo's fantasy sequences showing her in the first opening's costume.
- The first opening of
*Code Geass* shows Lelouch riding a white horse, something that never happens in the show. The show's creators have said that the scene is metaphorical, but what exactly it means they didn't say. The first opening for the second season has a similar scene, which differs in that it ends with Lelouch glaring at what appears to be a coastal military base — again, something that has yet to happen.
- This opening also makes it seem as though Prince Schneizel would be a major villain, as the credits end with him smirking at Lelouch and Lelouch glaring back. ||He doesn't become a major villain until
*R2*||.
- Additionally, the show's last opening shows ||the Black Knights attacking Schneizel's flying fortress Damocles||, when in the actual series, ||Schneizel manipulates the Knights into betraying Lelouch/Zero, meaning that they fight to
**defend** Damocles.||
- Also, it shows ||the Ganymede armed with the same kind of nuclear sakuradite weapon from the end of the first season and the Sutherland Sieg in what seems to be space (?) shooting a barrage of missiles. These, of course, never happen.||
- Then there's this pic◊ showing C.C. hanging with Lelouch's friends, though Nina, Milly and Shirley never meet her.
- The credits of
*Darker than Black* shows falling stars and Amber cradling Hei's head. In the second version, there's a scene of Hei fighting against several clones of himself — neither happens in the series. In other respects, though, the clones scene is pretty similar to one in the OVA.
- The cake goes to the second season OP, which barely has Hei in it at all, prominently has the schoolkids from the first episode playing at the beach, and has Suou travelling alone, save for her absurdly cute pet... squirrel... thing. It took a lot of flak for those reasons. ||One classmate gets turned into a Contractor very early on and kills another one, the rest have their memories of Suou and said Contractor friend erased, Hei is still the real main character, Suou very rarely travels alone and that squirrel is actually Mao from S1 Back from the Dead.||
-
*Dear Brother*'s opening features many pretty dolls, some of them being quite creepy. They're seen in a rather luminous and jewelry-full environment, but in the series itself ||one of them is actually in Rei's very dark apartment full of crazy. The other items are in Fukiko's own Madness Room, which she has kept locked away from others *for six years*.||
- Ren and Miu start the
*DearS* opening off with an intensely Moe kiss. Ren in-series is completely fixated on Takeda and Miu doesn't particularly like her, though there's a moderate amount of Les Yay available.
- In
*Death Parade*, the opening is a catchy, jaunty tune that's sure to get you up on your feet. With lyrics like "everybody, put your hands up!" shouted in excitement, and scenes of the cast dancing, jumping around, and drinking, it almost makes you believe that this show is going to be the anime version of *Cheers*. That is, until you get to the part where the show becomes a high-tension psychological drama that takes place in the afterlife and forces a newlywed couple to play a game that causes each player extreme physical discomfort if they ever want to get out alive...
- The girls from
*Diamond Daydreams* are shown in the opening credits as if they form a group of close friends. Although this would have offered some interesting possibilities, only some of them meet up shortly in the last episode.
- The credits sequence for
*Di Gi Charat Nyo!* is perhaps the king of Bait and Switch Credits sequences, showing the cast participating in *multiple* genres that the series very much isn't. Almost certainly a parodic use of the trope, but it still wins for sheer volume of misleadingness.
- In
*Dimension W*, the opening mostly consists of Kyouma battling various gangsters and dancing. While he does fight gangsters in the first episode, this essentially serves as an Action Prologue that leads to him meeting Mira, and the rest of the anime has no gangsters whatsoever. As for the dancing, that's so ridiculously out of character for Kyouma that it comes across as Narm.
- The original Saban-controlled Funimation OP for
*Dragon Ball Z* wasn't *technically* bait-and-switch, but the spirit was sure there. 90% of the clips were either taken from the *Dead Zone* movie or from the Cell Saga — which also not only spoiled the Super Saiyan transformations of Goku, Gohan, and Vegeta, but also the appearance of Trunks. The theme song was catchy, though. Ironic considering that FUNimation didn't reach Trunks for several years after the first two seasons started airing due to lack of funding.
-
*Dragon Ball Z*'s 2nd OP makes it look as if the show will follow Gohan and his high school / Great Saiyaman adventures, and it does, for a handful of episodes before Goku returns and regains the hero role and a new villain shows up, but the opening never changes.
-
*Dragon Ball Z Kai* (the new director's cut of Z) also has a bait and switch. The end credits feature Lunch, a character who was prominent in *Dragon Ball* but who has barely any appearances in *Z*... and the one sequence she *does* appear in was cut out of Kai because it wasn't in the manga.
-
*Dragon Ball Z Kai* in general uses new artline invented for video games and post-2000s movies for the intros and endings, but the whole series is a blatant copy-and-paste of the original 1989 adaptation, where nothing improves besides the coloring and pacing.
-
*Dragon Ball Super*'s 2nd OP features the main characters fighting in the upcoming Tournament of Power, including some surprising faces like Android 17. ||While Android 17 is present on the team, Majin Buu is not - he's incapacitated just before the tournament begins, forcing the team to revive Freeza to take his place. The OP then changes to reflect this.||
- Similarly, when the first opening changes some footage to include the fighters of Universe 6, Cabba and Hit use techniques that they never use in the actual series and don't even fit their battle styles.
-
*Durarara!!*'s second opening introduces five new characters, three of which showed up briefly in the first half of the series. This means they're important, right? Not really. Only one was actually important, three of the others played bit parts, and one didn't show up *at all* in that cour save for the direct-to-DVD epilogue.
-
*Elfen Lied*'s opening does have some elements of the heavy fanservice featured in the show, but is played over a soothing Gregorian chant about divine justice and Art Nouveau-inspired Moe imagery, most likely meant to convey innocence rather than sensuality. The ending is also a pop love song that may match the show in the lyrics, but *not* in tone.
- The credits of
*El-Hazard: The Magnificent World* show a number of things that never come to pass, most notably Makoto flying over the lands of El-Hazard (when flight is *not* the power he gains from the transit between worlds), and giggly pacifist nymphomaniac Allielle wielding a nasty-looking sickle as a weapon.
-
*Fate/stay night*'s second opening depicts Shirou and Archer facing off inside the Unlimited Blade Works reality marble a la the Unlimited Blade Works scenario in the game. They never do, as the anime stays mostly with the Fate scenario.
- That scene was a
*double* bait and switch, since ||Archer was killed off just before this opening began airing. Thus the intro led viewers to believe that Archer would be brought back to life. He wasn't||.
- The anime opening of
*Fly Me to the Moon* shows Nasa and Tsukasa, the main couple, getting married in a Western-style wedding. No such event happens in the actual series, in which Nasa and Tsukasa merely drop off their marriage registration at the ward office while wearing casual clothes.
- Downplayed in
*The Fruit of Grisaia* anime adaptation. The opening credits prominently feature Yumiko, making it appear as though her arc will be the main focus of the series. Sure enough, she's arguably the most prominent of the five girls during the first two episodes, due to her opposition to Yuuji - however, her entire character arc is compressed into a single episode midway through the series, whereas Michiru and Makina's arcs get two episodes apiece and Amane's gets *four*.
- The 2019
*Fruits Basket* anime ending focuses on Yuki above the other Sohma characters, and features two shots highlighting his relationship with Tohru, a freeze-frame as they walk past each other and then at the very end when he looks up at her and smiles. ||As Fruits Basket is a Shoujo series, most newcomers would probably assume this means they end up together. But nope - while Tohru is very important to Yuki, he ultimately realises that his feelings for her were entirely platonic, and they both end up with different people.||
-
*Fullmetal Alchemist*:
- The first opening to
*Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood* gives a rather prominent role to Hohenheim, ||showing him as a teenager|| as well as providing two extended shots of his present-day self. Despite this, Hohenheim gets *less than ten seconds* of screen time until after the opening switches.
- The second
*Brotherhood* opening shows ||King Bradley|| fighting in a heated battle against Ling, Lan Fan, and Fu. However, not only is it a Curb-Stomp Battle in the episodes that feature this fight, Lan Fan is unconscious from the word go and Fu doesn't even show up ||due to helping Maria Ross in Xing||!
- The fourth
*Brotherhood* opening features Major Miles and a column of Briggs tanks going head to head with Sloth and Kimblee. This, of course, doesn't happen, awesome as it would have been. There's also a brief shot of ||Fu and Lan Fan|| fighting Envy, but that doesn't happen either, though it did spoil their return.
- The fifth and final
*Brotherhood* opening features Winry turning into Truth, which has no relation to any event in canon and was probably a Red Herring to the *real* spoiler of ||Edward's Gate of Truth dissolving||.
- Some have suggested it's symbolic - the first time Ed opened the Gate, the woman in his life and on his mind was his mother, who he sees outlined in bright light like Truth, but by this time in the series, the woman in his life is Winry, ||his future wife||. It could also reflect his goal; Trisha's revival was his goal when his journey first began, while Winry's affections became his goal after his journey ended.
- In general, almost none of the fight scenes in
*Brotherhood*'s credits actually happen between those characters. About the only one that does, Ed vs Scar, happens at night in the credits and in broad daylight in the show!
- The third opening of the 2003 anime version features Edward and Alphonse fighting some dragon-looking monsters in a swamp. This never comes to pass in the series. Indeed, nothing even remotely close to these creatures appears in the series proper ||until the very end, when Envy transforms into a very similar dragon on his way into the other world. He later appears, still as a dragon, in the movie|| In the same opening, we see a shot of Edward fighting against Martel in a collapsing city, which never actually happens on a multitude of levels. Number 1, Edward never fought against Martel, he only fought against her boss Greed. And number 2, the two of them don't fight in a collapsing city, but rather they met each other when the brothers are getting ready to head for Ishval.
- The fourth opening of the 2003 series shows Ed and Al vs. Gluttony and Lust, and Ed and Al vs. Wrath, Envy and Sloth. ||Ed and Al do fight Sloth and Wrath, but Lust is on their side in that fight and she and Sloth die in the fight while Wrath escapes. Envy abducts Al, preventing him from getting into any more fights, and Ed fights Envy in the finale, but loses, dies, gets better with Al's help and performs a Heroic Sacrifice to save Al at the cost of being brought to the real world.||
- The fourth ending of the 2003 series shows Ed facing off against Envy and the rest of the homunculi except Greed and Pride in a graveyard. See the above spoiler for why this is a case of bait and switch.
- The third ending focuses entirely on Winry, with the only shots of Ed and Al being a quick sequence of images at the very end. A non-fan could easily mistake the show's genre and main character if they only saw that ending and nothing else.
- Looking at the OP for
*Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu* you'd think that it'd be a cute, romantic high school Shoujo in the vein of *His and Her Circumstances* or *Marmalade Boy.* If you hadn't first watched season one, you might even think that it *was* one ...for about thirty seconds. At that point, the guy that you've pinned as the stoic, romantic male lead nonchalantly blows up the locker room with plastic explosive.
- Subverted in
*Gate Keepers*. The OP depicts Megumi Kurogane apparently firing an energy blast from her hand. This is supposed to be impossible in-universe, as her power is to create walls... then you notice that Megumi *was* using her barriers - to *block* said blast.
- Some shots in the opening of the
*Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo* OVA series suggest that it will live up to its title and the two Getters will fight each other, or at least side-by-side, at some point. No such luck, unfortunately.
- The fifth
*Gintama* opening makes the show seem a lot more serious and dramatic than it actually is. (For the first several episodes, it *did* accompany a comparatively serious story arc, but the key word here is "comparatively.")
- A good chunk of Gintama's openings qualified. How many times do they show Gin engaged in epic battles? All the time. Does it ever happen? No.
note : Except when they do. Then again, it's a Gag Series with a Trolling Creator, so is it a surprise? Then the series starts hitting the deeper pits of the Cerebus Rollercoaster in its later (and especially final) arcs, and the openings fit right in.
- The anime's Slip Arc has an ominous shot of Shoyo and his pupils in the opening, with a brief cameo from ||Utsuro|| in his silhouette. Is this going to be an important plot point? Definitely, but
*in the seasons that sandwich it*, as the Slip Arc was dedicated to all the chapters BNP skipped to get to the serious final parts.
-
*Granblue Fantasy*: In the opening sequence, one short scene just before the title has Gran jumping towards Bahamut with his sword in hand. While this implies that the dragon becomes a threat that the crew must face, it does not actually happen by any means during the entire season. Instead, Bahamut is benevolent, saves the party from the Hydra, and can offer its power to Gran's weapon at Lyria's command.
- In
*Grand Blue*, the opening is about our protagonists diving. Truth is, the series is more about drinking alcohol just like how everyone thought Peek-a-boo is a legitimate diving club instead of a drinking club.
-
*Gundam*:
- The ending theme of
*Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam* is almost entirely comprised of a shot of Fa Yuiry running alongside Haro while a bouncily cheerful romantic tune plays. Not only is it a bit of an odd choice of music for a notoriously grim series, but Fa is really not a particularly important character in the show beyond being one of Kamille's love interests; there are entire *arcs* where she isn't around.
-
*Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny*: The opening sequences are mostly composed of scenes that never happen in the show. Also, the main characters taking their clothes off for no clear reason. A particularly noteworthy sequence shows the Freedom and Destiny Gundams joining forces to battle a Destroy Gundam — when in fact, the Freedom and Destiny never once fought on the same side, even in "temporary truce for convenience" fashion.
-
*Mobile Suit Victory Gundam*: The first opening is pretty upbeat and optimistic, with only a reaction shot or two from main character Uso to even hint at the bleak tone and setting of the series. The second opening is even more upbeat which furthers the separation as the end of the series gets even darker and bloodier.
-
*Mobile Suit Gundam 00* lies constantly in its openings. Most fans attribute this to the show's near-constant on-the-fly rewriting due to the production committee's ever-changing demands. Some images were also meant to be figurative but taken literally by most fans. Some of it was old-fashioned misdirection.
- 2nd OP: The intro shows a big battle between Celestial Being and the combined military forces of all 3 prominent nations using their respective mobile suits, with almost each Gundam Meister squaring off against a rival mobile suit. The last part of the intro also shows the presence of three ominous-looking Gundams that the original Gundams from Celestial Being fight in space. In the actual show, ||each Gundam Meister instead falls into a trap, are separated from one another by each nation that focused on targeting one of them at a time, and the three nations, despite cooperating with one another, were still opposed to working as one lumbering force. As for the three new Gundams that appear in the intro, not only did Celestial being not face them in space (or in Allelujah's case,
*at all*), but they were not even the true antagonists for either the first season or second. In fact, in their first appearance, they rescue the ambushed Gundam Meisters from certain death. The true antagonists were absent from the intro.||
- 3rd OP: This OP shows the mobile suits Arios and Cherudim engaging Louise on Earth, Seravee against Ali and Patrick in space, and Setsuna clashing blades with Mr. Bushido in space. In the actual show, ||Arios and Cherudim never directly faced off against Louise (while Louise does a real bait and switch herself; she's eventually piloting the stronger mecha in the same scene). When Mr. Bushido finally encounters Setsuna in space, it's not until after the 4th OP premiered and he's piloting a different (superior) suit to the one seen here.||
- 4th OP: This OP shows a naked Tieria who regained his Supernatural Gold Eyes indicating the recapture of Veda, the 00-Raiser shooting the Regnant to bits showing Setsuna's Co-pilot Saji reaching for the Regnant's pilot Louise in agony and Seravee Gundam battling Arche Gundam in space, ending with both mobile suits clashing blades as red beams again appear from Seravee's backpack. In the actual show, ||Tieria not only regained possession of Veda, but he also merged with it as Ribbons killed his physical body. Although Setsuna did shoot one of his comrade's girlfriend, it is not Saji's girlfriend Louise but instead Lyle's Manchurian Agent girlfriend Anew Returner. And the first and only time anyone battled Arche Gundam in space was in the 23rd and 24th episodes, where it was Cherudim that fought against it. The red beams shown emanating from Seravee's backpack was shown to be from Seraphim directly, when it first activated its TRIAL Field, an ability that was strictly Seraphim's own but needed Veda.||
-
*Mobile Suit Gundam Wing*: The first opening ends with a climatic battle between Heero and Zechs in outer space. That does eventually happen very late in the show, but not in the way portrayed here. Also, there's a shot of Relena walking around a destroyed city, where no cities were really destroyed during the series at all. The second opening doesn't have any misleading details like this (save for one minor detail: Zechs is depicted as still wearing his mask for some reason, even though he has long abandoned it by that point), so the errors of the first OP are often attributed to rewrites that happened during Wing's troubled production.
- Though the destroyed city later appears in a flashback scene in
*Endless Waltz*, and *Episode Zero* reveals that Relena was there too, finally giving a belated explanation for that scene.
-
*Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ*: The first opening features cameo appearances from Char and Amuro. Neither appear in the show at all. note : Apparently, this happened because Tomino *did* plan to have them show up, but then he got the greenlight for the *Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack* movie and decided not to.
- The first opening for
*HappinessCharge Pretty Cure!* has Iona acting friendly with the other cures... but all that did was hide how much of a total Jerkass she was for the first half of the season, completely antagonizing Hime while treating Megumi and Yuko as tools.
- Given the amount of stuff that has actually come to pass from it, the opening for
*Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu* is probably an exception. What were originally simply random, half-second images took on new meaning the further we got through the story; furthermore, a few clips are direct from the Light Novels or interpretations of what happens on drama CDs. Maybe the entire thing is a Spoiler Opening...
- The second opening of
*Hayate the Combat Butler*'s second season has a scene that was taken directly from a manga chapter where Hayate goes to Risa's house and they both end up being chased by a giant crocodile. You'd take this to mean that they'd be animating that chapter, right? But then they skipped it....
-
*Hidamari Sketch*: The OP for the first season shows Yuno walking in on Sae on top of Hiro in a suggestive manner, but the scene where it comes from (sadly, a Not What It Looks Like moment) isn't shown until the second season.
-
*Hikaru no Go* has a scene at the end of its last ending sequence which shows Hikaru and Sai playing against each other as equals, implying that someday Hikaru will reach Sai's level and be able to play against him in a fair match. Though Hikaru *wants* to do this, it never happens, and he's nowhere near Sai's level when ||Sai disappears permanently.||
- The openings for the 2011 anime
*Hunter × Hunter* occasionally show events that don't actually happen in the show, and that's ignoring the Soundtrack Dissonance between the cheery and optimistic theme song, "Departure" and the actual content of the show, and occasionally the visuals in the theme song.
- The fifth opening implies that
*all* Chimera Ants will be fighting the main hunters, when ||after Meruem is born and the Chimera Ant queen dies|| the chimera ants split up and some of the chimera ants don't show up to fight them.
- The sixth opening also has Knov show up, while he doesn't get many lines of dialogue in the arc the opening is part of.
-
*Jewelpet*:
-
*Jewelpet Twinkle☆*: The opening for the OVA features Hilde and Sagan prominently due to their out-of-universe popularity, but they never appear in it. They also barely qualified as one-shot characters in the televised series.
- The first opening gives the impression that Peridot, Luna and Milky will be as prominent as the Jewelpets partnered with humans, but they're actually comic relief side characters with only one or two episodes dedicated to them.
-
*Jewelpet Happiness*: The first opening makes a big deal of Chiari magically changing into a pink, frilly outfit, giving the impression that it was going to be a Magical Girl series played straight. The anime is actually a school/workplace fantasy comedy, and Chiari's outfit only ever shows up in the first episode.
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*Kamichama Karin* sports a rather dark-looking opening sequence that, combined with the sombre first ep, convinced some fans that the series was going to be a darker-and-edgier Magical Girl-slash-Moe Series, ala Nanoha. So wrong. ||On the other hand, once the Cerebus Syndrome kicks in, the opening doesn't look quite as much out of place.||
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*Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens*: The opening depicts Nagi dancing on stage as an Idol Singer. While somewhat thematically appropriate — she does need to be loved by the people — she is not actually a singer nor is the supporting cast her managers, makeup artists, directors, etc. It could also be a pun, since Kannagi is a wooden idol come to life while the opening portrays her as a different kind of idol.
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*Kino's Journey*'s 2003 anime adaptation has a very uplifting song as its opening theme. The show itself, aside from Land of Wizard, not so much.
- While
*Kotoura-san* still has a significant amount of comedy moments, don't assume the Downer Beginning (which proceeds the opening credits of the first episode) is just a buildup for a Romantic Comedy as the opening credits suggested. It's just the first bump in the road. (It would be slightly less of a Bait and Switch if the ending theme *Flower of Hope* is considered as well, as the latter is a more accurate description of the Broken Bird heroine).
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*Kurau Phantom Memory*: The loving interaction between Kurau and Christmas dressed in cute summer attire in the opening credits doesn't appear anywhere in the anime.
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*Lyrical Nanoha*:
- The second
*Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS* opening seems to set up a fight between Subaru and Nove, which was also hinted at when Nove said she wanted to get revenge on Subaru for ||severely injuring Cinque||. In the final battle, Teana ends up fighting Nove with Wendi and Deed, while Subaru fights ||her Brainwashed and Crazy older sister Ginga||.
- The opening of
*ViVid Strike!* has a scene of Fuuka facing Rinne in the Winter Cup, something that never happens ||since Vivio beat Rinne in the quarterfinals||. Their actual climatic battle instead takes place at Lutecia's training grounds on Carnaaji, and the closest they get to being in the ring together during the tournament is when Rinne acts as Fuuka's second for her match against Einhart at the very end of the series.
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*Macross Frontier*: Nobody saw Grace ||being the Big Bad|| coming, given how the OP and first few episodes played her up as a side character.
- Then subverted later on, when the last episode ||uses scenes directly lifted from both OPs during the climactic fight||.
- This even showed up twice in the OP for the original
*Super Dimension Fortress Macross*. First, a prolonged sequence shows Hikaru flying over an outdoor city and fighting Zentradi in his white-and-red VF-1J. Hikaru does fight in outdoor towns, but he never did in his VF-1J. He first fought in Macross City before the city was transported to Pluto while piloting a VF-1D, and later engages in outdoor urban combat late in the series, but by that point he had inherited Roy Focker's VF-1S. note : He also engages in city fighting on board the Macross after the Zentradi invade, but even there he's flying Roy's Valkyrie, as the invasion occurs just shortly after ||his own VF-1J is shot down and destroyed and Roy is killed in combat.|| The other one is an omission. Lynn Minmay appears nowhere at all in the original opening sequence, though she is one of the three central characters of the show! note : She does, however, appear in a reanimated version of the sequence made for, of all things, a licensed pachinko machine.
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*Makura no Danshi*: None of the boys in the opening are actually shown sleeping, save for Merry. Even besides the lack of sleeping, viewers who see the opening would be forgiven for expecting it to be a Yaoi series or a more risque Otome of some sort, what with all the scantily dressed men and camera pans that focus on their muscles.
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*Magical Pokaan*'s haunting OP implies something of a gothloli drama/horror, despite it being a Gag Series. According to interviews, this was actually a *mistake* — the songwriters were given a theme of soul-searching creatures of the night, but weren't told it was a comedy — but they just went with it and created matching footage.
- The French theme song of
*Maple Town Stories* infamously sings about a teddy bear called "Gabby", friend of small children, and how he sings songs if you turn a switch. No such character appears in the anime. There *is* a recurring bear character, but he is called *Bobby*, even in that French dub. This was because the localization team wanted to advertise an actual electronic teddy bear called "Gabby" (that was a Teddy Ruxpin knockoff) and used this anime as a tie-in.
- Same opening was edited to show original animated footage of a flying tree. This was to promote a different treehouse toy.
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*Master of Martial Hearts* has a rather unappealing, but otherwise lighthearted and optimistic opening. Its ending features a quiet and somewhat romantic song featuring its lead females in some rather suggestive moments. There's no way it would have possibly the worst ending with the worst plot twist ever...
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*Ryuusei no Rockman Tribe*. Fans were disappointed in the lack of Ninja and Dinosaur transformations.
- In the second season of
*Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch*, Hanon is shown with Nagisa, Rina with Hamasaki and Lucia with Rihito. The first two couples get together, but Rihito shows little interest in Lucia and, in fact, supports her reunion with loving amnesiac boyfriend Kaito.
- The opening credits of
*Monster* center on a man with scraggly hair and a hunted look. He glances around as if afraid of being followed; in one shot he's holding a gun. ||This man is the *hero* of the show. (The real "monster" does appear, but only for a second.) It's a sneaky example because it's not dishonest — Dr. Tenma is a murder suspect on the run, and his quest to kill Johan takes a constant toll on him.||
- The fifth opening of
*My Hero Academia*, for the Provisional Exam arc, has a set of rapid-fire shots, placed prominently after the title card, of a red-haired man with goggles and a toothy grin. He never actually shows up in that arc, and since he isn't from the manga either, nobody in the fandom has the slightest clue who he is.
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*My-HiME*:
- The opening presents the show as a light-hearted school drama with three Magical Girls thrown into the equation, as well as presenting Mai, Natsuki and Mikoto as a strong-willed, determined team- in reality, Natsuki doesn't get along with the other two, but gradually becomes friends with them just in time for things to get serious. As the series gets darker, both the optimistic opening and the upbeat "Shining Days" theme song become progressively ironic, causing Soundtrack Dissonance.
- Weirdly, the more sad sounding outro music is changed halfway through the season, just as things get dark, for another song, but they didn't swap the opening, making it seem deliberate.
-
*My-Otome*:
- Similarly, despite already foreshadowing the darker themes, the first opening carefully tries to avoid any implication of conflict between Arika, Nina and Mashiro — instead, they are shown as happy with each other and enjoying their time together. Which is, of course, the exact opposite of their actual relationships.
- Aversion:
*My-Otome*'s second set of credits, which are appropriately darker, show Mai turning into a comet of flame and destroying literally hundreds of Slaves in one zooming pass. While it has the look of precisely the kind of over-the-top "see how impressive this character is" footage that typifies this trope, not only does she actually do exactly this in one of the final episodes, the production team in fact animated it a second time rather than reuse the credits footage. ||(Although in the actual scene, Mai fights with Mikoto on her back, not alone as shown in the credits.)||
- Virtually every opening for
*Naruto* features activities of characters who really aren't doing anything at the time.
- Especially during the filler seasons, when almost all the openings featured Sasuke and Orochimaru, despite neither of them making any appearance besides cameos.
- The openings in Part I (especially the first and fourth ones) give the impression that Sakura often fights alongside her squad, but she's often set aside and forced to serve as a (somewhat ineffective) last line of defense for the people who need protection.
- The second version of the fourth
*Shippuden* opening features members of Team 8 fighting the Quirky Miniboss Squad (Hinata vs. Gozu, Kiba vs. Kigiri, Shino vs. Nurari, Sakura vs. Rinji, and Sai and Naruto vs. Guren). Only the ones with Kigiri, Nurari and Guren happened.
- The twelfth ending features Sakura prominently, and makes the show look like it's a romance.
- While the ending after that is
*only* Hinata and makes it look like a Slice of Life!
- The seventh opening to
*Shippuden* is the worst, though. It features (in increasingly level of inaccuracy) Choji and Kakashi vs. Preta Pain; Ino, Hinata, and Sakura vs. Konan; Sai vs. Asura Pain; Kiba, Lee, Tenten, and Neji vs Deva Pain. In actuality, ||Choji and Kakashi actually fight together against *Deva* Pain (and Asura Pain, sort of), Hinata tried to fight him later on, Ino didn't fight because she was working with her father getting some information, Sakura spent the battle treating the wounded and defending a hospital, Konan fought Shino and some other members of the Aburame clan (mostly off-panel in the manga, more is shown in the anime), Kiba fought Preta Pain with his mother (briefly and it was a bit longer in the anime), and Lee, Tenten, Neji, and Sai *never* fought because they were out of the village at the time (for the first three until after most of the fighting was over, for Sai the entire arc)|| so *none* of those things ended up happening.
- All those have nothing on
*Shippuden's* tenth opening, which features, in increasing order of implausibility/absurdity:
- Naruto, Sakura, and Sai fighting Madara, Kisame, and Zetsu—all six of them
*flying around*—, and unleashing an All Your Powers Combined jutsu.
- The scene of Naruto ||embracing his "shadow" self|| transitioning from him about to do...
*something* to Sakura. Though, ||that could be foreshadowing his later embracing of Kurama as an ally||.
- The Elder Toad shown alongside the villains.
- ||The revived Akatsuki zombies|| sliding into each other while their containers comedically topple in the background
- An out-of-nowhere dance routine featuring the Konoha rookies and the Sand Siblings, while the adults are shown prancing about synchronously on a tropical beach. EVEN THE 4TH RAIKAGE AND THE 3RD TSUCHIKAGE.
- Unlike most examples, though, the tenth opening has an expnanation/justification; previous openings had been rather intense and so the studio thought a fun, silly opening would be a change of pace.
- A variation occurs with the first ending of
*NEEDLESS*, which features three female cast members which would appear later in the series. Thing is, said ending is absolutely *stuffed* with fanservice, Cuteness Proximity situation and bright colors, blatantly presenting the girls as Bait-and-Switch Lesbians. The result feels like a crazy mix of gender-inverted *Boku no Pico* series and one of the *Galaxy Angel* anime openings. Yet, only one of the girls is a canonical lesbian, and... well, *nearly* nothing presented in the ending is featured in the series.
- The opening sequence of
*Neon Genesis Evangelion* is fairly standard for a Humongous Mecha series — the smiles on characters' faces, the panoramic views, the heroic and determined figure of Shinji Ikari standing tall with the wind of a thousand cliches blowing through his hair. It also completely belies the nature of the actual series. You will, however, catch glimpses of the mopey female trio along with People Jars.
- Another way to read the opening is it reinforcing the fact that Shinji is an angry passive-aggressive kid who will have to face the (end of the) world, like it or not. This interpretation is more common nowadays since fans look for signals towards a Gainax Ending (though it's debatable how much of said ending was intended from the start. Word of God actually says the final ending was only decided three months in advance).
- It's also interesting that the "wings" of Unit 1 in the intro appear nowhere in the series — but make a prominent appearance in
*The End of Evangelion*.
- You do catch a brief glimpse of a creature with similarly-shaped wings at the beginning of the series. It's arguably foreshadowing that the Evangelions have more to do with the Angels than we are led to believe.
- It's also interesting to note that despite Asuka's importance in the show, she barely appears in the intro. She has one brief appearance alongside Shinji and Rei, which only lasts a few seconds, and a couple of frames to show her role as the pilot of Unit-02. However, this can be attributed to her late debut in the show.
- There's a monstrous multi-winged creature at the beginning of the opening that looks like an Angel and is covered in all sorts of weird letters. You can spot it right behind the "Gainax" title. Nothing like it ever shows up in the series, whatever it is.
- Apparently, the thing is a representation of Samael, or a Qabbalistic depiction of a seraph of some sort. So, toss that one in the same heap along with the sephira on Gendou's floor, etc.
- It's worth noting that if one freeze-frames a lot in the last bit of the intro, there are all sorts of hints about much later events in the show. A patient person who wanted to take the OP apart frame-by-frame could probably guess a lot about the series even before watching it. Like the fact that AT Field means "Absolute Terror Field", for an example.
- Not to mention the song itself. While the upbeat, peppy melody isn't necessarily odd, as
*NGE* is rather notorious for Lyrical Dissonance, the lyrics themselves *also* seem to point to a more upbeat, standard Humongous Mecha anime.
- Two openings of
*Neo Ranga* features all three female protagonists in white Stripperiffic outfits, having mysterious symbols painted on their bodies and wielding stone weapons. None of this happens.
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*Ninja Nonsense* shows a dramatic battle involving most of the main cast against Shinobu's evil counterpart. Most of the final episode is in fact the characters complaining about this trope, as they scramble to end the show in a satisfactory way.
- Played for laughs with
*No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!*. It has a very hard rock intro with visuals that make it seem like an action or horror anime. It's really a Cringe Comedy filled anime about a very awkward high school girl who wants to be popular.
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*The Noozles* does not involve dancing on rainbows with stars. The show does feature exciting adventures, but these get darker as the series progresses. While the credits might make you think you are watching your typical "child has magical adventures and must hide them from parents" show, the show's actual plot is so strange that a "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer is often involved when describing it.
- The opening credits of
*Nurse Witch Komugi R* paint ||Lilia|| as the main villain. She doesn't show up until the penultimate episode, and while she *is* evil, it's not willingly (or even knowingly, for that matter). The true mastermind is ||her stuffed bear. It Makes Sense in Context.||
- The intro also shows Magical Nurse, Magical Sister and Magical Maid working together to defeat a monster. The three magical girls spend the entire series fighting amongst themselves until circumstances force them to work together in the finale, and even then their Combination Attack doesn't take the form of a powerful energy beam like in the intro: instead, they pretty much defeat the Big Bad by
*singing at it*.
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*One Piece*:
- The eighth opening shows the Straw Hats relaxing, going shopping, enjoying themselves on the beach and acting out covers from the manga, making it seem very relaxing. This opening plays during the Enies Lobby arc, where they're attacking one of the most heavily defended government installations in the world, to save Robin from being taken away from them forever.
- The eleventh opening becomes a bit of a retroactive bait and switch, since ||the Straw Hats don't even appear or take part in the current storyline after the Wham Episode, save for Luffy||.
- However,
*in the anime* ||we still see them a lot because of filler episodes adapted from covers showing what the Strawhats besides Luffy were doing||.
- The twelfth opening pulls this too. The first half of it is devoted to the Straw Hats having crazy adventures together, then it abruptly cuts to the current storyline, ||which features Luffy alone.||
- The fifth opening also has a misleading moment where Nami pulls out a gun. While it
*is* in the anime, it's during an incredibly calm moment where Nami's seeing if they're prepared for attackers, and the gun is never actually used. Very disappointing.
- There's an extended sequence throughout the thirteenth opening showing ||Luffy reuniting with Ace amidst the ruins of Marineford||. Not very likely given that arc in the manga has already ended with ||Marineford damaged but eventually rebuilt and Ace dead shortly after being released||.
- In the 17th opening
*Wake Up*, it showcases Luffy, Zoro and Sanji going up against the Admirals ||which includes newcomer Issho|| as well as Luffy vs Blackbeard. ||No, this doesn't happen in the manga. In fact both Akainu and Blackbeard hadn't even been revealed yet in the current timeline when this was aired.||
- The 19th opening features Luffy, Zoro and Sanji in skirmishes against ||Jack and Kaido||; the former is never really fought directly by any of the Straw Hats while the latter is not even physically present during the arc.
- The 18th, 20th and 21st all have variations of this as they showcase scenes of all the Straw Hats fighting together ||despite the crew being split in half during those arcs. Only Luffy and four specific Straw Hats are present during the Dressrosa arc in the 18th opening, while openings 20 and 21 feature Luffy again, but with the other four that weren't at Dressrosa.||
- The opening of
*One-Punch Man* portrays Saitama as some kind of badass, tough-as-nails action hero when he's actually just a hero for fun and so overpowered that he can defeat any enemy with one punch and therefore never has to actually fight anybody. This is lampshaded by the ending, which switches Saitama's appearance from the hard look of the rest of the theme to his usual appearance.
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*Outlaw Star* has a variant involving the ending credits. The ending features science fantasy illustrations completely unrelated to the show, and we never actually see any of the characters, locations, or creatures present in the show itself.
- The opening to
*Paranoia Agent* consists of brightly lit shots of most of the ensemble cast laughing insanely as they look directly at the "camera", and even as things like mushroom clouds (in direct defiance of the Nuclear Weapons Taboo) appear in the background. Throughout the series, said characters rarely if ever smile, much less *laugh*, and the song that plays over the credits is also loud, tribal, and cheerful, albeit with lyrics that mix cheerful and apocalyptic themes — the combination is surreal and twisted, more so once you've seen enough of the series to realize just how *wrong* it really is.
- According to an interview with the director, Satoshi Kon, the tone of the opening theme was because the show was to appear on an unusually late time slot. He wanted a theme that was loud and bombastic so that it would wake the viewers' brains up a little bit.
- Done with the second opening of
*Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom*. While the 1st opening is *not* one of these as it was very dark and melodic fitting the tone of the series, the second one is a huge contrast and gives the series a Slice of Life appearance, showing Reiji and Eren happily living their day to day life in Japan and hanging out with friends while Drei, a violent girl with a death wish in the series, is shown being happy and carefree in the opening.
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*Pokémon: The Series*:
- The first opening featured a Blastoise, Venusaur, and Charizard...of which only the latter was ever acquired by Ash, and shows him using a Pidgeot, which didn't happen until near the ending of the season. It also features several legendary Pokémon that he either never sees, or ends up seeing them in completely different seasons. Heck, Ash didn't even acquire Pidgeot until the episode the opening changed in Japan.
- A worse offender is the tenth opening, which starts off with a group shot of just about every Pokémon Ash has ever owned — more than half of which don't appear again in the show. It goes on to show a series of battles of which only one (Pikachu vs. Aipom) actually happens in the show. This all makes sense when you realize it was made to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary.
- The
*Pokémon the Series: Black & White* opening during the Team Plasma season makes it look like Charizard will have a lot of focus, and that Reshiram will fight Charizard and partner with N as it did in the game. The actual events of the show have Charizard in a supporting role, Ash using Pikachu to fight Reshiram, and only to snap it out of Ghetsis's brainwashing.
- The same opening also depicts a battle between Ash and Cheren (who is already a gym leader by that point) against an epic, church-like background, making it seem important. While the battle does happen, it takes place on a generic schoolground battlefield, is kinda anti-climactic and has literally zero impact to the story.
- The iconic original English opening repeatedly proclaims "Gotta catch 'em all!", essentially the tagline of the series. In the run of that opening, Ash never even comes close to catching all Pokémon (he owns
*maybe* a tenth of what was available at the time at some point), nor does he really profess it as a goal of his; he just wants To Be a Master, and often releases Pokémon or gives them away.
- The English theme for the
*Advanced Battle* season is called "Unbeatable" and seems to proclaim Ash as someone who has never lost. Not only is this untrue- he lost plenty of times before- but this season also was the season with the Hoenn Leauge, which he also lost.
- A half-example with the second OP for
*Powerpuff Girls Z*, as the series delivered ||Powerprof, Dynamo Z and the bit with the volcano, but didn't get round to the Beach Episode or the Super Zero costumes||.
- The opening of
*Pretty Sammy* makes the show look like a fairly standard Cute Witch style of Magical Girl show, with Sasami actually appearing happy about her powers and Misao being in on the secret. Then you get to the actual show, which is a Magical Girl Warrior show with Sasami not caring for her role and Misao most definitely not in on the secret. Since the show is meant as a parody of the Magical Girl genre, this was intentional.
- The second opening of
*Psycho-Pass* season 1 has Kougami sitting on the floor and surrounded by bodies of his teammates, causing most viewers to expect that this is what Gen "Urobutcher"' Urobuchi is going to do. ||At the end of season 1, only two are dead and one of them is disintegrated by Destroy Decomposer mode, leaving no trace of his body||. And there's the beginning of the opening where Kougami is wounded and sitting against the wall, which doesn't happen in the show proper.
- The second season's opening shows a showdown between Akane and Mika, with Kougami being tied to a chair. That never happens in the show and Kougami isn't physically present since he's in Cambodia, as seen in the movie.
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*Puella Magi Madoka Magica*. The opening? Standard cute Magical Girl song, images (including references to *Sailor Moon*, *Cardcaptor Sakura*, and even *Pretty Cure*), the works. The problem? Gen Urobuchi is writing — the series is a rather savage deconstruction. The monsters aren't harmless, people can (and do) die, the aspects of a bunch of young girls fighting horrific Eldritch Abominations are fully explored... and oh yeah, ||the cute mascot appears to be Faustian||. Notably, the first two episodes didn't have an ending sequence on their initial broadcast (they do have one on DVD), and episode 3 is a Wham Episode that culminates in the main character floating *in the mask of Mephistopheles* during the ending sequence (which is not remotely a standard Magical Girl song). Oh, and by the way, ||Madoka doesn't even become a magical girl until the final episodes, even though she is prominently shown transformed both in the opening and in promotional material.||
- By the time the series ends (and the viewers know what's really going on), it becomes obvious that it's a subverted trope. It's especially obvious each time the OP gets shifted to the end of the episode; it's the exact same song, but because of the episode we just saw, a new meaning is revealed.
note : Yes, it's a 12-Episode Anime. Yes, it's pulled off more than once. In a series that delights in going From Bad to Worse, on a second viewing, you can get Mood Whiplash because the actual episode is so *light* compared to the opening credits.
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*Ramen Fighter Miki* has exactly this kind of opening, making one think the series is a serious fighting or drama type of series, when it's actually an incredibly over-the-top physical comedy show.
- Downplayed with the opening to the 1990
*Record of Lodoss War* OVA, which makes the series look purely like a sappy fairy tale love story. While there is a romantic subplot, the series is an action oriented work of High Fantasy first and foremost, with the romance elements only vaguely hinted at until Parn finally got the hint during the final few episodes, and even then isn't as prominent as the OP would have you believe.
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*Red Garden* has an opening that would make you think it's basically the anime Sex and the City. The show's content goes in a different direction, however. The ending falls under this as well; it's an upbeat rap song with the characters having fun at a concert.
- The opening sequence for
*Revolutionary Girl Utena* shows Utena and Anthy in dark blue and red plate armor, respectively, riding flying horses in an implied battle against an unseen enemy. Needless to say, we never see anything like this in the series. This was a result of changes to the author's original storyline rather than deliberate deception, not that someone watching the finished product has any way to tell the difference. Director Ikuhara later joked it was a scene he had thought up during his work on *Sailor Moon* and that it wouldn't make any sense *there* either.
- Until the Kyoto Arc, the opening sequence to
*Rurouni Kenshin* made it seem like some kind of Rom Com (the peppy theme song in which the female singer waxes poetic about an unrequited love don't help).
- ...It kind of
*was*.
- Don't forget — the opening only shows Sanosuke with his Zanbatou, even in the final crowd shot. He loses the Zanbatou more or less one episode after his introduction, and fights with his fists from then on. Similarly, the opening shows Kenshin fighting... chain-wielding... farmers? Well, they never show up. ||Unless you consider it Foreshadowing to Elite Mook Akamatsu who would figure in a later arc.||
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*Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei* features a bizarre mash-up of vaguely symbolic imagery, Les Yay, and light bondage. I AM IN DESPAIR! THE LACK OF A FOLLOWUP ON YURI ELEMENTS HAS LEFT ME IN DESPAIR!
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*School Days* has a very heavy one. It's light-hearted which matches with the mood the show starts with, but slowly it starts to feel really out of place to hear this when most of the characters are having mental breakdowns. In the final episode, things had gotten so dark that instead of showing the cheery opening the title came on with a slow piano piece, and then the title screen shatters like glass so the makers could avoid a jarring Mood Whiplash.
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*School-Live!* has an intentionally deceptive opening that belies the story's true nature. The anime has an adorable, bright and happy opening sequence with a peppy pop song, which makes it seem as though it's a typical laid-back Schoolgirl Series. The series itself is actually a Nightmare Fuel laden anime about a group of high school girls trying to survive in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse. As the anime goes on, the opening's visuals gradually change to reflect the reality of the girls' situation, such as adding zombies shambling towards the school and shots of ruined classrooms.
- Downplayed with
*Serial Experiments Lain*. On paper, using a Break-Up Song as the opening to a Cyberpunk Mind Screw series sounds very strange and unfitting, but the lyrics have just enough Sanity Slippage to make it work, and the song sounds rather bleak.
-
*Sgt. Frog* plays with this in episode 150. After spending the entire episode getting ready to leave (he'd been promoted), Giroro gives a heartfelt (for him) goodbye at the train station. Cue a special ending sequence, complete with sad music and a "Goodbye Giroro" card... only for Giroro to literally shoot through them and grab Keroro by the neck. That promotion letter? Turns out it was a month old. Cue the regular ending sequence.
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*Shadow Star*'s opening treats us to an upbeat, cheerful opening song with the characters drawn in cute grade-school drawings, ending with Shiina and her mon sleeping together in her bed. At first, it looks like just another adorable mon series in the vein of *Pokémon: The Series* and *Digimon*, but Mohiro Kitoh being the creator, and the series being a deconstruction of the genre, the actual series is nothing like that ...
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*Shakugan no Shana* pulled this off with its second opening, which contains a one-on-one duel between Shana and Sydonay that never actually happens.
- The opening of the
*Shamanic Princess* OVA is standard, pastel-toned romance fanfare. The series itself is a dark tale of a powerful Cute Witch and her rivals as they search for ||a holy item from their world, which turns out to be an Eldritch Abomination holding the sister of the protagonist's former love interest.||
- The
*Sky Girls* opening is a bit of a lie in two ways: first, it suggests an action story, while the series is mostly a slice-of-life story (with some action, but not as much as suggested); second, it features a monster that's never battled (mostly because the footage is from the Sky Girls OVA, which follows a different storyline).
- The third
*Slayers* opening ( *Slayers TRY*) has a humorous shot of Lina's sister, Luna, with a sign pointing at her reading, "sorry, opening only!" As for the song itself, it is less energetic and more mellow than the previous two openings, citing for a darker story, but while the overarching plot darkens later on, the overall tone of the show is as comedic as it had always been, creating some poorly timed Mood Whiplash during the comedic filler episodes. Also, in that opening, Filia is portrayed as some demure prophetic waif/Damsel in Distress, but in the show proper, she's an obnoxious, prissy, and loud (and very dead-on) variant of Holier Than Thou.
- The Italian opening theme has an Alternative Foreign Theme Song and new opening sequence with an intense, epic sounding medieval folk song, making it look like a serious fantasy series, not hinting at the show being largely a comedic parody of fantasy.
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*Sonic X* is guilty of this. The second opening shows Super Sonic and Super Shadow fighting. They do fight midway into the Metarex saga, but it's nowhere near as spectacular.
- Also, though Shadow is featured decently prominently in the first opening, he doesn't even appear until after the second opening has appeared. This is because the first opening is almost entirely recycled footage from the 2001 pilot, which summarizes the plot for the show as a whole.
- In
*Soul Eater*, the second opening, Papermoon, starts out pretty basic... with just a bunch of pictures of the characters flashing across the screen in rapid succession. Until the very last shot, when we see Soul crying in anguish, holding an unconscious Maka in his arms. This never happens. If anything, it's ||Soul's near-death in the final episode that fuels Maka's Roaring Rampage of Revenge. The one that reveals that she is a weapon||.
- Although Studio Bones had some hints as to what was going to happen in the manga before it came out, as a bit of an assistant for the Gecko Ending they created. Kid's stripes, Black Star's conversations with the Will of Nakatsukasa, and Rachel Boyd's ||return to health|| make an appearance.
- The first opening of
*Spider Riders* shows a fight between Hunter and Magma. The two never fight each other during the course of the series, not even as friendly sparring. Also, the 3rd ending inexplicably shows what appears to be blood coming from Aqune's mask.
-
*Super Robot Wars: Original Generation: Divine Wars* shows Latooni battling in her Elegant Gothic Lolita outfit. She only uses that outfit for two episodes (and only one battle) and most of the time is given a regular uniform and glasses.
- This is a shout-out to the original game series, where Latooni in fact wears said outfit the entire second game. Of course, in the remake that the TV show borrows from or vice versa, she always wears a normal uniform.
- In the (rather lovely) opening sequence of
*Sweet Blue Flowers*, Fumi and Akira are depicted as a cheery, loving couple, complete with full nudity. Sure, the girls are extremely close, but never get this far in the series. ||In the anime at least. The manga has them undergoing a Relationship Upgrade eventually.||
- Ran and Midori from
*Telepathy Shoujo Ran* never fly around in the series as they do in the opening credits. Bummer.
- The opening of
*Tentai Senshi Sunred* depicts Sunred with all the typical toku hero tropes. A Transformation Sequence, stylized weapons, a bike and a Finishing Move. None of these have appeared outside the credits.
- Both of
*The Tower of Druaga*'s opening credit sequences seem to suggest some sort of Slice of Life show about school children, with subtle references to what actually happens in the show and most of the characters cleverly hidden in plain sight. The only things in the credits for *The Aegis of Uruk* that are at all reliable are the character pairings and various posters in the background, which show the truth of the show.
-
*Trinity Blood*: The ending credits hint at ||a romance between Abel and Esther, which never happens||. Also, the opening credits seem to give the Crusnik way more screen time than he gets in most episodes.
-
*Twin Signal*'s opening shows scenes of a futuristic city, with the title character battling a slew of super-powered robots, running from Combat Tentacles, and several unusual characters including what appears to be a fairy. The actual OVA is set in a sleepy town in the countryside, is comedy-oriented, and about half the characters in the intro don't even *appear* in the show proper.
-
*Uta∽Kata*'s opening suggests the series is a fluffy shoujo story. It's a seinen series, and things get *very* dark later as mature issues are explored in detail.
- As a bonus, Ichika's Magical Girl costume in the opening does not appear in the show at all. ||Actually, it does, kinda...Palette Swap it to black, and it's her twelth and final transformation's costume.||
-
*Vandread*'s first ending shows Meia being incredibly affectionate towards the main character, Hibiki. In the show proper, not only does it take a while for her to warm up to Hibiki, she treats him more like a Vitriolic Best Bud than an object of her affection. In fact, out of the three main girls, her relationship with him is the most platonic.
- The opening credits of
*Venus Versus Virus* show the two female leads Lucia and Sumire lying in a field wearing pretty dresses, their fingers intertwined as they throw meaningful glances. It's very sweet and romantic — and also occurs nowhere in the anime itself. It's symbolic.
- The intro to
*Wandering Son* literally reveals nothing about the show, except maybe that it's school related. Not a single human appears in it. It just shows off the school.
-
*Washio Sumi Is a Hero* has a bright, cheery intro about friendship. This fits the first three episodes, as the show begins lighthearted despite the girls ending up bloody after each battle, but stops being accurate after ||Gin dies||. The latter half of the series isn't so cheery.
- The opening for
*Welcome to the NHK* features a cheery sounding duet for the theme, with pastel-colored, brightly lit scenes of cute girls frolicking, which gives the impression of a lighthearted romantic comedy of some sort. The series is actually about a young man with extreme social anxiety struggling to deal with his psychological issues and addictions, being helped by a Blithe Spirit ||that's actually as screwed up mentally as he is||. There *are* some hints of the darker, Black Comedy tone of the show in the opening—the few times the main character is shown he's almost always shown having some sort of panic attack, the main heroine is shown looking lonely as she leans against a wall, and the other women in the opening are faceless (a probable nod to the issues the main character and his friend have with women)—but it still seems a little too upbeat.
-
*Witch Hunter Robin*'s opening made it look like Robin had a crush on Amon but no such relationship ever materialized.
- There was Unresolved Sexual Tension there. Not much, what with her being really young (15?), but there was definitely subtext.
- The intro in general makes Robin seem like a depressed person in total despair, and the lyrics to the opening song support this, but nothing in Robin's backstory is ever revealed to be anything close to this and she seems to always have at least one person she can rely on throughout the show.
- Perhaps not a bait and switch as such, but the opening credits of
*Wolf's Rain* place the characters in a modern (Japanese?) city that doesn't appear in the series ||until the end of Episode 30, after the world has been destroyed and reborn.|| Furthermore, the credits show actual rainfall — ||something that also doesn't happen until Episode 30, where it allows the lunar flowers to germinate and regenerate life on Earth||.
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*Yu-Gi-Oh!*:
- The first, fourth and fifth openings show Yugi and his friends prominently in their school uniforms, even though Yugi is the only character who wears his uniform everywhere. The other characters wear their school uniforms... only in school. Also, the third and fourth opening have Yami Yugi wearing his Coat Cape, even though he doesn't wear it in the Battle City Finals and in the fourth season. The only times he wears it after the time of the second opening is in a hallucination of Jonouchi and after the end of the Battle City Tournament, when he and Jonouchi have their decisive duel.
- The second opening has Yami Yugi fighting against Faceless Goons wielding an army of monsters, who at one point summon a monster that never appears in the series at all — namely, Nuvia the Wicked, who was Adapted Out between the manga and anime. On top of that, Nuvia is recolored to look like Worm Drake, who
*did* appear.
- The third opening shows Yami Yugi dueling Marik on the Battle Ship (a zeppelin). However, Marik never duels personally in the series at all; he's eventually replaced by his Superpowered Evil Side who duels our protagonist on top of the Alcatraz Tower.
- The fifth opening shows The Winged Dragon of Ra without teeth. While Ra's Ancient Egypt version has no teeth in the manga, in the anime it does have them. The fifth opening in general is much more inspired by the manga's take on the arc than the one that actually aired — the anime added in diadhanks, which are completely absent in the opening, and Yugi and his friends are in their school uniforms, which is the case in the manga but not the anime.
- The English openings for the show tended to be a mishmash of good-looking footage from other openings and various seasons. As a result, they often end up being... rather strange in the context of openings for their given arcs. For instance, pretty much every opening after the Virtual World arc used footage from Tristan and Tea's duels in that arc, dramatic poses with Disks at the ready and everything, which would probably give the viewer the impression that they would be getting Duels that season; neither of them get into any onscreen Duels after that arc. Tristan's footage in particular is strange, since it's pulling from a time when the Big Five was possessing his body—meaning the bit meant to spotlight him isn't actually him.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh! GX*:
- The first opening, somewhat notoriously, features Daichi summoning two monsters: one is obviously Water Dragon, but the other, looking like a fire-based counterpart to Water Dragon, never appeared. It was mentioned that he had a deck for each attribute, so presumably that was the Fire deck's ace... the trouble is, he ditched that gimmick pretty early on in favor of a general science-themed deck, and never played a game with the Fire deck.
- The fourth opening prominently features Judai's Card Ejecter, even though she never appears in the fourth season. Card Ejecter is only played once, during the Final Battle of the third season, but her effect is interrupted. This card is not even one of Judai's signature cards or a Duel Spirit. Some viewers would think that Judai got this card in the fourth season.
- The third opening of the English dub shows a mirrored shot of Amon Garam/Adrian Gecko, implying that he's left-handed. He's not.
- In general, while the original version cycled through a number of openings that fit the tones of their respective arcs (happy and jokey in the first arc, a bit more serious but still fairly energetic in the second season, and mournful, introspective, and morose by the third season), the English dub kept the same song throughout. Said song is an upbeat, Totally Radical number whose first line is "chillin' out with the crew in the schoolyard!"—it fits pretty well with the first season, feels a bit off for the second, and is downright baffling by the third.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds*:
- The first version of the second opening shows Yusei Tribute Summoning Turret Warrior by tributing Junk Warrior during his Riding Duel with Kiryu. While Yusei does this against Dick Pitt, he never uses Turret Warrior against Kiryu in the anime. In the second version of opening 2, we see Jack facing off against Carly as a Dark Signer in a ground duel, whilst the episode they duel in is a Riding Duel. The second version also shows Road Warrior fighting Earthbound Immortal Uru, but during Yusei's first duel with Rudger, Road Warrior is already in the graveyard when Uru is summoned. The second version appears after the first duel with Rudger, but it shows them dueling outside even though their second duel is inside the building with the Old Momentum. And Road Warrior is not used in the rematch either.
- Road Warrior appears in the third and fifth opening as one of Yusei's prominent Synchro Monsters, even though he never uses him during the entire run of both openings when they are aired. Road Warrior appears only twice in the anime.
- Nitro Synchron appears in the third opening, but Yusei never uses it after the beginning of the Dark Signer arc, which was already over when the third opening started.
- Junk Destroyer appears in the fifth opening along with Yusei's four Synchro Warriors, despite Yusei never playing him during the time the opening is aired, like Road Warrior above.
- The fourth opening and fourth ending shows Life Stream Dragon, but it never appears during the run of these themes. However, it's subverted later as it is a Spoiler Opening for the last arc.
- In the fifth opening, the very end shows Yusei using Junk Warrior to attack Z-ONE. ||Junk Warrior is never used in that duel, but he pops up in 154 to deal the finishing blow to Jack.||
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL*:
- The first opening theme features Fuya Okudaira (aka Robin) in the same sections as Yuma's main rivals. He continues to make appearances in the opening and ending themes due to the character's popularity, but rarely actually shows up.
- The opening and ending themes prominently feature Anna Kozuki as if she is a main cast member. She appears in only eight episodes, with two of those only being cameos. Overall, she tends to appear once or twice an arc.
- The first opening shows Number 39: Utopia ("King of Wishes, Hope") fighting Number 17: Leviathan Dragon ("Levice Dragon"), indicating that they are rivals, since Yuma and Shark are rivals as well. However, since Yuma wins this card in episode 2, the scene has become ironic.
- The fifth opening shows Shark using Number 32: Shark Drake and Number C32: Shark Drake Veiss, even though he never uses either of them during the entire run of this opening. It also has a large group of prior characters appearing in succession near the start, suggesting the season will be about them working together—this does sort of happen, but in the actual season, nearly all of them are wiped out by the Barian Emperors in fairly short order.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V*:
- The first opening shows Sawatari holding his three Darts Shooting cards. However, since he replaces them for another deck in episode 7, three episodes after they are revealed in the opening, they have become meaningless.
- The second opening shows participants of the Junior Youth Championship in a prominent way, including the students from the various Duel Schools and the LDS trio. None of them are actually important to the tournament plot and they are eliminated pretty early, most of them off-screen or very quick. Particularly, the LDS trio, who are supporting characters, are highlighted with the rest of the supporting cast, but all of them besides Masumi, who was eliminated before the opening was first aired, suffer from The Worf Effect and they have lost their prominence in the show. Sora is also shown among the ranks of LDS, which might foreshadow that he will eventually leave You Show, but Sora never joins LDS and even antagonizes them.
- The third opening depicts a vicious battle between an angry Yuya and Yugo, using Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon and Clear Wing Synchro Dragon, respectively. Presumably, it was setting up a war between them, as Yuya is on a mission to rescue Yuzu, who Yugo accidentally whisked away. In the show proper, not only does Yuya not use Odd-Eyes Rebellion in the Synchro Dimension during the span the show used this opening, he and Yugo never duel. Their only meeting came at the end of episode 91, and they never spoke - they just dueled their opponents in the same room. What's more, neither of the two bear any ill will towards each other; in fact, Yugo seems to think Yuya's a pretty cool guy if Yuzu thinks so highly of him. Furthermore, Odd-Eyes Rebellion normally doesn't attack with a Breath Weapon and has only done that in the final episode of the series.
- The fourth opening features Yuya's rematch with Jack Atlas. Odd-Eyes Rebellion Dragon is fighting Red Daemon's Dragon Scarlight in the opening, but Yuya does not summon it during the rematch.
- The sixth opening is positive and upbeat, and depicts our protagonist performing and bringing smiles to an audience full of his friends. Some of the lyrics are about making people smile and following your dreams. While the show uses this opening, the Lancers become a Dwindling Party, Yuya fails to reach his goal of saving Yuzu and the other bracelet girls, suffers from Sanity Slippage multiple times, and eventually gets possessed and ||turns evil, becoming Zarc and bent on killing all those people Yuya was making smile in the opening||. It also prominently features Odd-Eyes Raging Dragon being the center of Yuya's entertainment, despite Yuya never summoning Odd-Eyes Raging in his non-awakened state, and the series implies that Odd-Eyes Raging is actually the most evil one of all the hybrids.
-
*Zombieland Saga*'s first opening, Adabana Necromancy, features an extended sequence of the girls dressing in Sentai-esque suits and fighting a giant monster. Nothing even resembling this occurs in the series.
- The opening credits to
*The Blob (1958)* written by none other than Burt Bacharach (no, I'm not kidding) sound like a fun, beach-rompy movie (lyrics notwithstanding).
- Invoked for humorous effect by
*Beavis and Butt-Head Do America*, which opens with the main characters in a '70s-style cop show opening, complete with a theme song in the mode of *Shaft* and performed by none other than Isaac Hayes himself. As one might have guessed, the protagonists spend little of the remainder of the film blowing stuff up, kicking ass, or scoring, though certainly not for lack of trying.
- The joke is capitalized on right away by cutting from the explosion that ends the opening credits to Beavis and Butt-head poking around in the trash, looking for their TV.
-
*The Big Chill* starts with obviously female hands fiddling with obviously male clothing on an obviously male body. You're set up to believe something raunchy is either about to happen, is happening, or has just happened. ||It's then revealed that the hands are those of a mortician dressing a corpse.||
- Peter Weir's first feature
*The Cars That Ate Paris* opens with what appears to be a cigarette ad featuring a couple taking an idyllic country drive. Then things go horribly wrong. The sequence is part of the film narrative (though stylistically distinct) but the original cinema audience wouldn't have realised it until the very effective 'punchline'.
- The opening credits for the (non)hit b-movie
*Cave Dwellers*. Two men in loincloths run around the screen doing weird things — you never see the men in the opening credits during the movie, nor do you see any action sequence similar to what they were doing. This is because the clips are from the 1963 Italian sword-and-sandal film *Taur, the Mighty*. When Film Ventures International purchased what became *Cave Dwellers* for a 1990 re-release, they couldn't use the original credits or film title ( *Blade Master*); this allowed them to license the remainder of the movie as a film clip.
- The opening credits of
*Daisies* have a World War II Scenery Gorn montage, which eventually cuts to two bored girls in bikinis. However, the girls' complaints about how the world has gone bad ties directly to the previous montage and their consequent actions are what drives the (un)plot.
- Minor example:
*Ghost Ship* starts with cheesy lounge music and the title in a cheerfully 1950s-style font, and zooms in on the ship's passengers happily dancing the night away ||and then a tightly wound wire slices through the crowd||.
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*The Life and Death of Peter Sellers* has an Animated Credits Opening covering the first stretch of the credits set to "What's New Pussycat?" and featuring loads and loads of animated Peter Sellers gadding about. It's inspired by the opening titles of many of Peter Sellers' actual films...but it's also light and funny to deliberately contrast with the mostly-miserable story of a mostly-miserable man that follows.
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*Monty Python and the Holy Grail*
- Some editions start out with several minutes of the 1961 film
*Dentist on the Job* (starring a young Bob Monkhouse). This goes on far longer than most credit gags, to the point where one wonders if there was some bizarre mix-up before the projectionist sleepily grumbles about having put in the wrong reel and the credits proper start up. (This gag was carried over from the original cinema release.)
- The opening credits of the film proper feature pseudo-Swedish subtitles and references to things that have nothing to do with the movie.
note : Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...
- The opening credits are actually the full credits, run at the beginning to set up an elaborate joke on the viewing audience. At the intermission (which is actually 90% of the way through the movie), music begins playing and goes on just long enough for viewers to think it's a real intermission and get up, only to have the movie abruptly reappear, forcing them to return to their seats. At the end, a fourth wall break that's the result of the police arresting everyone causes the physical film to run out and be held over by the same intermission music (with no picture), but this time it runs for three minutes before the movie simply ends without credits, leading viewers to sit in their seats (having been tricked by the intermission) until it runs out and then be puzzled why there are no end credits. Especially as the ending is abrupt and weird.
- The
*Mr. Magoo* film, which is live-action, starts out with an animated Magoo going through his usual near-sighted hijinks before we enter the main plot and live-action.
- There are a few of these in the
*MST3K* canon — the calling card of Film Ventures International, all "featuring" music by Karl Demer — including *Master Ninja I* and *II*, *Stranded in Space*, *Pod People*, and *Space Travelers*. The FVI credits footage for *Pod People* and *Stranded in Space* are egregious in how not from the repackaged film they are ( *Pod People* takes its opening credits footage from the 1985 film *Galaxy Invader*; the source for the *Stranded in Space* credit footage is the 1983 film *Prisoners of the Lost Universe*). The *Master Ninja* credits are actually fairly representative of the "movies" themselves — Lee Van Cleef somewhat half-assedly pretending to be a ninja. It's the score and film-negative effect that make them stand out....
- The live-action
*Popeye* movie starts out like the opening of the old cartoons, then, where the title of the short is, Popeye sticks his head up and says, "Hey, what's this? One of Bluto's tricks? I'm in the wrong movie!" and we enter live-action.
- The beginning of the movie
*Return of the Killer Tomatoes!* shows a group of attractive teenage girls in skimpy bathing suits romping on a beach, with a voiceover announcing "You are about to see the movie *Big Breasted Women Go To The Beach And Take Their Tops Off*" (complete with a Beach Boys-style theme song containing those words), until the screen goes black, the voiceover apologizes for showing the wrong movie, and the title for "Return of the Killer Tomatoes" appears.
- This is brought back at the very end of the movie, after the denouement. During the course of the movie it's explained that the Mad Scientist's machinery can turn tomatoes into beautiful young women, and the final scene features one of the secondary characters taking them all to the beach, whereupon the footage plays again — only now, it (properly) refers to them as "Big-Breasted
*Tomatoes*".
- The film of
*A Series of Unfortunate Events* begins by baiting you into thinking you are watching a stop-motion animated movie called *The Littlest Elf*, until the needle scratches and the lights suddenly go dark.
**Lemony Snicket:** I'm sorry to say that this is *not* the movie you will be watching. The movie you are about to see is extremely unpleasant. If you wish to see a film about a happy little elf, then I'm sure there is still plenty of seating in theatre number two. However, if you like stories about clever and reasonably attractive orphans, suspicious fires, carnivorous leeches, Italian food and secret organizations, then stay, as I retrace each and every one of the Baudelaire children's woeful steps. My name is Lemony Snicket, and it is my sad duty to document this tale.
- Of course, this is a hilarious Mythology Gag for the people who have read the books.
-
*The Littlest Elf* itself exists in the movie universe, though, since Sunny is seen using an elf bobblehead's head as part of an improvised lever to pull a track switch, and the song in the fake-out opening is heard on a tapedeck in Count Olaf's car.
- Inverted in
*Team America: World Police,* which uses puppets. It begins with a marionette moving clumsily in front of an obviously flat, watercolor background...then backs up to reveal that this marionette is being controlled by one of the film's *actual,* mechanic supermarionettes, and sweeps to a rather impressive crowd-shot in a full Parisian set. (Reportedly, when first shown to the financiers, one of them screamed "My god, they fucked us!" before The Reveal.)
- Taken to the logical extreme with
*Tropic Thunder*, which opens with fake trailers and commercials starring almost all of the lead "actors" of the film-within-a-film. The parodies are so spot on that some in the audience thought the previews were still running.
- This◊ infamous front page article from National Geographic. In short, the cover asks if Darwin was wrong, only to go on to state that no, not only is Darwin definitely correct, but that evidence for evolution is overwhelming, making it not as much of a debate as the cover would make one think.
- The opening of the recent Spike TV reality show
*Murder* shows car chases, the host firing weapons, *CSI*-style graphics, and contestants observing what appear to be car explosions. The show is actually about contestants investigating realistic crime-scenes, and episodes mostly consist of people discussing the case in a conference room.
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*21 Jump Street*: Peter DeLuise mentions in his commentary track for one of the episodes of the first season: the credits feature a bunch of gunplay and a car flipping over; however, the series mostly is about undercover work and centers around sedate dialog-driven scenes. The car flipping over was one of the most expensive scenes shot for the series, and was really the only one of its kind.
- The opening of
*Ally McBeal* promised a smiling and happy woman most of the time. However, during the episodes she was depressed/sad/angry nearly the whole series and only rarely seen in a happy mood.
- The opening credits for
*Dexter* are an Affectionate Parody of this trope. The viewer sees shots in extreme closeup which appear to be violent and bloody ||amusing and wrong because Dexter is a methodical serial killer||... but turn out to be Dexter only going through his morning routine and having his breakfast.
- In the Cold Opening of the
*Doctor Who* episode "Death in Heaven", Clara Oswald, confronted by a Cyberman, claims that "Clara" never existed and she is in fact the Doctor. The credits then roll with Jenna Coleman given top billing and Coleman's eyes shown instead of Peter Capaldi's, hinting that her words are true. ||They aren't||.
- The educational program
*Dragons, Wagons & Wax* had an exciting, action-packed animated opening featuring a dragon who gets stuck on a runaway cart! The actual show was live-action, intellectual, slow-paced, and no Dragons. Watch here
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*Garth Marenghis Darkplace* parodies this: the opening shot of *Darkplace's* title sequence shows Rick Dagless running from an exploding ambulance, holding a baby in one arm. The actors (in-character) state on the DVD Commentary that this single shot was so expensive it used up the entire budget and couldn't be used in the show itself.
- The opening credits of the Chinese series
*Go Princess Go* suggest it is a very serious and dramatic historical romance set in Imperial China with multiple shots of the main cast crying, fighting or in slow tender moments. The actual show - while it does have some emotional and dramatic moments - is mostly a wacky comedy Gender Bender time travel story about a modern womanising man whose mind is hurled back in time to end up in the body of a beautiful princess.
- If you're watching the DVD for
*House of Cards (US)* season 2, one of the things you'll see on the opening menu is ||a full-screen shot of Zoe staring at the camera holding a microphone||, hinting that they'll have a big role in the upcoming season. That character, in fact, is dead by the end of the first episode.
- It was one of Joss Whedon's long standing dreams to give an actor initial credit and then kill him, or in this case her, off in that episode. In
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*, ||Amber Benson|| is credited for the first and last time in ||**Seeing Red**||, and at the episode's end rather unceremoniously killed - ||by a stray bullet no less||.
- Joss wanted to do this for the pilot with Jessie, but it was shot down.
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*Kamen Rider Den-O* begins its opening sequence with the narration: "The time-traveling train, Denliner. Will its next stop be in the past or the future?" The answer to this question is ALWAYS "the past." At no point in the TV series does Denliner visit the future.
-
*Kenan & Kel* features the titular characters in Los Angeles with Coolio (who performs the opening theme) essentially partying at night outdoors. Nothing like this ever happens in the show (most of it takes place indoors). None of the other characters besides those two appear in the opening either.
-
*The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel*: Season 2 episode 4, "We're Going to the Catskills!" opens with what seems to be a color recreation of the title sequence to *To Kill a Mockingbird*, even using the same music. It's only when we see a boy's hand pushing a U-Haul trailer, and Abe snatching said toy trailer away from Midge's son Ethan, that we remember which show we're in.
- The opening credits of
*Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers* episode "The Mutiny" suggested Rita Repulsa would remain as the Big Bad. Then we got caught by surprise with the debut of Lord Zedd and The Reveal that Rita was working for him all this time.
-
*Monty Python's Flying Circus* loved this trope, particularly in later seasons when they frequently set out to subvert not just the structure of the typical comedy sketch, but also the structure of television programmes themselves.
- One episode had the opening at the
*very end* of the show, followed by *the credits*. Another ran the opening credits at the beginning of the show... followed *immediately* by the closing credits.
- Episode 25 begins with fake titles and credits for a historical epic called
*The Black Eagle*, whose opening scene is interrupted by the *real* Title Sequence. The scene nevertheless goes on for long enough that early audiences were probably scrambling for the week's *Radio Times*, wondering if there had been another last-minute schedule change.
- Episode 29 opens with the opening credits, music and all, to
*The Money Programme* (a finance and business programme that has been airing since 1966). Only when the presenter is revealed to be a comically money-mad Eric Idle is the veil lifted.
- Episode 39 took this still further by opening with the Thames TV ident
note : Well known to international viewers of such programmes as *Danger Mouse* and *Count Duckula* and a fake continuity link delivered by actual Thames continuity presenter David Hamilton, perhaps fooling early viewers into thinking their television was tuned to the wrong station until Hamilton announced, "But right now, here's a rotten old BBC programme!"
- The show
*Mr. Bean* uses this and then subverts it at the same time, by starting with a solemn choir...and then apparently, beaming down Mr. Bean, as if from space. He gets up and wanders off. Towards the end of the credits, he wanders back into the picture, then off again in the opposite direction as before.
- Lampshaded and subverted by the animated version, in which Mr. Bean is taken aboard a flying saucer populated by Mr. Bean lookalikes — but of course, just when he thinks he's found his place in the universe, the aliens reject him and beam him down in an exact facsimile of the live-action opening credits.
- The solemn choir isn't all that solemn either, if you translate it back from the Latin.
*Ecce homo, qui est faba*: ||Behold the man, who is a bean.||
- The serious tone of the opening credits to
*Orange Is the New Black* prepare the viewer for a dramatic prison drama. While the series has plenty of dramatic moments, they are equalled or surpassed by more lighthearted moments.
- BBC children's comedy series
*Out Of Tune*, which opened with a title card showing the church in the background, and accompanied by some beautiful choir singing, suddenly transitions mid-music into off-key wailing. The on-screen title begins to collapse as well.
- The season 8 opening of
*Peep Show* sees ||Mark's romantic rival Gerard|| in the opening titles, suggesting that his role will be expanded. It's actually done to disguise the fact that he dies halfway through the first episode, after which he is replaced in the opening.
-
*Police Squad!* made the bait-and-switch a Running Gag, introducing and then instantly killing off a "Special Guest Star" during each episode's opening credits. There's also a scene where Abraham Lincoln (played by and credited to Rex Hamilton) foils his own assassination by pulling out a gun and shooting back. Obviously, that never happens in the show. There were plans to show Mahatma Gandhi wielding an assault rifle if the show had been picked up for a second season.
- The opening credits also featured a running gag where the title of the episode as stated by the narrator is different to the title shown on screen.
- The opening credits of the
*Power Rangers in Space* premiere indicated Divatox would remain as the main villain, and didn't credit Andros. Sure, Astronema had already made an appearance in the Batman Cold Open, but nothing concrete to that point indicated she'd take over.
- The opening credits of
*Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue* indicated Vypra would be the main villain. But in reality, she wasn't.
-
*Power Rangers Time Force* was about time travelers from the future, and clips in later versions of the opening showed the characters in different eras like the Wild West, feudal Japan, or prehistoric times. The actual show, however, mostly took place in the present day (where the time travelers were stuck); with only the prehistory clip being from a legit time trip. The rest of the clips came from either *Mirai Sentai Timeranger* Stock Footage, which was never put into the American version, or from an episode where the characters were trapped in various movies showing off different time periods. It's said that the producers originally wanted the series to contain several Time Travel arcs. Unfortunately, all of the megazord fights in the *Timeranger* footage took place in modern Tokyo. With that in mind, the second opening was more like the series they'd wished they'd could create had the footage cooperated.
- The credits of
*Quincy, M.E.*. You see the main character (a forensic pathologist) examining what you think is a dead body, but it turns out to be a young woman in a bikini with whom he is sharing drinks on his houseboat. These credits became even more of a B&S after the character evolved as a more of an "everyman" type rather than a playboy, and it became even weirder when he got married.
-
*Red Dwarf* had something like this in the first two seasons, with a slow sweep across the Red Dwarf, and portentous music which led many first-time viewers to expect something serious and dark, with just the slight comedy visual of a bloke in a spacesuit painting the F of "RED DWARF". From season 3, this was replaced by guitar rock and visuals of the wacky things the Boys from the Dwarf went through. The ominous music remains the eponymous ship's Leitmotif.
- The opening credits of
*Riget* make it look like a normal medical drama, although the Opening Narration that precedes them has already revealed the true genre.
- The first episode of
*Saul of the Mole Men* opens with the credits to *STRATA*, ostensibly a show about the adventures of intrepid underground explorers. Then within the first minute, nearly the entire "STRATA Action Team" is gruesomely killed, the only survivors being the Robot, Johnny Tambourine, and the titular Saul, a mere geologist who didn't even merit a mention in the STRATA opening. (The actual opening is an Expository Theme Tune that would spoil the plot of the first episode if it were run up front.)
-
*Too Many Cooks* takes this to an extreme, as the tone of the opening credits changes many times before the show even starts. ||The show itself is only five seconds long.||
-
*Torchwood* pulls a fast one on viewers in its first episode. The opening credits to the pilot includes ||Indira Varma, who plays Suzie Costello||. This was done to make it look like ||she was a regular cast member. She wasn't, and her character was dead by the end of the episode||.
-
*Ultra Series*:
-
*Ultraman*: The opening titles start out as a colored version of *Ultra Q*'s introduction titles, only for the title to suddenly change to the series' proper one.
- The opening to
*Ultraman Ace* features a lot of kaijuu from previous shows that never show up in the show proper.
-
*The Vicar of Dibley* credits open with a sweeping view of the English countryside and singing of the 23rd Psalm, but end with a humorous scene poking fun at village life. However, when a major character died, this montage was played straight.
- The first season of
*War of the Worlds (1988)* was basically a sci-fi paranoia thriller set in the 80's (and shot in Toronto, Ontario, Canada). By the end, audiences were expecting more of the same thing for the next season. The second series then opened with a radio broadcast detailing how soldiers were rioting and shooting people (as a result of the paranoia?). Of course, once you watch the second season, you find out that the whole premise is a team of people living underground in a sewer system, and launching covert attacks against the aliens. There is no army to speak of. They're disregarded as an ally in the second episode.
- The fifth season opening of
*The Wire* contains at least two things that appear to be spoilers but in context were misleading in a rather ironic fashion: various newspaper covers mentioning a Serial Killer of the homeless with a possible sexual motive ||which McNulty and Freamon made up to get the Police department more funding||, and a picture of McNulty laid out as if it were part of a wake ||which was really just a mock-wake held as a send-off before he was taken off active police work.||
-
*You Can't Do That on Television* episodes almost always started off with a title card for pre-empted shows that were cancelled, usually pop culture parodies related to the theme of the episode. For example, the episode, "Wildlife and Animals":
"'Wild Wild Kingdom' will not be seen at this time. In its place, we present a program in which people act like animals."
- This concept was swiped wholesale from the first six seasons of
*Saturday Night Live*. ("'Charlie's Angels Get The Syph' will not be seen tonight...")
- In the program for
*Spamalot.*
- Playing off the "Fisch Schlapping Song" that starts the actual program, the main section of the playbill describes a Finnish moosical called
*Dik Od Triaanenen Fol (Finns Ain't What They Used To Be)*, "the story, in music and song, of Finlands transformation from a predominantly rural agricultural base to one of the most sophisticated industrial and entrepreneurial economies in the world. Featuring the show-stopping, foot-stomping East Finland Moose Ballet 45 magnificent creatures in high-stepping harmony, believed to be the greatest display of horn ever seen on an American stage." Reading it will give you the impression you came to see something that is outright torture. With numbers like "Milk It", Its a Bleeding (Economic) Miracle!, I Hear Your Nokia But I Cant Come In and "Foek You, Farmers," *Dik Od Triaanenen Fol* is performed with three intermissions - one every *two and a half hours*. The real playbill information for *Spamalot* requires you to sift through these five pages first.
-
*Patrons are asked not to smoke or speak Swedish in the theatre. Please use cell phones whenever possible.*
-
*gen:LOCK*:
- The Season 1 opening theme depicts the five upgraded Holons in a Big Badass Battle Sequence against assorted Union troops. While there is a battle in the sixth episode fairly close to the opening's in scale, the Holons don't get upgraded until the end of the seventh, which is the second-to-last episode of the season; to date the upgraded Holons have only been seen in battle against a small handful of Mooks and the season's Heavy.
- Also, while spoiling the second-episode twist that Sinclair will not become a Holon pilot as he's been advertised—the title sequence features only five Holons and excludes Sinclair from the shot of the pilots powering up—he is still featured prominently in the opening as if he will be a main character regardless, when in fact he appears only in the second episode ||due to being revealed as an impostor and killed; the real Sinclair makes his first appearance in The Stinger of the season||. The third episode onward removes his voice actor's name from his appearance in the opening titles to mitigate this somewhat.
- Invoked in
*Girl-chan in Paradise*, being a shonen parody. Its theme song promises much more fluid and action-oriented animation than can be seen in the actual show. The Burning Man appears as the song reaches its climax, giving the impression that he'll be a much more prominent villain than he actually is. And at once point in the theme, Girlchan is seen walking alongside some blond boy who never appears in the show, though maybe he would have had the show not been orphaned after three episodes.
-
*Homestar Runner*:
- It promoted a new short supposedly starring the King of Town. Clicking the link showed a title sequence for "The King of Town's Very Own Quite Popular Cartoon Show"... but at the end of the title sequence, an announcement said "The King of Town's Very Own Popular Cartoon Show will not be seen tonight. Instead we bring you: Strong Bad's Very Popular Cartoon Show, already in progress." Then it cuts to the Strong Bad Email "senior prom".
- Funnily enough, there would eventually be an actual "The King of Towns Very Own Quite Popular Cartoon Show" short. The King of Town lampshades it by saying, at the end of the title sequence, "For realzies this time!"
- Also, the email "theme song" shows a couple potential title sequences for the Strong Bad Emails. The one with the "inspirational" Theme Tune by "some kind of Neville" contains scenes not even remotely similar to anything in the actual toons, such as Strong Bad in a tank or Strong Bad in space. Strong Bad claims, "Of course, the best clips are from the un-aired pilot you'll never see."
- The Season 3 DVD of
*Red vs. Blue* opens like this, with a lot of violence and explosions, and the scene cuts to some of the characters saying outright that the new season isn't going to have any less to do with standing around and talking than usual.
-
*RWBY*:
- The Volume 2 and 3 openings give the four main characters action-packed fight scenes against the four main villains of each volume, pairing each protagonist and a villain. Blake is paired with Roman in Volume 2 and Adam in Volume 3, reflecting her conflicts in the two volumes. Ruby and Cinder are paired together in both as symbolism of the leaders of the two groups while Yang is paired together with Mercury, which sets up their Volume 3 storyline. That leaves Weiss and Emerald; they end up having no direct conflict with each other in either volume, but are the left-over characters from both groups in the opening credit sequences.
- The Volume 5 opening shows a new character (later named as Vernal) opposite Cinder, heavily hinting at ||Vernal being the Spring Maiden. Which
*she isn't*: Raven was pulling a fast one.||
- Donald Duck's cartoon shorts (post-1947) feature a theme song that shills Donald, claiming he has "the sweetest disposition", "never, ever starts an argument", and "never shows a bit of temperament". Amusingly, Donald himself reacts to the music, demonstrating his real personality to the audience. The last line, however, is entirely accurate.
**Choir:** Who's never wrong, but always right?
Who'd never dream of starting a fight?
Who gets stuck with all the bad luck?
No one—
**Donald Duck:** (furious, incoherent yelling) **Choir:** —but Donald Duck! **Donald Duck:** Yeah!
- The second season opening of
*Jimmy Two-Shoes* makes the show appear to be quite saccharine, with Jimmy having Fertile Feet that turn everything he touches happy, and not showing off any of Heloise's Comedic Sociopathy. The actual show is largely a Sadist Show with Black Humor.
- The Italian opening for
*Lady Lovely Locks* makes the show seem like a Slice of Life romance. However, romance only comes up a few times in the show and most of the runtime is spent on Lady dealing with Duchess Ravenwaves' schemes to take over.
- The opening credits for the short-lived cartoon
*Alvin and the Chipmunks Go To the Movies* contains footage from different episodes, each parodying a different movie, but also a brief clip parodying *Star Wars*, starring Alvin as Luke Skywalker, Simon and Theodore as C-3PO and R2-D2, respectively, and David Seville as Darth Vader. Unfortunately, the *Star Wars* parody was *never* made into an actual episode of that series. There's also Eleanor swimming away from a shark and being saved by Jeanette in a *Jaws* parody that was never made either.
- In the Animated Adaptation of
*Anne of Green Gables*, Anne is shown in the opening credits wearing her iconic straw hat, which she does not wear at all in any episode (though it is seen hanging in her room on occasion).
- The opening credits of
*Aqua Teen Hunger Force* portray the titular trio heroically fighting bank robbers and space aliens, which doesn't come close to *anything* that occurs in the actual series.
- The first season did follow a similar format to what the credits show (although instead of having them as "heroes", they were just... well, themselves), but it was quickly abandoned. They didn't change the credits simply because they worked within the logic of the show.
- Lampshaded by Master Shake in one episode: when asked by Frylock why they didn't fight crime anymore, Shake tells him that 1) it wasn't making the Aqua Teens a lot of money, and 2) they spent most of their budget on the kickass credits they used to play themselves up.
- The closing credits shenanigans with Lincoln, the wooden rocket and (presumably) Neil Armstrong obviously never happened in the show either... except when The Movie,
*Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters* showed this was part of ATHF's backstory.
- Exaggerated with the season 8 intro, which is animated in a dark and gritty style and features the characters as a police squad fighting criminals. The show is exactly the same as before. The season 10 intro is a similar case.
- However, the season 9 intro, which is a Disney Acid Sequence, is a bit closer to what the show actually is.
- Season 10 brought back embelishing, only this time with the teens depicted as thieves that manage to pull off a diamond heist and masquerade as the band for a strip bar. Though the ending shows cops closing in on the place.
- Season 11, the final season, depicts the teens in an Animesque style partying and once more kicking ass, with many callbacks to previous openings.
- Episodes from
*The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes* Season Two begin with an Opening Narration creating the impression that the Avengers consist entirely of the "Big Three" — Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor — and the Incredible Hulk. Thanks to villains who try to weaken the Avengers by separating their members, the succeeding episode will more often than not feature only one, two, or three of those heroes, fighting alongside some less-iconic Avengers.
- The first season intro for
*The Backyardigans* teases Austin being in that season's cowboy western-themed episode and Tasha being in the respective pirate episode, but neither occurs. All of the show's other intros deliver on what they promise.
- The opening for
*Beverly Hills Teens* makes it look like a show about surreal and over-the-top globetrotting adventures. While wacky stuff does occasionally happen, it's more of a sitcom-esque Affectionate Parody of 80's greed and decadence.
- The characters in the opening of
*The Crumpets* didn't get updated for seasons 3 and 4, which only has teenagers as its main characters. For instance, Li'l One the infant continues to appear in the *center* among the characters even though he was downgraded by importance.
- Supposedly, the inspiration for Bart Simpson comes from Matt Groening being disappointed by
*Dennis the Menace (US)*, as in the show Dennis is not the whirlwind of disruption he is depicted as being in the credits.
- The theme tune to
*Denver the Last Dinosaur* contains the line "Everywhere we go, we don't even care, if people stop and stare at our pal dino". The characters spend nearly the whole of the first few episodes fretting about whether they've been spotted with the eponymous reptile.
- The German opening to
*DuckTales (1987)* mentions Pluto and Goofy, two characters who *never* appear in the series at all. The German opening theme for the 2017 reboot has different lyrics entirely.
- The lyrics to the opening theme for
*Family Guy* tout the show as being wholesome and embodying good old fashioned family values... Even though the show is anything but.
- The Expository Theme Tune of
*George of the Jungle* has the line "while Fella and Ursula stay in step", accompanied by Ursula splitting into two dancing look-alike women in the Title Sequence. Many viewers misheard the line as "Bella and Ursula" and wondered where the heck Bella got to. "Fella" was in fact George's pet name for Ursula, because he's just that dumb. This was even used in the live-action movie: he refers to her as a "funny-lookin' fella."
- The movie does change the line in the theme tune, though, making the line all about Shep the elephant.
- Possibly as a nod to this, in one episode George hits his head walking out of his tree-house (he forgot that he and Ursula live in a tree), and subsequently addresses Ursula as "Fella". Other character: "Fella?!" Ursula: "George is a simple man." "Nearsighted, too."
- In the 2007 remake, a new character named Magnolia or Maggie for short is introduced and the theme song is changed to "Maggie and Ursula stay in step"
- According to the
*Goof Troop* Thematic Theme Tune, the apples don't fall far from the tree (they certainly do in all but the shallowest sense). Also, the Title Montage essentially gives a visual equivalent of a Quote Mine for PJ, who looks cheerful and safe in every single shot he appears in (except for one where he's making a face along with Max and Pistol), even if they're taken from an episode where he's miserable for half the running time like "O, R-V, I N-V U"—which is, along with episodes where he's an understandably agitated No-Respect Guy or an Out of Focus Satellite Character, the *status quo.*
-
*Gravity Falls*:
- The standard opening, used for all episodes but the last three, fits the
*tone* of the show, but depicts many things which don't occur in the series itself. It shows, among other things, the twins and Stan looking at a large human-like right footprint embedded inside a gigantic left footprint, Dipper finding the skeleton of what seems to be a large Horned Humanoid, and a jar of eyeballs at the gift shop moving to look at the camera; those shots are believable (and it's heavily implied that the series only shows a part of Dipper and Mabel's adventures), but those specific events don't occur in any episode. Some other things, like the photo showing three UFOs note : since Dipper has never seen one before "Dipper and Mabel vs the Future", and didn't really have a chance to find any more afterwards and the shot where Dipper and Mabel are reading in their room when everything, including them, starts rising in the air note : "Not What He Seems" has several gravity anomalies of that sort, but when one occurs with the twins in their room, they're sleeping soundly and don't notice subtly contradict the series itself.
- The alternate "Weirdmageddon" opening used for the multi-part finale does this deliberately, with ||the opening starting off the same as the regular one, then quickly becoming grotesque, with Bill Cipher and his gang inserting themselves in the title sequence and replacing the main characters.||
- The opening to
*Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law* depicts a typical dashing hero-type lawyer show with romance, dangerous investigations, action scenes, etc. However, the show is actually a *parody* of legal dramas, and nearly everyone at the law firm of Sebben and Sebben is crazy and/or stupid. And rather than a dashing hero, Birdman is an incompetent No-Respect Guy.
-
*The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack* credits (in stop-motion, unlike the actual series) seemingly frame Captain K'nuckles as a free-spirited adventurer and Bubbie as a stuffy, almost-antagonist figure who opposes adventure or risk of any kind. In the actual series, Captain K'nuckles is a lazy, shiftless, and greedy Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist who manipulates the eponymous Flapjack's idolization of him to further whatever ill-advised and self-serving plan he's currently trying to enact, while Bubbie is the perpetual voice of reason and resident Reasonable Authority Figure. One popular fan interpretation for the art shift and the out-of-characterness is that the opening is showing the world from Flapjack's (rather skewed) way of seeing things.
- The
*Mega Man (Ruby-Spears)* cartoon's title sequence had epic action scenes and detailed Japanese-style animation. The actual cartoon was legitimately an action series, but had slightly less emphasis on the fight scenes and was visually more in line with traditional early-'90s American animation.
- The theme song of
*Miraculous Ladybug* suggests that the action takes place during the night. In truth, nearly all of the fights in the series take place in broad daylight.
- The second opening to
*The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show* mentions Belle, Snoopy's sister. She never appears in any episode of the cartoon.
- During
*ReBoot's* opening, Bob mentions that he intends to learn about the User and why it plays dangerous games. In the actual show, Bob doesn't even attempt to learn *anything* about the User at all. That line in the opening is removed in later seasons as the plot shifts away from dealing with the games.
- The Title Sequence for
*The Ren & Stimpy Show* consists of clips from the pilot episode, "Big House Blues." When shown in the series, the episode had scenes cut, including Ren realizing that he had been kissing Stimpy in his sleep and washing his mouth in the toilet afterward — scenes that feature prominently in the opening. (The uncut cartoon eventually aired on Spike TV and was released on DVD.)
-
*Scooby-Doo*
- The
*Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!* credits showed all manner of supernatural menaces, while of course the episodes centered on proving that mysterious events have a mundane explanation.
- There is no way to tell if the supernatural menaces in the opening credits are real or not. Conversely, later incarnations of the show did include real supernatural elements.
- Finally fixed with
*What's New, Scooby-Doo?* opening, which has the unmasking of three monsters.
- The opening credits to the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons in
*The Simpsons* promises that 'they fight and bite' over animation of the two hitting each other with weapons. In fact, in the vast majority of episodes, they don't *fight* at all: Scratchy is minding his own business when Itchy brutally attacks and kills him for no reason at all.
- The opening for the
*South Park* episode "I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining" features the boys apparently in danger while ziplining. There's even a few shots of the boys being all bloody. In the actual episode, however, they are in no real danger whenever they are actually ziplining. They never even get into any ziplining accidents. All the distress actually comes from the tour group they were forced to be a part of.
-
*Static Shock* has four openings (technically three, the fourth one is just the third one with edited-in shots), which show Static fighting villains. With the exception of season two's opening, the rest are inconsistent with the villains shown.
- The first season's opening features Rubberband Man, who is shown robbing a jewelry store, something he never does in the show as he only wanted revenge on a record producer for stealing his music, and Dwayne Mc Call is seen summoning a mechanical dinosaur to attack Static. In the show, Dwayne is an otherwise neutral character who only appeared one, and was only being persuaded to attack Static by his stepbrother Aron.
- The third season's opening features the Heavyman, a one-time villain who kidnapped Shebang's parents in the episode that featured him. Professor Menace, another one-time villain, also appears, despite the fact that he is Soul Power's nemesis. The last villain shown is, of all things, Brainiac in a robot body, who is one of Superman and the Justice League's villains.
- Puff's appearance in the season two opening is a subversion, however, as though she appeared in one season two episode, that episode was aired during season three instead.
-
*Steven Universe* has three openings. One used up until part-way into the second season, another for the rest of the original series, and a third for the Sequel Series/Finale Season *Steven Universe Future*. The first two were accurate when first seen, but quickly became outdated:
- The first episode of
*Back to the Sewer*, *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*' seventh season, plays the intro for *Fast Forward*, the series' sixth. While it makes sense in context — the episode is a transitional one, taking the characters from one premise to the next, with the actual opening played in the end to reflect the change — the fact that both seasons feature different characters, settings, premise, and art style, and that 4Kids had actually organized a contest to let the fans vote for the new theme song made the bait and switch *very* surprising — and disconcerting.
- The Japanese opening of
*Transformers: Animated* barely features Lugnut while prominently showing minor characters Arcee and Ironhide apparently on Earth and fighting alongside our heroes - indeed, Arcee is shown fighting Blackarachnia underwater (which, it should be noted, she is physically incapable of doing in-universe, since she is part organic). It also shows various fight scenes around the world, when in fact all the scenes on Earth take place in and around Detroit. Despite all that, it's *still* full of spoilers (|| Longarm Prime,|| anyone?). It also features Cloaked Mystery Villain, who doesn't look much like *anybody* in the show.
- The first opening of
*The Venture Bros.*, though it does a great job of reflecting the intended " *Jonny Quest* but miserable" vibe of the early seasons, was clearly made when the show was in an earlier stage of development. Overall, it features some noticeably off animation in a similar style to the pilot and apparently done in Flash; it's most evident with Brock, who is rather Off-Model. There's also early designs for Baron Ünderbheit and Molotov Cocktease—it's hard to even recognize Molotov, as her facial features are all wrong and she's missing her eyepatch—as well as a completely unknown man with scuba gear and a dagger in his teeth.
- The Japanese credits for
*X-Men: The Animated Series* feature Cable as a member of the team, but on the show he was a guest character who only appeared in five or six episodes total. It also features a final shot of Cyclops angsting while Krakoa looms over him. Krakoa never appears ever. Not to mention the opening's inclusion of Magneto summoning the Brood out of the earth itself.
- The Western opening for the show has Magneto leading a group to fight the X-Men which never happens in the show. Two of them (Warpath and Yuri Topolov) don't oppose the X-Men throughout the show.
- Cable is nothing! The second opening features Iceman as a member of the team. Iceman only appears in one episode. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpeningDissonance |
On Second Thought - TV Tropes
Someone is given an option he doesn't like, and promptly rejects it. The person who made the suggestion returns with something far worse (or at least far less likeable), and On Second Thought, the first suggestion was just fine.
Summed up well by the following joke:
**Genie:**
I will grant you one wish.
**Guy:**
Well, I've always wanted to go to Hawaii, but I'm afraid of flying and boats make me seasick. I wish there was a bridge to Hawaii so that I can just drive there.
**Genie:**
I'm sorry, but that's way too hard for me to do. Think of something else.
**Guy:**
Oh, that's too bad. Well, in that case, I wish I could understand women
.
*[Beat]* **Genie:**
...You want two lanes or four?
A subtrope of Immediate Self-Contradiction. Often the former request will end up Off the Table. Compare Would Rather Suffer, So You Were Saying...? and Anything but That!.
## Examples:
-
*Death Note*:
- In
*K-On!*, Sawako uses her time before Houkago Tea Time's first show sewing stage costumes that she plans to have them wear, which Mio disapproves. Sawako then suggests Mio wear the more Shock Rock-oriented costume she used to wear in her old band, which Mio says makes the last costume look suddenly more appealing.
- Early in
*My Hero Academia*, when Midoriya and Uraraka are introducing themselves to each other, she calls him 'Deku', having heard Bakugo calling him that:
**Midoriya**: Umm... my real name is "Izuku"... "Deku" is just Kacchan being a bully...
**Uraraka**: Oh! Gotcha! Sorry! But "Deku", well... it just screams "Do your best"! I kinda like it.
-
*Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead*: When Shizuka meets Akira and Kencho while looking for a camper van, she says she has no intention of traveling with them because that would be too risky, until Akira reminds her that she just told them she doesnt have a drivers license and has no idea how to drive an actual car. She promptly readjusts her previous statement and says that traveling with them would be less risky than trying to drive herself.
- In a Batman/Creeper team-up in
*The Brave and the Bold*, Batman tells the Creeper "Don't call me 'Bats'." After the Creeper calls him "B.M." instead, he resignedly says, "Go back to 'Bats'."
-
*Phoebe and Her Unicorn* opens with Marigold the unicorn offering Phoebe a wish for freeing her from gazing at her own reflection. After a number of ludicrous suggestions are shot down, Phoebe wishes that Marigold would become her best friend, to which Marigold sheepishly replies "Or maybe, um, some gold?"
-
*Child of the Storm* has Fred and George remark on Harry and Carol's UST to Ron, stating that they're expecting a happy announcement any day now.
**Ron**: Like a wedding?
**Fred**: Though, to be fair, that wouldn't be particularly surprising either.
-
*Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness Act VI*: In Act VI, after Kokoa flies into an Unstoppable Rage and tries to outright murder Sun for kissing Gin, Kurumu begins to say she can't believe that Kokoa would go that far... and immediately backpedals.
**Kurumu:** I can't believe she tried to... well, actually I *can* believe it.
-
*It Gets Worse*: Taylor's power makes it so anything that threatens her safety and/or happiness will immediately suffer a stroke of bad luck. Director Piggot becomes Genre Savvy about it, to the point that the mere flicker of lights is enough to make her change course just before she decides something.
-
*The Rigel Black Chronicles*: Adrian Pucey's snake is frantically trying to escape from him and head for the giant platter of meat upstairs — until Harry tells it that the meat is for the basilisk, at which point it freezes and calmly returns to Adrian, not wanting to pick a fight with "the King".
-
*The LEGO Movie* has Emmet and Wyldstyle try and sneak past some robot guards. Right as they're about to be caught, Emmet starts singing "Everything Is Awesome". Wyldstyle adamantly states she is not singing it, until the robots give her a Death Glare. She immediately sings it better than anybody in the entire film. ||It is revealed in the sequel she was part of the girl band who created the song.||
- In
*Tangled*, Rapunzel gets everyone in a Bad-Guy Bar to sing about their dreams. When they try to get Flynn to add his dream, he turns them down. After they all point their swords at him, he immediately joins in.
-
*Honey, I Shrunk the Kids*, when Ron breaks the Szalinskis' window:
**Russ:** Look, we'll get it fixed, okay. We'll take it out of his allowance. **Ron:** What? *My* allowance? No way! **Russ:** Okay, we'll just have Dad pay for it, huh? **Ron:** We'll take it out of my allowance.
-
*Evolution*: An alien bug has entered the body of Harry Block.
**Dr. Paulson:**
We might have to amputate.
**Harry Block:**
Whoa, Doc! Don't take the leg! Ira, don't let them take my leg.
[...]
**Dr. Paulson:** It's headed for his testicles. **Harry Block:** *[shocked look]*
Take it! Take it! Take the leg!
-
*Monty Python and the Holy Grail*: King Arthur and his knights are excited about going to Camelot. The film cuts to the "Knights of the Round Table" musical number (a reference to the musical *Camelot*), after which it cuts back to Arthur:
**Arthur:** On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. 'tis a silly place.
- In the scene of
*The Force Awakens*, where Finn, Rey, and BB-8 are fleeing from the TIE-fighters' bombardment on Jakku, Finn suggests they use a spaceship (later revealed to be the *Millenium Falcon*). Rey dismisses this as "garbage", but the other ship they were heading to gets blown up.
**Rey:** The garbage will do.
- How Inigo Montoya and Fezzik convince the guard captain to give them the gate key in
*The Princess Bride*:
**Inigo:** Give us the gate key. **Captain:** I have no gate key. **Inigo:** Fezzik, tear his arms off. **Captain:** Oh, you mean *this* gate key.
-
*Ascendance of a Bookworm*:
- Aurelia, a bride from Ahrensbach, has several reasons to hide her face behind a thick veil, one of which becomes
*more* prominent once she moves into Ehrenfest (||she looks identical to a great aunt who started a huge political mess in Ehrenfest and still has portraits around||). However, because of the tensions between the two duchies being quite bad as a baseline, she's intially in a Morton's Fork: be considered suspicious because she refuses to show her face, or make the reason she keeps it hidden publicly known, which would be almost as bad as the consequences of actually showing it. As she's considering a Take a Third Option via getting a new veil made with Ehrenfest fabric, Elvira remains convinced that Aurelia is overestimating the extent to which showing her face is a bad option. After seeing Aurelia's face for herself, Elvira tells her that she'll be happy to take her under her wing as soon as her new veil is finished.
- While Rozemyne is learning how to make an engagement feystone, Hirschur insists upon making her come up with something else than a generic proposal, her reasons being a mix of Rozemyne being quite well-read and her already being betrothed. Rozemyne's attempts at coming up with a good line run into the clash between her values and that of the setting's noble society, resulting in Hirschur suddenly being perfectly fine with her using a generic proposal.
-
*Lost*:
**Hurley:**
Let me ask you something, Arnzt —
**Arzt:**
Arzt.
**Hurley:**
Arnzt.
**Arzt:**
No, not Arnzt. Arzt. A-R-Z-T. Arzt.
**Hurley:**
Sorry, man. Your name's hard to pronounce.
**Arzt:**
Oh, yeah? Well, I know a bunch of ninth graders who pronounce it just fine.
**Hurley:**
How about I just call you by your first name?
**Arzt:**
How about you don't?
**Hurley:**
Why not? I remember it from the plane's manifest. I think Leslie
's a bitchin' name.
**Arzt:**
Arnzt is fine.
-
*Cobra Kai*: In "The Good, The Bad, and the Badass", Mitch, one of the kids who joined Johnny's new Eagle Fang dojo after being expelled from Cobra Kai by Kreese, expresses discomfort over the fact that Johnny still uses the same derogatory nickname he used for Mitch over in Cobra Kai.
**Johnny:** Assface, you're next! **Mitch:** Does my nickname gotta carry over from the previous dojo? **Johnny:** You wanna be "Penis Breath"? **Mitch:** *[beat]* Assface is fine.
-
*Desperate Housewives*: In "Love is In the Air", Rex asks Bree to pick a "control word" for the sexual roleplay they're planning to do.
**Bree:**
Okay. So what's our control word?
**Rex:**
Well, lately I've been using "Philadelphia". What's wrong?
**Bree:**
Well it's just that my Aunt Fern lives in Philadelphia and I don't want to be thinking about her while I'm spanking you with a leather strap.
**Rex:**
Okay. Fine. You pick a control word.
**Bree:**
Um, how about "Boise"?
**Rex:**
"Boise"?
**Bree:**
What's the matter with "Boise"?
**Rex:**
We're going to be doing psychological role-playing here, Bree, and a funny word like "Boise" would ruin the mood. We need something that sounds serious
.
**Bree:**
Hmmm. How about "Palestine"?
**Rex:**
"Boise" will be just fine.
-
*Friends*. Phoebe has suggested that they should have a cleansing ritual, to lose the curse of bad boyfriends:
**Phoebe:** Okay. We can, um, we can burn the stuff they gave us. **Rachel:** Or? **Phoebe:** Or... or we can chant and dance around naked, you know, with sticks. **Monica:** Burning's good.
-
*The Golden Girls*:
**Stan:** I have tickets to a Dodgers spring training game. Want to come? **Dorothy:** I can't think of anything I would rather do less. **Stan:** Want to go to bed with me? **Dorothy:** Take me out to the ball game.
-
*The Daily Show*: Baby New Year 2009 and Jon Stewart discuss the assault of Israel on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
**Baby New Year 2009:** Can't we talk about the lighter side of 2009? You know, celebrity pregnancies, sports predictions, stuff like that? **Jon Stewart:** Okay, I'll go with that. How are the Mets going to go this year? **Baby New Year 2009:** Oh. Uh... you know what, let's get back to Gaza.
-
*Doctor Who*: Subverted when the Doctor's companion actually prefers the second alternative to her Overly Long Name Romanadvoratrelundar, but he continues to use the first one anyway:
**The Doctor:** I'll call you "Romana". **Romana:** I don't like "Romana". **The Doctor:** Well, it's either "Romana" or "Fred". **Romana:** Fine, call me "Fred". **The Doctor:** All right. Come on, Romana.
-
*Seinfeld*: In the final episode, NBC bigwigs have rekindled their interest in Jerry's pilot.
**Kimbrough:** And Elaine! I wouldn't mind seeing something happening between those two! **George:** I tell you, I really don't think so-called 'relationship humor' is what this show is all about. **Kimbrough:** Or, we could not do the show altogether, how about that? **George:** Or we could get them together!
-
*Angel*:
**Angel:** *You*'re my secretary? **Harmony:** Hello! Assistant. **Angel:** Explain why I shouldn't kill you. **Harmony:** Secretary's fine.
-
*Babylon 5*: Londo is having to deal with a demon, sent by Technomages, messing with his computer, for attempting to record a meeting for his own gain.
**Vir:** You could always... apologize. **Londo:** *Apologize?!* Hah! **Computer:** Congratulations! You are now the owner of 500,000 shares of Fireflies Incorporated. *[lights go out in quarters]* **Londo:** On the other hand....
-
*The Big Bang Theory* has Sheldon use a homemade virtual presence device (a TV screen on wheels) to knock on Penny's door and ask her to sing "Soft Kitty".
**Penny:** Really? You want me to sing "Soft Kitty" to a *computer monitor?* **Sheldon:** Would you rather come over and sing it to me in person? **Penny:** *[singing]* Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur...
-
*Yes, Minister*, in the episode "Jobs for the Boys", has Sir Humphrey recommending Desmond Glazebrook to head a commission on government and industry as a payoff for saving a doomed project, while at the same time keeping the imminent failure of said project from Hacker, who thinks Glazebrook would do an awful job. When the truth comes out and Humphrey explains that the only way for Hacker to avoid having to resign is to get a carefully unnamed bank chairman to save the project in exchange for chairing the commission:
**Hacker:** Better than that damn fool Desmond Glazebrook. Who is the chairman, anyway? **Humphrey:** Desmond Glazebrook. **Hacker:** ...Actually he's not a bad chap, really... yes, I've... changed my mind, I think he'll be excellent.
- In an early episode of
*Mister Ed*, Mr. Addison walks in and accidentally overhears Wilbur and Ed talking. Ed covers by claiming (from behind his back) that Wilbur is a ventriloquist:
**Addison:** A ventriloquist! That is remarkable, you didn't even more a muscle! **Wilbur:** Mr. Addison, would you believe it if I were to tell you the horse actually talks? **Addison:** Why, of course not! **Wilbur:** I've been a ventriloquist for years.
-
*Blake's 7*. In "Weapon", the psychostrategist that Supreme Commander Servalan has employed to work out her Evil Plan flees on realising it's going to fail, leaving a video message for her.
**Carnell:**
Look at it this way, Supreme Commander, you haven't lost anything. Whereas I, well, I've lost my career, my position, the respect of my peers... Come to think of it, I haven't lost much, either.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*:
- In "The Initiative," when Spike finds himself unable to bite or hurt Willow due to his new cerebral microchip, Willow gets a little too caught up in her understanding attitude towards Spike's "performance issues".
**Willow:** Why don't we wait a half an hour and try again? *[beat]* Or... *[smashes a lamp over Spike's head before making a break for it]*
- In "I Was Made to Love You," when Buffy returns from a party at the Bronze, Giles suggests he not watch Dawn alone anymore because he can't take much more exposure to the habits of a young teenager. Buffy remarks that her night didn't go so well either, since it consisted of watching a robot throw Spike out a window... and immediately backpedals, laughing at the memory.
**Buffy:** *[laughs]* I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry, but if it makes you feel any better, my "fun time Buffy party night" involved watching a robot throw Spike through a window, so if you wanna trade... No... Wait... I wouldn't give that memory up for anything.
- In episode 56 of
*Mimpi Metropolitan*, Pipin offers to take the bag that Bambang bought for Melani, saying that she likes it. One stern order from Melani later, Pipin gives the bag back to Bambang and says she no longer likes it.
-
*The Unbelievable Truth:* Sometimes panellists will buzz in when they think they've spotted a truth, then get nervous. However, buzzing in on a lie is forfeiture of a point, though sometimes for extra chain yanking it turns out they buzzed in and got cold feet on a truth.
-
*Horizon Zero Dawn*: When Aloy first travels to Sunstone Rock, it is under attack by two Behemoths, leading to this exchange between two of the Carja guards:
**Guard 1:** I don't like our chances! **Guard 2:** You want to tell Warden Janeva that we backed down? **Guard 1:** Let's take our chances!
- In
*Yakuza: Like a Dragon*, a substory involves Ichiban coming across a woman complaining to a cop about a man peeing into the river in Ichinjo. After picking the right guy out and then beating him up, he realizes he needs to take a leak. He's just about considering doing what he beat the guy up over before deciding to just go find a restroom instead.
- Mortal Kombat X:
**Kung Lao:** I have no quarrel with you..
**Reptile:** I will *tear your flesh!*
**Kung Lao:** I *now* have a quarrel with you.
-
*Red vs. Blue*:
- When O'Malley approaches Blue Team's base.
**O'Malley:** It's quiet... too quiet. *[a sniper round whizzes past his head]* **O'Malley:**
Now suddenly it's too loud! I preferred it when it was quiet.
- Also, during the Blue Team's ||first|| surrender:
**Sarge:**
Alright, blues! First off, we want your flag...
**Simmons:**
Wait, wait, wait just a second. The last time we got the flag, the chick in the black armor showed up.
**Sarge:**
...to stay right where it is. Keep the flag.
-
*RWBY*; Weiss and Yang are set up to fight a team from Atlas. Before their opponents show up, they start discussing what they'll be up against:
**Yang:**
You're from Atlas. What can we expect?
**Weiss:**
Well, seeing as their kingdom, academy, and armed forces are all merged as one
, I think we can expect strict, militant fighters with advanced technology, and carefully rehearsed strategy.
*Flynt (a guy dressed like a Jazz musician who uses a trumpet for a weapon) and Neon (a Cat Girl dressed for a roller derby/rave) show up* **Weiss:**
Or... whatever they are.
-
*Corner Alley 13*
**Noelle:** So what is your name?
[...]
**Kh'ohl:** Bat's clan Kh'ohl Kankaar Vree. **Noelle:** Ah! Cole! **Kh'ohl:** No, Kh'ohl. And don't use my first name. **Noelle:** Mr. Cancan-tree? **Kh'ohl:** ...Cole will do.
-
*Circle Versus Square*.
**King Pentagon:** Come now, there is much to discuss between us two lords. Won't you join me for tea? **Circle:** Do I have a choice? **King Pentagon:** Of course! **TEA** or **DEATH**. **Circle:** And those are my only options? **King Pentagon:** Well, I suppose if you prefer we can have tea AND death. **Circle:** Just the tea, thank you.
-
*The Order of the Stick*:
- Shortly before their first confrontation with the heroes, Xykon rehearses the Monster in the Darkness's big reveal.
**MitD:** Order of the Stick! Your broken corpses will taste delicious lightly seasoned with nutmeg! **Xykon:** That's... that's what you are going with? **MitD:** What? **Xykon:** As your big line? As your first impression? **MitD:** It's not scary enough? **Xykon:** It's a little less scary, a little more... domestic. **MitD:** Oh, well, I had another idea, too. **Xykon:** Alright, well, it's got to be better than your first choice. Ahem. "Not when I have the power of THIS on my side!" **MitD:** Order of the Stick! I will bathe in your blood with lavender bath gel and a good loofa! **Xykon:** You know what? My bad. You stick with the first one.
- When Roy discovers that the man presiding over their trial is a senile old man taking orders from his cat:
**Roy:** We're not really going to have our fate decided by this guy, are we? **Hinjo:** Oh, no. Lord Shojo will be managing the trial, but he will not be rendering the verdict. **Roy:** Whew! **Hinjo:** For that, our clerics have summoned a being of pure Law and Good from the Upper Planes to render judgment. **Being of Pure Law and Good:** Vengeance shall be brought upon the guilty! There shall be no excuses! A cleansing fire will burn them! **Roy:** Yeah, y'know, on second thought, is it too late to go with the old guy and the cat?
- A flashback shows a young Durkon visit his Honorary Uncle in hope to get the answer to a question to which his mother refuses to answer. His "uncle" panics and hopes he's not about to ask him about sex. Durkon, being a Someone to Remember Him By baby, asks him how his father died and how his mother lost her arm. His "uncle" immediately attempts to divert the conversation to sex, though Durkon isn't having it.
- Used in
*Narbonic* when Helen tells Dave they need to talk:
**Dave:** Uh oh. Is this about the sentient meme that took over the net in Blue Sector and keeps threatening to vaporize us via spy satellite? **Helen:** No, it's not about the sentient meme! I didn't even know there *was* a sentient meme! **Dave:** Oh... good. **Helen:** On second thought, let's make this about the sentient meme.
- Done in this strip of
*Freefall*, when Mr. Kornada is reporting for his first day of community service in which he has to work in a minimum-wage job as a Burger Fool. Since he refuses to do any of the tasks assigned him he asks about a transfer but is told that the only other possible job he can have is working in a factory that manufactures chlorine trifluoride, a chemical compound used in rocket fuel and cleaning nuclear reactors and is so volatile it sets anything it touches on fire. Considering the ramifications of working with such a dangerous substance, Kornada asks his manager if he could go back to cleaning the bathroom.
- In
*Misfile*, Ash note : boy trapped in a female body could prep for a car-race during the day, but that would be irresponsible. On the other hand...
**Ash:** Later. It's too dangerous during the day. Too many people around and too many cars in the lots. I'll have to burn some time. **Emily:** Well, I DID promise to take you shopping for some new bras. **Ash:** On second thought, I can probably dodge most of the cars, and if I only hit a few people maybe no one will notice...
-
*The Angry Video Game Nerd*, when cornered by Jason Voorhees.
**Nerd:**
Don't kill me!
*[Jason shows the *Friday the 13th * NES cartridge, silently telling him to play it]* **Nerd:**
... Kill me!
*[wish not granted]*
- At one point in
*Freeman's Mind*, after finally reaching the surface, Freeman adamantly refuses to take the ladder leading back underground. Then, as he's looking for another route, he takes two rounds from a sniper. He then decides that underground isn't so bad after all.
-
*Ross's Game Dungeon* describes *The Chosen: Well of Souls* as "the perfect game to play when you know you should be doing something else".
**Ross:** Like, hey, have a school paper to work on, or have some chores to do, but you're stressed out and just want a quick break? Well, play *The Chosen*! You'll find yourself thinking, "Yeah... I should get back to work..."
- Played with on an episode of
*SpongeBob SquarePants*:
**SpongeBob:**
This crowd looks angry. They're not going to wait any longer! I think I'd better give them what they need, and fast.
**Squidward:**
I think so too, or Krabs will fire both of us!
*[Beat]*
On second thought, keep them waiting
.
-
*The Simpsons*, when Homer becomes the Grim Reaper in a Halloween episode:
*[Homer wakes up in the morning, puts on the Grim Reaper robe]* **Homer:** All right, who am I giving the finger to today? *[the name on the list is "Marge Simpson", his wife]* **Homer:** No! Not that! Anything but that! *[name on list changes to "Homer Simpson"]* **Homer:** ...what was that first one again?
-
*Futurama*
**Zoidberg:** So do your worst. Because no punishment could be worse than denying my freedom. **Chief Justice:** You are hereby sentenced to death. **Zoidberg:** Wait, let me finish!
-
*Avatar: The Last Airbender* has this happen twice in "The Cave of Two Lovers".
- In an episode of
*Camp Lazlo*, a snake is loose in the camp and Lazlo, Clam and Patsy want Raj to come with them to find it, but he doesn't want to go.
-
*Bojack Horseman:*, BoJack has ended up in a conversation with his co-star about his past addiction to autoerotic asphyxiation, leading to:
**BoJack:**
Can we maybe talk about anything else
?
**Corduroy Jackson-Jackson:**
Sure.
**BoJack:**
Thank God.
**Corduroy Jackson-Jackson:**
Hey, man, it's funny you should mention God, because my new thing is... the Bible. Tell me, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and personal savior?
**BoJack:**
...Sooooo, noose-wise, what are we talking? You use a standard sailor's knot or more like your average birthday-present bow?
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*:
- In "Look Before You Sleep", Applejack isn't very eager to spend a slumber party with Twilight and Rarity, making up excuses that she should go home. As she's heading out, however, the storm outside intensifies with a Dramatic Lightning Strike, and she's back to the same spot in a flash.
**Applejack:** Oh hey, heh, would'ja look at the time. I gotta skidaddle on home quick. I'm powerful late for, uh, fer somethin'. Uh, g'night. *[heads out; thunderstrike]* **Applejack:** GAH! Or maybe I'll sit here for a spell.
- "Magic Duel" opens with Trixie trying to buy a dangerous power-enhancing artifact from an curiosity shop, prompting this exchange.
**Shopkeeper:** I'm afraid this is *far* too dangerous. *[Trixie drops a bag of gold on the counter]* **Shopkeeper:** ... Would you like that gift-wrapped?
-
*Duck Dodgers*: In "Duck Codgers", Dodgers and the Cadet get infected with an ailment that causes them to rapidly age, and the only cure is water from a spring located beneath the Martian Palace.
-
*PAW Patrol*: Sid Swashbuckle said it on his Debut episode after getting rescued by the PAW Patrol.
**Sid Swashbuckle:** On second thought, I-I need my stuff! Let's go!
-
*Aladdin: The Series*: In "To Cure a Thief", when an angry Abu storms off after a fight with Aladdin, Jasmine suggests that Iago keep an eye on him.
- At the end of the
*Danger Mouse* episode "100 Million Years Lost," the narrator says this when Henry V gets carried away with his Battle of Agincourt Speech:
**Narrator:** On second thought, here's the weather forecast.
- The Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa has the designation "SUX". When they petitioned the FAA for a new identifier, they got the options of GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV, and GAY. They elected to stay with SUX. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnSecondThought |
Only the Chosen May Pilot - TV Tropes
So you want to ride that Humongous Mecha and save the city from the Alien Invaders? Well, too bad, only one person can pilot it!
A common trope in the Super Robot genre, though at times it shows up even in the Real Robot genre: only special individuals can pilot a mecha. This is commonly due to some special compatibility that the pilot has to the robot, or due to some Applied Phlebotinum restricting the kind of person capable of piloting it. Either way, don't expect your average person to pilot this thing any time soon.
This can lead to Falling into the Cockpit, if a person with no prior training is required to operate the machine due to being the only available compatible pilot.
Sister Trope of Only the Chosen May Wield and Only the Chosen May Ride. Compare Only I Can Make It Go.
## Examples:
-
*The Big O*: the Megadeus' judge the worthiness of potential pilots, it's not pretty if one fails though.
- Downplayed in
*Cross Ange*: the mech Villkiss can be piloted by everyone... but only a Norma of Royal Blood (such as Ange or ||Jill||) and in possession of a royal signet ring can activate its hidden Super Mode.
-
*DARLING in the FRANXX* has a post-apocalyptic future where teenager artificial humans are trained to pilot the giant mecha known as Franxx in pairs of a boy and a girl in a stamen-pistil system to connect between each other and then pilot the Franxx.
- In the original
*Mobile Suit Gundam* and its sequels set in the Universal Century, certain mechs are specifically built for psychic Newtypes like Amuro and Char, with regular, non-psychic humans restricted to their most basic functions.
- In
*Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn* in particular, the Unicorn Gundam is specifically keyed to Banagher's biometrics, making him the only person allowed to pilot it and access the La+ Program guiding the protagonists to the mysterious Laplace's Box that everyone's chasing after.
-
*Mobile Suit Gundam Wing* has the five young pilots managing the advanced mobile suits called Gundams. Every one of them are Child Soldiers trained all their life to become human weapons and the only capable to pilot these giant robots.
- The Evangelions from
*Neon Genesis Evangelion* are only compatible with certain people, all of whom are 14 years old. Only people born after the cataclysmic Second Impact can pilot the title mechs, and the 14-year-olds are simply the oldest and, therefore, most suitable for piloting among them.
- In
*Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury*, the Aerial appears to be pilotable by anyone, even the ability to user higher permet scores without the usual effects. Episode 16 reveals that ||both of these aspects are at the discretion of Ericht, whose mind dwells within the machine. When Elan tries to steal it he can't even turn it on, before it spontaneously raises his permet score to life-threatening levels, making Ericht visible to him and letting her order him out.||
-
*Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1977)*: A giant robot (later named Red Ronin) is constructed for S.H.I.E.L.D. that ends up only being compatible with the designer's twelve-year old grandson, Robert Takiguchi, who snuck into the mech without permission, and it permanently synchronized with his specific brainwave pattern. Although when Red Ronin reappeared in other Marvel storylines after the Godzilla comic line was finished, Rob was Put on a Bus and it no longer had this limitation.
- One arc of
*Iron Man* revolves around a Humongous Mecha called the Godkiller that can only be piloted by someone with the right genetic markers. Due to the meddling of a sentient robot who is attempting to restart the thing so he can use it to protect the Earth, Iron Man was genetically engineered before birth to have those markers, so he can pilot it, and the robot attempts to force him to do so. Unfortunately, ||the baby who was genetically engineered is Tony's secret brother Arno Stark, and Tony was actually adopted, so he can't pilot the machine||.
- The Robos in
*Mech Cadet Yu* are living mecha who imprint on the first human child that they meet, and thus will only consent being piloted by that one human (though they may sometimes accept a new pilot if the original dies.) The military thus trains children as pilots before meeting a Robo, but were forced to accept the lowly janitor Stanford Yu when he accidentally met a Robo first and thus formed an unbreakable connection.
- Averted in
*Shogun Warriors*, which is only notable because the three pilots *are* emphatically the chosen ones, selected and summoned by benevolent aliens who need them to defend the Earth. Throwing them into battle against their first Kaiju with barely twenty minutes training seems a lot harsher when you later discover that the robots can be piloted by anyone (and have been sitting in storage for a century, with plenty of time to fully train some pilots in case of emergency).
-
*Wonder Woman*: The original Robot Plane and the Lansinarian Disk versions of the invisible plane can reject pilots and only allow those they chose to pilot them. Despite its AI the Robot Plane doesn't start doing this until some aliens try to take it apart for parts, which makes it so selective it at one point abducts Steve Trevor so that it can have a pilot it approves of while Diana is busy.
- The Jaegers of
*Pacific Rim* can only be operated by a pair of pilots who not only have to be compatible with the machine, but drift compatible with each other.
- In
*His Dark Materials The Amber Spyglass*, intention crafts seems to be piloteable only by beings holding daemons.
-
*BattleTech*: To pilot a BattleMech, pilots use their own sense of balance through a Neurohelmet. While most people can handle this, anyone with an inner ear problem, vertigo, easily prone to motion sickness, or any other form of balance issue cannot pilot a BattleMech. And some people who are otherwuse fine just are incompatible with the interface.
-
*Warhammer 40,000*: One Imperial raid on a Tau base saw a Guardsman commandeer a battlesuit to use it against the aliens. The battlesuit did not recognize his DNA and electrocuted him.
- In
*Super Robot Wars* some games in the series allow the player to switch pilots to other mechas; however, only certain Real Robot mechas allow you to do that (typically from the *Mobile Suit Gundam* franchise or certain original mechas), because the Super Robot-type mechas wouldn't make sense (or even work) with different pilots.
- The titular Sentinels of
*13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim* can only be piloted by people injected by nanomachines called Innerlocitors, and only people who are "Compatibles" can be injected Innerlocitors in the first place, of which only fifteen characters, all teenagers, are. ||More specifically, it's because the "Compatibles" are the only actual flesh-and-blood people in the setting.||
- In
*Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon*, when Rex encounters the Battle Armored Dragon Assault Strike System, it recognises him as a worthy master due to him wielding the Kill-Star, and permits him to ride it into battle during his assault on Sloan's fortress.
- This is implied to be the case with the Divine Beasts in
*The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.* They're four gigantic animal-shaped mechas that were built in ancient times as a defense against Ganon, with representatives of each major race—Zora, Goron, Rito, and Gerudo—known as "Champions" chosen to pilot them. When the Divine Beasts are unearthed again, it's remarked that certain members of those races felt an inexplicable pull toward them: for example, Mipha, the Zora Princess and a mild-mannered White Mage, became vibrantly animated and even fiery as soon as she saw Vah Ruta, the Divine Beast of her people. It's downplayed in that the chosen Champions needed to be taught to *use* the Beasts, but their general connection to them leans toward this trope.
-
*Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love*: The STAR armours are built to synchronize with specific pilots, who fuel the mecha with their personal spiritual energy. This becomes a major plot point in chapter 6, when Sunnyside explains that Gemini was never able to pilot her STAR due to ||the existence of her Split Personality, which causes the armour to identify her as a completely different individual||.
- In
*Titanfall* the titans have a neural link to their pilots, and only the linked pilot can pilot a particular titan. Interestingly, dialogue at the end of *Titanfall 2* implies that a pilot can only have a link to one titan at a time.
- In
*The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel*, the Divine Knights are powerful and ancient mechs that can only be piloted by their respective chosen Awakener, in contrast with more "mundane" mechs like the Panzer Soldats that can be piloted by anyone with the right training.
-
*gen:LOCK*: In order to pilot one of the military Humongous Mechas known as Holons, a human's mind must be temporarily digitized and transferred into a cyberbrain, a process known as gen:LOCK. Unfortunately, as the technology is new and still being refined, only very specific people with compatible nervous systems can use it. In the second episode, we get a demonstration of why: one of the recruits for the program turns out to have been replaced with an enemy spy who is intending to steal a Holon, and who forces the scientist in charge of the program to upload him. As the spy isn't gen:LOCK compatible, it promptly fries his brain. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlyTheChosenMayPilot |
Opinion Override - TV Tropes
Someone says or does something that some group finds offensive. The thing is, though, the person who speaks against it isn't part of the group themselves and is getting offended
*on the group's behalf*. The people who are actually members of the group either don't mind or think that the "offensive" statement is Actually Pretty Funny.
The unoffended members of the group may be called or might actually be Category Traitors or Boomerang Bigots with Internalized Categorism. If this argument is happening on the internet, they could be accused of (or actually be) not actually being group members at all. No True Scotsman might also be applied as well, saying anyone who isn't offended isn't a "real" member of the group.
There are Unfortunate Implications for both sides of this issue. On the one hand, members of the group don't need outsiders speaking over them when they're perfectly capable of stating their own views. On the other hand, just because one sample of the group feel a certain way, that doesn't mean they speak as a consensus of the entire group.
Happens a lot in Fan Wank. Overlaps with Unwanted Assistance and For Your Own Good. Related to Category Traitor, Condescending Compassion, Windmill Crusader, and Windmill Political.
*Definitely* does occur as Truth in Television — yet note how many of the examples below still are Strawman Political. This often happens when someone in the group is a friend or a family member of the person saying the offensive thing. See also N-Word Privileges.
Might happen when Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales.
## Examples:
- A museum in Boston had an event in which people could pose in a kimono front of Claude Monet's painting
*La Japonaise* in the style of that painting. While Japanese kimono makers loved the event (many of them are desperate for more new customers in the form of overseas buyers) and most Japanese and Japanese-Americans were also fine with it, several (non-Japanese) Asian-American groups protested the event, deeming it an example of "cultural appropriation" and "Orientalism".
-
*To All the Boys I've Loved Before*: When watching *Sixteen Candles* with Lara Jean and Kitty, Peter finds it surprising that both of them, being Asian, love the film even though it features the racist stereotype character Long Duk Dong. Lara Jean and Kitty agree, but ignore him because they love watching Jake Ryan.
- Showing up in several
*Discworld* books, the Campaign for Equal Heights is an advocacy group aiming to reduce discrimination against dwarfs. The Campaign is mostly run by humans who think that the dwarfs are being exploited, looked down on, or otherwise unfairly treated. Dwarfs themselves don't care much about what the Campaign is doing; they only want to work and send more money home. Besides which, as the narration mentions, if they *were* actually offended by something the humans did, they have their own ways of expressing themselves. Typically involving battleaxes.
-
*Hand of Thrawn*: Played for Drama. The political question of what to do with the revelation of the Bothans' part in the Imperial genocide of the Caamasi is never properly posed to the Actual Pacifist Caamasi survivors themselves, who don't want the entire Bothan civilization punished for something only a few could possibly have been involved in. This is mainly because it mostly stops actually being about Caamas pretty quickly: a lot of the participants, such as the Ishori and Diamalans, are just using it as an excuse to settle old grudges.
- In the
*Harry Potter* books, Hermione tries to free the House Elves from what she considers to be slavery, though most of them like their duties. When other characters (including the House Elves themselves) try to explain this to her, she just claims that the Elves have been brainwashed to accept the mindset and refuses to entertain the idea (which is the actual truth) that they just have different values than humans. In fairness though, while they like working for humans, the elves *don't* enjoy being abused, and Hermione works to stop it later in the Ministry.
- Her actions at least shift throughout the series. In book five, she naively tries to free the House Elves in Hogwarts (which causes a number of them to purposely avoid her), but in book seven she seems to be focusing more on making sure House Elves are well-treated, and educating people about them—a far more productive course of action.
- In one of
*The Late Show (1992)* "How to Host a Dinner Party" sketches, one of the obligatory guests is the annoyingly politically-correct guy. The sketch has him complaining about how sexist *Basic Instinct* was, to which one of the female guests responds that she quite enjoyed it.
- In an episode of
*Coupling*, Sally is infuriated by Howard, a gay man who is a right-wing Tory voter and minimally PC. When Jeff gives a trademark Bucket of Ears speech about how much easier sex must be for gay men:
**Howard:**
That's a very good point, actually.
**Sally:**
No it's not! It's
*homophobic*
, you stupid queen
!
- In the
*Battlestar Galactica (2003)* episode "Bastille Day", Tom Zarek, a prisoner aboard one of the ships in the fleet, uses a Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters motif. A civilian on President Roslin's staff describes him as a freedom fighter for a colony that had been exploited by the other members, and Lee Adama is an admirer of Zarek's manifesto, but a *Galactica* crew member who actually grew up on the planet in question says Zarek is just a terrorist and doesn't speak for them.
- In
*South Park: The Fractured but Whole*, PC Principal gets into an argument with two men over one's apparent racist comment to the other:
**PC Principal:** Excuse me, but did you or did you not say that this man looked tired? **Man:** Yes, he's my friend. I said "Paulo, you look tired." **PC Principal:** MICROAGGRESSION!! *[Beats the crap out of the man]* Persons of Hispanic backgrounds have been stereotyped as being "sleepy" and saying that they look tired is a microaggression that WILL NOT STAND! **Paulo:** But I *am* tired. *[PC Principal beats him up, too]*
-
*The Elder Scrolls*: In *Daggerfall*, the historical dramatization novel series *The Real Barenziah* included a pretty graphic sex scene between Barenziah (a princess of Morrowind in hiding) and Therris, a Khajiit member of the Thieves' Guild. Come *Morrowind* and the Tribunal Temple has ordered the passage censored (the ESRB apparently got wise to Bethesda Getting Crap Past the Radar), but in the *Tribunal* expansion, both Barenziah and the books' author Plitinius Mero exist as NPCs. If asked, Barenziah comments that she enjoyed the books and is friends with Mero.
- This is Pat's entire deal in
*Achewood*. He is never happy unless he can find some kind of political incorrectness to complain about, and if he has nothing in his immediate life that's wrong he'll be offended on behalf of entire other groups. He's really an insufferable ass who uses "being offended by something that should be offensive" to make himself feel superior.
- Jim in
*Ménage à 3* is a Straw Male Feminist who is shown telling a woman who is a huge fan of the *Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball* series "What woman in her right mind would play such garbage?" after calling the series sexist and degrading to women. They give the details of their argument to Gary later.
**Tracy:**
So I tell Jim, "A woman, virtual or not, is free to be as sexy as she wants!"
**Jim:**
And I tell her, "Well, not if it panders to the Male Gaze
!"
-
*South Park*:
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*: The episode *Over A Barrel* has rough analogues for settlers and natives in the form of ponies and buffalo respectively feuding over the use of a patch of land: the ponies see it as perfectly good land for growing crops for the developing town of Appleloosa, while the buffalo have used it as a sacred ground for centuries. Both sides have genuine grievances and make good points, and in fact Little Strong Heart and Braeburn seem willing enough to try to reach a compromise. Unfortunately Rainbow Dash and Applejack shout over the two representatives, having become emotionally vested themselves.
**Rainbow Dash:** We brought our friend Little Strong Heart to explain why the settlers should move the apple trees off buffalo land. **Braeburn:** That information would be helpf- **Applejack:** That's funny, because my cousin Braeburn was about to explain to the buffalo why they should let the apple trees stay! **Little Strong Heart:** That would be a useful thing t- **Rainbow Dash:** The land is THEIRS!
- The
*Popeye* cartoon "Leave Well Enough Alone" has Popeye feeling sorry for the animals in a pet store so he buys them all and sets them free. The only animal left in the store is a parrot who says he's got a good thing with a roof over his head and three square meals a day. Just as all the animals are caught and about to be impounded, Popeye licenses them all and returns them to the pet shop. Again, the parrot admonishes "leave well enough alone." | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpinionOverride |
Open Shirt Taunt - TV Tropes
*There is my dagger,*
*And here my naked breast; within, a heart*
*Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold:*
*If that thou be'st a Roman, take it forth;*
*I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart.*
Usually seen with the character unbuttoning or removing a shirt, this trope involves a character baring a vital region of their body to provide an easy target and daring another character to stab or shoot them. In the same manner as a Shameful Strip, the removal of clothing signifies vulnerability and defenselessness.
In some cases, the character welcomes the injury, thinking it's deserved. Alternatively, they don't really believe the other will harm them, or are at least confident that the blow won't be fatal. Or they just want to Face Death with Dignity. Or it's a case of Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!.
May have some overlap with Battle Strip, in which a character disrobes for ease of movement, displaying badass credentials and possibly Fanservice; the display may be a kind of taunt directed toward an opponent before actual combat begins.
## Examples:
- One Sergio Aragonés cartoon has a man who's due to execution doing this - and revealing a tattoo of himself mooning his executors.
-
*Barracuda*: In "Scars", Raffy corners Maria and aims a pistol at her chest. She responds by ripping open the bodice of her dress to expose her breast and begging him to shoot.
-
*Batman*: The Tally Man comes seeking revenge for the injuries he suffered at the hands of Jean-Paul Valley (a.k.a. Azrael) when Azrael was wearing the Bat-suit. He confronts Dick (Nightwing) Grayson, who had taken over the mantle of Batman from Valley, who has no idea who Tally Man is or why he is gunning for him. During his Motive Rant, he rips open his shirt to show the large bat-shaped scar Valley had carved into his chest.
- In
*Creature Tech*, the last fight between Dr. Ong and Dr. Jameson ends with Ong baring his chest for Jameson to strike him. It's a Batman Gambit ||and it works. Jameson gained his powers for this fight from an alien symbiote, and Ong has figured out that the symbiote is an intelligent creature that would much rather bond with a moral host than an evil one. When Ong bares his chest, Jameson rips his heart out — and the symbiote immediately abandons Jameson (killing him in the process) to bond with Ong and save his life.||
- In
*Beowulf*, our hero — ||now a king and becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the world|| — goes the whole-hog of taking off his armor, throwing away his sword, and ripping open his tunic to bear his chest to an enemy warrior, all the time telling him to kill him. The last time he yells "Kill me!", it doesn't seem so much a taunt, as a **plea**.
- The Soviet-Ukrainian silent war film
*Arsenal* features this at the end: the White Russian soldiers have the revolutionary hero, Tymish Stoyan, dead to rights and simultaneously shoot him. However, Tymish still stands after the barrage and opens his shirt to show that he is unscathed. Turns out that he's a metaphor for the power of Marxist ideals, and as such cannot be killed.
-
*Bloodsport* has a legendary example that has Frank Dux bait Paco this way, during the climax of the semi finals of the Kumite. Begins with, "Come on! Come on!!"
- Azrael, the Big Bad of
*Dogma*, does this when he thinks Silent Bob's going to try and kill him with a golf club, because he's "a fucking demon" and has no reason to expect it to work. ||Unbeknownst to him (but suspected by Silent Bob), the golf club was blessed by Cardinal Glick, and it acts as a Holy Hand Grenade, killing him instantly.||
- In
*House of 9*, Francis pulls off his shirt while daring Father Duffy to shoot him.
- In
*Interview with the Vampire*, Louis wins a hand of poker against a very temperamental opponent, who immediately accuses Louis of cheating and aims a pistol at his chest. Caught in a self-destructive downward spiral following the death of his wife and child, Louis opens his shirt and demands that the man follow through with his threat. Instead, he lowers his weapon and allows Louis to leave.
- Sam in
*The Magnificent Seven (2016)* wears his shirt almost completely buttoned up for most of the film. When he's confronted with the villain, he opens it up ||revealing a scar from a noose - from when said villain raided his village and lynched him||.
- Rare female example in
*Nine (Musical)*. At the end of the "Take It All" number, Luisa gradually strips off to symbolise how her husband has taken everything from her. The end of the song has her ripping her bra open, which coincides with her breaking it off with him in real life.
- In the 1983 movie of
*The Pirates of Penzance*, The Pirate King (Kevin Kline) does this in the scene before the "Paradox" song.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*. After yet another double-cross Buffy turns up at Spike's crypt determined to stake him once and for all. A pissed-off Spike rips off his shirt to expose his manly body and tells her to Get It Over With, whereupon they start making out passionately. Cue Daydream Surprise Catapult Nightmare as Spike realises he's fallen in love with his Arch-Nemesis.
-
*Coronation Street* had Charlie Stubbs do this when he realised that his girlfriend Tracy Barlow was planning to murder him. He ripped shirt open while she held a kitchen knife and dared her to do it then and there. She did - but not until later.
- In
*Farscape* Commandant Grayza is all about the cleavage. In an interview with the actress, Rebecca Riggs, she notes that she didn't originally view Grayza's costume as titillating; rather, she thought it was more this trope, baring her vital organs for the enemy to see to show she's not afraid.
- In the
*Highlander* episode, "Blackmail", lawyer Robert Waverly threatened to shoot Lyman Kurlow (Waverly had videotaped Duncan beheading Kurlow's friend/fellow Immortal and had been trying to blackmail Duncan into killing his wife. When Kurlow turned up, Waverly proposed a "Strangers on a Train" murder swap, which Duncan advised him against). Kurlow, being Immortal, just opened his jacket and smiled at him.
- In the
*How I Met Your Mother* episode "Bagpipes", during Robin and Barney's fight over dirty dishes, Barney hands Robin a (butter) knife and then rips his shirt open.
- In
*The Kill Point*, at one point during negotiations, Mr. Wolf strips his shirt off in front of the bank to show that he's not afraid of getting shot. It also shows off his extensive war scars to the public, as he's cleverly using his military service to rouse support for himself and the other hostage takers.
- The nationalist Boer anthem
*Afrikanerhart*, by Bok van Blerk, celebrating the heroes of The Second Boer War, has this repeating chorus, where the proud Boer indicates his chest to the hated perfidious British: note : It is both a taunt and a promise: "But if you shoot, shoot me through my Afrikaaner heart!"
Maar as jy skiet, skiet my deur
As jy skiet, skiet my deur
As jy skiet, skiet my deur my Afrikanerhart!
- Around 2011 there was Running Gag going on the WWC shows of no one selling. the chops of Orlando, Eddie or Carlito Colón. At
*Euphoria* MVP even unzipped his body suit after Orlando's first few attempts failed to phase him, to give Orlando a better shot.
- In
*Warhammer 40,000*, the gladiatorial Wych cults of the Dark Eldar tend to wear skimpy clothing into combat. This serves a triple purpose: to evoke this trope (it is explicitly stated that one purpose of wearing skimpy clothes is to dare their opponents to hit them), to provide Fanservice for the crowds, and display their unscarred bodies as testament to their combat prowess. The higher up in the rankings you go, the less clothing you typically wear.
- Shakespeare would later re-use this trope in
*Julius Caesar.* Cassius dramatically escalates an argument with Brutus by throwing open his toga, presenting a dagger, and taunting Brutus to kill him, just as he had killed Caesar.
- In the original text of
*Richard III* the stage directions explicitly say Richard "layes his brest open" [sic] - that is, he opens his shirt/jerkin for Anne to run him through with his sword, which he has given her for the express purpose after she says she wants to see him dead. (In the 1995 film adaptation of the scene, the title character does this after giving her a dagger.) Unfortunately for a lot of people (her included), she doesn't go through with it.
- In some performances of
*Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street*, Sweeney himself does this for ||Toby|| at the end ||after learning that he's killed his own wife not knowing just who she was and basically ruined himself in his quest for revenge on Turpin. It's less of a taunt and more of a way to Face Death with Dignity||.
-
*The Order of the Stick* has a serious version: after ||Durkon's trapped soul overwhelms the vampiric spirit possessing his body||, he opens his robes, dimisses his Protective Charms, and sits still so ||Belkar|| can drive a stake through his heart.
- In the Disney version of
*Ferdinand the Bull*, the matador wants Ferdinand to fight him, and opens his shirt to dare him to gore him. Then Ferdinand sees the flower tattoo on the matador's chest and licks it.
- In the
*Private Snafu* short "Fighting Tools", a German soldier opens his shirt to taunt Snafu when he sees that his rifle is leaking mud.
*Hmm, that rifle looks just a bit gooey*
*If you t'ink I am scared, you're plum screwy*
*Go on, fire away, buck, you're damn gun's full of muck*
*Und nothing comes out just just hooey*
- In
*The Ren & Stimpy Show* episode "Stimpy's Fan Club", Ren is so distraught at disappointing Stimpy that he tears open his fur and hands Stimpy a (rubber) dagger for him to stab him in the chest.
- According to some versions, Nero's mother Agripinna confronted the assassins her son sent to kill her by showing her abdomen, telling them to strike the place her son had come from.
- Napoléon Bonaparte famously did it after he escaped the island of Elba and stepped on the French soil again. A troop of king's soldiers was dispatched to stop him, but he bared his chest and shouted: "Who wants to shoot his Emperor?" The soldiers still had fond memories of Napoleon's reign, and immediately defected to his side.
- It's said Benito Mussolini did this right before he was shot to death.
- When founder of the LDS church Joseph Smith was once confronted by a would be assassin, he invoked this trope. The man immediately dropped his gun, thinking that Smith must have concealed bodyguards with weapons trained on him.
- Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa also did this during a police strike, daring the strikers to just shoot him and get it done with. This was of course all macho hyperbole, but it worked, given that as of 2016 he is still alive and in office.
- This guy◊ taunting the Red Army during the Prague Spring. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpenShirtTaunt |
Opinion Flip-Flop - TV Tropes
**Hamlet:**
Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
**Polonius:**
By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
**Hamlet:**
Methinks it is like a weasel.
**Polonius:**
It is backed like a weasel.
**Hamlet:**
Or like a whale?
**Polonius:**
Very like a whale.
—
*Hamlet*
, III.ii
note :
This scene takes place indoors.
Bob decides the way to curry favor with Alice is to agree with her, even when it means getting entangled in absurd contradiction. Sometimes Alice decides to feed Bob rope; sometimes she's just oblivious.
This is common with fictional depictions of royalty - particularly when the character doing the fawning is deviously scheming their way into power. It also shows up a lot when Bob is attracted to Alice.
Sometimes a character like this gets handed down an Anvilicious Be Yourself message. A typical dialog runs like this:
**Character A:**
Okay, I don't really like X.
**Character B:**
Why would you say that you like X if you don't?
**Character A:** *(abashed)*
I guess I just wanted you to like me.
**Character B:**
You don't have to impress me, I already like you.
**Character A:**
Really?
**Character B:**
Of course! Just Be Yourself
.
A Yes-Man is an assistant (in a business or political capacity) whose
*job* is to make a lot of Opinion Flipflops. Favouritism Flip-Flop is a subtrope where Bob openly says he hates something until Alice says she likes it. Verbal Backspace is a related trope where subsequent dialogue forces someone to change opinion on the fly, which can overlap (eg."It's hideous!", "I made it myself.", "Hideously beautiful!"). Compare Confession Deferred.
## Examples:
- In
*Digimon: The Movie*, as Willis is telling him how he created Kokomon and how he became Endigomon, Davis, beside himself with sorrow, chokes, "That's the saddest story I've ever heard!" Willis responds, "I'm the one with the problem, not you. Get over it," and Davis, immediately in high spirits without a trace of tears, says, "Okay!" This is all in the english dub.
-
*White Sheep (RWBY)*: When Ren mentions something fairly obvious to Salem, she rolls her eyes and starts chastising him for bothering to think. Then Ruby mentions that Lavender, Salem's daughter, likes Ren, and Salem changes tracks mid-sentence, praising him for his intelligence.
- Anton Chekhov has a hilarious story about a police officer going through these. Quite appropriately, it's called "A Chameleon".
-
*Chrysanthemum*: Jo, Rita, and Victoria think that Chrysanthemum being named after a flower is simply dreadful. But after Mrs. Twinkle, the music teacher everyone admires, reveals that she's named after a flower too, they decide they want flower names of their own Marigold, Carnation, and Lily of the Valley.
- Petulia from Terry Pratchett's
*A Hat Full of Sky* starts out like this. Tiffany is tempted to say that the sky is green, just to watch her trying to work her way around to agreement.
**Tiffany**: I live on the Chalk. **Petulia**: Oh, where they have all those sheep? I don't much like sheep. **Tiffany**: We're very proud of our sheep. **Petulia**: Oh, I don't mean I hate them. I expect some sheep are OK. Obviously we've got to have sheep. They're better than goats, anyway... I like sheep. Sheep are nice.
- British statesman Lord Chesterfield wrote in
*Letters to His Son* against people who are like this: "On the other hand, the cunning, crafty man thinks to gain all his ends by the 'suaviter in modo' only; HE BECOMES ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN; he seems to have no opinion of his own, and servilely adopts the present opinion of the present person; he insinuates himself only into the esteem of fools, but is soon detected, and surely despised by everybody else." (letter 133)
- Gaheris, in T.H. White's
*The Queen Of Air And Darkness*, is described as agreeing with whatever his older brothers Gawaine and Agravaine think. Since they disagree a lot, this is difficult for him.
- In
*A Song of Ice and Fire*, Sansa spends the latter part of a chapter telling her sister how much she hates riding horses. When her betrothed shows up and says he likes to ride horses, she immediately says she loves to.
-
*The Space Merchants*, by Frederik Pohl. Mitch Courtenay is asked what he thinks of a glossy magazine sponsored by a rival company as covert advertising. Courtenay goes on about how it's a cheap stunt typical of their competitors and he'd resign if they stooped so low, whereupon he's told the company is about to start their own magazine in response. As Courtenay tries to stammer out a Verbal Backspace, his boss amiably provides one for him; he was of course deriding cheap advertising, not the magazine itself.
- Inverted and played straight at once on
*Arrested Development*. Maeby is trying to go against whatever her mother wants, while George Michael is in love with Maeby and agrees with whatever she says. At first Maeby wants to save the tree that Lindsey is trying to get cut down, but then Lindsey decides to save the tree...
**George Michael**: You know, I can see why your mom likes it. It is a really nice tree... **Maeby**: We've got to get it torn down. **George Michael**: ...that must die. Stupid tree.
-
*The A-Team*:
- In "In Plane Sight", as the team drives to Portersville, Face alleges they'll get stiffed and complains about Hannibal insisting on doing charity cases all the time. After spending some time with Mrs. Hicks, whose nephew is part of the case, he immediately changes his mind. It's even noted by Hannibal.
- In "Uncle Buckle-up", Face is unenthusiastic about Hannibal going after the part of Ruff the Bear, saying he'll look silly. When Murdock says that characters like Ruff can command $25,000 for a single appearance, Face changes his mind.
- There was an episode of
*Blossom* in which Joey's girlfriend idolized him so much that she agreed with everything he said, and had no will of her own other than to please him.
-
*Doctor Who*: In "New Earth", the Doctor does a mild version of this while trying to reason with Lady Cassandra. When he's attempting to talk her out of Rose's body (and thus to her inevitable death), he insists that there's no other way and her time is over. When she instead takes her servant Chip as a host (which the Doctor can't forbid as he's a willing volunteer), the Doctor quickly relents and offers to keep Cassandra alive on a skin graft if she leaves Chip's body.
-
*The Fast Show* had a recurring sketch about three friends, two of whom disagreed about nearly everything, while the third tried to agree with *both of them at the same time*. This usually resulted in him agreeing with whoever spoke last, and then contradicting himself after the other friend replied. Eventually they'd get annoyed and start deliberately laying traps for him.
- On
*Hogan's Heroes*, this was pretty much stock-in-trade for Colonel Klink, who was always trying to agree with his superiors.
-
*House of the Dragon*: When Daemon Targaryen suggests he and Mysaria have a baby.
**Daemon:** Well, perhaps when we are wed we could make that [story about you being pregnant] true? **Mysaria:** I ensured long ago that I would never be threatened by childbirth. **Daemon:** Good. Children can be such irritating creatures.
- On
*Made in Canada*, this tactic is frequently employed by the employees of Pyramid Productions when dealing with empty-headed CEO Alan Roy. They have nothing but praise for his ideas to his face, and in several episodes, a character dismissing an idea as worthless will have an immediate change of heart when told that the idea is Alan's.
-
*Monty Python's Flying Circus* employed this trope hilariously in episode six. Twentieth-Century Vole. It gets even funnier when the CEO begins playing games with the gathering of yes-men around the table, leading to exchanges like:
**CEO**: Get out! **Fifth yes-man**: Huh? **CEO**: If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a yes-man! Get out! *[Fifth yes-man leaves very quickly, with the CEO yelling after him]* *I'll see you never work again!* [to sixth yes-man] ...What do you think? **Sixth yes-man**: What? I— **CEO**: Just because I have an idea doesn't mean it's great. It could be lousy. **Sixth yes-man**: It could? **CEO**: Yeah. What d'ya think? **Sixth yes-man**: It...it's lousy. **CEO**: There you are, you see, he spoke his mind. He said my idea was lousy. It just so happens my idea isn't lousy so get out you goddamn pinko subversive, get out! *[sixth yes-man leaves; he turns toward the fourth yes-man]* You... **Fourth yes-man**: Well, I...I think it's an excellent idea. **CEO**: Are you a yes-man? **Fourth yes-man**: No, no, no, I mean, there may be things against it... **CEO**: *ARE YOU BEIN' INDECISIVE?!* **Fourth yes-man**: Yo! Nes! Perhaps! *[rushes out]*
- This was practically Andy Bernard's job during Season 3 of
*The Office (US)*.
- In
*Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell*, Leo Hatred is consulted when Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been accused of backflipping on a policy.
**Shaun**: He changes his mind and switches policy an awful lot. **Leo**: No, he doesn't. **Shaun**: Well, it certainly looks like he does. **Leo**: Well, yes he does. **Shaun**: You just said he didn't. **Leo**: Well, circumstances change, Shaun. You have to adapt. Initially I thought denying it would work, and I'm happy to wear that criticism. But then I saw that you weren't going to just roll over, so I thought it best to concede the point. And that's what Australians want. And that's what I'm doing, and that's what Scott's doing, and that's what he's gonna continue to do. **Shaun**: Yeah, but in the leadup to an election, how are we supposed to trust any policy announcement he makes if he's gonna keep reversing it? **Leo**: Well, I don't accept that he's done that. **Shaun**: But you just did! **Leo**: That's no longer my view.
-
*Wizards of Waverly Place*: In "Beware Wolf", Justin becomes a werewolf and tries to convince himself that he enjoys it to please his wolf girlfriend Isabella.
**Justin:** What is that smell? **Alex:** It's you dude. **Isabella:** It comes with the fur. **Justin:** Oh. Well then, I like it. I *love* having fur.
- Sir Humphrey in
*Yes, Minister* frequently does this as part of his latest attempt to flatter Hacker into doing his bidding:
**Humphrey**: No man in his right mind could possibly contemplate such a proposal. **Hacker**: I'm contemplating it. **Humphrey**: Yes of course, Prime Minister, please, don't misunderstand me, it is quite right of course that you should *contemplate* all proposals that come from your government, but no sane man would ever *support* it. **Hacker**: I'm supporting it. **Humphrey**: And quite right, too.
- Not that Hacker is so above it all. In "A Diplomatic Incident" he's slanging off a former Prime Minister, only to start singing his praises on receiving news that the former PM just died of a heart attack.
- In this clip, Sir Humphrey demonstrates how leading questions can be used to have Bernard Wooley both for and against the reintroduction of national service.
- Musical example: Brad Paisley's "Me neither". A man approaches a woman in a bar, asks if she believes in love at first sight, then thoroughly agrees when she shoots him down. The theme continues throughout the song - words don't do it justice.
- On The Doors' live album, there's an exchange that runs something like this:
**Jim Morrison:** I don't know if any of you people believe in astrology... **Idiot:** I do! **JM:** I am of course a Sagittarius, the most philosophical of all the signs... **I:** I know, so am I! **JM:** Anyway, I don't believe in it; I think it's a bunch of bullshit, myself. **I:** Me too!
-
*Fraggle Rock*'s Wembley, to the point where he'll do this to multiple characters at the same time, even if his statements contradict things he said moments before.
- It's such a major part of his character that in the Fraggle lexicon, "wembling" is the term for doing this, which is where he got his name.
-
*Hamlet*:
- Polonius does this all the time, especially while attempting to humor the prince, who is pretending to be insane, with the following being a standard example. Hamlet shamelessly encourages/Trolls him.
- Done again later with the minor character Osric.
**Hamlet:** Put your bonnet to his right use: 'tis for the head. **Osric:** I thank your lordship; it is very hot. **Hamlet:** No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is northerly. **Osric:** It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed. **Hamlet:** But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion. **Osric:** Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry, as 'twere—I cannot tell how.
-
*The Pirates of Penzance* does this, to parody the way that a chorus will typically simply repeat the things said by the leads.
-
*The Taming of the Shrew*: As part of the "taming", Petruchio forces Kate to be like this with him. This can appear to be dark and disturbing... or hilarious.
-
*Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog*. Billy starts complaining about how boring laundry is; Penny talks about how much she likes it; he claims he was kidding. He proceeds in similar vein during the rest of the conversation, even going to so far as to buy her frozen yogurt but pretend it was an accident to avoid revealing that he's been stalking her.
**Billy**
: All those months, doing a stunningly boring chore.
**Penny**
: I'm a fan of laundry.
**Billy**
: ...
Psych! I love it!
**Penny**
: The smell of fabric softener... the feel of warm clothes in your hand...
**Billy**
:
*So*
good.
- In
*Dragon Ball Z Abridged* Yajirobe, on realizing his first attack didn't kill Vegeta, tries to delay the ensuing beatdown with one of these.
**Vegeta**: You... you cut through my armor! This was a gift from my FATHER! **Yajirobe**: Im sorry, I'm sure your father was a great man! **Vegeta**: I HATED my father! **Yajirobe**: Oh, well then I'm sure your father was a total prick. **Vegeta**: *How dare you talk about my father like that!*
- Cid Highwind in
*Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged* is a man with broken dreams who offers every kind of encouragement he can for others so they won't wallow in self-pity like he did. Then this happens when Cloud describes his earliest interactions with Sephiroth:
**Cloud:**
Well, becoming a 1st Class SOLDIER was a dream come true...
**Cid:**
Well alright, boy!
**Cloud:**
...and then I got to work alongside my hero...
**Cid:**
That's awesome!
**Cloud:**
...and then he destroyed my village
.
**Cid:**
F**k that guy!
-
*The Salvation War*'s first book, *Armageddon?*, gives us this bit of dialogue between George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, after one of the demonic generals surrenders and requests asylum:
**Bush**: Vladimir, this is Dubya. I have urgent news. General Abigor has just surrendered and defected. **Putin**: That filthy Vlasovite bastard. **Bush**: Sorry, Vladimir, you misunderstand, he's a baldrick, he's defecting to us. **Putin:** What I meant to say of course was that he is a heroic champion of freedom and liberty who has overcome his corrupt upbringing so that he can rally to the side of truth honor and justice. **Bush**: That's right Vladimir, he's a filthy Vlasovite bastard, but he's our filthy Vlasovite bastard.
- This blog post implies that most respondents to blogs are like this.
- There is a story about Nasreddin abruptly changing his mind about some vegetables along with the king. When the king called him on that, Nasreddin merely stated "The vegetables are not the ones paying me a salary."
- Politicians in democratic societies
*universally* do this to curry favor with the public, their base, or campaign benefactors. Popularized in Memetic Mutation by John Kerry's famous "I was for the $87 billion [defense appropriations bill] before I was against it." It's almost impossible to find a politician who hasn't done this multiple times.
- This occurred in record time in an interview on Sky News with Australian Liberal minister Linda Reynolds:
**David Speers**: Do you agree with the sentiment that flexibility in wages, and keeping wages at a relatively modest level, is a deliberate feature of our economic architecture to actually drive jobs growth?" **Reynolds**: No I don't. No, absolutely not. And for Bill Shorten to even suggest that, I think, shows a fundamental lack of understanding about economics. **Speers**: Well I'm actually quoting Mathias Cormann, the finance minister, here. Your colleague. He says that wage flexibility is "a deliberate feature of our economic architecture". **Reynolds**: He's absolutely right. But again my point is though, is for Bill Shorten, if you want wages growth, you need to have a strong economy and you need to have a growing economy. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpinionFlipFlop |
Open Secret - TV Tropes
**Suzuha:**
You're called the Future Gadget Laboratory, right?
**Okabe:**
H-how do you know!? I don't remember telling you. Don't tell me, are you an Organization spy—!?
**Suzuha:**
...It was written on your mailbox.
This trope is when a particular piece of information is officially declared to be secret... but it is widely known by everyone
*anyway*. The characters might as well not even attempt The Masquerade, because all the civilians around them know who they are and what they are up to. And that super-secret bit of gossip that no one can ever know? Hate to tell you this, but *everyone knows it already*. But at the core of the trope, is the fact that even though everyone is fully aware everyone else knows about the secret, it will still be treated as a secret; no one will ever openly admit to knowing it, and it is a common understanding that it should remain unspoken. Sometimes the occasional knowingly wink and nod will be shared, at most vague allusions or euphemisms might be used, but any and all open discussion and acknowledgment of the secret is completely out of the question. To do so will be viewed as a mild faux pas at best, and an outright cardinal sin at worst. As a result, the Naïve Newcomer or the Fish out of Water will often mistake it for an actual secret, as they don't know that most people already know. In smaller social circles, a common variant is "everyone knows, but they don't know how many other people know until they start comparing notes one day", at which point the real secret is that it isn't one.
Overt Operative is a Sub-Trope. Related to Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught, and commonly paired with Could Say It, But... Compare Everybody Knew Already, where someone genuinely believes their "secret" is actually secret right up until they tell everyone. The Transparent Closet is when the secret relates to sexuality. See also Everyone Can See It. Not to be confused with Public Secret Message, which is out in the open but not obvious in its existence.
## Example subpages:
<!—index—>
<!—/index—>
## Other examples:
- In
*Catch! Teenieping*, Romi needing to hide her true identity or the existence of the Teeniepings isn't necessary. The people in the town are caught off guard more by encountering a Teenieping at all rather than discovering that Teenieping exist.
- From
*The Emperor's New Groove*: "Yzma's got that 'secret' lab."
**Kuzco:**
Yzma's got that "secret lab".
*[he makes Air Quotes]*
I'll just snap my fingers and order her to change me back!
-
*Robin Hood (1973)* has this: it seems that everyone in Nottingham except for Prince John and his lackeys knows how to get to Robin's hideout in Sherwood Forest.
- In
*Bloodsport*, the Kumite is a secret martial arts tournament held under a particularly dangerous part of Hong Kong. A secret martial arts tournament that its participants openly talk about, and the police know full well the location of.
-
*Ghost Busters 2016*: At the end of the film, the government hires the Ghost Busters to monitor, track, study, and capture ghosts and other paranormal phenomena on the condition that they keep their activities a secret as they are a clandestine agency that deals with something that officially does not exists, and the public must not know about. Despite the fact that all of New York City saw the ghost invasion, and shows their appreciation to the Ghost Busters for stopping the ghost army.
- In
*Good Night, and Good Luck.* there is a subplot dedicated to Joseph Wersha and his wife as they try to keep their marriage secret or risk getting fired. Naturally, at the end of the movie, it is revealed that everyone in the office already knew they were married and just didn't care. But they still have to leave because of budget cuts and are asked to walk, which they agree to.
-
*James Bond*:
- Bond's status as a 00 Agent is supposed to be classified. Pretty much everyone on Earth with any sort of connection to a government, a terrorist organization, or an intelligence agency knows about him, though. Maybe because he always uses his real name and introduces himself as Bond, James Bond to absolutely everyone he talks to.
- James mocks Felix Leither over this in
*Quantum of Solace*. Evidently James, at this point a Rogue Agent of sorts, is able to find the phone number of the CIA-operated business front that Felix is working out of by asking a local cab driver.
- In
*Johnny Dangerously*, the fact that nightclub owner Johnny Kelly is secretly the titular mob boss is known to everyone in the world other than Johnny's mother and little brother. This is pointed out to Johnny by *the Pope*.
- The documentary that is aptly-named
*An Open Secret* discusses a particularly insidious problem in the movie industry — that there are a number of pedophiles, child molesters, and child rapists working in there and few protections for child actors. The scary part is that a number of these offenders are well-known individuals, hence the title of the film. Even worse is that the few people who are convicted for their crimes usually get off under fairly minor sentences.
-
*Stardust*: Captain Shakespeare is seemingly a closeted gay, but only in the privacy of his cabin on his flying ship. He puts on an act for his crew, but after Septimus's altercation with him and his crew leaves him outed and despondent, they cheer him up by mentioning that they'd figured it out long ago and - a little insensitive phraseology aside - have absolutely no problem with it and maintain their fierce loyalty and respect for him.
-
*Star Wars*: It's heavily implied (and outright stated in the Expanded Universe, such as the *Dark Lord* novel) that Padme's relationship with Anakin and her resulting pregnancy was one towards the end of the Clone Wars. They worked hard to pose as being Just Friends, but it didn't take much to notice their obvious mutual attraction, nor the fact they were frequently alone together. And while Padme wore senatorial robes in public to conceal her growing belly, smart senators quickly noticed that she wore them constantly. Because Anakin and Padme were both heroes of the ongoing war, who also enjoyed the favor of the increasingly powerful chancellor Palpatine, its possible those senators calculated that outing the couple would not be in anyones interest. Towards the end of *Revenge of the Sith*, Obi-Wan bluntly asks Padme if Anakin is the father of her child in a resigned tone that makes it clear he already knew what the answer would be, and he doesn't even blink when she confirms his suspicion with an ashamed head nod.
- In
*Creepshow*, the fact that Bedelia Grantham bashed her father Nathan's head in with a marble ashtray is well-known inside the family, and it's no wonder: her sister and the family's maid helped her get away with it by making it look like an accident. We aren't told how thoroughly the authorities looked into the matter, but since no one is in jail, probably not too thoroughly.
-
*Retail*: Cooper and Val are dating for most of the comic (and eventually marry), and most of their fellow employees are aware of it, but all of them pretend they don't in order to maintain their plausible deniability toward the *one* person who isn't aware of it-and more pertinently, the one person who can *punish* them for it-Stuart. (Cooper and Val's relationship is technically in violation of Grumbel's policy of 'no workplace romances', and if Stuart had found out, he would have *happily* fired Cooper, who he hates, over it.)
-
*Welcome to Night Vale*: Most of Night Vale's secrets are this way. Things that the general populace isn't allowed to know about are routinely read in as radio announcements or presented in Suspiciously Specific Denial fashion (Angels, the antics of the Sheriff's Secret Police, etc.). Yes, nobody actually believes the official version
OK, maybe *some* people believe *some* parts of it, but they're the exceptions. (At least one person got a panic attack because someone else dared to call the "white-robed, winged, glowing persons with trumpets" "angels" and he isn't allowed to know about those.) And the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home is frequently discussed on the radio and once ran for mayor. Very secret.
- All the proper columnists in
*Private Eye* write under pseudonyms. Sometimes this is because their work (or possibly even safety) would be genuinely hindered if people knew who they were. Other times it's just because it's traditional. This sometimes leads to oddities like the "Medicineballs" column, which is written under the pseudonym "M.D." ... except that anyone who cares is well aware that it's by Dr Phil Hammond of *Trust Me, I'm a Doctor* and *28 Minutes to Save the NHS*.
- Prior to his officially coming out,
*everybody* knew Pat Patterson was gay, but aside from the occasional incredibly veiled reference, it was something that just wasn't discussed. Fans used to joke that it was the *second* worst kept secret in Professional Wrestling, with the worst kept secret being that wrestling is scripted.
- When Jerry Lawler's son Brian Christopher wrestled in WWE as Grandmaster Sexay, Lawler didn't want it to be mentioned on air, as he thought it made him look old. So Jim Ross kept making jokes about who his father might be.
- Speaking of Brian, his parentage was arguably the worst-kept secret in wrestling history while he was working in his dad's Memphis-based promotions.
- Triple H and Stephanie McMahon were an on-screen couple until they "divorced" in early 2002. They then got married for real in 2003, which resulted in various references, like Triple H telling Vince McMahon that they're "practically family" and Leaning on the Fourth Wall with jokes about who could
*possibly* be the father of Stephanie's daughter until it was flat out stated during the buildup to WrestleMania XXV. In the process, Triple H even referred to his marriage as "the worst-kept secret in the business".
- The "fakeness" of pro wrestling was not acknowledged on air for many years, but upon the death of Owen Hart, Jim Ross admitted it usually was fake, but that Owen's injuries were real. Ross didn't get fired because he handled the situation so well otherwise.
- A similar situation (although with thankfully better end results) happened when Jerry Lawler had a massive heart attack during a
*RAW* broadcast. Michael Cole reported that he'd collapsed and been taken to hospital, and that this "was not part of the entertainment" (ie, that it was real, as opposed to everything else on the show).
- Though it helps that, predating both examples, Vince McMahon made an announcement to that effect when officially announcing the Attitude Era. He outright said that wrestling is entertainment that draws on soap operas like
*Days of Our Lives*, cartoons like *King of the Hill*, and talk shows like Jerry Springer. Many wrestling fans already knew, but the ones who never watched wrestling never heard the announcement and continue trying to call out wrestling on something that wrestling openly announced.
- And predating
*that* was Vince telling the New Jersey state athletic commission that wrestling is indeed a work, and because it was predetermined it shouldn't be regulated and taxed like boxing and other sports. The commission basically responded with "Yes, we've known that all along, we're not stupid. Motion denied."
- TNA's "secret" rehiring of Vince Russo in early 2014. It was very clear that he had
*something* to do with the show, as much of *Impact Wrestling!* at the time had his trademark booking (at one point The Beautiful People said "SWERVE!" in reference to their heel turn during a promo), but it was rumor at best since the dirtsheets had no concrete proof, nor did TNA announce anything. Then, in a truly dumb move, Vinny Ru accidentally cc'd an email filled with commentary voiceover instructions for Taz and Mike Tenay to Mike Johnson of PWInsider, outing himself. As it turns out, the reason it was a "secret" is that many of TNA's affiliates *hated* him, including The Great Muta's promotion Wrestle-1 (for his racist comments about how nobody wants to watch Mexican and Japanese wrestlers), and *Spike TV*, who specifically instructed Dixie *not* to rehire him in *any* capacity (she did it anyway and lied about it). Spike was angry enough about it that it factored into them finally pulling the plug on TNA.
- In 3rd Edition
*Dungeons & Dragons* cosmology, the enmity between Sunnis and Ogremoch (the most powerful forces of Good and Evil, respectively, on the Elemental Plane of Earth) is one of the most violent in the Inner Planes. Sunnis lives in a palace called Sandfall, which has a waterfall of sand cascading over it, which turns into a river that eventually drains into an—apparently—bottomless pit near the palace. Many of her subjects say that she someday plans to set a trap for Ogremoch and throw him into the pit, but it's unlikely. This "plan" is too well-known among the denizens of the Plane of Earth so one would be foolish to think that Ogremoch hasn't heard it.
-
*Magic: The Gathering*: What House Dimir has become in "Return To Ravnica" after the Ten Guilds have officially reformed. In the original "Ravnica" block, they really *were* a secret, with most people believing there were only nine guilds, but having their leader Szadek publicly defeated and his plans exposed kinda wrecked that. Nowadays they only *pretend* there are only nine guilds unless they're directly dealing with the Dimir for one reason or another.
-
*Monarchies of Mau* has a general variant — cats have a psychological need to have at least one secret. Since not everyone *has* a suitable genuinely hidden secret, many cats maintain their secret by everyone around politely pretending not to know.
- In the lore of
*Warhammer*, there are famously two lies in the Empire regarding the Skaven. The first lie is that the Skaven don't exist. The second lie is that anyone believes the first lie. For the record, the Skaven themselves aren't just an entire species, but possibly *the* most common form of sapient life on the planet.
- The Commedia dell'Arte character Pulcinella's inability to keep his mouth shut led to the expression "Pulcinella's secret" or a "Polichinelo's secret" referring to an open secret in many languages, including Italian,French, Spanish, Polish, Russian and Portuguese.
- In an effort to boost attendance after a dismal first year, Disney California Adventure announced on February 8, 2002, that they'd be adding their own port of Florida's popular
*The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror*. But that was merely when Disney officially confirmed the ride. Construction had already begun in September 2001, and everyone already knew what the ride was going to be because of the September 21, 2001 edition of the *Orange County Register*. note : The ride was rethemed in 2017 to *Guardians of the Galaxy Mission: BREAKOUT!*
- To purchase the land for Walt Disney World at a lower price, and avoid a burst of land speculation, Walt Disney used various dummy corporations with names like "Ayefour Corporation", "Latin-American Development and Management Corporation" and the "Reedy Creek Ranch Corporation". In May of 1965, though, rumors began circulating that Disney was building an "East Coast" version of Disneyland. However, the
*Orlando Sentinel* denied the rumors' accuracy based on an earlier interview with Walt Disney at the Kennedy Space Center, in which he claimed a $50 million investment was in the works for Disneyland, and that he had no interest in building a new park. note : Disneyland received a makeover to Tomorrowland around this time In October 1965, editor Emily Bavar from the *Sentinel* visited Disneyland during the park's tenth-anniversary celebration. In an interview with Disney, she asked him if he was behind recent land purchases in Central Florida; Bavar later described that Disney "looked like I had thrown a bucket of water in his face" before denying the story... by going over why he *wouldn't* build a park there. His reaction, combined with other research obtained during her Anaheim visit, led Bavar to author a story on October 21, 1965, where she predicted that Disney was building a second theme park in Florida. Three days later after gathering more information from various sources, the *Sentinel* published another article headlined, "We Say: 'Mystery Industry' Is Disney". Walt had originally planned to publicly reveal Disney World on November 15, 1965, but in light of the *Sentinel* story, Disney asked Florida Governor Haydon Burns to confirm the story on October 25, though kept the official reveal on November 15th.
-
*Puffin Forest*: EVERYONE in town shops at the black market. No, it does not make sense.
-
*RWBY*: An In-universe example. Blake Belladonna doesn't want people to know she's a Faunus to avoid the discrimination they receive, yet lots of people know about it. She told Team RWBY and Team JNPR, Ozpin and Sun figure it out by themselves and Oobleck's lack of surprise when overhearing her discuss it suggests he also figured it out himself, Neptune was told by Sun, and Torchwick and his mooks know since it was revealed during a fight with them. ||After the Fall of Beacon, however, Blake decides to discard the ribbon she used to cover her cat ears when she travels home to the Faunus haven of Menagerie. When she leaves and rejoins Team RWBY, she never returns to wearing the bow.||
-
*Neopets* treats the Jelly World this way. It is not linked to from any map, and staff often treats it as if it doesn't exist (even in-universe), but nearly everyone with an account knows that it can be accessed by entering the URL.
- The jokey
*SCP Foundation* story "Everyone Knows" features a number of Foundation employees discovering that the organization actually employed three-quarters of their entire home town, and then discovering that the insane secrecy and compartmentalization of the Foundation means that it hasn't kept track of how many people it has on its payroll—which turns out to number in the *billions*. After conferring with a number of other covert organizations, the Foundation concludes that, despite the existence of anomalies and the supernatural being a closely-guarded secret, *everyone on Earth* is aware of them on some level. With the sole exception of a man named Jeremiah Wuthers, who, upon being told, claims he always suspected it.
- In
*Void Domain*, the existence of magic is known to Muggles thanks to a revealing incident fifteen years prior to the start of the story. No one talks about it on either side of the Masquerade, leaving many mundane humans still skeptical.
-
*Whateley Universe*: The eponymous Superhero School, Whateley Academy, is one. While the existence of *a* school for mutants is public knowledge of a sort, or at least the subject of rumors — they even advertise products created by some of the students under the brand name "Paranormal Academy", though apparently, most people think that's just a marketing gimmick — few people know for certain if it is real, and only a handful actually know the name and location. Most major superheroes and supervillains — even those who didn't attend Whateley themselves — do know about it, as do The Syndicate (who are a major backer), the Mutant Commission Office, and most national and state/provincial governments. Many major metropolitan police departments have someone who is at least familiar enough with the school to know who to contact when a newly manifested mutant shows up, too. Lampshaded when a superteam in Cincinnati, which (unlike most others) has never had a mutant team member before, tries to find someone to help train an underage mutant who they'd come to be the guardians of. When someone finally asks, "Why not just send her to Whateley?", they are dumbfounded. They are then shocked to find that they are pretty much the only ones who had never heard of the school before.
-
*Worm*: In Interlude 15, it's fairly obvious that everyone in the Brockton Bay PRT knows instantly that ||Defiant, the new hero teaming up with Dragon to fight the Slaughterhouse Nine, is Armsmaster, a disgraced ex-member of the team who had escaped arrest||. Triumph is the only one who attempts to say anything.
- Joked about in
*Let's Play Grand Theft Auto* with regards to Jeremy's "superhero" identity of Rimmy Tim.
**Michael:** Is it, like, canon that no one knows who Rimmy Tim is, but everyone knows it's Jeremy? **Jeremy:** It's not *me!*
- Malcolm's in-universe crush on
*The Nostalgia Critic*. He asks Hyper to keep it a secret, but later on Critic teases him and Tamara is a Shipper on Deck.
-
*Oxventure*: During a *Blades in the Dark* show, Lilith remarks to Edvard that the University can sometimes find a way to procure more...esoteric ingredients for use in research. Edvard retorts that when he tried to get corpses from the "Resurrection Men", there was a lot of scandal and ethics hearings. Lilith reminds him that open secrets are still technically secrets.
- In their
*Minecraft* series, the Yogscast have openly admitted to finding out the secret plans of other server denizens, simply through watching their videos. This is partly the truth and partly an affectionate poke at people in the comments "leaking" information.
- This is the case for many Japanese Virtual Youtubers who were formerly part of an agency (such as hololive or Nijisanji) but have since "graduated" and gone independent. Due to how the Japanese side of the industry works, most of these talents lose access to their previous identities and have to come up with a new one. While the new and former identities eventually get connected, the fandom tends to downplay the connection and even helps in preserving the now open secret. This also applies the other way around to independent VTubers and other sorts of content creators who join the aforementioned agencies, as well as to those who leave one agency only to be picked up by another. Some members even continue making content under their original identity if it doesn't conflict with their agency activities. Most Vtuber fan communities ban disscussion of "past lives" or "roommates", as they're often refered, to preserve their anonymity. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpenSecret |
Open-Ended Boss Battle - TV Tropes
Let's be blunt: In most Boss Battles, there is only one "correct" outcome to the battle, and the game will not proceed until it occurs. Get slaughtered by a boss? Unless that was the point, go back to your Save Point and try again.
But sometimes the dev team thinks of everything and allows the game to proceed whether the player won or lost the battle in question.
Failure to defeat this boss may mean the player loses out on the opportunity to collect Experience Points, money, or items. In some games, the story may change depending on the outcome, or, more subtly, secretly record this outcome for future reference, having effects later on.
The Monster Arena is a popular venue for hosting open-ended battles, although the outcome of these battles rarely extends outside the bounds of the venue itself.
Note that getting a Non-Standard Game Over or an ending from getting the unexpected outcome of the fight is not this trope. Nor does avoiding the boss altogether.
Subtrope of Boss Battle. Contrast Hopeless Boss Fight, Heads I Win, Tails You Lose.
## Examples:
- In
*Breath of Fire III*, although the player loses their first fight against Balio and Sunder, when Ryu battles them later to save princess Nina from abduction, the player may win or lose that battle without penalty.
-
*Pokémon*
- In
*Pokémon Red and Blue*, the player's very first Mon battle was against their rival, and they could win or lose this fight without penalty or consequence, although the "Special Yellow edition" used this as a factor to determine which form The Rival would ultimately evolve his starting 'Mon into. Losing in your first rival battle in *Fire Red* and *Leaf Green* will have Professor Oak explain that losing in a trainer battle would normally require you to cough up your money, but he will cover your expenses this time since your rival demanded a battle when you weren't prepared for it.
- In
*Pokémon Sword and Shield*, you can lose the first two battles against Hop and still be allowed to continue the story.
- In
*Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness*, the story will continue whether you win or lose the battle with Cipher Commander Exol during the ONBS raid, though you'll miss out on catching his Shadow Mawile if you lose. He already got the data disc he came for, so the battle is more of a formality than anything.
- In
*Koudelka*, whether or not the player can defeat the game's Final Boss determines whether they earn the game's Good or Bad Ending, with the latter being considered canon. What makes this unique is that *losing* is what gives the canon ending.
- In
*Chrono Trigger* in the Kingdom of Zeal, the plot requires you to be captured. To this end, a Golem is sent to attack the party. While the standard fare would be to lose to the monster, you can actually defeat it (in fact it can be pathetically easy if you know how). Doing so results in the summoner using the "Look Behind You" trick then shooting you In the Back. All winning does is net some decent EXP.
- In
*Chrono Cross*, the third battle with ||Lynx, AKA the one that happens directly after the Serge/Lynx body swap that pits you against your former party members|| plays out like a Hopeless Boss Fight, unless you're playing on New Game Plus, at which point it becomes possible to win. However, if you do, ||Kid gets back up and stabs you anyway||, so there's really no point other than bragging rights.
- Except for the last
*Lufia* game, the mad gods known as "Sinistrals" could only be killed with a magic sword called the "Dual Blade". However, defeating one in combat prior to obtaining it would result in a rare equipment drop, and a slightly altered cut-scene afterward where the Sinistral blinks, then uses non-combat cutscene powers to defeat your characters anyway.
-
*Luminous Plume*: The first battle with ||the Black Blade|| allows the player to continue whether they lose or drop the boss's HP to 50%. In the latter case, the boss will still win in the cutscene.
-
*Xenogears* has the battle against ||Alpha Weltall||, which is nearly impossible to win unless you've gone all out preparing for it and get a little lucky. The game proceeds exactly the same either way; however, if you do win you get the Slayer Robe, which is the best on-foot armor in the game (and that only appears if you have the Trader Card equipped, which makes rare drops more frequent and is difficult to get ahold of in the first place).
-
*Tales of Symphonia* has a famous three-boss sequence at a spoilerrific important scene that goes regular boss -> this trope -> Hopeless Boss Fight. If you lose, the boss can't bring himself to finish you off ||because he's the main character's father||. If you win, he can't finish you off because, well, he lost. Either way, this is where the Hopeless Boss Fight steps in to finish the job.
-
*Golden Sun*
- In the first game, the Colosso competition can end in your victory or defeat in the tournament. Winning nets you an extra item and (if you export your save data) an extra scene and a unique item in the following game. Loss still advances the plot, but with fewer goodies.
- The battle against Agatio and Karst on top of Jupiter Lighthouse in
*The Lost Age* is also like this. After the battle is over, Alex shows up, heals the losing team, then the three of them run away, and the plot advances like normal. But if you win, you get a bunch of money and XP and a chunk of Dark Matter.
-
*Kingdom Hearts*:
-
*Kingdom Hearts*: When Sora first arrives in Traverse Town, Leon fights you in the town square. There's no penalty for losing, and it is very difficult to win (unless you're aware of a certain flaw in your opponent). If you do win, Sora will delight in his win (and major EXP gain) and then promptly pass out. The next scene will have Leon praising Sora, instead of the usual " *This* is supposed to be the Keyblade master?!". You can also get an Elixir from Yuffie afterward, who mentions it's a gift from Leon for impressing him. Other boss fights where the story continues whether you win or lose are the first battles against Darkside in the prologue, Sabor in Deep Jungle, and Cloud in Olympus Coliseum. All of these examples (Leon included) are cases of Heads I Win, Tails You Lose.
-
*Kingdom Hearts II* has a this as well (albeit Downplayed) starting with the very first fight in the game. The plot continues no matter if Roxas wins or loses to Seifer. Then during the struggle tournament, while you have to win against Hayner and Vivi to progress, the outcome against Setzer merely determines whether Roxas earns a belt for winning or a medal for losing.
- Early on in
*Secret of Evermore*, you're attacked by four Raptors. If you lose, your dog drags you to the nearby village and an NPC heals you. If you win, you get money and continue on into said village, where another NPC rewards you with an early-game armor for free.
- In
*Arc Rise Fantasia*, there are summons that go to the strongest of two parties after certain battles. You can both win and lose these battles, and change the summons that you and your rival can use.
- In
*Mother 3*, there's the Almost Mecha Lion in the Chimera Lab. Win or lose, a Clayman will finish it afterwards.
- In
*Paper Mario*, the Dojo fights are optional, and if you lose, you'll be fine with 1 HP and can rematch the person who beat you whenever. In *Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door*, the Glitz Pit works this way. In fact, every battle in Chapter 3 is one of these (though you will have to rematch if you lose, except for the grudge matches), with two exceptions. The first fight against the Armored Harriers is a Hopeless Boss Fight since the partner who can bypass their defenses hasn't yet joined the party (he'll be waiting for Mario in the dressing room after the fight ends). The chapter boss, ||Macho Grubba||, is naturally the other example: ||Grubba plans on draining Mario's energy to prevent his scheme from becoming public||.
- In
*Jay's Journey*, you have to fight Puff early on when he mistakes Jay for working with Antignarot. You miss out on a Defense booster if you lose, but that's all; either way, the misunderstanding is cleared up and Puff joins Jay's party.
- In
*Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World* the fight against ||Ratatosk|| is this. Interesting in that even though it's ||the final boss fight|| whether you win or lose absolutely nothing changes.
- In
*Disgaea: Hour of Darkness*; early on; one can get attacked by a nameless "Alternate Overlord" who turns into multiple smaller copies and attacks. If you lose; Laharl's father's minions; each about level 500 or so; come in as temporary allies and easily stomp them. If you win; either through Level Grinding or New Game Plus; the game simply continues with no commentary.
- In
*Tales of Xillia*, the first fight against ||Agria|| in Jude's story and the first fight against ||Gaius|| can be won or lost, the only difference being that you'll miss out on rewards.
- In
*Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance*, Ike's battle with the Black Knight can go several ways. If you win, which is practically a Luck-Based Mission, you recruit a powerful Dragon laguz. If you don't feel up to it, you can wait out five turns, at which point the character you would normally recruit pulls a Big Damn Heroes and finishes the fight himself ||but dies in the process||. Ike also has the option to flee from the Black Knight which results in the same outcome as waiting five turns.
-
*Final Fantasy X*: You don't *need* to win the blitzball tournament to continue the story, the only difference being whether Wakka holds the trophy afterwards or not... and perhaps a feeling of shame in the player.
-
*Faraway Story*:
- The first battle against Crowa is too high-leveled for a normally leveled party, and the story continues if the player loses. If the player wins, Necrovia will step in and defeat the party anyways.
- Remi is a Time-Limit Boss, but whether the player wins or loses, she'll continue to stand in the party's way, forcing Erena to stay behind to distract her.
- Maya's battle can be won or lost, ||since her ghost body is unstable and prevents her from finishing the party off||.
-
*Lie of Caelum*:
- The duel with Miyu will have the story continue no matter the outcome, since this is just a friendly spar.
- No matter the outcome of the boss battle against Kado and Mai, the mysterious voice will command them to stop fighting, resulting in Elysion regaining mobility and knocking them out.
-
*Radiant Arc*: The second battle with ||Derek|| doesn't have to be won to continue the story, but winning grants a powerful accessory and a slightly different cutscene.
-
*Sacred Earth - Alternative*: The Final Boss fight ||with True Konoe|| can be won or lost, but the cutscene afterwards is exactly the same, ||with True Konoe killing the replica and absorbing her. The only thing that changes is that the ending is extended to show what happens to True Konoe.||
- At one point in
*Suikoden*, the protagonist's recently-returned retainer Pahn demands that the rest of the party escape while he buys them time by stalling the approach of General Teo. The resulting Duel Boss can be won or lost to let the story continue, ||but losing results in Pahn's execution as a traitor. Teo spares him and retreats if Pahn wins.||
- Certain boss fights in the
*Trails Series* either expect the player to lose or take losses but will reward the player if they either win or do a sufficient level of damage before they immediately wipe you out. This will change the upcoming cutscene where the enemy will acknowledge your efforts and reward you with bonus points towards your overall ranking.
-
*CrossCode*: The Spheromancer duels with Apollo ||and Shizuka|| will progress the story whether you win the duels or not, which is fortunate since their encounters can be pretty difficult for players to win against, even relative to other bosses. For Apollo, this is since he's only testing your merits as a player. ||For Shizuka, she's attempting to impede your progress but is forced to let you go by an Evotar version of Satoshi.||
- The final fight against the Oracle in
*Fahrenheit* can be won or lost. In the former case, Lucas gets to fight the Cyborg later, while in the latter, you take control of Carla in an attempt to save Lucas — which you can also fail, giving you one of the three endings. The other two are received for either beating or losing to the Cyborg.
-
*Heavy Rain* is basically all about this. Just about every fight can be won or lost, which can even result in the death of main characters... and the story will just keep going. Of course, this affects the outcome of the game and who makes it to the final stage.
- The first fight with Genichiro in
*Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice* is a Hopeless Boss Fight, and the new player is expected to lose very quickly. Of course, if you're persistent enough, once you deplete Genichiro's health, one of his mooks distracts you in a cutscene, making the Wolf lose his arm as usual.
-
*Steambot Chronicles* has the duel against the leader of the Killer Elephants early in the game. Win, and the Boss will recall his forces occupying a nearby town. Lose, and he'll capture you, but release you shortly thereafter as a show of respect for you having the courage to take him on, and recall his forces occupying a nearby town.
-
*Undertale*:
- The battle against Papyrus has an interesting take. You can kill him like anyone else or spare him when you are given the chance and the plot goes on as normal. Losing to Papyrus is impossible because he will never deal a killing blow against you, even if the last hit was fatal. He stops the battle to capture you and toss you into a Cardboard Prison that you can just walk out from. Escaping means you have to fight him again, but losing to him three times will have him forego the capturing and lets you proceed anyway.
- The Final Battle against ||Asriel Dreemurr|| is impossible to lose. You can die, but your soul refuses to shatter and the fight simply resets with you fully revived.
-
*Panel de Pon* has a Final Boss Preview midway through Stage Clear mode. It's exactly as powerful as the real Final Boss, so if you lose, the boss just laughs at you and leaves.
-
*Super Metroid*: Ridley on Ceres Station. If you lose, he'll fly off with the baby Metroid. If you win, he'll drop the baby Metroid...and then immediately pick it back up again and fly off.
- During story mode, in
*Rival Schools*:
- Your team will encounter Raizo as the third battle. You're meant to lose the match, after which a designated member of your team is taken hostage while the other two are brainwashed and made to do Raizo's bidding for the next two battles. Depending on the team and their story, the effects of Raizo's mind control either wear off, or you're restored to your senses, after the second battle following the Raizo encounter.
- On the off-chance that you manage to defeat Raizo, the game skips the mind control phase of the story and cuts directly to the battle with Justice High. You still lose a member of your team, however, as the story demands this happen. They're either kidnapped by Raizo, after the battle, or they proceed to Justice High on their own to speed up the team's investigation. By the time you arrive, you learn your missing teammate was caught snooping and is now a hostage.
-
*Trapt*: If you decide to fight the final boss, you get some interesting results, depending on the outcome. If you lose, Princess Allura/Alicea will get possessed by the demon without anyone the wiser. If you win, the Princess will vanquish the demon, and go back to the castle with her faithful knight.
- In original
*Guild Wars*, the bonus objective of the Dragon's Lair mission involves killing a major character. If you lose, your character is simply resurrected and completes the mission anyway. If you win, the character's death has no effect on the story, and they still communicate with you at some later points.
- In
*Temtem*, the story continues whether you win or lose the first few battles with Max, as well as the (almost) Hopeless Boss Fight against ||General X||.
- In the
*Mega Man Zero* series, if the player loses a life out on a mission, they may be given the option to "give up", where the mission is a failure but the story continues without the mission's rewards.
- The penultimate boss in
*Axiom Verge* is open-ended, as there's nothing stopping you from simply walking past it to where the Final Boss resides. The ending doesn't change regardless, but you actually get an achievement for **not** defeating it before beating the game.
- In
*Silhouette Mirage*, in the third fight with Zohar, you can defeat him before the time limit runs out or run out of time and the game will continue regardless. Whether you win or run out of time determines if you fight him for the final time ||in his true Guardian Angel form|| or Serah as the next boss, and which final bosses you can fight and endings you can get.
- In
*Dragon Spirit: The New Legend*, the game's Warm-Up Boss determined whether the player progressed in "Easy" or "Hard" mode, with "Easy" mode giving the player a stronger dragon ||before revealing it as All Just a Dream||, and "Hard" mode featuring two additional levels and the game's True Final Boss.
- In an old arcade game called
*The Ocean Hunter*, you, at one point, encounter a shark, tougher than the rest, tearing at a scuba diver. If you manage to kill the shark before the diver dies, you get an extra life and an Optional Boss— but nothing happens if you don't manage to save him.
- In
*Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl*, after riding the subway, you come up against two gang leaders; depending on whether you beat them or lose to them, you go down a different path and eventually get a different ending. Interestingly, it is *losing* to them that will lead to the best ending you can get at that point note : if you had chosen to go in the subway, you've already locked yourself out of the best ending.
- In
*Chimera Beast*, you can either beat the final boss for one ending, or lose all your lives against it and choose not to continue for another. Due to your character ||being a Villain Protagonist from a Horde of Alien Locusts, winning gives you the *bad* ending, while losing gives you the *good* ending.||
- In
*Dragon Age: Origins*, during a certain rescue mission, the player is confronted by the powerful Ser Cauthien. If the player manages to defeat her, the mission is complete and they may return to their Quest Giver immediately. If the player is defeated, they are thrown into prison and must find a way to escape (and will fight her later).
- In every single
*Fallout* game, many bosses (And most of the major final bosses) you can avoid the battle entirely with charisma or sneaking alone. Don't feel like killing the Master in an epic boss battle? If your skills are high enough, convince him to commit suicide. Don't want to do the final test at the beginning of *Fallout 2*? Talk the guy out of it. In *Fallout 3*, you could kill the Overseer and take his keys, or blackmail him to give you the keys, or rob him blind when he's not looking, or avoid him entirely and raid his office. This counts for the trope, because in the *Fallout* series, most of the time the boss battle isn't the "Fight itself" you have to win, but just getting past the scenario in general. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpenEndedBossBattle |
Open-Minded Parent - TV Tropes
*"At least Kimmy's just lost in the timestream and not staying out late with some boy."*
When a character spends a long time trying to think up a proper explanation/excuse/lie to tell his parents, he expects them either to be floored or to completely misunderstand. When he finally does, the parents already know about it and wonder what the big deal is. Occasionally, the person almost lied about shows up at the house with his own explanation, omitting certain truths.
Sometimes the parents actually knew a lot more than they were letting on. Or they genuinely just accept it with frightening ease, telling us they're pretty cool (if weird) people. Due to their overly receptive behavior and their innate parental philosophy to let their kids be themselves without too many rules to constrict them, they are often portrayed as Good Parents. They're not necessarily Hippie Parents, although being open-minded about their kids is a possible trait
*of* Hippie Parents.
Compare Hippie Parents, Teasing Parent, Doting Parent, Milholland Relationship Moment, Reasonable Authority Figure. Contrast Fantasy-Forbidding Parent, Helicopter Parents, Love-Obstructing Parents.
## Examples:
- Heineken lager used this for an example of their "How Refreshing. How Heineken" campaign. We see a Glaswegian man and his son playing pool. The younger man is looking nervous:
**Son:** Dad, I'm gay. **Dad:** That's alright, son. That's your decision. It is the '90s, after all. Your shot.
- A Mexican commercial for Dorito's featured a father whose son brought home a boy "friend" from university, but that the father could see that they were just a bit too close to be friends, although his son seems to try to keep it hidden. The commercial is about the father asking how to prove to his son that he doesn't care, he still loves his son.
-
*Ah... and Mm... Are All She Says*:
- Seiko's mother. Despite acting a bit Tsundere, she is actually supportive of Seiko's unannounced move to Tokyo to draw...hentai. She is the reason why it takes a whole year for Tanaka to find out ||Seiko's real age||; she
*deliberately* left Tanaka's calls unanswered.
- In the last chapter, Ishino nervously shows his mom that his eromanga won a contest as a runner-up. She's completely accepting, though she mentions she won't read it when he's around for the sake of avoiding Parental Sexuality Squick.
-
*Anohana The Flower We Saw That Day*: Jintan's dad is very chill and permissive with his son's choices, letting him deal with his grief in his own way, even if that means becoming a Hikikomori.
- Hazumu in
*Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl* worries about the reaction to his accident, then finds his parents happily chatting with an alien in their kitchen.
-
*Tenchi Muyo!*:
- Tenchi's grandfather very quickly accepted a whole flock of strangers moving into his house, although this was related to
*his* secret identity, too. Rather the house belongs to Tenchi's father Nobuyuki, but then he probably likes the idea being surrounded by pretty women. And of course he's really aware of everything.
- Nobuyuki is also fairly open-minded regarding his son, too. When Nobuyuki sees Ryoko in Tenchi's room, he assumes that Tenchi snuck Ryoko in to sleep with her. Nobuyuki says that, as Tenchi's father, he should respect his son's privacy, and leaves them alone. Not that it stops him from trying to video-tape it from outside "for posterity".
-
*Marmalade Boy*:
- In the anime, Miki and Yuu spend the
*entire series* worrying about their parents' reactions to the two of them dating, only to learn that all four parents knew about it the whole time and thought it was cute.
- In the manga, things aren't
*that* easy since they really didn't know and Yuu's father Youji even gave him a slap for not asking, but it ends up fine anyway. Yuu thought he was not Youji's son but Jin's (Miki's father, long story) and he felt forced to break up with Miki, as that would make them half-siblings by blood. ||He's really Youji's son. Youji felt vexed for this and angry that Yuu wouldn't just ask them, so he gets angry for the first time in the 8-volume manga.||
- To a greater extreme, at the end of
*Magical Girl Pretty Sammy*, it's revealed that not only did her parents know Sasami was Pretty Sammy, but so did her entire school class. They just collectively decided to go along with the whole secret identity thing, because Sasami seemed to want it that way.
- In the first episode of
*Sgt. Frog*, Aki Hinata encounters Keroro the moment she gets home from work, and not only accepts him into the Hinata home but uses him as inspiration for a new manga character.
- Kagome's mom, grandpa, and brother are all very accepting of Kagome's time-traveling to fight demons in the feudal era in
*Inuyasha*. They seemingly think it's better to accept and support Kagome's unavoidable destiny - Mrs. Higurashi is Genre Savvy enough to even buy presents for the rest of the group. They also don't have a problem with Inuyasha and notice early on that she has feelings for him. When her brother asks Inuyasha for romantic advice, he was shocked to learn that they had never told each other they were in love.
- The parents of the three main protagonists of
*Kiss×sis* are ridiculously understanding about Keita's love life. They are completely fine with both pseudo-incest and student-teacher romance (which even the teacher in question finds disturbing). They also permit (and sometimes even encourage) their children's not-so-innocent games. The only time they oppose their kids' decisions is when Keita talks about marrying both his step-sisters, which they don't do because they are morally opposed to it, but because of the Japanese legal status of polygamy.
- In
*Kyo Kara Maoh!* Yuri is deeply worried about what will happen when he shows up at home with his entire boy harem, including fiance, from another magical world where he is king. Much to his surprise, his parents already knew he was going to be king, and are merely disappointed that he didn't tell him sooner. His (male) fiance then proudly announces their engagement, despite all Yuri's protests, only for his mother and fiance to plan a shopping trip to buy a wedding gown, much to Yuri's horror.
-
*Lyrical Nanoha*
- when the time came for Nanoha to explain to her family that she's a mage and how she plans to officially join the Time-Space Administration Bureau, the only one who appeared even remotely shocked upon finding out that magic and different dimensions existed was Nanoha's sister, Miyuki. This might have more to do with the ferret she's been adoring as a pet turns out to be a guy. Even before that, during the first season, Nanoha has to join the TSAB for a few days to help out in their investigation, which necessitates missing school and staying onboard the Cool Ship rather than at her house. What exactly did she tell her parents she was doing during this time? Well, no one's really sure
note : she *says* she explained the situation, but without mentioning magic... which really doesn't leave very much left to explain, but whatever she told them, it was enough for them to allow their nine-year-old girl to run around with people they've never met for a few days.
- This can be explained if one is familiar with the source material, where her father and older siblings are all ninja bodyguards who take on entire terrorist organizations by themselves. Not letting her run off on a potentially life-threatening mission would be downright hypocritical.
- This also applies to Nanoha when she becomes a parent herself as she allows her daughter Vivio to pursue any hobby she wants to have (which happens to be magical martial arts) and is fully supportive of her daughter's choice, even providing training sessions for her if she ever asks.
-
*Digimon*:
- In
*Digimon Data Squad*, Daimon Sayuri was perfectly all right with her son bringing home a small dinosaur Digimon, calling him "Agu-chan" and scolding Masaru for fussing when he took the last of the fried eggs. She comes across as kind, but rather simple-minded, until ||she reveals that she knew about DATS and Digimon all along, as that was why Masaru's Disappeared Dad Suguru... well, disappeared. She had accepted long ago that Masaru would follow in his father's footsteps, and so was utterly unsurprised||.
- Back in the original
*Digimon*, Izzy's parents take well to Tentomon once they're introduced, and his mother even jumps into linking Cupid to a Digital World prophecy despite not knowing the Digital World existed until recently. The trope is oddly Inverted when ||Izzy himself finds out his parents' long-kept secret that he's adopted, and reveals he'd suspected it already, still loves them and considers them very much his real parents.||
-
*Digimon Tamers*:
- Ruki's grandmother was not the least bit surprised about Renamon; apparently she just assumed that she had picked up a
*kitsune* fox spirit protector.
- Takato's parents are quite okay with Guilmon's presence. Mrs. Matsuda is more apprehensive, but not reaching the other extreme.
- Mrs. Ketchum has no problem with allowing her son Ash, age 10, to travel the Pokémon world - with or without any traveling companions and amass a small personal army of creatures who protect him; it's a custom that borders on Rite of Passage, after all. Plus, his friends sometimes crash at his place for arbitrary lengths of time as well; again, she's cool with this, and dotes on them almost as though they were her own children. In the second movie, she's slightly annoyed with him being right in the middle of the end of the world. But she loosens up later.
- In
*Pokémon Adventures*, Gold's mom asks where her son is, but turns around and says "Oh well, he'll be back when he wants to." before getting an answer.
- When Miyako, Kanon's mother in
*Umi Monogatari*, finds out that a mystical talking turtle and two girls from the sea claiming to be her daughter's friends are going to be staying at her house, she's perfectly fine with it.
- Shinichi's parents in
*Case Closed* don't seem to mind that he's staying as a child so he can be with his girlfriend more. Not exactly in the beginning though, where Yusaku and Yukiko played a Batman Gambit to try force Shinichi/Conan come with them to the USA, so he'd get his condition cured and then testify against the Black Organization. He had to talk with them quite a bit to convince them otherwise.
- Kyu's mother in
*Detective School Q*. When Kyu is back home one day, she tells him a "cutie" (his childhood friend Kaoru) has come to meet him and wonders if she is Kyu's girlfriend. She then leaves the home to buy groceries to leave Kyu and Kaoru alone. Later, when she sees Kyu and Kaoru holding hands (for an entirely different reason), she apologises for disturbing them. It's later hinted that ||Mrs. Renjou is actually in a similar, but more down to Earth situation as Sayuri Daimon. She married Satoru Renjou fully knowing that he was a policeman who lived constantly in danger, took it in stride even when Satoru had to almost completely disappear from her and little Kyuu's lives to protect them, and ever since his tragic death she's sensed that Kyuu will want to follow in his footsteps.|| Hence why she offered little resistance when Kyuu said he wanted to go to the DDS, and supported him and his friends as much as she could. ||She even lets Ryu live with them for a while.||
- Keima's mother Mari accepts Elsie relatively quickly in
*The World God Only Knows*. However, she's quite pissed off at her husband as Elsie states that she's an illegitimate child of his.
- The Fujiwara couple in
*Natsume's Book of Friends* are fairly reasonable when their foster son Natsume often shows up disheveled and in situations that he cannot fully explain to them. They are unaware of his spiritual abilities but are supportive and understanding regardless. One noteworthy example was Shigeru coming across a room that Natsume wrecked due to an exorcism spell to get rid of an evil spirit haunting the house. Since he had seen something like this before in the past, he knew Natsume didn't purposely destroy the room.
- Souji's mother in
*Gonna Be the Twin-Tail!!* is... special, for sure. For one, she's not only okay about this whole Tail Red gender-swapping heroine nonsense, but she's also fine with Twoearle converting the basement of the house into a secret base, never mind her complete blessing for Twoearle to jump Souji's bones. In the light novel, she admits that both she and Souji's father were stricken by a serious case of chuunibyou, which is why she was totally okay with her son being a hero by proxy, as he was living his parents' fondest dreams.
**Miharu:** Souji, your mother grew up with an aggravated case of chuunibyou. I passed my days dreaming of becoming a heroine who protected the world, and it finally didn't come true and I became a mother of one. But, listen, I passed that dream down through the umbilical cord and entrusted it to you. **Souji:** What are you doing to your kid before he's even born!!
- In
*Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!*, Mahiro finds out that his mother Yoriko is coming home early and worries about her finding out about his Pretty Freeloaders Nyarko and Cuko, partly because he's afraid she'll think he's the type of son who brings girls home when his parents are away, but mostly because they're Eldritch Abominations straight out of the Cthulhu Mythos. When Yoriko does show up, she's fully aware what they are because she's a part-time monster hunter and god-slayer (something Mahiro didn't know about) and is completely fine with them staying under her roof as long as they don't cause too much trouble or hurt her Hiro-kun. Later on she declares that she's perfectly fine with Nyarko romantically pursuing Mahiro, but encourages her to take it slow, because "high schoolers should have a high school romance."
Of course, Yoriko's initial reaction to hearing the names "Nyarlathotep" and "Cthuguha" is to pull out throwing forks and tell Mahiro to get away from them; after being convinced that they have no intention of hurting him (an impression aided by Nyarko's adorable pet shantak-bird), she softens and decides they can stay. Even THAT reaction is a sign that she's completely accepted the bizarre nature of the situation and is willing to go all Mama Bear on an Eldritch Abomination or two if that's what it takes to protect her son.
- Shino Aizawa's mother, in
*Aizawa-san Multiplies*, takes the fact that her daughter has divided into five different copies of herself with only the declaration that she's ready to make dinner for them all. She claims it's because the women in the family all develop a Puberty Superpower. In fact, she's more interested (and encouraging) that Shino finally brought her crush home.
- Mako's mother from
*Wandering Son* is the only parent depicted who takes their child coming out as transgender in stride; the others are either angry or confused. Mako expects her mom to be upset but she ends up being supportive.
-
*Pretty Cure*:
-
*Go! Princess Pretty Cure*: At the beginning of the series, Minami was prepared to follow in her family business. However, towards the end of the series, she decided she wanted to be a marine biologist. She was worried at first of her parents' reaction, but they completely understand and are supportive of her new dream.
- Similarly in
*HuGtto! Pretty Cure*, when Saaya's mother Leila catches her daughter confessing that she now wants to be a doctor instead of chasing her original dream to be an actress, she is supportive of her daughter's new goal...though doesn't hide enough sadness about her child growing up to avoid becoming the Monster of the Week.
- Shizuku's parents in
*Whisper of the Heart* are surprisingly open-minded about their daughter choosing to spend examination time writing her first novel instead of studying — especially when you consider that she *refused to tell them what she was up to.*
- Sosuke's mother in
*Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea* is awfully quick, if flabbergasted, to accept the reality of Ponyo as a transforming goldfish girl, not to mention when the nursing home she works at is covered by the sea protected by a magic bubble and she has a heart-to-heart chat with the Queen of the Sea who wants her to adopt Ponyo if she chooses to become human.
- Invoked in
*Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid*. Mr. Magatsuchi has no problem with Lucoa staying in his house and sleeping naked in his 10-year-old son's bed because it's family tradition that everyone is responsible for their own familiars.
- In
*My Monster Secret*, Asahi's parents are stunningly open-minded, accepting not only the fact that their son's girlfriend is a half-vampire, but that ||she's already pregnant with their daughter thanks to how vampiric blood-drinking works in this setting||. As for Youko's parents, her mother was a Shipper on Deck from the beginning, and while her father was a Boyfriend-Blocking Dad for a while, ||Asahi won him over with his honest and heartfelt devotion to Youko, and when he's told about the pregnancy he's perfectly calm and understanding.||
-
*Sailor Moon*: Chibiusa´s parents, Mamoru and Usagi Tsukino, are remarkably open minded about letting their daughter fight with them in some extremely dangerous battles, and deliberately allow her to go back in time more than once after her initial time travel adventure to continue with it, which is even more impressive given that Chibiusa has the mind and size of a roughly 6 or 7 year old child to begin with, and later on grows into something closer to 10 and 12 as the seasons go by. When Chibiusa stay with Kenji, Ikkuko, and Shingo, her grandparents and uncle are also rather happy to see her do largely whatever she wants to at whatever time and place with Usagi, Mamoru, and their friends who are twice as old as she is to start out.
-
*I Think Our Son Is Gay*: The series viewpoint character is Tomoko, a housewife who suspects her teenage son, Hiroki, is probably gay. Her narration makes it perfectly clear that she's fine with this, even finding Hiroki's flustered reactions to various close calls cute. The only reason she doesn't tell Hiroki she knows is she is willing to wait for him to come out to her himself. In the meantime, she offers what support she can, such as running interference when her husband, who has no clue about his son's sexuality, makes Innocently Insensitive remarks about homosexuals.
-
*One Piece* has a downplayed example with ||Kaido|| of all people. His ||daughter Yamato is a huge Fanboy of Kozuki Oden and she tells Kaido she wants to be like Oden. Yamato means that literally and Oden was a man. Her father gave her a beating for this but apart from that Kaido apparently took it relatively in stride, considering that now he refers to her as "his son"||. So the father doesn't approve of his child's decision but he still acknowledges it.
- In
*Asteroid in Love*, Shiori Manaka listens to her daughter's Ao proposal to ||stay with Mira's family rather than move||. She raises some legitimate objections, but after Ao continues to plead her case, she agrees to talk it over with Ao's father, ||and the family accepts Ao's proposal||.
-
*JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable:* Ryohei Higashikata, police officer of Morioh and the grandfather of main protagonist Josuke, unbridledly loves both his daughter and grandson, even considering the fact that his daughter had sex with a married man who's 42 years older than her, and his grandson is an illegitimate child, which is seen as a major sin in Japan.
-
*Citrus*: Yuzu worries a lot about coming out as a lesbian to her parents and even apologizes to her mother for it when she tells her. But both of them are perfectly fine with it and offer their support and comfort.
- Comedian Phil Jupitus mentions that it's easy to say you'll be a "cool, understanding" parent when your kids are young, and quite another to uphold that promise when you're told that your teenage daughter's boyfriend is going to be...'staying over'.
- Batwoman's father, Jacob Kane, immediately accepted her when she came out to him as a lesbian, right after she had informed him she had left the Army because of it. He was also rather quick to accept Kate as a vigilante when he understood how committed she was.
-
*Blue Beetle*: Bianca and Alberto Reyes, the parents of Jaime Reyes (the third Blue Beetle) are openly accepting of their son going into dangerous tasks of superheroism.
**Bianca:** Homework done? **Jamie:** Yes ma'am. **Alberto:** Go. Be careful. And, let's say, when it's a natural disaster, not school hours, you can just go. **Bianca:** But if you're going to be late, call. **Jamie:** Thanks, dad. **Bianca:** And no monster fighting unless they start it.
- Most characters in
*ElfQuest*, because the elves have Eternal Sexual Freedom. A nice example is when main character Cutter realizes that his virgin daughter Ember (aged 16-ish) is sexually frustrated, and asks his best friend Skywise to take care of it. (Skywise refuses, but mostly because he knows he's not really Ember's type.)
- In the
*Infinite* miniseries of *Jem and the Holograms (IDW)*, Emmett Benton's counterpart in the alternate universe refers to the universe's counterparts of Kimber and Stormer as his "daughters", clearly showing that he is accepting of his surviving daughter's sexuality and is willing to welcome Kimber's girlfriend into the family.
- Sort of, for Spider-Man. Aunt May is on her deathbed and reveals that she knew of and approved of Peter being Spider-Man for some time now. Then she dies. Of course, this later turns out to be a big Mind-Screw (she was... an actress?). When Aunt May does find out for real, she has a difficult time accepting this; once she does, though, she is Spider-Man's biggest fan. Having Mary-Jane to talk with helps. And of course, Peter isn't a kid anymore. Thanks to
*One More Day*, the poor woman's back in the dark. In *Ultimate Spider-Man*, Aunt May has a much harder time dealing with Peter being Spider-Man. This was more because that was dropped on her at the same time she was informed that Gwen Stacy and her brother-in-law (Pete's father) ||turned out to be clones, the latter being an aged clone of Peter who later died.||
- The character Lacuna from the Peter Milligan run on
*X-Force* comes from non-mutant parents who love that she's a mutant and support whatever decisions she makes in life. This annoys her because she only wants to disappoint them like all children do. She finally achieves her goal by ||becoming a talk show host.||
- Played with in
*Young Avengers*. Billy wanted to tell his parents that he was a superhero, but when the time comes, they reveal that they had already guessed ||that Billy was gay. They then welcome his boyfriend, there for support, to the family and offer breakfast. They don't learn about the superheroing until some time afterwards.||
-
*Calvin and Hobbes*:
- Calvin's parents turn out to be an example of this when he wrecks the car and runs away. Apparently when the kid takes a saw to the coffee table you're allowed to blow your top but when he puts himself in genuine danger, you have bigger things to worry about.
- After a visiting relative leaves some cigarettes where Calvin can find them, Mom tells him that if he's going to smoke, he should do it outside. ||She expects, rightly, that he'll hate the experience and never try it again.||
-
*Liō*: While Lio's dad has been shown to get exasperated at his son's more macabre interests, it's clear that no matter what, he loves Lio, eccentricities and all.
-
*Hard Reset (Eakin)* features Twilight dithering on whether or not to come out to her parents. She finally decides to see what would happen — after all, "Groundhog Day" Loop. She does ... and the response? They already knew and had talked about it, deciding to let her reveal it in her own time. 'We found out a few months after you moved to Ponyville. I was cleaning up in your room and I found a box under your bed. Full of... magazines.'
- In
*Ghosts of Evangelion* Shinji and Asuka do not mind their daughter's eccentricities and delinquent habits as long as Ryuko is happy.
- Played for "Even Evil Has Loved Ones" points in
*Teen Titans: Witch-Hunt*: What Jackson finds most surreal about his father being Black Manta is how a ruthless butcher of anything Atlantean is simultaneously a dad accepting enough of his son coming out as gay to help plan a rainbow-themed party.
- In the
*Hannah Montana* fic "Thirst", after Miley has spent time agonising over her self-realisation that she's in love with Lilly, when she finally gets the nerve to tell her father, Robbie Ray assures her that he recognises that Lilly is the most important thing in Miley's life, and he never wants Miley to feel as though she has to apologise for loving someone, giving Miley hope that she can weather how the rest of her family might react so long as her father's on her side.
- In
*Lincoln Gets Limber*, Lincoln discovers that he likes doing gymnastics, but he hides it from everybody, even his parents, except for his schoolmates that are also in his gymnastics class by claiming that he's actually doing dodgeball. Two weeks later, Rita finds out when she goes to pick him up from the Royal Woods sports center, which prompts Lincoln to also tell the truth to Lynn Sr. that same night. While both of them are a bit upset that Lincoln lied to them about what he was really doing, they allow him to continue gymnastics because they're glad that he found a sport that he likes doing for regular exercise. They also promise not to tell his sisters or anybody else about it until he's ready to tell them.
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*One Girl with Ten Brothers:* ||When Luke comes out as bisexual who's dating one of his male classmates to his parents, both of them are completely accepting and supportive of it. In fact, the only reason why they're initially shocked by the news is because its not Loni whos admitting hes in a same-sex relationship.||
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*Ariel & Belle* (a *The Little Mermaid (1989)* and *Beauty and the Beast* crossover): Early on, Belle confesses to her father that she isn't like other girls and wonders if there's something wrong with her; she admits that if most girls read the stories she did, they'd imagine themselves in the role of the princess, but *she* pictures herself as the hero who comes to the princess's rescue. Maurice's response is to laugh and say, "That's *it*? Just as long as you don't imagine yourself as the villain, it's fine by me!" Later, after realizing how much she cares for Ariel, Maurice isn't bothered in the slightest; the second story says early on that while they haven't discussed Ariel and Belle's relationship in detail, he loves his daughter unconditionally, and has quickly come to see Ariel almost as a second daughter.
-
*Friday Night Funkin': B3 Remixed* downplays this with Shayas parents. While they do end up being supportive of their daughter, they arent so fond of her boyfriend.
- The live-action
*Ben 10: Race Against Time* movie characterizes Ben's parents this way to a creepy degree. To the point where Ben has to insist on referring to them as "Mom" and "Dad" rather than by their first names, which is what they want Ben to do.
- Olive's parents in
*Easy A*... almost to the point of being creepy. They're also Good Parents.
-
*The Curiosity of Chance*: Chance's father is perfectly fine with the fact that his son is gay. Made surprising by the fact that his dad is in the Army and it's the 80s.
- One can't help but get this impression from Jim's dad in the
*American Pie* series - every mishap Jim gets into, he's there to give a helping hand and a word of advice (whether Jim wants it or not).
- Chris' parents in
*Rock Star*, from letting Chris stay at home well into his mid-twenties, to attending his shows and helping out, to loaning him makeup.
-
*Antonia's Line*: Antonia wins a gold medal. Not only does she agree to Danielle's plan to get pregnant without a husband, but she also takes her to the city to find a man. And goes with her daughter and said man to the hotel. And *waits outside on the lawn* while Danielle has sex twice. And asks Danielle if she had an orgasm as they leave.
- Hunter in
*Blockers* is well aware that his daughter Sam is gay, even before she realises herself, and is completely OK with it. Of the three parents who try to stop the sex pact, Hunter is the only one doing it not because of his own flaws but because he doesn't want Sam to sleep with a boy just because she thinks she has to.
- One of the big plot points in
*Make A Yuletide Gay* is Olaf hesitating to explain that Nathan, his roommate who comes into his family's Christmas party is his lover because he doesn't want to be disowned like his campus mate after coming out. When he finally does explain, though, the same thing as the trope image above happens except the parents' role is reversed. Shortly later on, Olaf's parents reveal that they have been suspicious of Olaf's sexuality for six years when he was still a sophomore in high school.
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*Adam (2019)*: Gillian's parents were very accepting of her being a lesbian, suing after she was barred from entering prom in tow with her girlfriend. She says her mom is also really into her sexuality, having watched *The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love* "about a hundred times".
-
*Crush*: Angie is extremely so, instantly accepting Paige's being a lesbian and getting a little *too* much for her taste sometimes, like offering her sex toys (because she's also very sex-positive generally).
-
*Cassanova Was A Woman*: After being told by Cassanova that she's with a woman, her mom is a bit surprised but easily accepts this, so long as they love each other.
-
*Duck Butter*: Sergio's mother Susana is wholly fine with free love, even speaking fondly of life prior to AIDS where it was more carefree and is totally fine that her daughter is seeing Nima, another woman. Nima is uncomfortable at just *how* open-minded Susana is in fact.
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*Juno*: Juno's father and stepmother are incredibly supportive when Juno reveals she's pregnant. While they're shocked, and Juno's dad grumbles about punching her boyfriend in the dick next time he sees him, they get over it remarkably quickly and immediately focus on figuring out what to do. When Juno reveals her intent to give the baby up for adoption, they get to work in helping her prepare, meeting the prospective adoptive parents with her and helping her set up a doctor's appointment. They're obviously not *happy* with the situation, but never shame or scold Juno for it, and fully respect her choices and independence.
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*Entre Nous (2021)*: Elodie's stepfather Roity is wholly accepting of her being a lesbian. He even encourages her to have a child with her fiancée Laetitia. She's very grateful for him, as many LGBT+ people (including Laetitia) don't have a straight relative like this supporting them in their lives.
-
*Nina's Heavenly Delights*: Nina and Kary's mother Suman proves herself to be one. Kary married a white woman and has kept it secret. Nina has been in the closet about being a lesbian (she had fallen for Lisa, who's also white). Suman is just happy that her children have found love after she learns about this, despite them fearing that she'd react badly.
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*Arrow*:
- Quentin Lance's reaction to finding out that one of his daughters is a ||trained assassin|| is worry and concern for her safety. Then he finds out the same daughter is bisexual and his only thought is that he's glad she managed to find some measure of happiness in five years of pain and death.
- In a similar example to the Spider-Man example above, Oliver's mother Moira reveals that she's both well aware that he is the Arrow, and is incredibly proud of him for it. What makes this especially open-minded is that Oliver, in his 'Hood' persona, had previously held Moira at bow-point for her links to The List.
- In a final season episode, William ||along with his half-sister Mia|| gets brought back to meet his father as Oliver is working towards the Crisis crossover. He takes Oliver aside and comes out to him, nervous that his dad will be upset. Oliver indicates to him that both he and his wife Felicity had suspected before William left to live with his mother's parents.
- The recurring character Doug in MTV's sketch comedy
*The State* has a father who is a producer for a record company, and who is impossibly cool — to the point where Doug's friends prefer to hang out with him than with Doug.
**Dad:** Doug, are these your cigarettes? **Doug:** Yeah, and what if they are? You gonna send me out to Grandma's house so that she can teach me pinochle and make me bland? **Dad:** No. Can I bum one?
- Richard Castle is one of these towards his daughter Alexis. Amusingly, Alexis is in any case actually far more mature and grounded than her father ever was, and perhaps even
*over*-responsible (on more than one occasion, he actually tries to push her into doing something crazy and irresponsible, believing she's spending the best years of her life wound a little too tight).
**Castle:** When I was your age I... wait. I can't tell that story. It's wildly inappropriate. Which, oddly enough, is my point. Don't you want wildly inappropriate stories that you can't tell your children?
- On
*Gossip Girl* Lily is this with Chuck. She's a lot less open-minded when it comes to Eric and Serena though.
-
*Smallville*'s Johnathon and Martha Kent sometimes lean to the overprotective side, but mostly they are perfectly fine with their son racing around saving lives and fighting mutants. They also tend to be the ones who help him get a handle on his new powers.
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*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*:
- Joyce Summers tries her absolute hardest to be one after finding out Buffy is The Slayer. She gets there in the end, but it takes her a full season! She attempts to tag along on Buffy's patrols and even brings snacks!
- Furthermore, Giles' role as Team Dad repeatedly has him being the best father any of the cast has ever had, from being fiercely, murderously protective of Buffy to going out of his way to make people happy, even intentionally trying to sacrifice himself to stop Dark Willow, rather than finding a way to kill her. In the comic continuation, he becomes a total Papa Wolf for Faith, too.
- Kurt from
*Glee* spends the beginning of season one working up the nerve to tell his single father Burt he's gay. It turns out Burt had known for years ("When you were three you wanted a pair of sensible heels for your birthday"). Since then, the two have had a heartwarmingly close relationship, with Burt being fiercely protective of Kurt's right to be Camp Gay.
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*How I Met Your Mother* has Marshall and Lily during the season 7 finale, talking to their newborn son.
**Marshall:** You're gonna love the park buddy, it's a great place to meet chicks... or dudes... or both! **Lily:** Oh, we're gonna love you no matter what.
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*The Catherine Tate Show* has a recurring sketch where a young man is afraid of telling his parents and grandmother about his homosexuality, who end up being very open-minded to the point that it becomes very embarrassing, such as when he gets a chocolate candy in the shape of a penis and money to rent a prostitute as Christmas gifts.
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*Stargate SG-1*: In an episode of season 9, Cameron has to attend his high-school reunion, and Vala tags along. When they arrive at Cameron's parent's place, they find his mother has made up only one bed, saying she has no problem with them sharing it.
**Cam's Mom:** I'm a child of the '60s, Cam. I could tell you some stories.
- In
*Little Britain* Daffyd Thomas finally tells his parents that he's gay. Not only are they not surprised, but they also approve and want to hook him up.
- Johnny and Moira Rose from
*Schitt's Creek* range from neglectful to overly supportive when it comes to their adult children. Johnny does seem a little uncomfortable when it comes to Alexis's past teenage adventures, but he is non-judgemental in the present. He also tells his pansexual son that he supports all his sexual encounters regardless of gender. Moira gives her daughter advice on seducing men, and she's downright impressed when a hot, towel-clad man comes out of her son's bathroom.
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*Gentleman Jack*: Despite the series taking place in the Regency Era, Anne's aunt and father are both fine with the fact that she's a lesbian. When Anne discusses the idea of having her lover Miss Walker come live at their estate as her "companion," her aunt says she'd be glad to see Anne happily settled down with somebody — her only concern is that Miss Walker is younger and extremely sheltered.
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*Party of Five*:
- Ella's mother Margaux offers to let Ella and Beto sleep in the master bed together.
- ||Gloria|| promises to ||Lucia|| that she'll be one, in spite of being taught homosexuality is wrong, as she's her child no matter what.
- In season four of
*Halt and Catch Fire*, it is revealed that the Clarks' daughter Haley is gay. While Gordon seems initially upset at this discovery, it's more about his not knowing something so important about his daughter rather than any homophobia. In the final episode, Donna and Cameron agree that Haley is gay without any hesitation, and Donna calls her "amazing".
- The fourth season of
*Transparent* involves Maura Pfefferman, the titular trans parent, finding out that her father Moshe Pfefferman is still alive. After reuniting with him, Maura is surprised to learn that her father isn't upset about learning that she is trans.
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*Sense8*: Grace Caplan is completely accepting of her daughter Amanita's relationship with trans woman Nomi Marks and happily takes them into her home when they're on the run. When Nomi reveals she's developing a Psychic Link and hearing other voices Grace takes it completely in stride and offers suggestions as to why it might be happening. She serves as a Foil to Nomi's own mother who's a bigoted, close-minded Rich Bitch who stubbornly refuses to accept Nomi's transition.
- There's a quick moment in
*The George Lopez Show* episode "The Kidney Stays in the Picture" where George notices that his son Max is wearing cologne, and correctly guesses that it's because he's trying to impress a crush. It's not strictly relevant, but George ends up displaying this trait anyway in his following remark:
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*Ugly Betty*: Justin worries about coming out as gay to his Hispanic Catholic family, but all of them are supportive once they find out — too supportive, in fact. Marc has to warn them not to throw a surprise coming-out party for Justin, and instead let him come out when he's ready to.
-
*Euphoria*: It is casually shown Leslie doesn't care about Rue's being openly a lesbian at all.
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*Twenties*: Hattie's mom Esther is very accepting of her sexuality, even watching some lesbian porn so she can understand her better (Hattie finds that embarrassing and asks her to stop it, while saying it's for straight men anyway).
-
*Avocado Toast*: Molly's mother doesn't mind in the least that she's bisexual, and then drops her own bombshell that her parents have been in an open marriage for over forty years, freaking Molly out as she imagines them with other people after hearing this, running away.
-
*You Me Her*: Emma worries deeply at her conservative parents knowing she's bisexual and in a throuple with her husband and her girlfriend. However, after she's come out they both are surprisingly chill about it, saying they're deeper than she thinks.
- A variant with a guardian occurs in
*iCarly*: in "iWanna Stay With Spencer", Carly is in risk of getting taken away from her older brother Spencer by their granddad, who believes Spencer is too irresponsible and incapable of raising her. She attempts a stunt of suddenly getting Goth makeover (including hair dye and fake piercings) in the hopes that Spencer will blow up and discipline her in front of their granddad, but it backfires when he says he loves it. Their grandfather takes Spencer aside and asks him how he could possibly approve, only for him to reveal he *doesn't* — he just sees Carly going through a typical teenage rebellious phase, and that it's more important to be supportive and encouraging than to punish her.
- Saisyu Kusanagi from
*The King of Fighters*, who apparently didn't notice that Kyo went missing for at least half a year after beating Orochi, and even then didn't bother to talk to him afterwards. The *KOF: Kyo* manga and other side materials explain that Saisyu and Shizuka (his wife and Kyo's mother) have known for several years that their son was destined for BIG battles and accepted said fact since there's no way they can avoid it. They'd rather let him fight and help him out than actively oppose to something no one can really escape from.
- Gaige from
*Borderlands 2* is a Teen Genius anarchist who builds anti-bullying robots with laser claws For Science!, and her dad endorses her the whole way. When her Sitcom Arch-Nemesis stole her robot design, her dad asked her "You're gonna take that bitch down right?", and when Gaige's robot accidentally gibbed said Sitcom Arch-Nemesis, her dad helped her off-world by distracting the police with a gas tank and a golf cart. The only thing he wasn't cool with is when Gaige cut her arm off and built a robotic replacement, but even then he seemed to get over it pretty fast.
- Mae's mom in
*Night in the Woods* tries to be this, and mostly succeeds. She's understanding and patient when Mae drops out of college abruptly and asks to come home, and doesn't push her too much, though she clearly wants to know what happened. When she briefly gets the wrong idea and thinks Mae came home because she's pregnant, she doesn't freak out or get angry, and immediately starts assuring Mae that she'll do whatever he can to help her and that she understands completely. She sometimes loses her patience with Mae, and even gets in an argument with her over Mae dropping out, but afterwards, she almost immediately owns that she went too far, and assures Mae that she trusts she had a good reason.
- Lee to foster daughter Clementine in
*The Walking Dead (Telltale)*. In Clementine's dream from "Broken Toys", Lee shows support to Clem if she romanced Louis or Violet, saying she's got "a boy who thinks the world of you" or "a girl that loves her" in her life now.
- In
*Yandere Simulator*, Yan-chan's mother plays this straight. She will be completely supportive of her daughter if she finds a female partner. Her father downplays this; he initially subscribes to the Japanese cultural belief that homosexuality is bad, but will eventually come around after mulling it over for a bit and realizing ||this pairing will bring an end to the psychotic Aishi bloodline that has been abducting men and forcing them into marriage for *generations*||.
-
*Yes, Your Grace*: In some routes, two female teenagers who fall in love with each other can elope with parental blessing on both sides. This is actually the best ending possible for the half of the couple who is the most directly affected by the Player Character's actions.
- Implied in
*South Park: The Fractured but Whole* where you can make the New Kid into someone who doesn't conform to gender norms. Their parents don't seem to have any real problem with that and it's stated that the reason they treated the Kid as a boy in the previous game was to hide them from the government.
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*Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth*: ||Mr. Amano|| is surprisingly cool with the idea that his son ||faked his kidnapping, was in massive debt, and murdered Colin Devorae||. note : This is implied to be because ||Mr. Amano has done much worse in his path to becoming a Corrupt Corporate Executive||
- In
*Kanon*, Nayuki's mother Akiko approves the presence of any haremettes in her home, much to Yuuichi's initial disbelief. The 2006 anime adds some light implications that she knows about the Mundane Fantastic nature of the world and the girls and realizes that they need her support and his.
-
*Check, Please!* has Bad Bob, Jack's father. Despite the name, he is a very supportive father through his son's ||rehab and after that||, ultimately during Jack's graduation even telling him to ||"go really say goodbye" to Bittle, whom he was in love with||. He seems to be the only one to play it straight, though as Bittle's father is implied to be very conservative and Shitty and his family do not agree on most ideas.
- Mr. and Mrs. Dunkel from
*El Goonish Shive* are a perfect example. After Elliot is accidentally transformed into a girl, he breaks into a government facility looking for a cure and accidentally clones himself in the process. When he brings the resulting Opposite-Sex Clone back home, his punishment is to be allowed only one brownie after dinner (a punishment that ultimately goes unenforced), and that's only because he lied to his parents about his plans for the evening. Meanwhile, the clone goes unpunished because she wasn't created until AFTER Elliot lied and therefore can't be held accountable for his actions.
- Most of the characters in
*Homestuck* have parents/guardians that are not only fairly accepting of whatever they're up to but seem to be actively preparing them for it. This may have something to do with the Mobius Double Reacharound nature of the timeline(s) there... or, put another way, it's heavily suggested that the guardians know about SBURB and the adventure the kids will be going on, as well as the fact that it's inevitable, so they don't bother trying to stop them.
- In
*The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!,* when Bob gets chased around by a deadly-looking robot lion that Molly built on a lark, he seems more annoyed than actually angry about it, and doesn't tattle on her to Jean.
- In
*Inverloch*, Neirenn launches into a desperate spiel of how she needs to go on a quest away from home to find a couple of very dangerous mages only for her dad to immediately give her permission. As a Teen Genius there's not much she can learn at the Academy, she knows a lot of magic above her grade level, and ||he wants to know if there's any way to cure his terminally ill wife too||.
- P's parents in
*Joe vs. Elan School* gently chide P, Joe, and B for getting caught by the police with marijuana, laughing about it and explaining that they'd smoked grass as teens, too. Joe's narration points out that he didn't realize that parents could even *be* that cool, as he contrasts them with his own Knight Templar Parents who mercilessly berate him and send him to the hellish Elan School.
- Charlie's mother in
*Khaos Komix* is okay with her son dressing up in women's clothes, though she thinks they're a bit excessive.
-
*Magical Boy*: In contrast to his wife's attitude, Max's dad accepts his coming out as trans (though he admits he initially thought Max was a tomboy who preferred girls). A later strip shows him reading books about being supportive of your trans child.
-
*Mob Psycho 100*: Mob is an extremely powerful esper with emotionally volatile powers and a Superpowered Evil Side that can cause mass destruction just by standing in place. The only problem his parents have with all of this is that he keeps accidently wrecking the silverware at breakfast. ||His brother developing similar powers provokes the same mildly annoyed reaction.||
- Hasuki from
*Moon Over June* was sufficiently annoyed at her parents over her name that she got into lesbian porn for the express purpose of getting back at them. Given that her mother is the sort of person who, during a telephone conversation in the middle of a shoot, reminds her daughter to pace herself so her jaw does not get tired; it is clear that it did not work.
-
*The Order of the Stick*: Subverted with Tarquin. Sure, he absolutely LOVES the fact that his son is a hero determined to take down villains like him because it makes for a much more entertaining story (and he can exploit it to his advantage). Despite their differences, he's glad his son is doing something awesome with his life and has a hot girlfriend (to the point of hitting on his future daughter-in-law)... However, Tarquin is also a Politically Incorrect Villain who assumed that his son was The Leader of his party based soley upon the fact that he was the only white, human male on the team, qualifying Tarquin as a racist, a Fantastic Racist *and* a sexist all at once. He also once referred to genderqueer elf Vaarsuvius as an "it" and attempted to frame Ian Starshine for murder simply because he had dared speak to Tarquin as if the two of them were equals... The final nail in the coffin for Tarquin's open-minded parent-ness came when it was revealed that he is *not* okay with his son being perfectly content in his role as Plucky Comic Relief rather than the main character role that Tarquin wants to force upon him.
-
*Sabrina Online*: Sabrina first met RC's parents when they walked in on them sleeping together. RC's parents' only concern was whether or not their sex life was fulfilling.
- Ye Thuza from
*Sandra and Woo* does not have a problem with her son Cloud exploring abandoned factories for treasure, unless he forgets to pack the rope. She named her son after an RPG Adventurer Protagonist after all.
- In
*Spinnerette*, Evil Spinnerette's parents seem entirely unperturbed by her becoming a supervillain, worshipping an evil goddess, or transforming herself into a half-human, half-spider drider.
- Ace's mom in
*Too Much Information (2005)* is impossibly cool and open-minded. The fact that she doesn't have a problem with her son shacking up with a lesbian and a gay transvestite hardly even registers on this scale. This strip exemplifies it nicely — as here, Ace is frequently mortified by what his mom can get up to. (Note that there are certain things she's somewhat less open-minded about. She kicked Ace out of the house for camping the Quad in a Quake Deathmatch.)
- One, renting a room in a huge house is not the same as shacking up with people. Two, Ace's mom is far wilder than Ace is ever going to be: Ace doesn't have a last name because his unmarried mom got knocked up and didn't want to admit who the father was. And if you think that's wild, consider: risk-taker, Air Force sergeant, knows lots of languages, can't talk about what she does when she goes back into the Air Force, self-image is that of a superheroine... yep, you guessed it.
- In
*Tripping Over You*, Milo's father Dylan meets Liam for the first time smoking in front of his house, wearing Milo's shirt which gives a fairly good hint to their activities of the past night. When after a friendly question Liam admits that he's indeed Milo's boyfriend, Dylan doesn't even bat an eye and instead invites Liam to stay for breakfast.
- In
*Umlaut House* Jake spends a lot of time psyching himself up to come out to his parents, and Rick even dresses in drag (in his own, unique way) so he wouldn't have to, but it turns out they don't care that he's gay, his dad even claimed that he believed himself to be gay until he met Jake's mother. His boyfriend being a cyborg mad scientist though was a bit hard to swallow.
- Mrs. Grey in
*The Wotch* doesn't know her son spends a good chunk of his time as a girl, but is perfectly fine with his owning girl's underwear. Other parents show little reaction to their sons abruptly becoming daughters here and here.
- Several of the top-rated stories on the website Not Always Related (Spin-Off website of
*Not Always Right*) feature kids coming out of the closet to their parents, and having the parents be totally okay with it. One story, summed up nicely by the page picture, ends with the father revealing he'd bet his son's mother twenty dollars that their son was gay. Another has a daughter telling her father that she's gay and a vegetarian. The father is incredulous... that she's a vegetarian.
- Falcon and Tabby Cat, Wallflower's parents in the
*Whateley Universe*. Her father Falcon tells the whole student body that they should always try to make an original contribution to the world even if they intend to do it by becoming a supervillain. Neither is at all put off by their daughter's gender bent boyfriend. It turns out there's good reason for this, as Tabby Cat herself is a gender bent would-be supervillain.
- Bob Null from
*Beyond the Impossible*. Having his daughter become a super-genius and assembly a superhero team doesnt change their relationship much. He also reminds Noriko several times that hed be okay with her being a lesbian (despite her insisting that he doesnt need to say it since she's straight).
- Played for Laughs in
*Drawn Together*, in an episode where Xandir is working up the nerve to tell his parents he's gay. Trouble is, it's so obvious, the other characters initially mock him for being in a Transparent Closet. They then enact what it would be like if Xandir's parents hated the idea, going so far as to adopt personas of Abusive Parents, even when Xandir's not there. When Xandir finally tells his actual parents he's gay, his parents mimic the first response given by his housemates.
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*Avatar: The Last Airbender*:
- Katara and Sokka are 14 and 15 at the start of the original series. Their mother, Kya, was killed by the Fire Nation 5 years prior, and their father, Hakoda, is off at war, so it is their grandmother, Kanna, who calmly wishes the kids well when they head off on a planet-spanning quest to aid the long-missing Avatar Aang in mastering his powers and help bring down the Evil Overlord. What people forget is that the
*Avatar* world is still basically medieval: 14 and 15 year-olds are young adults, not children. Further, when their father learns of it, he congratulates them on choosing to travel with Aang instead of him. In fact, he encourages it, seeing as they've already made a huge difference to the shape of the world and should be as well protected as they would be at home considering they're hanging out with a twelve-year-old Physical God.
- According to Word of God (and later shown in a comic), Avatar Korra's parents, Tonraq and Senna, are fully supportive of their daughter's romantic relationship with Asami Sato — while they're obviously a little surprised upon first learning of it, they're very happy for the two, even going so far as to treat Asami like a second daughter. However, Korra's parents do make a point of warning her and Asami that not everyone may be as accepting of the relationship as they are. Avatar Aang is also depicted as such in this series, as he, because of his Air Nomad upbringing, has absolutely no problems with his daughter, Kya II, being lesbian.
-
*Daria*:
- Jane's mom is open-minded to a potentially unhealthy degree. Examples of this behaviour include letting her youngest son live in a tent in the back yard for over a month, never punishing her children for ANY infraction
note : although it should be noted that this is actually Truth in Television, as a minority of parents have raised their children without punishments and have instead opted to use gentle guidance and reasoning and "natural consequences", which ironically but logically work better than punishments, and remaining in her kiln room for weeks on end. However, repeated exposure to all her children and husband at once does fray on her nerves a bit.
- Daria's own father Jake is a slightly saner example. When Trent's girlfriend showed up at Daria's house looking for him, Jake at first mistook her to be Quinn's date. He just shrugged and commented, "Huh. I guess I really
*don't* know my kids," clearly not bothered by the idea that his daughter may be bisexual or a lesbian.
- In
*Phineas and Ferb*, Ferb's father and all four grandparents have participated in their creations at some point or another, none of them even once questioning the massive, overdone creations they manage to put together. Their mom, on the other hand... Ferb's father is a special case. He thinks that the (step)mother gave them permission to do the things they do (which is true, only that she doesn't understand what they meant.)
-
*Kim Possible*'s parents are completely supportive of their daughter's supervillain-fighting activities and don't bat an eyelid over her flying halfway around the world to stop Dr. Drakken's latest scheme and risk life and limb in the process, so long as she's doing well on the home front. Dating boys, though, her father isn't so happy with. Despite his feelings, he's willing to accept it when Kim has a boyfriend. Kim's mom is completely supportive of her having a relationship with Ron, Kim's childhood friend and partner in crime-fighting, even encouraging their relationship. This also extends to Kim's younger twin brothers, Jim and Tim. Their parents are apparently completely okay with them blowing up the garage with their experiments (though it's somewhat justified in that Mr. Possible, their father, did just that when he was their age.)
- This occurs in
*Danny Phantom* during the times where his Secret Identity has been revealed to his folks (before the Reset Button, that is). They're always shocked at first, but they happily and unquestionably accept that their son is both a hero and half ghost, despite their prejudice towards them. In the Grand Finale, Jack goes as far as claiming Danny should be his sidekick. Sam's parents however **inverts** this as they can't imagine *anything* their daughter does is for her own good.
-
*Transformers: Animated*: Professor Isaac Sumdac doesn't seem to mind his daughter having adventures with giant alien robots. ||Then again, he knows she's half-Cybertronian herself.||
- After an incident with Scarecrow, Barbara Gordon in
*Batman: The Animated Series* decides to come clean with her father, Commissioner Gordon, about being Batgirl. Before she can tell him, however, he interrupts her and explains that while he can't approve of what she does he's still proud of her in a way that heavily suggests he knows she is Batgirl.
- The parents of Brainchild in
*The Tick* take this to an absurd degree, viewing their son's plan to crash the Moon into the Earth as "a phase he'll get over"... Hopefully within, say, the next five minutes or so.
- While Hank is certainly
*not* this on *King of the Hill*, an episode called "The Peggy Horror Picture Show" introduced a drag queen named Caroline who becomes friends with Peggy. Caroline's mother is nothing but supportive of Caroline. In fact, her second line of dialog in the show was "Don't apologize for yourself not now or ever!" Although Caroline was just apologizing for being late. At one point, Caroline has to tell her mother to stop being supportive (i.e. shut up and listen to Caroline's complaints.)
- Superman's adoptive parents, the Kents, are this in
*Justice League*. Their response when J'onn comes to visit and announces he's a Martian? "Well, we're no strangers to aliens here. Come in."
- Deconstructed with the parents of Goo from
*Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends*. We never see them, but given they let Goo pick her own name when she was a baby and don't even try to discourage her constant and problem-causing friend creation, they seem to be *too* open-minded.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*: In the opener for "The Fault in Our Cutie Marks", the Cutie Mark Crusaders are speaking with a pony couple about their daughter's new cutie mark, as they are worried her skull-and-bones mark might mean she's meant to become a pirate. Though it's quickly revealed it's meant to symbolize archaeology, the pirate outfit that the parents quickly hide away seems to indicate that they wouldn't have minded if she *had* become one.
-
*Steven Universe*:
- Greg is very open to Steven's desire to be part of the Crystal Gems, only expressing worry when he sees how dangerous things can be. This is Deconstructed in sequel-series
*Steven Universe: Future*. Greg grew up with helicopter parents, who are shown to have controlled every aspect of his life. He didn't want Steven to grow up like he did, so he gave him near-total freedom. Steven expresses his anger over Greg's parenting style, as he spent the first 10 years of his life living in a van, never went to school, and never even ||saw a doctor until he went of his own volition||. He grew up without structure in his life, which contributed to self-destructive habits, and ||a semi-official diagnosis of C-PTSD||, since he was never forbidden from going on dangerous, traumatizing adventures. After Steven's outburst, Greg starts talking about how happy he is that Steven can talk to him about these things, and how Calling the Old Man Out would have ended badly for him, which Steven immediately tunes out.
- Connie Maheswaran's mother, when we first meet her, is very controlling and strict towards her daughter. In the episode "Nightmare Hospital", after Steven and Connie protect her from two gem mutants, she promises to not only be more open to Steven and the Gems' influence on Connie, but she will be less controlling as well. On Connie's first mission, in the episode "Gem Hunt", Connie's mother has asked Steven to take pictures of Connie, showing her openness and willingness to allow Connie to aid Steven and Pearl.
- Barb Miller — mother of Sadie Miller — starts off as a mix of Stage Mom and My Beloved Smother but becomes more open to Sadie's wishes to live her own life once Sadie starts calling her out on her controlling behavior. However, we also see a more negative side to this in season 4. ||When Sadie doesn't come home one night, Barb waits until the next day to look for her, proclaiming that Sadie is old enough to decide whether she sleeps at home or not. This leads to a MAJOR Oh, Crap! when Steven tells her that Sadie was
*already headed home* when he saw her on the night of her disappearance||.
- The dad of the titular protagonist of
*Willa's Wild Life* (as well as the book on which it's based, Dan Yaccarino's *An Octopus Followed Me Home*) seems to be okay with her keeping a zoo full of exotic animals at home, yet it's not clear of how dad is able to afford the upkeep. Willa's so dog-gone sweet that dad indulges her.
- O.G. Kennelly of
*Martha Speaks* is very open to the occasional weirdness that occurs in the show, as well as his own son's CloudCuckooLander tendecies. It helps that he's a bit of a CloudCuckooLander himself. Best seen in this conversation:
**T.D:** Dad, can I buy something weird I saw on T.V? **O.G:** Merely weird or really weird? **T.D:** Really weird. **O.G:** Okay, as long as it's really weird.
- Maddie's dad in
*Amphibia* is completely accepting of the fact that his oldest daughter is training to become a witch/Curse Master, as long as she cleans up after herself afterwards.
**Maddie:** I swear, I'm going to kill them [her little sisters]! **Maddie's Dad (cheerfully):** Make sure to resurrect them when you're done!
- In the third season of
*The Owl House*, Luz officially comes out as bisexual to her mother Camila and introduces her girlfriend, ||Amity||. Camila instantly gives them both a hug, begins wearing a rainbow heart pin in support of her daughter, and background assets show that she educates herself on how to better raise LGBTQ children. On the fantastical side of things, ||she let the basilisk Vee stay with her in Season 2 when she realized how much danger Vee would be in otherwise. When Gus, Willow, Amity, and Hunter end up stranded on Earth, she opens her home and heart to them, doing her best to understand their needs, magic, and culture.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpenMindedParent |
Opponent Instruction - TV Tropes
Well, if you insist...
**Iroh:**
What are you doing?
**Criminal:**
I'm mugging you.
**Iroh:**
With that stance?
**Criminal:**
Huh? What are you talking about? Just give me your money, old man!
**Iroh:**
With a poor stance, you are unbalanced and can be easily knocked over.
*[Iroh knocks over the criminal, then lets him get up and shows him a proper stance]* **Iroh:**
With a solid stance, you are a much more serious threat. Much better!
We live in a dangerous world. People get into conflicts all the time. Sometimes these are even fights. Sometimes they're a Curb-Stomp Battle.
And then you have the opponent who gives helpful tips in the middle of the fight. This could be a particularly grating insult if the opponent has decided they pose so little a threat that they can afford to give pointers. Or it could be that they're a Stealth Mentor, trying to improve someone's technique. Or maybe they're just doing it for laughs because they're bored.
If the villain does this to mock the hero, it stands a heavy chance of coming back to bite them in the backside, with the hero potentially referring to the instruction in an Ironic Echo.
This is not, however, behavior that is limited to villains. Heroes can do it as well. Nor does the fight have to be a physical fight—it can also be verbal or even between romantic rivals.
Friendly sparring matches, especially with a mentor, don't count. It has to be a fight with actual stakes.
Can overlap with Not With the Safety On, You Won't and You Fight Like a Cow. It's also a form of Casual Danger Dialogue.
If the opponent takes the advice and manages to win, then the advisor has been Hoist by Their Own Petard.
One specific variant is Explaining Your Power to the Enemy, and can easily overlap with Saying Too Much.
Compare with Friendly Enemy and Friendly Rivalry. Contrast with Do Wrong, Right, where they aren't necessarily opponents, and it's usually a more comedic setup.
## Examples:
-
*BoBoiBoy*: The hero Papa Zola and his Arch-Enemy the Sleep Monster are both sucked out of a Fictional Video Game and into the real world. When the Sleep Monster traps everyone in his Dream World, Gopal challenges the Sleep Monster to a game of checkers in exchange for their freedom per the advice of Papa Zola from his show, but Papa Zola doesn't know how to play checkers. 5 minutes later, the Sleep Monster has told Papa Zola how to play, but it is unfortunately for naught as Papa assumes that having his own pieces eliminated first makes him the winner.
-
*Bleach*: During the fight between Ichigo and Kenpachi Zaraki, Zaraki, true to his Blood Knight nature, is thrilled when Ichigo manages to cut him, and starts instructing him to keep his spiritual pressure sharp. He even starts telling Ichigo how his powers work, interestingly enough **hoping** to give Ichigo more of an edge, because Zaraki is enjoying himself for the first time in ages, and wants to draw out the fight.
-
*The Demon Girl Next Door*: Momo Chiyoda, Magical Girl, is attacked at school by Yuko Yoshida, aka **Sha**dow **Mi**stress Yu **ko**, aka Shamiko. Shamiko's attacks are ineffectual against a girl who can stop a dump truck with one hand. Momo takes her aside and tells her she'll hurt herself if she punches with her thumbs tucked in, and advices her to pivot to put her whole weight into a punch. The overall effect is that Shamiko's punch *does* have more power to it, but she just bruises herself against Momo's hide. Momo decides to start a daily regimen of strength training for her erstwhile foe.
- In
*Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods*, and its adaptation in *Dragon Ball Super*, it was noted that Beerus was doing this to Goku during their fight, challenging him with progressively more difficult attacks and giving him hints on how to deal with them, in order to have a more challenging fight.
- Later in
*Super* during the Universe 6 tournament arc, Vegeta helps his opponent Cabba understand how to turn Super Saiyan since the technique was completely foreign to Universe 6 Saiyans and Vegeta felt a connection to Cabba. Being Vegeta, the instruction is still rather dickish (delivering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Cabba and threatening to destroy the Universe 6 Saiyans), but Cabba appreciates it nonetheless.
-
*Expecting to Fall into Ruin, I Aim to Become a Blacksmith*: While the protagonist Kururi is bathing in his estates private hot springs alone, ten Stupid Crooks enter to assassinate him. Since the assassins are actually from four separate organizations and theyre all in black, Kururi ends up helping them figure out which group they each belong to after they lose track. And then he warns them that the walkway is slippery because its made of marble before one slips on it and falls unconscious. Needless to say, Kururi survives.
-
*Hunter × Hunter*: While capturing them in relation to the death of her friend, Machi still chides Gon for unnecessary movements in a fight, and Killua for impaling her chest instead of her neck if he'd *really* wanted to kill her.
-
*Jujutsu Kaisen*: During their fight in the midst of the Sister School Goodwill Event, Todo coaches Itadori on how to synchronize his Cursed Energy with his physical blows.
-
*Naruto*: Has a few examples of this trope during the Fourth Shinobi World War arc, courtesy of several revived shinobi who really aren't fans of being forcibly turned into undead slaves and made to fight their own comrades.
- Zabuza directly tells Kakashi to take him and Haku out, as they're no longer humans, starting to put Kakashi's mind at ease with the fight.
- Chiyu explains how Hanzo's salamanders' poison works and how to combat it to the Surprise Attack division, much to Hanzo's chagrin.
- Hanzo himself did this to Mifune when they clashed in the past, explaining how his poison and antidote work and even about his Achilles' Heel and why he has to wear a mask. However, this was admittedly after defeating Mifune in combat. But it eventually gives Mifune the knowledge, and poison resistance, to fight the revived shinobi in the modern era.
- The second Mizukage tries to explain how his illusion technique works to a platoon of shinobi mooks and gets frustrated when none of them really get it. Later subverted when he fights Gaara however, where he chooses not to give any more hints so the younger Kage has to prove his worth on his own, especially since later opponents in the war won't be so helpful.
-
*One-Punch Man*: The extremely powerful villain Sea King, during his fight with the hero Puri-Puri Prisoner, taunts him about how he has barely felt any of the hero's punches and gives him advice on how "every punch must be delivered with the intent to kill". Later, during a fight with an alien monster, Puri-Puri Prisoner recalls that advice and acts on it.
- In the first season of
*Slayers*, Zelgadis attacks Shabranigdo with lava. Shabranigdo tells him that his effort wasn't bad but should be used a different way, which Shabranigdo then demonstrates by creating Lava Monsters.
-
*The Vision of Escaflowne*: Van is trying to take Escaflowne and head back to his kingdom of Fanel. But Allen stops him, pulling a Go Through Me. After Van's initial attack, Allen chastises him, saying "You don't charge aggressively enough!", echoing the same instruction Balgus had given him earlier.
-
*My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Friendship Games*: When Twilight Sparkle is having trouble with the archery section of the competition, her opponent Applejack — paragon of honesty that she is — takes the time to help the former out.
-
*The Jungle Book (1967)*: When Baloo first encounters Mowgli, the man cub is in no mood to talk and keeps pushing him away, eventually trying to fight him off. Baloo looks at the small boy trying to punch a big bear with his tiny fists and decides to teach him how to fight. The two start bonding over the lesson and become fast friends.
**Baloo:** Tsk, tsk, tsk. Pitiful. Hey, kid. You need help. And ol' Baloo's gonna learn you to fight like a bear.
-
*"Crocodile" Dundee*: Mick Dundee helpfully demonstrates the difference between a knife and a *knife* to someone trying to mug him.
-
*Die Hard*:
- A 1992 film,
*Gladiator*, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., about boxing, has the film's Big Bad, a corrupt trainer, give some helpful hints to a fighter. "Make them think you're strong when you're weak." "Make them think you're weak when you're strong." and "Top of the head; hardest part of the body." These are all given an Ironic Echo when the fighter he gave this advice to uses it to thrash him in the ring.
- In
*Happy Gilmore* during the tour championship, Shooter McGavin shows Happy how to properly putt, which had been a major weakness for him throughout the film.
**Happy:** Ooh, Happy learned how to putt! Uh-oh!
- In
*Knight and Day*, June is understandably pissed off that Roy drugged her and then dressed her in a bikini while she was knocked out, obviously without her consent, so she goes to clock him and he instinctively dodges. He apologizes and she goes after him again, and when she does, he realizes she's actually got a very decent hook and jab and starts instructing her on how to fight him. It ends up being a minor plot point after they struggle and he teaches her how to get out of a backward arm lock.
-
*Mortal Kombat: The Movie*: During their fight, Kitana (representing Outworld) gives helpful tips to Liu Kang (representing Earthrealm). This prompts Shang Tsung to stop the fight and express his disappointment towards Kitana.
- In
*Secondhand Lions*, Hub McCann takes a switchblade off of a teenage hooligan that was trying to stab him, critiques his technique, and offers pointers, then gives the knife back to the kid. He still whips him, and then his three buddies, as well.
- There is a subversion in
*Snow White & the Huntsman*. Originally, the Huntsman tracks Snow White in the enchanted forest to drag her back into the clutches of Ravenna, the Evil Queen, but the Queen's idiot brother Finn reveals that they lied to him and so the Huntsman reneges on the deal and they escape back into the forest. Snow White brandishes a dagger at him since she doesn't trust him, but she's of course an innocent princess who has no idea how to use it, so the Huntsman instructs her on how to protect herself with it.
-
*Spaceballs* has hero Lonestar trying to perform "The Vulcan Neck Pinch" on a guard. The guard gives him helpful pointers.
**Guard:** No, no, no, stupid. You've got it much too high. It's down here, where the shoulder meets the neck! **Lonestar:** Like this? *[grabs where the guard indicated]* **Guard:** Yeah! *[drops like a pile of bricks]*
-
*Star Trek Into Darkness*: The Kelvin Timeline version of Khan plays with this two different ways: first by acting as a consultant to Starfleet in upgrading its military capabilities against the Klingons, and then by revealing to Kirk Admiral Marcus' true intentions, all while playing his own game with neither Kirk, Marcus, nor the Klingons in mind.
-
*Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back*: The first duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader happens in Cloud City's carbon-freezing chamber. As the two combatants cross blades, Vader counsels Luke: "You have controlled your fear. Now, release your anger. Only your hatred can destroy me." This proves sound advice, as the next film, *Return of the Jedi* demonstrates what happens when Luke goes berserker mode on Vader. Of course, making Luke draw upon his anger and hatred is also part of Vader's plan to turn Luke to the Dark Side.
- Later Expanded Universe works indicate that encouraging opponents to use The Dark Side is a standard technique for Sith Lords. While it is indeed powerful, the anger tends to make inexperienced users sloppy and easier to defeat; however, if they can actually use it well, then they're much more worthy of a We Can Rule Together offer.
-
*Twins (1988)* has Julius Benedict (Arnold Schwarzenegger) telling the Klane Brothers, and the Assassin Webester, the rules for a Crisis Situation while fighting them. The rules, as he lays them out:
**Julius Benedict:** Rule 1.: Negotiate first, attack last.
Rule 2.: If you are going to bluff, you must be prepared to have your bluff called.
Rule 3.: Duck.
-
*Arrow*: ||Malcolm Merlyn|| is being held at gunpoint by ||Thea||, who has recently found out that ||she's his daughter||. While she's pointing the gun at him, he helpfully points out that the safety is on. Unusually for this trope, she *does* eventually shoot him... ||but he's wearing a Kevlar vest. And he's actually *pleased* that she shot him, because when his son Tommy had him at gunpoint the previous season he had been unable to pull the trigger.||
-
*Leverage* has Eliot Spencer do this from time to time.
-
*Scrubs*: When J.D. feels overshadowed by Nick, he fantasizes about strangling him, while acknowledging that Nick is so nice and helpful that in the Imagine Spot, Nick is instructing J.D. on how to choke him better.
- In
*Stargirl (2020)*, Injustice Society member Sportsmaster relishes a good fight. When sent out to kill Stargirl's stepfather, Pat Dugan, who Sportsmaster had rather taken a liking to, the villain had no qualms about actually carrying out his mission, but he gave Pat a chance to fight back and even gave him pointers on how to properly throw a punch.
-
*Star Trek: The Original Series*:
-
*Fate/stay night*: In the *Heaven's Feel* route, Shinji orders his Servant Rider to beat Shirou up while he holds Sakura hostage. While they fight, she actually whispers to Shirou about how to save Sakura, and at the first opportunity, he charges toward Shinji and punches him, effectively rescuing her.
-
*DEATH BATTLE!*: In "Omni-Man VS Homelander", Omni-Man deduces that Homelander has never been in a fight with someone his own size, and tells him that he needs to turn with a punch as it comes to reduce the impact. Homelander does so for the next hit, which likely would have done much more than just break his nose if he hadn't.
- Virtually all battles of the American Civil War had a West Pointer in command on one side or the other. Apocryphally, during one battle a non-West Pointer held a truce to ask his West-Point-graduate opponent for advice. The answer is not recorded.
- Roundly averted by Napoléon Bonaparte who once quipped "Never interrupt when your enemy while he is making a mistake." | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpponentInstruction |
Operation Game of Doom - TV Tropes
When a character has to remove something from a container
*very* carefully, or nasty things will happen. Typically speaking, simply touching the item against the side of the container is enough to set off the "nasty things", because it's either Made of Explodium or a Death Trap.
Named for the board game "Operation", which greeted every failure with an earsplitting buzz. Can overlap with Nitro Express or Wire Dilemma. Should not be confused with this.
## Examples:
- In
*Iron Man*, Pepper helps Tony replace his mini-arc reactor with an upgraded version and he warns her not to touch the sides of the casing. When she does, there's a loud "bzzzt" sound and the heart monitor behind them immediately starts displaying a page-full of red text. Tony even compares what she's doing to the game Operation by name.
- The nerve gas rockets in
*The Rock*.
- Removing the detonator from a nuclear warhead in
*The Spy Who Loved Me*. There's a similar sequence in *Octopussy*.
- It's magnetic too, just to make it even
*more difficult.*
- The bomb onboard the plane in
*Executive Decision* had a core that would explode if anyone touched the laser security grid around it.
- When Left-Ear is setting up some explosive devices for the final heist in
*The Italian Job*, Charlie urges him to work faster until Left-Ear notes that if any part of the pin he's inserting touches the outer edge of the socket, the whole thing will go up.
- Crowley using tongs and thick rubber gloves to handle his holy water in
*Good Omens*. Him being a demon, the *tiniest* drop on him can mean his doom.
- Bomb-defusing sequences in
*Dead to Rights* required the player to pull bombs out of cylinders in this way. Each bomb had a small pin which ran inside a channel on the inside of the cylinder. Touching the pin to the side of the channel had a predictable effect.
- In the
*Trauma Center* series, several of the viruses get particularly nasty if you don't remove them carefully enough, or touch something you're not supposed to while moving the parts to the surgical tray. In a more literal example, the first game has Derek actually defusing a bomb with his surgical equipment while taking care to avoid detonation. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OperationGameOfDoom |
Opponent Switch - TV Tropes
*"Hey! No fair! Where does it say they can switch?"*
Our group of heroes are fighting against the Psycho Rangers, Evil Twins, or opponents skilled or specialized against certain techniques against them, individually, fighting to, at best, a stalemate. One of the heroes realizes it's futile fighting against their equals, so all of them switch opponents, which wins them the battle. For some reason this almost never leads to Evil Twin A being defeated by Twin B but Evil Twin B defeating Twin A, as might be expected if they're actual equal to their doubles, nor the evil ones winning due to the change. There just seems to be some rule that switching opponents automatically guarantees heroic victory, even if it doesn't make sense. A common subversion of the Plot Tailored to the Party. May be justified in that the villans use techniques that are only useful against their chosen enemy, meaning they would be useless against anyone else. Another justification that makes more sense is that the heroes don't know their own weaknesses as well as they know those of their teammates, so when they switch, their teammates know the weaknesses of their teammate and thus the Evil Twin they're up against and can thus defeat them.
Compare Counterpart Combat Coordination and Midfight Weapon Exchange. A "Strangers on a Train"-Plot Murder is similar, but planned beforehand, and usually executed by villains.
## Examples
-
*Bleach*: Uryu and Chad switch opponents in their first battle in Hueco Mundo and successfully defeat them. Note that it also went in an opposite direction: *initially*, the speedy archer Uryu was fighting against a giant and The Big Guy Chad has been fighting against a fast shooting Arrancar. Then they switched *to* Mirror Match of sorts, by fighting opponents strong in the same fields as they - and completely overwhelmed them.
-
*Jujutsu Kaisen*: Mahito ends up in a uniquely disadvantageous situation fighting Yuji while his clone faces Nobara. Only the main body can use Idle Transfiguration on other people, which he can't use on Yuji because of Sukuna, while Nobara's Sympathetic Magic directly damages his soul even when she attacks his clone. Mahito's solution is to discreetly switch places so the main body can use Idle Transfiguration on Nobara.
-
*Medaka Box*: Medaka, Zenkichi, Kumagawa, and Ajimu were stalemated by their respective doubles. The answer? Have Medaka defeat Zenkichi's double, Zenkichi beat Kumagawa's, Kumagawa beat Ajimu, and have Ajimu defeat Medaka.
-
*One Piece*. This happens a few times in the Enies Lobby arc. Nami gets Kumadori's key but is unable to defeat him due to his superior strength and close- to mid-range fighting, resulting in Chopper stepping in to help. Sanji is stronger than Kalifa but is unable to hit a girl, and after his defeat, Nami saves him, winning because she can counter Kalifa's bubble powers with her Clima-tact. Usopp is not strong enough to defeat Jyabura, so Sanji steps in while telling Usopp to go save Robin, defeating Jyabura with his ability to break through his specialized tekkai. Usopp manages to snipe Spandam and the guards from a distance, something no one else could do. Only Zoro and Franky end up defeating their original opponents; Kaku was a swordsman like Zoro, but Fukurou relied on speed and hand-to-hand combat, in contrast to Franky's mix of close-quarters and ranged attacks.
- In
*Pokémon the Series: Black & White*, Ash's companions gets a rival of their own (Ash gets three, and Iris and Cilan have one apiece), in spite of not getting involved in some sort of major competition. Best Wishes would wind up having the largest number of multi-episode Tournament Arcs outside of the traditional regional competition (Club Battle, Clubsplosion, and Junior Cup) just so Ash, Iris and Cilan (as well as Dawn during the Junior Cup) can go up against their rivals. However, matchups in these tournaments where a protagonist faces a different rival (i.e. Iris' rival Georgia being Ash's second round opponent during the Club Battle) is actually commonplace.
-
*The Avengers*:
- This is a common tactic ordered by Captain America while leading them into battle.
- When the Thunderbolts are ordered by the government to rough up the New Avengers (who are looking into things they don't like), the Avengers try to do this only to find out the Thunderbolts predicted it.
-
*Fantastic Four*:
- The team used this same trick decades earlier than the above
*Peter Porker* example in one of the Silver Age Galactus stories, and in another Silver Age story involving robot doubles fighting them.
- Inverted in another early story when they were up against elemental constructs. The elementals were under strict instructions from their creator to
**avoid** going up against their opposite numbers (Reed/Water, Sue/Air, Thing/Earth, Torch/Fire) and each ends up being defeated by its counterpart.
- This is part of the premise of the Marvel Comics crossover
*Acts of Vengeance*. This, of course, lead to some very odd, but memorable match ups, with a variety of tones ranging from almost wacky comedy to deadly serious. Memorable stories included Daredevil vs. Ultron, the Punisher vs Doctor Doom, the Power Pack against Typhoid Mary, a group of Spidey's D-listers against the Fantastic Four, and Magneto (a Holocaust survivor) vs the Red Skull (a Nazi).
- Inverted in the very first
*Justice League* story featuring the Crime Syndicate of America. While the first battle saw the male heroes unintentionally switch opponents when their foes moved from their initial location before the hero arrived, resulting in Ultraman VS Flash, Owlman VS Green Lantern, Johnny Quick VS Batman and Power Ring VS Superman), in their rematch with the Justice League, the JLAers only won when each member took on their specific counterparts with a series of Overclocking Attacks.
- A variant of this happened in a Silver Age story where the Justice League were summoned to Earth Prime to deal with a superbeing by the name of Ultraa, and they had to team up to stop Earth-Prime's first supervillain, the evil Maxitron. Maxitron sought to destroy Ultraa and the League by putting them in Death Traps catered to each of their weaknesses. Unfortunately for him, he was defeated when Green Lantern disguised Superman and Ultraa as each other, resulting in the traps that should have killed them (ultrasonic pounding for Ultraa and red solar radiation for Superman) doing nothing to the latter. In the meantime, Green Lantern overpowered the Tiger-Bear sent after him (and whose yellow fur was impervious to his ring) through sheer guts and determination.
-
*Runaways* does this during the final fight of the first volume, when the kids confront their parents. Gert's dinosaur companion Old Lace is incapable of attacking any of her family, and Karolina's family's powers don't work on each other. "Ready... set... switch!"
-
*Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)*:
-
*Spider-Ham*: A backup story in *Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham* has the Fantastic Fur meet an evil set of themselves, and they predictably go after their doppelgangers as per usual. Then the Reed Richards says that they should change opponents — so the Thing fights the Invisible Girl and Reed fights the Torch — then the Thing gets an idea... rather than fighting each other, they should fight the bad guy versions of themselves.
-
*Spider-Man*: In the newspaper comic strip *The Amazing Spider-Man*, Spider-Man is battling Kingpin while Iron Fist is battling another martial arts user, Golden Claw. The villains have studied their respective heroes moves for so long it's a stalemate until Spider-Man suggests they switch and the villains are promptly defeated.
-
*Superman*:
- In
*Public Enemies*, Superman and Batman attempt this when Captain Marvel and Hawkman fight them. It doesn't work since Marvel and Hawkman expected it and each was prepared to fight either opponent anyway. Hawkman used a special gauntlet to hit Superman hard enough that even he would be knocked out, and Marvel exploited Batman's soft spot for kids by briefly reverting to Billy Batson. ||Superman and Batman beat them off-screen later.||
- In
*Reign of Doomsday*, slightly weaker clones of Doomsday were specifically designed to take out Supergirl, Superboy, Steel, and the Cyborg Superman. After getting curb-stomped the first time, they switched and defeated them.
-
*X-Men*: The team do this in *The Dark Phoenix Saga*. Colossus, Storm and Wolverine find themselves facing three of the Hellfire Club's Elite Mooks with power armors customized for their individual powers. Switching things up works nicely.
- In the original
*Young Justice* comic, they're up against fake nemeses; Robin versus Joker, Superboy versus Metallo, Impulse versus Grodd. Robin works out that they need to switch. He beats Metallo, Superboy beats Grodd, and Impulse...is so annoying that he drives *The Joker* nuts with frustration.
-
*All Things Probable Series*. In a rare villainous example, Team Probable do this against Team Possible with Rhonda fighting Kim and Grimm fighting Ron. Unfortunately for the heroes, it works.
- Comes up in the final battle of the
*Avengers of the Ring* sequel *Return of the Avengers*; ||despite Thors personal history with Malekith, he recognises that letting the iron-wearing Tony Stark battle the Dark Elf with the weakness to iron is the better choice, while he is better-suited to battling the Balrog Malekith has unleashed||.
- In
*Always a Ranger*- an AU of the confrontation with Thrax where he attacked the SPD B-Squad rather than the Operation Overdrive team- at one point the SPD Rangers travel to Phaedos to acquire a legendary sword, but as part of this they have to face five magically-created warriors, each specially configured to oppose that specific Ranger. However, once Bridge realises what makes their particular opponents dangerous (as his own relatively passive power doesn't make much difference in a combat situation), he is able to advise the others to switch opponents, such as Jack facing Sky's opponent.
-
*A Hollow in Equestria* has Ulquiorra and Rainbow Dash each facing off against manifestations generated by Nightmare Moon to combat them; the fully Hollowfied Ichigo Kurosaki for Ulquiorra, and Mare Do Well for Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash decides to immediately invokes this trope.
-
*My Little Avengers*: Pops up during the Final Battle. Except for Big Mac, who goes after Loki in order to reclaim Thor's powers, the rest of the Avengers switch which of the Dark Avengers they take on. This is due to the fact that during their previous encounter, the Dark Avengers were able to curb-stomp them.
-
*This Bites!*: This is how Vivi and Conis beat their opponents Marine Captains Sharinguru and Gorilla during the Enies Lobby fight. Gorilla is tough, strong and straightforward enough to hammer through all of Conis' arsenal, but his Consummate Professionalism makes him vulnerable to ||Vivi's newly-unlocked Sovereign's Will||. On the other hand, Sharinguru is fast and strong enough to deflect Vivi's weapons and zealous enough to ||fight off her Sovereign's Will||, but Conis' esoteric Sky Warfare weaponry is sufficient to stop him in his tracks.
-
*Time and Again*. Naruto switches with Kakashi when he realizes Kakashi's lightning jutsu are needed to beat Naruto's opponent's earth-elemental armor.
- Done in the climax of
*Hitman (1998)*, a 90s action film starring Jet Li as the protagonist while Simon Yam plays The Lancer. The final showdown begins with Li taking on main villain Eiji's lackey, the Tall Man while Yam tackles Eiji himself, but after a while the heroes are losing their edge, so Li and Yam swaps their targets, leading to Yam and the Tall Man facing each other in a Lancer vs. Dragon fight while Li continues fighting Eiji.
-
*Denji Sentai Megaranger*/ *Power Rangers in Space* does this with the Nejirangers / the original Psycho Rangers.
- Each Psycho Ranger has absorbed the fighting knowledge of his/her opposing Power Ranger, and is thus able to properly defend and retaliate. At first, the Power Rangers do the normal "switch opponents" variant, but since the rangers are Color-Coded for Your Convenience, the Psychos just find their Rangers again and switch back. Then the Power Rangers go in all dressed like the Blue Ranger. And for good measure, they get Zhane to come in dressed as a Silver Psycho Ranger. This works due to a) the Psychos not being able to work with one another naturally, and b) the Psychos not expecting a Sixth Ranger.
- After that, the three surviving Psychos memorize each Ranger's voice so that they won't fall for that trick either. Possibly the most justified case for a show not going with this trope for more than one episode.
- Not "opponents" in the traditional sense, but one episode of
*The Magicians (2016)* has the title characters given a test where they each have to perform a different task using a tool that's obviously unsuitable for said task. It takes them a while to figure out that they're meant to swap tasks with each other, as each person has a tool that's useful for another person's task.
-
*Seijuu Sentai Gingaman*/ *Power Rangers Lost Galaxy*. Copis/Chameliac, a Monster of the Week that is able to copy and counter the rangers' fighting style gets outsmarted when the rangers switch fighting styles with each other, confusing the monster. Then, in the Megazord fight, he copies the Megazords' powers as well. When the Stratoforce Megazord shows up, he copies it...only for it pull out the Centaurus Megazord's gun and shoot him.
- In the series finale of
*Cloak & Dagger (2018)*, Andre Deschain/D'Spayre pits Tyrone and Tandy against opponents specifically tailored to them: An Evil Twin for Tyrone and a representation of her abusive father for Tandy. After struggling for a bit against their own opponents, they switched places and fought each other's until Andre forced them to switch back.
-
*BIONICLE*
- This is how the Toa Mata defeated their shadow counterparts in
*Tales of the Masks*. The encyclopedia Retconned it, however — in the new version, the Toa understand that the Shadow Toa were actually their inner evil, and reabsorb them by accepting it.
- Each year there were also frequently sets of enemies who were similarly color coded, such as the Bohrok, the Rahkshi, the Vahki and so on. However the Toa didn't generally express any particular desire to specifically go after their same color.
-
*Champions* supplement *Red Doom*. One of the Supreme Soviets' standard combat maneuvers was "Soccer Ball", in which the team members switched opponents until they found one that was vulnerable to their attacks.
-
*Grand Theft Auto V*: In the "Deathwish" ending, each of the three protagonists goes after the member of the Big Bad Ensemble they have the smallest connection to, reasoning that it would be easier for a stranger to get close to the target than a known enemy.
-
*Pokémon*: After defeating an opponent's Mon, the game informs you of which Mon that is and allows you to switch out accordingly if the type disparity is too strong or your Mon is near-fainting. You can also switch out mid-battle, but this costs you your turn (although doing so with a stronger one is an efficient way of powerleveling a low-level Mon since participating in a battle splits the experience between the participants).
-
*Brawl in the Family* has Bowser and Ganondorf agreeing to take on the other's rival; Bowser under the assumption that his thick shell would protect him from Link's arrows, and Ganondorf feeling confident that his magic could easily dispatch a middle-aged plumber. ||It works, but, when they decide that they both want to be top dog, they release their respective prisoners to attack the other, allowing Mario and Link to defeat them once again.||
-
*The Order of the Stick*
- Subverted. When the Linear Guild is failing to make progress against the Order, Nale suggests to Thog that they trade opponents. This actually makes things worse for him, as Elan's normally useless bardic magic is effective against Thog, and Roy has been holding back a strong urge to beat the tar out of Nale's twin brother Elan for quite some time.
- The Linear Guild strikes again much later. With Roy getting the tar kicked out of him by Thog, Elan fleeing Nale, and V unable to get through Zz'dtri's magical defences, V then realises that Zz'dtri's achilles heel is best countered by someone else and invokes this trope - by using the Guild's own archer specialist, to boot. Even better, when Zz'dtri's spells hit said archer, suddenly the Suggestion spell gets a lot easier.
- "Ayla and the Great Shoulder Angel Conspiracy" in the Whateley Universe: when fighting New Olympians best suited to combatting them (even Person of Mass Destruction Tennyo), Team Kimba manages to trade opponents one by one until they defeat enough opponents that they can double-team the last couple.
-
*Avengers Assemble:* When the All-New Avengers face off against the Leader's new Cabal, they have difficulty with the fight until they hit upon the idea of switching up. That works for a time, until it turns out the Cabal have their own ideas.
- A Season 3 episode of
*Batman: The Brave and the Bold* features the *villains* setting this up in order to get the upper hand against their respective Archenemy. The Joker fights Wonder Woman, Cheetah deals with Superman, leaving Lex Luthor with Batman.
- While antagonism at the level of actually fighting doesn't last long enough for them to switch, the
*Futurama* episode where the gang travels to a parallel universe lampshades why this trope might be a good idea.
**Leela-A:** We're exactly alike. I know all her moves, so that gives me the upper hand. *(The two Leelas flying jump kick at each other, knocking each other down.)* **Professor-A:** Now, now, perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything.
- The
*Hercules: The Animated Series* and *Aladdin: The Series* crossover "Hercules and the Arabian Night" had Hades and Jafar team up. They decide to take on each other's enemy. Jafar says Hercules should be easy for him because Hercules isn't very agile nor clever, and Hades thinks Aladdin is worthless because he doesn't have Super Strength. The heroes defeat them anyway. Afterwards, the villains try Plan B: Let's You and Him Fight.
- Subverted in the
*The Hollow* episode "Hollow Games". When corned by the embodiment of their childhood fears, they figure that this is the solution, only to fail miserably after several minutes of fighting (and polite talking). It's only when Kai has to save Adam from being eaten that they realize this is a straight-forward Face Your Fears situation.
- In
*Justice League Unlimited*, when ||Luthor-Brainiac merged being|| pits the League against their own Evil Twins, The Flash, Batman, and Martian Manhunter are able to defeat their doubles on their own, while the rest eventually switch opponents. Leads to an amusing exchange between Green Lantern and Hawkgirl, who both comment that the other one enjoys whacking their opponent a little too much.
**Green Lantern:** Just letting off some steam. She broke my heart, you know. **Hawkgirl:** *(knocks Lord!GL's head clean off)* Likewise, I'm sure.
- Inverted in an episode of
*The Powerpuff Girls (1998)* where three crooks dress up as the Powerpuff Girls. When the Girls and the crooks throw down, both sides end up attacking their teammates by mistake before Blossom says they should just fight their counterparts to keep things simple. The whole episode is taken into Refuge in Audacity territory because the crooks' disguises are blatantly obvious to the viewer note : as in, grown men wearing giant plastic "heads" and dresses and yet everyone including the real Powerpuff Girls *and* the crooks *still* confuses them for the real thing.
- The
*Reboot* Episode "Wizards Warriors and a Word From Our Sponsors" has Bob, Dot, Enzo and Mike the TV fight off their evil doppelgangers in a fantasy game. It doesn't go well until Mike inadvertently switches opponents by bumping into Evil Dot (who runs screaming from Mike's incessant infomercials).
-
*Teen Titans (2003)*: Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Starfire fight against their Evil Knockoffs, switching in the end to defeat them (Starfire to Evil Cyborg, Beast Boy to Evil Starfire, and Cyborg to Evil Beast Boy).
**Cyborg:** Told you I could kick your butt.
- One episode of of the
*2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* had Baxter Stockman create a Turtle Robot that scanned each of the TMNT as they went to attack it, once scanned the robot could replicate their weapons and fighting style, which worked, until the TMNT switched weapons with each other.
- This is how Spider-Man and his teammates defeat the Sinister Six for the first time in
*Ultimate Spider-Man (2012)*. Kinda weird, considering that unlike usual examples, the Sinister Six are *not* The Psycho Rangers, but villains who have nothing to do with the team, and yet each one of them get curb stomped. Including those like Beetle, Kraven, and Electro, would could give the entire team a hard time...
- Happens in
*Xiaolin Showdown*, when a Sheng Gong Wu creates physical manifestations of each warrior's worst fear. Defied later on the episode when the duel of the day specified they must fight their respective fear.
- In
*X-Men: The Animated Series*, the X-Men once fought their evenly-matched counterparts in X-Factor until Professor X suggested they switch.
- In the
*Young Justice (2010)* episode "Terrors", Superboy (disguised as the villain Tommy Terror) fights Mammoth and Blockbuster, who are stronger than him, while Icicle Jr. fights Mister Freeze, who is a more skilled ice user. They win by switching. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpponentSwitch |
Open the Iris - TV Tropes
Normally, the eye filters light by widening or closing the hole in the center of the iris, called the pupil. Emotional reactions can achieve this as well: shock might narrow the pupil, while relaxing could widen it considerably. However, in animated fare or Comic Books, this can be very hard if not impossible to show, since a typical human pupil, at its widest, is 3-4 millimeters.
note : For the metric-impaired, that's 0.12-0.16 inches. This trope is a way to sidestep that difficulty. Instead of just changing the size of the *pupil*, you change the size of the *iris* (the colored ring surrounding the pupil) as well.
Your iris is no more capable of growing than your bones are of stretching like Gumby, but since they are by far the largest feature of an eye other than the whites, it's easy for artists to "expand" them to get the desired emotional reaction across.
Emotions this is meant to convey usually include love, (pleasant) surprise, desire, or awe. Animated characters experiencing the Mushroom Samba almost always get a close-up of their eyes showing this, just before reality goes sideways for them. Those effected by a Glamour, Love Potion, or Love Is in the Air effect may also get this, though those may be indicated with Mind-Control Eyes instead.
The opposite, when the irises are drawn in a shrunken state to indicate fear, pain, shock, or anger is Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises. Compare Expressive Mask. Not to be confused with Iris Out.
When the pupils are drawn abnormally large, the eyes generally appear pleading or wistful. That trope is Puppy-Dog Eyes.
Opening the iris in
*Stargate SG-1* has nothing to do with this trope. See Dilating Door for doors like that. It also has nothing to do with the Eldritch Abomination of a planet.
## Examples:
- Concrete can actually do this with his eyes, dilating them until there's nothing but the black of the pupils visible in order to see in the dark. According to
*Under the Desert Stars* his eyes "dilate enormously, adding light-gathering power to their high resolution". However, in a later story Maureen described his night-vision as being similar to that of a cat or dog (which doesn't explain at all why they turn black), so the original explanation of how they work may or may not have been retconned.
- Happens a lot in horror movies, when a person who's a vampire/possessed/under a spell goes from looking normal human to looking like they're a vampire/possessed/under a spell.
- Tweaked in 2004's
*Dawn of the Dead (2004)*. When the anonymous woman reanimated, we got a closeup shot of her eye turning from normal human green to that freaky occluded color.
- In the pilot of
*Sense8*, when Riley inhales from the drug pipe, we get a close-up on her iris widening.
- Common trope in Western Animation, especially happening to children when they are surprised by something (to the perspective of a kid) mortifying. Used at least once in nearly every Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network show.
-
*Avatar: The Last Airbender*:
- In the
*Dexter's Laboratory* short "Chicken Scratch" Dee Dee sees Dexter with chicken pox and this happens to her.
- Common trope in
*The Fairly OddParents!*.
-
*Futurama* uses this most memorably when Lrrr ("Ruler of the planet Omnicon Persei VIII!") eats a hippie and then addresses an audience.
- In
*Justice League Unlimited* episode "Task Force X," Plastiques iris narrows every time she has a Oh, Crap! moment.
- In
*Littlest Pet Shop (2012)* this happens to many of the characters at times, but for the most part everyone's eyes are already so huge that this trope is almost unnecessary.
- In
*Miraculous Ladybug*, Marinette's irises vary a lot in size whenever she's flustered, which happens often. For instance, they will grow to saucer-like proportions when she's talking about Adrien, and reduce to pinhead size when she finds herself unexpectedly in front of him. It also happens for the other characters, but far less frequently.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic* provides the page image. The animation uses eye tropes heavily to convey emotions, and Open the Iris is used to show, just for example, epiphany, wonder, greed, insanity, terror, emphasis of a key phrase, and the sensation of burping up a scroll.
-
*The Simpsons*:
- This is one of Homer's reactions as he chows down on Krusty Burger's barbecue sandwiches, repeated along with the action itself and fat and suchlike flooding into his system (a Shout-Out to
*Requiem for a Dream*).
- In another episode, it happens when he licks hallucinogenic toads.
- One episode crossing over with
*The X-Files* has a glowing alien with huge eyes spotted in Springfield. It's actually ||Mr. Burns whacked out of his gourd on painkillers.||
- In
*SpongeBob SquarePants*, Gary gets this when Spongebob informs him it's time for a bath...though in his case, his pupils growing bigger means he's *scared*.
-
*Work It Out Wombats!*:
- Zeke's irises tend to enlarge when he's really excited about something, like when Malik lets him play with a rubberband in "Brother Day."
- In "Gift For a Fish," Mr. E expands his irises and gets shines in his eyes after Ellie dries him off. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpenTheIris |
Operation: [Blank] - TV Tropes
*"Begin Operation: Something-Thingy!"*
The standard naming scheme for a military operation is "Operation: Some Phrase". Used in real life, and in any series involving spies, soldiers, and the government, or parodies thereof. Straight uses are too numerous to count, but some common subversions, variants, and spoofs come up. A Code Name for a plan instead of a person, and can follow the same conventions. Science uses an almost identical scheme, but their stuff starts with "Project:".
In real life, operation names are (at least American military ones), since the first Gulf War, often optimistically descriptive (Operation Restore Hope, Operation Allied Force, Operation Iraqi Freedom [an infamous Retool from Operation Iraqi Liberation
], Operation Enduring Freedom — which was originally Operation Infinite Justice until several nations complained that only God could dispense that).
The US began using marketing people to come up with these after their earlier method (a random name generator) produced "Operation: Bolton" as the name for Desert Storm (the American contribution to The Gulf War); there were fears about retaliation against the town of Bolton, and also that troops would be embarrassed to go to war in an operation named after a dreary little town in the north of England. You could argue that eventually the name becomes more of a
*brand name* than a Code Name, particularly if very important, US-led and heavily media-covered.
Wartime or covert operations are more obliquely named, with security a higher consideration than sounding cool (though let's face it, Operation Anaconda was pretty cool). The British magazine
*New Statesman* remarked that it said a lot about the difference between American and English culture that the USA called the Iraq War "Operation Iraqi Freedom" and the UK called it "Operation Telic" (a word that means "tending to a definite end", chosen from a random list). British stuffiness in choosing operation names is only rarely subverted, usually for especially momentous moments, such as the detonation of the UK's first atom bomb, Operation Hurricane.
During World War II, some British operations were entirely arbitrarily named from a big list of possible names, others were picked from vaguely related terms (Operation Dynamo for the Dunkirk evacuation took its name from the dynamo room in the naval headquarters below Dover Castle that Vice Admiral Ramsay used to plan the operation), while American ones tended to obliquely refer to the purpose (Operation Overlord as the final version of the
*Operation Sledgehammer* proposal). Operation Market Garden, the airborne assault to push inland through the Netherlands from the Norman beaches, may have been pushing it.
Winston Churchill famously cautioned his commanders against assigning "silly" or frivolous codenames to operations, on the grounds that no mother or wife ought to have to hear that their son or husband died during "Operation Bunnyhug" or "Operation Ballyhoo". An example of that is when he changed the Canadian Army's designated landing area in Normandy for "Operation Overlord" from Jelly Beach to Juno Beach, and created a honored name in Canadian history and culture. Another principle he followed was that the code names should never be words from which a clever enemy could infer the purpose of the operation. Nazi Germany, in contrast to this, did use some fairly obvious code names, such as
*Seelöwe* ("Sealion" or "Sea-Lion") for the planned invasion of Britain, *Nordlicht* ("Northern Lights") for the abortive summer-1942 offensive to cut Leningrad off from its lifeline through Lake Ladoga, and *Barbarossa* (referring to Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I, who died en-route to the third Crusade) for the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, a name Hitler chose, supplanting the original Wehrmacht name *Blau* ("Blue"). Others were more ambiguous or even deliberately misleading, often implying a defensive purpose when an attack was planned, such as *Weserübung* ("Weser Exercise") for the invasion of Denmark and Norway, and *Wacht am Rhein* ("Watch on the Rhine") for the 1944 Belgian offensive. Earlier on, the General Staff had called their operations things like "Green", "White", and "Anton", and some of the later ones appeared fairly random, e. g. *Merkur* ("Mercury") for the airborne landing on Crete and *Zitadelle* ("Citadel") for the 1943 Kursk offensive. Fun fact: the German term for a military operation is *Fall*, or "case"; they viewed campaigns as cases to be solved.
For their part, Soviet offensive codenames either were a inconsistent mix of historical figures in Russian history ("Suvorov" or "Bagration"), celestial objects ("Uranus" or "Star"), or generically geographic-temporal ("1944 summer strategic offensive operation" or "D'niepr strategic offensive operation"). They also had a habit of using numbers for their weapons development programs, especially if it involved Mnogo Nukes.
For example, "Object 279" was the name for an experimental heavy tank, while "Project 1164" was used by the navy for the
*Slava*-class cruiser. The Russian Federation continues the practice today .
Most fictional Operation/Project Names fall somewhere in between all of these. The name is non-obvious, but is obliquely related to the purpose of the operation (like American WW2 names). Our Hero is mystified until he happens upon the piece of information that clues him in... Can be an example of Arc Words.
Favorite things to fill in the blank:
-
**Mythological allusions**, especially common if a scientist or academic named the thing, which they often do: Phoebus, Perseus, Hercules, Gemini. These are also common examples of "hero can work it out with the right information and some intuition".
-
**Animal name**, with attached adjective: Stone Rhino, Burning Hawk, Concrete Donkey, Iron Serpent...
-
**Tool name**: Crowbar, Hammer, Icepick...
-
**Sports position**: Usually from American football, probably influenced by the real life Operation Linebacker during Vietnam. Operation Quarterback, Running Back, Pinch Hitter...
-
**Location name**: Most infamously, Sedan (a 1962 nuclear weapons test, named for a city in France), which would cause an international incident when the name was entered into the United States Congressional Record as "Sudan" in 2005, leading to the question of whether the US was performing illegal tests in other countries.
Common subversions, parodies, and spoofs:
May sometimes begin after a Team Hand-Stack.
## Examples:
- Operation: Rebirth is the name of the experiment that gave Steve Rogers his Super Soldier enhancements that would make him Captain America. However, the "operation" would be more accurately named "Project: Rebirth." Or Project:||Weapon I/Weapon Plus||.
- Lampshaded and normally averted in
*Fables*, when the Fabletown residents are in military mode. Normally they are very good about making sure that their operations have codenames that hold clues to their purpose, but (as Cinderella laments) the lads in charge just can't help themselves when they name their plan ||to isolate the Empire's capital, effectively cutting off its head,|| Operation Jack Ketch. Although, in all fairness, by the time the operation was well underway, not only did the Empire realise what was happening, they were pretty much powerless to prevent it.
- The plot of
*Scooby Apocalypse* is driven by the fallout from Project Elysium, a secret project conceived by a private think tank (which Velma was part of) to use a nanite plague to remove people's negative impulses and emotions, thus bringing about world peace. Then the Four, Velma's superiors ||and her brothers|| decided to instead alter the nanites to remove The Evils of Free Will, allowing them to rule the world. And somehow, their mucking with the nanites somehow caused them to turn the infected into monsters instead.
- The
*Avengers* crossover *Operation: Galactic Storm*.
-
*The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye*: Project: Total Insanity, Prowl's plan to study the Decepticon Phase Sixers to make Autobot super-soldiers. Brainstorm came up with the name. "Project: Asking for Trouble" was vetoed.
-
*Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)*: Operation Deadly Cuddles. Far more disturbing than its name suggests it has any right to be, since it's the Tails Doll.
-
*Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW)*: Starline's master plan at the climax of the Imposters Saga to overthrow Eggman is called "Operation: Remaster".
-
*Invader Zim (Oni)*: The third Quarterly issue reveals that Professor Membrane's anti-Santa Claus arsenal (from the show's Christmas Episode) is codenamed Operation Snow Cone.
- In
*Shinji and Warhammer40k*, Ritsuko gets fed up with Misato's lousy operation codenames and comes up with a random word generator. The result? "From now on we put our faith in Blast Hard Cheese!"
- In Ready, Sette, Go, Sette (who has been released from prison and seeks out Cinque for further orders) puts "Operation" in front of many things, including a suggestion by Wendi to act more normally and not call everything an "operation".
-
*Queen of All Oni*: Jade's Batman Gambit to ||get one of the masks on one of the heroes and use them to infiltrate Section 13 and steal the other masks|| is called "Operation Steel Lightning". Her Quirky Miniboss Squad are quick to point out that the name makes no sense whatsoever and suggest more fitting alternatives, but she shoots them all down — she chose the name because it sounds cool, so she's keeping it.
- It's revealed in a later chapter that Jade's attempts to find the location of the second tablet of the Teachings of Eternal Shadow is called "Operation Blazing Wolf"; no one comments on the name this time.
- During the above, Jade name drops something in the works called "Operation Painted Lemur" (Tohru is stunned by the absurdity of the name, and Right agrees with him) which eventually turns out to be her plan to ||brainwash and transform Viper into a Shadowkhan General||.
- There's also "Operation Chirping Chipmunk", which was apparently a plan to trick the J-Team into thinking that ||Viper became Hebi voluntarily||. However, Hak Foo's angry ranting after getting stuck with the Mini Khan includes the fact that ||Viper was brainwashed||, which kills that plan before it can even happen.
- However, Jade's plans for the Final Battle break this pattern, as it's simply called "Operation Endgame". Right lampshades the previous examples, though, when he jokingly suggests the alternative names "Operation Delayed Reaction", "Operation Coupon Cash-In", and "Operation Tea Drinking Rhino".
-
*Jewel of Darkness*: Midnight's master plan at the culmination of the Jump City Arc, to ||capture Robin and torture him into insanity|| in order to permanently break the Titans, is codenamed "Operation Blackfire" — not after Starfire's sister, but after Deacon Joseph Blackfire, the Big Bad of *Batman: The Cult* who is famous for ||(temporarily) successfully breaking Batman to his will via torture||.
- Examples from the Calvinverse:
-
*A Brief History of Equestria*: The Celestine Junta's plan for colonizing and relocating to a new homeland was codenamed Operation Withdrawal.
-
*Life in Manehattan*: Twilight's plan in *Brag You Down* to restore Trixie's reputation after the Mare-Do-Well plot backfires is called Operation Reputation Rescue.
- The pegasi moving the water to Cloudsdale in
*Hurricane Blossomforth* is called Operation Rainrise.
-
*Worldwar: War of Equals*, as it presents a realistic take on how the governments of the world would react to an alien invasion, naturally has plenty of these:
- Operation Zeus: A joint American/Canadian operation on Race occupied Belleville which lead to several starships, including the 56th Emperor Jossano, being destroyed and Race operations in the United States being crippled.
- Operation Halcòn: The Mexican military attacks a Race starship landing zone near Monterrey. The attack destroys one starship and damages six more.
- Operation Marin: The first major victory for the European Coalition's air force and navy. The raid on Race starships in Bari destroys two starships and severely damages one which lands in the Adriatic Sea, with Europe collecting the remains of the ship and capturing the survivors.
- Operation Piledriver: The United States Air Force drops three MOABs on The Race spearhead in Cotulla, Texas.
- Operation Hermes (aka Operation Eve): Another joint American/Canadian operation, this time on Race positions between St. Louis and Jefferson City. With the enemy freezing thanks to good old mother nature, American and Canadian armored divisions and air forces strike vulnerable positions in occupied territory while ground and special forces are inserted into key positions behind enemy lines and destroy anti-armor and anti-air emplacements. The operation was a success and gives the American people the best Christmas gift they could ask for: the gift of a huge victory.
- In
*Bait and Switch* (and the Foundry mission it's based on) the Starfleet attack on the Orion base in the Badlands is codenamed "Operation Blue Friday". This leads to the following exchange during the Mission Briefing:
-
*Repairs, Retrofits and Upgrades*, a *The Legend of Korra* has Bolin's "Operation: Make Asami Forget About the Thing". Specifically, ||talk about his intention to propose to Opal to take her mind off Korra visiting Kuvira in prison||.
- Played for laughs in "Past Continuous". Eleya comments that "Operation Whimsical Targ" doesn't translate particularly well into Klingon. Word of God is that it's even sillier in Cardassian, with "whimsical" equating to "slapstick" or "stupid".
-
*Worldfall*: The Final Battle sees the allied nations of Earth launching Operation Endgame, which is ||a massive counter-invasion of South Europe and North Africa to drive out Race and Fifthp ground forces, while simultaneously, the Archangel Michael and the refitted 127th Emperor Hetto engage in a space battle with the remains of the Conquest Fleet and the Thuktun Flishithy||.
-
*Child of the Storm*:
- Chapters 42 and 43 see SHIELD and MI13 enacting Operation Overlord, a full scale global roll up of HYDRA's resources and assets. The name is a deliberate Call-Back to the official name of the D-Day landings, meant to insult HYDRA due to their Nazi origins (and judging by Von Strucker's and Zemo's reactions, it works).
- The Final Battle reveals the existence of Project Prometheus, an Iron Man suit Tony designed and keep secreted away at Hogwarts in case of god-level threats, created by combining bleeding edge science and top notch magic from both Earth and Asgard, as well as Project Wolftrap, MI13's special failsafe for the defense of London, which turns out to be ||a re-commissioned and radically updated HMS
*Belfast*||.
- There's also repeated mentions of Project Pegasus, a government attempt at creating a magical Super Soldier. According to Coulson, who was there at the time, they succeeded, which was the problem; the place became an Eldritch Location that Alan Scott had to seal off.
- A major plot point in the sequel
*Ghosts of the Past* during the "Forever Red" arc is Project *Krysnyy Syn* (Red Son), the Red Room's equivalent to Project Pegasus — an attempt to create a superpowered Super Soldier to act as an upgrade/replacement to the Winter Soldier. Like Project Pegasus, it goes horribly, horribly right.
- At the climax of the sequel's "Of Dungeons and Dragons" arc, we're introduced to Project Galahad, a suit of Powered Armor created for Harry by Tony and Jane combining Iron Man tech with Asgardian Magitek.
-
*Timeline-191: After the End* has quite a few of these:
- Operation Eagle Claw: The forced resettlement of the insurgent Mormon population from Utah to the Sandwich Islands.
- Operation Husky: The American invasion, and subsequent annexation, of Russian Alaska.
- Operation Banner: The final push by Russian Republican forces on the remaining pocket of Tsarist control in Petrograd.
- Operation Dissolution: The launching of Japanese missiles, armed with nerve gas, at Compact of Democratic States military bases in northern Australia.
- Operation Infinity: In retaliation for Dissolution, the US launches sunbombs (hydrogen bombs) on Japanese forward military bases throughout the Co-Prosperity Sphere, destroying their ability to launch further offensives anywhere in the Pacific.
- Operations Hard Hat I and II: Strategic use of US superbombs to destroy the primary Unit 731 facilities in Manchukuo.
- Operation Windtalker: A joint CDS-Russian invasion of Manchukuo... which turns out to be a ruse, deliberately leaked to distract the Japanese from Operation Grizzly, the
*real* CDS-Russian invasion of Mongolia.
- Operation Elephant: The CDS invasions of Japanese West Papua and Timor.
- Operation Rainbow Dawn: The CDS-Russian liberation of Korea.
- Operation Tunnel: The CDS, Russians, and newly established Republic of China make their final push on remaining Japanese forces in northern China.
- Operation Tiger Shark: A CDS-Russian amphibious invasion of Hokkaido.
- Operation Vengeance: The Russian liberation of the Kurile islands, with some naval and air support from the US.
- Operation Cassowary: CDS forces invade the Indonesian islands still being controlled by Japanese warlords.
- Operation Scorpion: Vietnamese and CDS forces make their final push on Japanese-controlled Saigon.
- Operation Starfish: The CDS, along with a sizable force of defectors from the Japanese Navy, invade Filipino territory held by the local Japanese warlord.
- Operation Cobra: A surprise CDS amphibious invasion of Singapore.
- Operation Kaiser's Landing: The European Community's invasion of Civil War-torn South Africa to topple the remains of the Apartheid government and bring all the belligerent militias to heel.
- Operation Sea Snake: A Russian amphibious invasion of Georgia (the Asian one) from the Black Sea.
- Operation Vijayangara: A massive Baharti offensive into Pakistan aimed at seizing Karachi.
-
*The New Adventures of Invader Zim* has the lost Meekrob weapon known only by the blunt title of "Project Domination".
- In
*Chrysalis Visits The Hague*, one chapter is presented in form of a mysterious, partially censored transcript that is simply entitled, "Orange Caltrop", *probably* making this one—and given what a caltrop *is*, a meaningful one.
-
*Project Bluefield* follows the naming scheme.
-
*Doing It Right This Time*: Parodied by Shinji, who thinks of his plan to Set Right What Once Went Wrong as "Operation Not Fuck Everything Up This Time".
- One of the
*Higurashi Parody Fandub* episodes had Rika declare, "Operation: Get back at this crazy bitch for killing my friends is a go!" when she was about to spray tear gas into Shion's eyes.
-
*Earth's Alien History*:
- Operation Kusanagi: The final drive by allied Terran Treaty Organization and Citadel forces to retake the Citadel from the Mekon's forces.
- Operation Harrowing: The use of the "Daisy Cutter" weapon on a planet occupied by the Vinn, destroying most of them.
-
*Avenger of Steel* reveals that Baron Von Strucker's experiments with Loki's Scepter are known as Project Spear of Destiny.
-
*Becoming a True Invader*: At some point during Tallest Miyuki's reign, there was an Irken conquest program called Operation Genesis Doom.
-
*There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton*: The story *The Royal We* establishes the existence of Project ATLAS, S.W.O.R.D.'s program to reverse engineer Vilgax's ship, the *Chimeran Hammer* (which they took custody of after his defeat in *Changing of the Guard*), into a fleet of battleships for Earth's use.
-
*Crimson AU* has Haru come up with "Operation Punish Akira", after Akira breaks up with Makoto over her conflict with Ann. Makoto herself objects to the name, which later becomes "Operation Destroy Akira Kurusu or Something Less Drastic".
- Parodied in
*South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut*, where the U.S. Army had two different operations: The minorities were in "Operation Human Shield", part of the "all-important first attack wave, expected to have heavy casualties" while the whites were in "Operation Get Behind the Darkies", who, well...
- Operation Golden Fleece is used by
*The League of Gentlemen* for The Caper they are planning. The man planning it named it after the (fictional) novel that inspired him to commit the crime.
-
*Inglourious Basterds* has "Operation Kino," a plot to assassinate high-ranking German officials, including Hitler, when they are all gathered in a movie theater. "Kino" is German for "cinema," so this is a bit of Artistic License Military, as military operations were never given names that referenced the actual plan.
- Commissioner Gibert from the French
*Taxi* movies liked giving the police procedures names like this. The first movie features Operation Cobra, Operation Zen and Operation Puma, the second one has Operation Ninja and the third Operation Snow White.
- In
*Mystery Men* when the group went to rescue Captain Amazing, The Sphinx called the rescue: "Operation 3-Eyed, 3-Legged Eagle."
-
*James Bond*:
- Bond overhears Goldfinger talking about "Operation Grand Slam". Although he hasn't the faintest idea what it means, he's able to bluff the villain into keeping him alive purely on the basis of knowing the name. This is the same for the original novel.
- Also, the eponymous
*Thunderball* is the operation involving the rescue of hijacked nuclear missiles. This is the same for the original novel.
- In
*Moonraker*, Drax's plan to exterminate the human race is called "Operation Orchid", as the nerve gas he tries to use is derived from an Amazonian orchid.
- In
*For Your Eyes Only*, the plan to retrieve the ATAC system from the sunken *St. Georges* is called "Operation Undertow" by MI6 while in *Octopussy*, the plan to discover what is happening to the stolen Faberge artifacts is "Operation: Trove". This is purely Rule of Drama as any real intelligence agency would avoid a Meaningful Name for their operations. Averted with the search for Blofeld which is called Operation Bedlam; that may be a Mythology Gag to how Blofeld had gone insane in the novels.
- The series went totally meta with
*GoldenEye*, which is the in-universe name of the Russian military project that forms the centrepiece of the villain's plan, and also the name of an actual operation that Ian Fleming ran while working for British Intelligence, which he then used as the name of his Jamaican estate where he wrote some of the James Bond books.
- In an odd example, Non-Indicative Market-Based Title of
*Skyfall* for the Latin American audiences turns it into this (Skyfall is a place - namely, ||the manor Bond lived in as a child and where the final battle against Silva occurs||).
- Alice is part of Project Nemesis in
*Resident Evil: Apocalypse*.
- In the popular Soviet comedy
*Operation Y and Shurik's Other Adventures* ( *Операция Ы*), the titular operation is a mock robbery to conceal embezzlement by a warehouse administrator, named so by one of the hired thugs so that "nobody guesses why." In Russian, there are no words that start with the letter "Ы."
- The lawman in Lady Vampire's preview segment in
*Monster Brawl* refers to his upcoming arrest of her as "Operation Holy Water" in his notes, which was named after the claims of the nearby townsfolk about her vampirism. He should have believed them.
-
*Star Wars*:
- Though it wasn't named as such until
*Star Wars: Battlefront 2*, Operation: Knightfall from *Revenge of the Sith* was the ultimate culmination of Executive Order 66: Lord Vader and the 501st Legion's march on the Jedi Temple.
- Various sources, such as
*Shattered Empire* and *Battlefront II*, feature Operation: Cinder, a post-Battle of Endor Imperial campaign of Orbital Bombardment against key planets.
-
*Rogue One*: Jyn and Cassian list a number of project code names while searching for the Death Star plans. The novelization reveals the original mission Jyn and Cassian are sent on to locate and extract or kill Galen Erso is codenamed "Operation Fracture" by the Alliance.
-
*Operation Crossbow* depicts a largely fictionalised version of the Allied operation of the same name, an espionage and military campaign to sabotage the Nazis' long-range weapons programme from 1943-45.
- A few Brazilian title translations use this. For instance,
*Canadian Bacon* is *Operation Canada*, *The Pacifier* is *Operation Nanny* and *Big Hero 6* is *Operation Big Hero*.
- The eponymous project in
*Project Metalbeast*, which intends to create armored werewolf super soldiers.
-
*Universal Soldier*: We find out in the (official) third film, *Universal Soldier: Regeneration*, that the official codename for the project that created the Universal Soldiers was "Project White Tower," with the project that created the upgraded Uni-Sol that is The Dragon of this particular film having the codename of "Black Tower."
-
*Who Killed Captain Alex?*: Operation ||Cut Tigerz Ballz||
-
*Operation Delta Force*: The titular force is an elite special forces unit out to stop a diabolical terrorist leader intending to unleash a deadly bioweapon.
-
*Operation Thunderbolt* is about the 1976 raid on Entebbe Airport in which an Israeli special forces squad rescued 102 Israelis being held hostage by terrorists.
-
*Dr. Strangelove*: "Operation Drop-Kick" was an exercise conducted by the bomber squadron from Burpleson AFB who were airborne over the Arctic Circle near Russia. It called for the squadron to maintain their positions unless Wing Attack Plan R (the "go" code to attack Russia) was initiated which is in the event that Washington was attacked by enemy planes and the normal chain of command was disrupted. Burpleson's General Ripper initiates Plan R but for the wrong reasons.
-
*Operation Finale*, about the real-life Israeli abduction of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina to stand trial for crimes against humanity.
-
*Josie and the Pussycats* has Fiona planning "Operation: Big Concert", where she plans to ||brainwash both those at the concert and those watching at home with special earphones that transmit subliminal messages. The messages aren't broadcast in the end, but we do get to hear them— it's all to make people like Fiona and think she's their friend. Evil Is Petty at its finest.||
-
*Darkest Hour*: Churchill tells an admiral to come up with a name for the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk. The admiral looks around the room settling on Dynamo, based on the brand of fan in the admiral's headquarters.
-
*The Martian*: Vincent dubs his plan to rescue Whatney "Project Elrond". Mitch and Teddy get the reference and how it applies ("It's a secret meeting"), but Annie has never heard of it and grows increasingly confused. Then Teddy demands that if they do call it that, his codename is "Glorfindel".
-
*Shin Godzilla*. Noting that "A strategy to administer a coagulate to freeze and thus render the creature immobile" is something of a mouthful, the main protagonist decides to call it Operation Yashiori, after the sake used to intoxicate a famous Japanese monster of legend.
-
*Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)*: GUN's plan to get close to Sonic by ||having an agent seduce and marry Maddie's sister|| is fittingly called "Operation Catfish".
-
*Spaceballs* has Lord Helmet needing to come up with "Operation: Vacu-suck" as a lazily- and hastily-derived namw for the Spaceballs' scheme to literally suck out the air from the planet Druidia with a giant robo-maid's vacuum cleaner.
-
*Spy Game*. Bishop overhears the phrase "Dinner Out" in the back of the helicopter. The phrase works a few different ways at once:
- It's a Public Secret Message that his old mentor John Muir is behind the operation as Bishop had previously used the name "Dinner Out" for a covert operation in Beirut the two were involved with in the past.
- The previous combined with the fact that Bishop had gone Rogue Agent and had gotten himself captured by the Chinese ||for trying to spring Elizabeth Hadley, whom he had met in Beirut,|| and the fact that a long-standing rule of Muir's was "never risk yourself for an asset" meant those two words alone tell Bishop ||Muir is breaking his own long-standing rule to bail him out with the SEAL team rescue, which elicits a tired smile from Bishop when he puts it together.||
- ||Muir used it as the just-finished operation's name to break Bishop out against the CIA heads' wishes, who wanted to let Bishop die so as not to jeopardize upcoming US-China trade talks, while in the same room as them in order to get the SEAL team in with a verbal "go" while the higher-ups present think it's just Muir talking weirdly with his wife about restaurant plans after Muir retires at the end of the day.||
- In
*Thirteen Days* about the Cuban Missile Crisis and its immediate prelude, while the Kennedy White House is trying to keep the fact that they know about the Soviets placing nuclear-capable missiles in Cuba a secret from the public in order to retain the surprise advantage until they decide upon a course on how to deal with them, the American press get a hold of US military exercises taking place in Puerto Rico called Operation Ortsac and ask the White House to comment, which catches O'Donnell and Salinger off-guard as they didn't know about it. It's just Castro spelled backwards, which makes it lazily clear that the exercises are meant to simulate invading Cuba and overthrowing Fidel in order to get rid of the missiles. The scene emphasizes both how complex the bureaucratic machine the United States government is as well as how much of a With Friends Like These... situation the Kennedy administration had with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as the latter were by and large war hawks who wanted to invade Cuba by force even at risk of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
- In
*Trading Places*, the Duke Brothers' plan to corner the frozen concentrate orange juice market was called "Operation Strange Fruit".
-
*Carry On Girls*: When a feminist group uses itching powder to sabotage the beauty contest, their codename is "Operation Spoilsport".
- Exception: David Weber's Star Kingdom of Manticore in the
*Honor Harrington* books plays *very* true to its Real Life analogue, 17th/18th-century Britain, in using operation names pulled at random from a list of innocuous names. Dame Honor herself has participated in Operations Buttercup, Cutworm, Sanskrit, and Sanskrit II. The trope is played straight with the People's Republic of Haven, whose Operation Bagration shares its name with the Soviet Belorussian Offence during WWII.
- Admiral White Haven does complain that Buttercup is a rather silly name, especially considering how successful it was in steam rolling the Havenite Navy.
- With the exception of Bagration, most of Haven's operation names tend to be mythological or grandiose, like Scylla, Icarus, or Thunderbolt. Honor points out wistfully that Haven names sometimes give their natures away.
- Solarians pick florid names like Operation Winter Forage and Operation East Wind.
- Mesan cover ops tend to pick names that are kind of poor at disguising their intent, like a poison gas assassination plot called Operation Rat Poison and Operation Wooden Horse which planted bombs in the ships of their expendable pawns. Not to mention the much-foreshadowed Oyster Bay, which turned out to be ||a sneak attack on the home bases of the Manticoran and Grayson navies||. Possibly justified by the fact that no one knows Mesa exists in the first place, so they don't really need a Non-Indicative Name to preserve secrecy.
-
*The Sixth Battle* has a US amphibious landing codenamed Operation ||Evil Hyphen||.
- In
*The Hunt for Red October*, Jack Ryan is told his operation's codename is "Mandolin" and his mission codename is "Magi". The names came from a list, as Ryan considers "Magi" inappropriate for him.
- H. Beam Piper's
*The Edge of the Knife* revealed that the U.S. prepared for the possibility of World War III in 1973 with "Operation Triple Cross": the enemy launched missile attacks on a number of vital bases — but each had a better-concealed duplicate and triplicate.
-
*Operation Terror*, a suspense novel by Gordon and Mildred Gordon that was adapted into the 1962 film *Experiment in Terror*.
-
*Operation: Dump the Chump*, an '80s children's book by Barbara Park.
- Classified items in
*The Laundry Files* usually use a fairly descriptive codename, but it also seems that the more significant something is, the shorter its codename. CANDID and TEAPOT are high-value assets within the agency, the Higher-Tech Species that lives in the deep ocean is codenamed BLUE HADES, while the species that lives underground and is at war with BLUE HADES but has no contact with humans is ANNING RED SKULL. However, it is noted that many of the codenames given in the books are not the real ones. The Framing Device is that the books are Bob's semi-official journals, and a lot of the things he has worked on are so deeply classified even the codenames are need-to-know. This, along with Bob's love of pop culture, leads to the case of a mogul using ritual magic to turn himself into a James Bond villain being codenamed BROCCOLI GOLDENEYE, former criminal mastermind turned ritual mage Persephone Hazard being codenamed BASHFUL INCENDIARY and two projects involving vampires are DRESDEN RICE and OPERA CAPE respectively.
- Operation Peacock in
*Beauty Queens.*
- Given that it dealt with espionage, each of the do-it-yourself activities in the late-90s/early-2000s Scholastic "Spy University" book club was named like this, usually some sort of pun on the purpose or materials involved. (Disguising yourself with false teeth was "Operation Grin and Bear It", for instance.)
- James Michener's
*Tales of the South Pacific* and its better-known adaptation *South Pacific* culminates with Operation Alligator, a fictitious amphibious assault against the Japanese in World War II.
-
*James Bond*
- Dr. Murik's plan to take over nuclear reactors for ransom in
*Licence Renewed* is called Operation Meltdown.
- The eponymous operation in
*Icebreaker* is a joint effort by MI6, KGB, CIA and Mossad to take down the Nazi terrorist organization NSAA. The operation itself fails ||since every member sans Bond is a double-agent of some kind||, but the desired result is still achieved.
- The bad guys' plan in
*Role of Honour* is called Operation Down Escalator, a play on the word "de-escalation". Fitting, since they plan ||to remove the nuclear capabilities of USA and Soviet Union||.
- The now-defunct Operation Cream Cake in
*No Deals, Mr. Bond* was about MI-6 setting up a false Honey Trap campaign to secure two defectors from East Germany.
- The operation to stop the suicide bombers and capture their leader in
*Scorpius* is called Harvester, and the operation to stop the final one in the climax is called Last Enemy (named after a passage in The Bible, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" from First Corinthians).
-
*Win, Lose or Die* opens with BAST putting the Operation WIN into action, which is just test-run for their main mission, named Operation LOSE.
- A small sublot in
*Brokenclaw* is about an operation by Red China to crash the stock exchange in Wall Street, called Operation Jericho.
- Operation SeaFire in the eponymous book is Max Tarn's plan to test his oilspill-cleaning craft, whether it works or not (ecological disaster is still going to happen).
- In
*COLD*, the eponymous organization's plan to take over United States is called Operation Blizzard, while the good guys' counter-operation is called Antifreeze.
- A subplot in
*Carte Blanche* features Bond investigating a Russian operation called Steel Cartridge, which he suspects of being responsible for the deaths of his parents.
- The eponymous Operation: Thunderball is MI6's direct response to SPECTRE's "Plan Omega" to hijack a pair of nukes and threaten major cities for ransom — not that they know the exact name. Two or three books later, the villain refers to the events of the book, but seems to have got the two names mixed up.
- In
*On Her Majesty's Secret Service*, it's established that "Operation Bedlam" is the continuing pursuit of the mastermind from the previous book, and while they work out a new plan to bait him, the peculiarities of the idea lead the Chief of Staff to quip it should have been called "Bezants"; it ends up being Operation "Corona".
- In the
*Enemy Lines* duology, General Wedge Antilles labels a couple of his battle tactics this way, with Operation Emperor's Hammer and Operation Emperor's Spear.
- Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 series has Operation Blackbeard (the Confederacy's
*blitzkrieg* invasion of the United States at the start of the Second Great War) and Operation Coalscuttle (the attempt by the Confederates to seize the vital industrial center of Pittsburgh).
-
*The Man in the High Castle* has Operation Dandelion, a plan approved by Josef Goebbels, but one which Hitler refuses to authorize. It's revealed to be ||a preemptive nuclear attack on the Japanese home islands.||
-
*The Murderbot Diaries*. In *Exit Strategy*, Murderbot mentally dubs the plan to rescue Dr. Mensah as Operation Not A Completely Terrible Plan. When things (inevitably) go wrong Murderbot changes this to Plan Approaching Terrible.
-
*Rivers of London* has multiple Metropolitan Police operations, often working on different aspects of the Faceless Man case (such as Operation Carthorse; the pursuit of The Dragon, and Operation Wentworth; the investigation into the Skygarden explosion). Once the Faceless Man's identity has been revealed, these all get folded into Operation Jennifer.
-
*1632*: Don Fransisco Nasi, the USE's spymaster, refers to the operation he put in place to dismantle potentially violent anti-Semitic organizations within the USE as Operation Crystal Night. Nasi is a Sephardic Jew, and well read on the topic of anti-Semitism in the 20th century, and states that the choice of code name was very much deliberate.
-
*Alias*: Early in her training as a spy, Sydney participated in "Project: Christmas", a series of procedures that would make her immune to pretty much any form of mental coercion or mind control.
- In the
*Angel* episode "Ground State", Gunn asks what they'll need for "Operation Chance in Hell".
- In
*3rd Rock from the Sun*, Sally and Harry determine that Mary's brother Roy, who seems to be an alien abductee, knows too much and must be done away with. Their plan to get rid of him is fittingly named "Operation: Kilroy".
- The title character from
*Parker Lewis Can't Lose* would occasionally do this in the middle of an episode.
**Parker:** "Gentlemen! Synchronize Swatches. It's time for Operation ______."
-
*Dark Angel* had the pretty obvious Manticore Project, which created Super Soldier Half Human Hybrids by combining human and animal DNA.
-
*Stargate Atlantis*:
**Sheppard:** Operation "This Will Most Likely End Badly" is a go.
-
*Stargate SG-1* hid the SGC's funding under the innocuous label of "Project Blue Book", but they were apparently unable to resist calling the effort to repurpose technology stolen from alien "Gods" the Prometheus Project. Note that in real life, "Project Blue Book" was the Air Force's investigation into UFO sightings, ending in 1970.
- The ninth chevron project in
*Stargate Universe* is called Project Icarus. The novelization of the pilot episode implies that General O'Neill plans to tear a strip off of whoever jinxed the operation by giving it that particular name.
- From an episode of
*Arrested Development*:
**Buster:** A hot mission. We should give it a name like Operation: Hot Mother. **Michael:** No, let's try to top that. **Narrator:** They never did and five minutes later, Operation: Hot Mother was under way.
- The last episode of season one of
*Star Trek: The Original Series* is called "Operation - Annihilate!".
-
*Star Trek: Voyager*:
- The mission to retake the space station from the enemy in season 6 of
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* was called "Operation Return." Good thing the Dominion didn't hear that name beforehand.
- Stephen Colbert was once given a flag that had been flown over the US Embassy in Afghanistan (?) during an (apparently actually real) mission known as Operation: Beef Hammer. As he noted, it doesn't get more American than that.
- One episode of
*Blackadder Goes Forth* ends with a vengeful Blackadder "volunteering" George and Baldrick to take part in a mission codenamed Operation Certain Death. In "General Hospital", Melchett tells Blackadder that if he succeeds in finding the spy, he will be head of Operation Winkle, to winkle out the spies.
- Played for Laughs in
*Chuck*. The protagonists are running a top secret operation tasked in part with protecting the Human Intersect Project, one Chuck Bartowski, and in part with using his abilities for spy business of all kinds. It's called "Operation Bartowski". Facepalm.
- In the later seasons of
*Smallville*, Lex Luthor had a tendency to name his secret projects this way with some straightforward classical references: the culmination of his experiments on "meteor freaks" to create a Super Soldier was called "Project Ares," note : effectively, Project War God his attempts to ||clone his brother|| was "Project Gemini," note : Twin Brothers his attempts to build a suit that copies Clark's powers was "Project Prometheus," note : The god who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man etc.
- Hilariously lampshaded by Tess when she takes over LuthorCorp and comments that she's still catching up on all the projects that Lex "named after constellations".
-
*Space: Above and Beyond* gives us "Operation Roundhammer", the code-name for an all-out assault on ||The Chig Homeworld||. For bonus points, the moon that the operation is planned to be launched from is code-named "Anvil". The operation is even mentioned in foreshadowing earlier in the series, with earlier missions being stated to be in support of it, without revealing to the viewers just *what* Roundhammer was supposed to accomplish until the penultimate episode of the series. note : They are forced to abort the operation when the Chigs find out about it and sue for peace, only for the negotiations to break down in bloodshed and renewed war.
- Given the show's love of historical references, Operation Roundhammer is a likely reference to Operation Sledgehammer, a planned (but aborted) 1942 Allied invasion of occupied France.
-
*Nikita*: Division missions are all codenamed this way. According to Michael, the more innocent sounding the name, usually the more devastating the mission.
-
*Ensign O'Toole*, an early '60s sitcom set aboard a Navy destroyer, titled each of its episodes "Operation (something)".
- As did the short-lived 2007 comedy series
*The Knights of Prosperity*.
- Ditto the '70s crime series
*O'Hara, U.S. Treasury*.
-
*Power Rangers Operation Overdrive*. From the same franchise, Operation Lightspeed (the Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue) and Project Ranger (which developed the tech later used by the Power Rangers RPM).
-
*The X-Files* episode "Fallen Angel" has "Operation Falcon", which refers to a government procedure for covering up UFO crashes.
-
*Once Upon a Time*:
- In season 1, Henry calls his efforts to break the curse "Operation Cobra". This would wind up the first of many.
- Season 2 features "Operation Scorpion" (to rescue Emma and Mary Margaret from the Enchanted Forest) and "Operation Praying Mantis" (to figure out what Neal's fiancee Tamara is up to).
- In season 3, as a tribute, Regina calls the attempt to rescue Henry "Operation Henry". She sadly muses that Henry himself would have thought of a better name.
- Season 4's mission to write a happy ending for Regina is called "Operation Mongoose". This one was also her idea as opposed to his (though he approved).
- Season 5's first mission, to rid Emma of the Dark One's powers, is called "Operation Light Swan".
- In season 5's second half, when the heroes' journey to The Underworld to ||rescue Hook|| grows to include redeeming and releasing as many of the trapped souls there as possible, Henry christens the plan "Operation Firebird".
**Regina:** Is that what we're calling it?
**Emma:** Are you referring to the mythological bird, or the muscle car?
- The fifth season finale sees a post-Despair Event Horizon Henry embark on a desperate plot to ||destroy all magic||, which he codenames "Operation Mix Tape" (mostly to impress his crush Violet, with whom he bonded over a mix tape).
- After an influx of refugees from the Land of Untold Stories arrive in Storybrooke, the heroes determine to help them find their happy endings. Naturally, Henry dubs this "Operation Cobra part II".
- When Hook asks Henry to play a role in his and Emma's wedding, he jokingly refers to it as "Operation Best Man", which Henry is very happy to take part in.
- In the sixth season finale, the Black Fairy's curse has altered reality so Emma is locked up in a mental hospital. Henry calls his attempt to break her out "Operation One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".
- Season 7 shows that even as an adult, Henry hasn't outgrown this habit, referring to his mission to reunite with Cinderella as "Operation Glass Slipper". When Regina tags along to help with this, as well as to finally find her own happy ending, Henry dubs it "Operation Next Chapter".
- Later in Season 7, as Lucy and Regina team up to find a way to break the new curse that won't result in ||Gothel's magic poison killing Henry||, they dub it "Operation Hyacinth", after the flower Henry gave Cinderella as their first present.
- "Operation Exodus" is the name given to the evacuation of the Moonbase in
*Space: 1999*.
- A small-scale Government Conspiracy revolves around covering up the details regarding the rather ironically named Operation Daylight in
*Blindspot*. This is ultimately revealed to be ||a Ripped from the Headlines operation where the NSA supplied illegally obtained information to government officials to blackmail opponents, the CIA for intelligence, and the FBI for criminal activity. Mayfair's part was to come up with fake sources for the information that was being provided to her to pass to law enforcement under the guise it had been obtained legally||.
- More important to the Myth Arc is Orion, an off-books CIA black-ops project that not only indulged in the usual SEAL Team Six sort of activities, but also highly-illegal assassinations and military attacks. Details are still vague, but Jane was a member at some point in her mysterious past, and it appears to have operated under the same umbrella as Daylight ||being provided with intel from the latter||.
- One of the new tattoos Jane is given in Season 3 leads towards a secret CIA operation codenamed Project Dragonfly, which Keaton and Zapata are eager to keep secret from the rest of the take force. It ultimately turns out to be ||using the still alive Borden as a Double Agent within a terrorist cell, instead of arresting him as they should have||.
- An episode from the back half of Season 3 features a military project called "Golden Rhino", which the Conspiracy Theorist who uncovers it believes is a Mind-Control Device, but is actually a sonic weapon.
- Throughout Season 4, new Big Bad Madeline Burke and her minions repeatedly mention working towards a plan codenamed "Helios", which ultimately turns out to be ||framing the FBI team for a terrorist attack, in order to leverage herself into a position of authority over the Bureau||.
- On
*Z Nation*, the mission to get Murphy to the last remaining CDC lab in California is called Operation Bite-Mark.
-
*Lucifer (2016)*. When Lucifer recruits the patients at a mental hospital to help himself and God Johnson (literally God in human form) escape, he dubs it "Operation Help Lucifer Escape."
**God Johnson:** A little on the nose, son. **Lucifer:** You are literally the judgiest person in the universe!
-
*Runaways (2017)*: Alex's plan to get inside and hack Tina Minoru's server is....Operation Tina Server Room. He's quick to admit he's not great at making up names.
-
*Stargirl (2020)*: Throughout Season 1, the Injustice Society are working towards the completion of what they call Project New America. It ultimately turns out to be a plan to create a machine that will ||amplify Brainwave's abilities to the point that he'll be able to brainwash millions of people at once||, at which point they'll be able to reshape American society to fit their (surprisingly progressive) views.
-
*Pennyworth*: Season 2 has Project Stormcloud, a chemical weapon program developed by the Raven Union to win their Civil War with the English League.
- The song "Operation Ground and Pound" by DragonForce.
- The last refrain of "Super Rad!" by The Aquabats! mentions "Mission Codename Applesauce".
- Parodied by
*Spitting Image*: At a loose end after the first Gulf War, General Schwartzkopf unveils his plan to unblock a troublesome lavatory: "Operation Get The Shit Out Of Here".
- Both versions of
*The Incredible Hulk Coaster* at Universal's Islands of Adventure have this involved. In the first version, Bruce Banner's experiment to de-Hulkify himself is referred to as "Project Gamma". In the current version, the government's experiments to create Hulk soldiers is called "Project Greenskin".
- On the Hollywood version of
*Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge*, Bowser's plan to beat Mario in the race is dubbed "Project Number MK-526". This doubles as a Development Gag, as "Project 526" was the construction codename for the land.
-
*ANNO: Mutationem*: In the past, The Consortium secretly engineered The Gatekeeper Project that conducted experiments on seven subjects to grant them inter-dimensional abilities that would assist investigating Hinterland. The project was soon halted after an incident resulted in a facility's destruction.
- Bentley names the climactic missions in the
*Sly Cooper* games this way. He parodies himself with the climax to the Holland arc in *Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves*: OP: Turbo Dominant Eagle.
-
*The Legend of Heroes - Trails*
-
*Trails from Zero*: An international collaborative operation called The D∴G Cult Extermination was conducted throughout Zemuria. Its aims were to exterminate the D∴G cult without leaving any trace.
-
*Trails of Cold Steel*: Operation: Shining Steel is the heroes main plan to put an end to the Erebonia war.
-
*XenoGears*: Fei and Citan assist Bart in "Operation: Aveh" to rescue Margie from captivity.
-
*Super Robot Wars: Original Generation* spoofed this with Operation: SRW. We're never actually told what it stands for, but this invites several characters to speculate with amusing results, such as "Sexy Romance Weapons", and of course, "Super Robot War".
- In
*.hack//IMOQ*, the strategy commands Kite can issue to his party fall into this trope, such as "Operation Wonder Battle" for attacking the nearest enemy without using skills or items, and so on.
-
*Metal Gear*
- In
*City of Heroes*, the covert paramilitary force known as the Malta Operatives uses realistically obscure codenames. For instance, the World Wide Red arc involves three groups, Kingdom, Omnivore, and Dreadnaught, with the middle group working on Project Wildflower. ||Kingdom was tasked with destabilizing US/China relations, which was the political end of the operation. Omnivore was responsible for deploying the nanotech weapon which would be used to kill people, mostly supers, on demand, i.e. it could eat anything. Dreadnaught's job was to prepare Kronos-class Titans, giant robots with the firepower of a battleship, which fits the name fairly obviously.||
- Each mission in
*Supreme Commander* is named Operation _______. Generally, the mission name reflects the content of the mission in some way — Operation Metal Shark, for example, focuses heavily on naval units and strategy.
-
*Ace Combat* missions often have titles of this form. While the stage may have a different name, an Operation: Blank code name frequently appears in the Mission Briefing (except emergency missions which get no operation name). See examples: *AC04*, *AC5*, *ACZ*.
-
*Command & Conquer*:
-
*Mass Effect*:
- In
*Mass Effect 2*, Cerberus was responsible for the Lazarus Project, a name with such obvious implications that ||Commander Shepard's resurrection|| was not surprising in the least.
- DLC adds Project: Overlord, an attempt to sway the loyalty of the geth by creating a new god figure to replace Sovereign, and Project: Firewalker, an archaeological mission to recover a Prothean artifact from a volcanic world.
- Multiplayer events in
*Mass Effect 3* take this format as well, with Operation Goliath (kill 1 million of the appropriately-named Brutes), Operation Fortress, Operation Raptor, Operation Beachhead, Operation Resurgence (play on the new Resurgence maps), Operation Exorcist (kill 1 million Phantoms), Operation Silencer (kill 3 million Banshees), Operation Shieldwall, Operation Mastiff (complete 100,000 fetch quests), Operation Savage (kill 7 million Mooks), Operation Broadside, Operation Overwatch, Operation Olympus (extract from London; this operation was held during the London Olympics), Operation Alloy, Operation Patriot (full extraction with everyone playing the same non-human species), Operation Overdrive (full extraction in twenty minutes or less), Operation Bloodlust (score a gold melee medal with a krogan), Operation Valkyrie (the first operation after the Asari Valkyrie was made available and the N7 Valkyrie became an available reward), Operation Jackhammer (score 75,000 points with Biotic Charge), Operation Blast Furnace (score 75,000 points with fire-based powers), Operation Gearhead (score 75,000 points and extract 3 times with an engineer), Operation Detonator (score 20,000 points with biotic explosions), Operation Onslaught, Operation Alamo (survive 5 waves on a map unpopular with some because of how difficult it is), Operation Prophecy (on the weekend of December 21, 2012), Operation Genesis (extract with the default characters), Operation Geronimo, Operation Ballistic (score medals with any gun), Operation Firestorm (score 3 killstreaks in one match), Operation Nightfall, Operation Heartbreaker (Valentine's Day challenge), Operation Tribute (in memory of Robin Sachs), Operation Impact, and Operation Lodestar.
- The
*Mass Effect 3*'s single-player gets in on it, too. The project to build a superweapon from plans found in the Prothean ruins on Mars is dubbed Project Crucible. In the assault on Earth in the endgame, the three prongs of the attack receive Arms and Armor Theme Naming: "Sword", the main thrust of the allied fleet, is meant to cut a path through to ||the Citadel|| for "Shield," the force escorting the Crucible. Meanwhile "Hammer" is an all-out ground offensive by the Resistance and allied forces to get to the teleporter to ||the Citadel||.
- The
*Leviathan* DLC gives us Task Force Aurora, an Alliance team tasked with researching and following leads that can help the Alliance learn more about the Reapers. Aurora itself runs two code-named projects: Project Basilisk and Project Scarab.
-
*Battalion Wars* has several of these, such as Operation: Nautilus, and Operation: Reprimand
- In
*Alpha Protocol*, Steven Heck names all operations that occur in Taipei - even the ones that aren't his. Then again, he's not entirely there in the head.
"I name all the operations that go down in Taipei, even the ones that aren't mine. Operation Latex Turtle, Operation Angry Bees, Operation YEEEEAAAAAHHHHHH! Heh. That was a good one."
- The game itself names all of your missions in this fashion: Operation Desert Spear (Saudi Arabia), Operation Deus Vult (Rome), Operation True Heirs (Taipei), Operation Blood Feud (Moscow), and Operation Full Circle (the Grand Finale).
-
*Mega Man*:
- In
*Mega Man Zero 2*, there's Elpizo's "Operation Righteous Strike", which is essentially an invasion by La Résistance of Neo Arcadia. The operation fails horribly, with many redshirts dead and Zero having to rescue Elpizo before he's killed by the Guardians, which also directly influences Elpizo's FaceHeel Turn to obtain the Dark Elf to get revenge for his failure.
- In the drama tracks, there's "Project Elpizo", the project that instigated the creation of the "Sigma Antibody Program", Mother Elf. TK-31 (Elpizo's former codename) accidentally found the data about this project, and because it's supposed to be a secret for Neo Arcadia, he's declared a Maverick by Harpuia. Eventually, he managed to run away from the country and changed his name into... you know... As well as starting his quest for power by stealing the Baby Elves.
-
*Mega Man ZX* has Serpent's Evil Plan code-named "Project Haven", which would lead to the creation of the ultimate Mega Man and destined ruler of the world...by awaking the Model W Core and using it to feast on the souls of countless innocent humans and reploids for power. Aptly enough, Vent/Aile's goal is to keep this from happening at all costs ||and inadvertently help him finally wake it up in the end before killing him||.
-
*R-Type* gives us Operation Last Dance from *R-Type Final*, and Operation Bitter Chocolate from *R-Type Tactics II: Operation Bitter Chocolate*.
-
*Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure* has "Operation Takeback."
-
*Hitman: Absolution* has Gulf War vet Benjamin Travis masterminding "Operation Sledgehammer", which is about as subtle as it sounds. Taking over a small town in South Dakota, setting fire to parts of it, having his goons execute most of the civilians, all to capture one bald assassin... How on earth did this guy find a job in a top-secret contract agency?
- The Taito arcade game,
*Operation Wolf*, and two of its sequels, *Operation Thunderbolt* and *Operation Tiger*.
- In
*Persona 3*, Junpei calls the guys' attempts to pick up chicks on the beach Operation Babe Hunt. It doesn't go well.
- In
*XCOM: Enemy Unknown*, all missions get codenames of this sort. The ones for regular missions are realistically random (e.g. 'Operation Cursed Jester'), storyline missions can have more meaningful names (the final mission is named 'Operation Avenger').
- Missions from the DLC packs have both a fixed name ("Friends in Low Places", "Site Recon", "Deluge") and a randomly generated "operation" codename.
- To elaborate, the name of each operation consists of two randomly chosen words (the first and second words being chosen from different, albeit overlapping, lists). Most of the words are things that sound reasonably badass when strung together; however, it can still turn out some rather silly and/or on-the-nose ones (e.g. Romantic Night, Fallen Hero, or Sleeping Sleep). Then the sequel went and added a .2% chance of "Chicken" being selected as one of the two words...
-
*X3: Terran Conflict* has Operation Final Fury, a privately funded effort to drive the Kha'ak the rest of the way out of the Community of Planets. *X3: Albion Prelude* has Operation Loose Ends, during which the Terrans launch a raid into the Community of Planets to recover technologies stolen before the war, and recover stolen information on Terran deep-cover operatives.
-
*Kuhga - Operation Code: Vapor Trail*
-
*James Pond 3: Operation Starfish*
- The subtitles of
*Codename: Kids Next Door* Licensed Games carry on this kind of Idiosyncratic Episode Naming with *Operation V.I.D.E.O.G.A.M.E.* and *Operation S.O.D.A.*
-
*Injustice: Gods Among Us* has Green Arrow provide us with "Operation: Thunder Eagle Lightning
.whatever", the off-the-cuff name for a bout of Storming the Castle.
-
*Veigues: Tactical Gladiator* has "Operation Last Rally."
- The Telenet Japan game
*Browning* has "Operation Running Saber."
- In
*LEGO Marvel Super Heroes*, Nick Fury tells Mister Fantastic and Captain America "I need you guys for our Latverian operation. I call it...Operation Latveria!"
- In the
*FreeSpace* game mod *Wings of Dawn*, Crystal calls her plan to break through the Hertak fleet and destroy their mothership Operation: Ragnarok. The other characters note that that seems rather over-dramatic.
- The vanilla campaign in
*Freespace 2* has Project ETAK, which is believed by the GTVA to be an NTF superweapon project. ||It's actually not. ETAK is short for "Etamnaki", a site believed to have inspired the myth of the Tower of Babel, and the project is an attempt to communicate with the Shivans.||
- In the climax of
*ZombiU*, London is declared a no-rescue zone and the RAF launch "Operation Firewall" - firebombing the city to destroy what's left of the virus.
- The
*MechWarrior* series uses this, particularly the second game with names like Iron Piston, Burning Chrome, Velvet Hammer, Golden Spade, etc. The third game has Operation Damocles and also references *BattleTech*'s Operation Bulldog as part of the Refusal War.
-
*Horizon Zero Dawn*: The eponymous "Zero Dawn" is the name of an actual In-Universe project meant to ||revive the biosphere and humanity after all of is killed off by The End of the World as We Know It. The events of the game happen hundreds of years after the Project came to fruition||. Operation: Enduring Victory was the worldwide military operation supporting Zero Dawn, aimed at convincing millions if not *billions* of people to take up arms and hold off the Faro Swarm for as long as possible. Which they did.
-
*Homefront* has Operation Water Snake, the Korean plan to divide the United States by pouring radioactive materials into the Mississippi river. The result is a massive Forbidden Zone between the western occupied zone and the remnants of the country in the east. To top this off, they carry out Operation Fan Fire every few months, setting fire to the local flora to reintroduce radioisotopes into the air, making it dangerous to even be in the area.
-
*Starblade* has the obvious Operation Starblade.
- In
*The New Order: Last Days of Europe* Hermann Göring, as a potential Hitler's successor, is *very* fond of naming his military campaigns. Operation Isabella (invasion of Iberia), Operation Herkules (invasion of Greece), Operation Sea Lion II (second invasion of Britain), Fall Rockwell (invasion of the United States; named after George Lincoln Rockwell).
- A bunch of events in
*Warframe* had titles prefaced with "Operation:".
- Early games in the
*Rainbow Six* series named their levels in this fashion; for example, Operation Ghost Dance in the original game is a mission to rescue hostages at the Worldpark amusement park.
-
*Rebel Inc.* uses this as Hello, [Insert Name Here], allowing the players to name their operation, allowing them to either use randomly generated names, or to pull the usual shenanigans that come with Hello, [Insert Name Here].
-
*Theme Park Inc.*, also known as *SimCoaster* in the states and *Theme Park Manager* in Australia, despite being barely military themed, oddly uses this trope to full degree as every single obejctive in the game follows the same naming scheme, such as "Operation: Expand!", "Operation: Onwards!", etc.
- In
*Metal Wolf Chaos*, the President's secretary Jodi concludes each briefing with the mission's callname, accompanied by a drumroll. These range from on-the-nose like "Operation We Love NYC" in New York City to just plain odd like "Operation Bring Fashion Back to the Street" in Beverley Hills .
-
*Fortnite*:
- All four Limited Time Modes that are part of the Spy Games event are named this way: "Operation: Dropzone", "Operation: Knockout", "Operation: Payload" and "Operation: Infiltration".
- The holiday event that took place during Chapter 2 Season 5 is called "Operation: Snowdown".
- The end-of-season live event for Chapter 2 Season 7 is called "Operation: Skyfire".
-
*Sunrider* has Operation Wedding Crash, in which the Sunrider crashes the wedding of Big Bad Veniczar Arcadius and Princess ||Asaga|| di Ryuvia in order to rescue the bride.
-
*Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri* uses single word operation names which are usually somewhat relevant to the mission. Examples from the demo include the night mission Operation Flashlight and the mountain base assault Operation Citadel. The only exception is the final mission, Operation **Absolute Zero**.
- One of Blue Laser's plots in the
*Homestar Runner* cartoon *Cheat Commandos* is "Operation: Don't Crush Ourselves". It fails.
- A complicated hostage swap in
*Red vs. Blue* is initially titled Operation Circle of Confusion, but...
**Tucker:** I'm just saying it doesn't look like a circle. It kinda looks more like we're forming a triangle. **Church:** Okay, fine. *Triangle* of Confusion. Rhombus of Terror. Parabola of Mystery! *Who cares?! Get the goddamn show on the road!*
- In one of the last sketches of
*The Demented Cartoon Movie*, Evil Blah refers to "Operation Something-Thingy", which even he isn't sure what it does—all anyone knows is that Super Blah's job is to stop it.
-
*Meta Runner*: MD-5's plan to put an end to TAS Corp is specifically named Operation: Silent Demon.
- In Episode 55 of
*The Most Popular Girls in School*:
**Jenna Darabond:** *[to Than]* I just wanted to make sure you're ready to execute "Operation Lose the Fucking Football Game".
- Parody: In
*The Order of the Stick* #153, when Roy the Genius Bruiser refuses to help the others rescue Elan, they note that this eliminates "Operation: Send the Meat Shield in First" and "Operation: Wait for Roy to Come Up with a Better Plan".
- In a strip of
*Schlock Mercenary*, one of Mercenary Captain Kaff Tagon's customers asks for a name for an operation. Following military procedure, Tagon suggests an unrelated name so as not to give away unnecessary information. The customer's suggestion is more in line with this trope...
- In
*El Goonish Shive*, Tedd refers to the rescue of Elliot as "Operation: Zelda". Revealed by Word of God in a filler that this had been a long planned joke, but that's something else entirely.
- Parson from
*Erfworld* decides to experiment with a new combination of powers to create a stealth golem to test his opponent's defenses. Not really believing it will be enough, but wanting to try it out anyway, he dubs the experiment "Operation: Simply Walk Into Mordor"
- In
*Adventurers!*, Cody announces, "Commence mission code name Enter the Khrimalith." He's not very imaginative at coming up with these.
-
*Hellsing Ultimate Abridged* has Alucard and Walter's original mission called "Operation Kraut Control". While accurate, it's so vague that the Nazis would never have been able to figure out what it was (it was a directive to stop the Nazis from creating a vampire army).
- In
*Boatmurdered*, StarkRavingMad is responsible for the creation of Project "Fuck the World", a canal funneling lava to the outside world, as a drastic solution to the settlement's elephant infestation. He also has a secret escape tunnel built as part of Project "Get Me The Fuck Out of Boatmurdered".
- Mined for as much juvenile humor as possible in
*Let's Drown Out*, as Yahtzee had previously modded the aforementioned *XCOM*'s pool of possible adjectives/nouns for random operation names full of Inherently Funny Words of his choice. Examples including Operation Sweaty Slapfight, Operation Dribbling Bastard, Operation Oozing Panties and Operation Smelly Stench.
-
*THE MONUMENT MYTHOS* has two examples of this; Operation Pyramid Plasma from the video *ROCKEFELLERREVELATION* which involves harnessing the anomalous power of the Great Pyramid of Giza to shoot down Nazi airships, and Operation Thunderbird from the video *ALCATRAZAPOCALYPSE* which uses the namesake of the mythological lightning-creating Thunderbird to symbolise the planned high-energy battle between the Statue of Freedom and the Air Force One Angel (two entities that had proven to be very dangerous to the public in the past).
-
*Codename: Kids Next Door* uses this for all their episode titles, with the part after Operation a silly "backronym".
- Many on
*Kim Possible*:
- Project Phoebus made Rufus a genius, and Project Ray X made a ray gun, Ray X, which was to be stored at undisclosed location, Location X, for instance.
- Also worth mentioning is Dr. Drakken's "Operation Catastrophic Doom". Which Shego renamed "Plan Too-Complicated-To-Actually-Work."
- Drakken takes it to the point of telling Shego that he needs her for "Project Gherkin" — which turns out to be getting a stuck lid off a pickle jar.
- Shego also once snarked to Drakken by asking how Operation-Growing-More-Ridiculous-By-The-Day was going.
-
*The Simpsons*:
- Bart tries to make the teacher's strike go longer. His plan: "Operation: Make Strike Go Longer".
- In another episode, the family tries to make Lisa reverse her conversion to Buddhism using "Operation: X-mas, Remind Of How Good Is".
- "Operation: Judge Get Back At"
- "Operation: Hoyven Mayven"
- Project Arctarus.
- In the movie, after several days of Springfield being trapped under a transparent dome, the government prepares to enact Operation Soaring Eagle
||which involves nuking Springfield||.
-
*Family Guy*:
**Army General:** Peter Griffin! Surrender immediately, or we will institute "Operation: Bomb the Crap out of Your House". The guy who makes up the name is on vacation.
- An old
*Looney Tunes* short had Wile E. Coyote attempt to capture Bugs Bunny with a number of complex scientific contraptions, the name of the cartoon (and each device, with an ascending number as the previous attempts fail) is "Operation: Rabbit".
- This also occurs frequently on
*Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines*, whenever Dick Dastardly devises a new plan to catch that pigeon. In fact, two of the shorts were titled "Operation Anvil" and "Operation Birdbrain". A comic book story was titled "Operation No-No" (Hanna-Barbera Fun-In #9, Gold Key, October, 1971).
-
*South Park*:
- In the "Imaginationland" Trilogy, the army uses such operations as "Project: Imagination Doorway" and "Operation: Blow up Imaginationland with a Nuclear Missile", which are exactly what they sound like.
- In "The List" Cartman comes up with "Operation: Cannot Possibly Fail", to steal the titular list from the girls. This involves a Groin Attack on the girl carrying The List and taking it. When that doesn't work, Cartman instigates Plan B, "Operation: Cannot Possibly Fail A Second Time."
- In
*Futurama*, Dwight proposes that he and Cubert leverage their paper route jobs to take over Planet Express using a ruthless business strategy titled "Strategy: Dwight Lightning". Cubert replies, "OK, but I get to name the next strategy."
- In
*The Transformers*, Soundwave would seem to use this trope, except his speech patterns meant he was simply issuing orders.
"Rumble: activate piledrivers. Operation: tidal wave."
"Laserbeak: prepare for flight. Operation: assimilation."
- In season three of
*Beast Wars*, the time-displaced Maximals have to watch over and protect the crashed ship containing their own ancestors from the G1 cartoon. When the Ark is endangered in the Grand Finale, Optimus considers using Operation Eternity - firing up the engines and moving it.
-
*Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends*, "Adoptcalypse Now": To prevent his friends from being adopted, Bloo implements Operation Eight Legged Drop Purple Scaredy Cat Run and Scramble. It consists of scaring Eduardo with a toy spider so that he freaks out and scares everyone away.
- Happens Once per Episode in
*The Penguins of Madagascar*. Sometimes the operation names are clever, sometimes they're quite obvious. A lampshade is hung in "Popcorn Panic" when Kowalski points out that "Operation: Popcorn" seems "a bit on the nose". Whenever Nickelodeon promotes new episodes, promotions for it usually give it such a title, when the actual title is something entirely different. So far the only episode titles actually done this way are "Operation: Plush and Cover", "Operation: Cooties", "Operation: Good Deed", "Operation: Antarctica" and "Operation: Big Blue Marble".
-
*Sheep in the Big City*:
**General Specific:** We will begin Operation Kidnap That Sheep That We Need For The Ray Gun And Don't Let Him Get Away Again Storm as soon as I say "Commence Operation Kidnap That Sheep That We Need For The Ray Gun And Don't Let Him Get Away Again Storm". Commence Operation Kidnap That Sheep That We Need For The Ray Gun And Don't Let Him Get Away Again Storm!
- You could always use the
*acronym*: Operation KtStWNftRGaDLHGAAS.
-
*Invader Zim*'s Irken plan for galactic conquest is called "Operation Impending Doom". Well, "Operation Impending Doom Two". "Operation Impending Doom One" turned out a little differently than expected, thanks to the title character.
-
*The Venture Bros.* naturally has plenty of these. Brock Samson's assignment as Venture's bodyguard is the insulting, if accurate, "Operation: Rusty's Blanket."
-
*DuckTales (1987)* had a villain named Phantom Blot plot to steal an experimental stealth jet from the Navy under the codename of Operation: Aardvark. His henchman complains it's a stupid name, but Blot reminds him that they agreed they'd name their evil schemes *alphabetically*.
-
*DuckTales (2017)*:
- Two episodes of
*Recess* were named as this: "Operation Field Trip", and "Operation Stuart".
-
*Gravity Falls*:
**Mabel:** It's time to begin "Operation: Get Stan Over His Fear Of Heights"! I came up with that name.
- An episode near the end of
*The Legend of Korra* that focused on ||Lin, Toph, Opal, and Bolin trying to rescue the rest of the Beifongs from Kuvira|| was named Operation Beifong.
- In the second season of
*Frisky Dingo*, Killface's presidential campaign is struggling to raise funds, so his campaign manager directs his bodyguard Wendell to raise funds using prison gangs to smuggle drugs.
-
*The Loud House*: Lincoln is the resident "man with a plan" and frequently indicates his plans with operation names. Said operation names are often ridiculously long, and he often Lampshades some by noting that he really needs to think of shorter names for these operations. Case in point: Operation Distract My Sisters so that I Can Get to the TV First and Watch the Special Live Season Finale of ARGGH! and Think of a Shorter Name for This Operation.
-
*Archer* occasionally tries to invent a snappy operation name for something he's doing, but isn't always successful:
**Archer:** Commence operation... something about I rescue Lana and she begs me to take her back, so then Cyril commits suicide. Swear to god I had something for this. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OperationBlank |
Oppose What You Suffered - TV Tropes
Morality Trope, potentially overlapping with Race Tropes. A character who has experienced some form of oppression or injustice in the past or has a background that makes it likely they or their family have suffered such a fate will not stand idly by when others are subjected to the same form of oppression or injustice, often making witnessing such mistreatment hit close to home and a special form of Berserk Button for this character and motivating them to become the Bully Hunter or liberate the slaves, or creating/joining a La Résistance group.
Sometimes it is merely implied by the character's (or actor's) race that they may have had personal experience with or knowledge of that kind of oppression, even if such experiences are not actually portrayed in the story or, sometimes, even part of the setting, potentially also making this a case of Unfortunate Implications (though usually in an at least somewhat positive fashion, as a character who is this trope is heroic rather than monstrous or villainous) or Values Dissonance.
A heroic character who fights any form of injustice or oppression isn't
*necessarily* this — in order to be considered this trope, it must be specifically the same form of injustice that you suffered that you fight, or at least initially so, as such an occasion could also serve as the call that starts the character on a true hero's journey. May lead to a HeelFace Turn if an initially antagonistic character decides to take the moral high road, and may also become a case of Evil Versus Evil if a villainous character does fight injustice but resorts to less than heroic means to do so. If an antagonist does not reform, at least expect a Pet the Dog moment.
A character being this trope differs from being a Defector from Decadence or The Atoner in that the character did not use to perpetrate, espouse or tolerate the kinds of injustice they are now fighting, but used to actually suffer them (e.g. a slaveholder who starts fighting slavery is not this trope, and neither would be a character who neither was a slave themselves nor had members of their family enslaved, but a former slave or one of their descendants would be). This also makes this trope a (usually heroic) inversion of the Freudian Excuse in that the abuse you suffer does not lead to you inflicting abuse on others but to you protecting others from suffering the same fate.
Contrast Pay Evil unto Evil, The Chain of Harm, and Revenge.
## Examples
- Magneto is one of the most famous characters motivated by this mindset. As a Romani/Jew/other ethnic minority during World War II, he and his family suffered horribly at the hands of the Nazis, and he learned firsthand the terrible results of bigotry and hatred. To that end, he opposes that same treatment towards mutants. However, Magneto's methods are very much a case of Depending on the Writer, as sometimes he is 100% correct or even heroic while at other times he is treated as a Well-Intentioned Extremist who Became Their Own Antithesis. It depends on whatever the current status-quo is, really.
- This is almost a hat for X-23:
- Being an Opposite-Sex Clone, Laura is extremely sensitive to genetic experimentation and exploitation. It led to her siding with the Sisters against Alchemax in
*All-New Wolverine*, and the central plot of the Tamaki series involved her hunting down and *shutting* down further attempts to experiment on her genetics. She has outright stated that she refuses to let anyone else suffer as she did, and intends to make good on that promise.
- Additionally, Laura spent some time as a Street Walker under a particularly sadistic and cruel pimp. As a result, she's evolved into something of a Wife-Basher Basher who goes out of her way to bust up any human and sex traffickers she comes across. On several occasions she has outright killed people she caught brutalizing prostitutes (and in one case killed a man who murdered a girl she
*thought* was a prostitute).
- In
*Dragon Age: Blue Wraith*, the title character is a former slave who (since being freed from his master's control in *Dragon Age II*) has taken up the cause of Slave Liberation in the heart of the Tevinter Imperium, particularly targeting magisters with designs of turning their slaves into Living Weapons — like his former owner did to him.
- Invoked and inverted by Erik Killmonger in
*Black Panther (2018)*, who has personally experienced racism and discrimination while growing up in the USA and now intends to save other Black people around the world from suffering similar fates ||by arming them with advanced vibranium weapons, at the very least ignoring and probably being fully aware that the people he arms will merely become the new oppressors in turn. There's also the fact that by making himself the ruler of a non-democratic African nation, one that he intends to lead to war with the rest of the world, he will be oppressing Black people himself.|| Ultimately averted, as it's clear Killmonger doesn't oppose what he suffered in the slightest, he just wants to be the one dishing it out.
- African-American Bruce MacDonald in
*Conquest of the Planet of the Apes* is willing to protect Caesar, likely because he knows all about dehumanisation, oppression and exploitation from his own racial background. He asks Caesar not to act like the humans who enslaved his kind, invoking his slave ancestry while doing so.
- In the zombie comedy
*Deadheads*, Thomas Jeremiah, who is African-American, hunts the ||intelligent and quite harmless|| zombie protagonist for a shady corporation. When it becomes clear that the corporation intends to enslave the zombies, this prompts Jeremiah's HeelFace Turn ||and he helps the zombies escape and reach the girl who happens to have become engaged to one of the zombies before he was turned||.
- In
*District 9*, Wikus initially does not seem to mind harassing and even killing the aliens ||while he is still human||. It is only later||, when he hasn't only started turning into an alien himself, but has also been treated as less than human and even been experimented upon by humans|| that he starts fighting alongside the aliens, though it is not made clear whether he is truly doing this because he, having suffered the same treatment, now sees it as wrong and fights it for that reason||, or because he still believes he needs to protect the aliens so they can turn him human again||.
- In
*Gattaca*, Vincent allows the wind to carry away a genetic sample given to him by Irene when she is clearly afraid he will reject her because of her imperfect genes. ||Actually having used bought genetic samples to assume another man's identity after having been discriminated against because of his own imperfect genes all his life,|| Vincent knows exactly how Irene feels.
- In
*Hellboy II: The Golden Army*, pyrokinetic Liz Sherman bursts into flame when a crowd throws a rock at Hellboy, ||turning the whole situation into a Face-Heel Temptation,|| but manages to restrain herself and merely launch into a "Reason You Suck" Speech. A flashback in *Hellboy (2004)* showed that Elizabeth had had rocks thrown at herself, too when she was still a little girl and her powers were manifesting ||uncontrollably, which then resulted in an explosion that killed several bullying kids||.
- In
*Iron Sky*, James, who is African-American, is pretty much the only decent person in the entire film|| (apart from the people of Finland). While this isn't difficult when the antagonists are actual Nazis From Space, James also both fights the Nazis with violence as well as by working to deprogram those who just don't know things could be different||. Additionally, the fact that the US President deliberately sent James to the moon in a publicity stunt to get the Black vote shows that discrimination against African-Americans is a thing in the film's setting that requires patching up, or at least papering over, in the President's eyes.
- The African mercenary Albert Laurent decides to help the main characters in
*The Island*. Their tattooed numbers||, which identify them as clones - their lives to be thrown away for the benefit of their purchasers - ||remind him of the reason he was branded himself as a child||, making him switch sides||.
- In the 1986 film version of
*Little Shop of Horrors*, Audrey II can only tempt everybody's doormat Seymour ||into committing murder|| when they watch Audrey being treated the same way.
- In the 2021 film
*Old*, African-American policeman Mitchel immediately helps Trent and Maddox, no questions asked||, when they reveal to him the resort's management runs cruel and ultimately fatal medical experiments on some of the guests. Considering Mitchel's family's likely history of slavery as well as the more recent Tuskegee medical experiments on African-Americans it's not surprising that everybody on the beach having been exploited and effectively enslaved for medical experimentation touches a nerve and prompts Mitchel to quick action.||
- In Frank Herbert's
*Dune* series, the Bene Gesserit struggle to improve humanity because they have inherited all the atrocities humanity has both suffered and inflicted through their Genetic Memory (though it would be argued by the Bene Gesserit themselves that this is more of a case of the Bene Gesserit being the atoners rather than opposing what their genetic ancestors suffered since they only inherit the memories of *survivors* - which usually means the memories of those who perpetrate atrocities rather than suffer them).
- Several cases in Sir Terry Pratchett's
*Discworld*:
- In
*Small Gods*, Brutha is used (and abused) as a useful pawn ||(or sacrifice)|| by the authorities of the Church of Om, the god Om himself, and even by those opposing the church. Later,|| once Om has regained his power and instated Brutha as the new head of the church,|| Brutha works to reform the church *as well as his own god* to make sure that people are never treated as mere pieces on a chessboard by the church or his god ever again. ||This has backfired a bit by the time of *Carpe Jugulum*, but still.||
- In
*Unseen Academicals*, Pepe stands up to the bully Andy when no-one else does||, both by providing the protagonists with protection against Andy's favoured Groin Attack and by actually cutting Andy with a knife, a treatment Andy is very keen on inflicting on others||, and in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech, Pepe states that he is very familiar with bullies, implicitly from having been bullied himself||, potentially about his ambiguous species and sexuality||, and will not allow bullies to get away with it anymore.
- In the
*Harry Potter* series, Harry was raised by his abusive aunt and uncle. This contributes to his empathy for others who've been abused, like Dobby the House Elf.
- Katniss Everdeen of
*The Hunger Games* trilogy, having survived the eponymous Gladiator Games twice (in consecutive years to boot), is not *at all* amused ||with the notion of the game being set up one more time involving the Capitol children, to the point of personally killing Alma Coin for (among other things) coming up with this proposal||.
-
*Night World*: Rashel Jordan eventually fights to protect innocent people, especially kids, from being harmed by dangerous Night People; as a little girl her family was killed by a vampire and she only narrowly escaped herself.
- In
*A Song of Ice and Fire*, Daenerys Targaryen opposes slavery, to the point of conquering all of Slaver's Bay to free their slaves, because she herself knows what it's like to be treated like property; her brother Viserys gave her as a wife to Drogo when she was only thirteen in exchange for an army, not caring in the slightest that she didn't want to marry him or how Drogo treated her as long as got what he wanted.
- Unsurprisingly, several cases in
*Star Trek*:
- In the second season
*Star Trek: The Next Generation* episode "The Measure of a Man", the android Data's rights are contested, as a scientist argues he should be treated as a machine, rather than a person||, and this fact is even demonstrated by Data being taken apart and switched off without his consent||. In the season 6 episode "The Quality of Life", Data then goes to extreme lengths to protect an emerging machine life-form from being treated in the same manner before they can fully achieve sentience||, even going so far as to risk the life of his own best friend, Geordi La Forge||.
- In the fifth season
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* episode "The Begotten", the ||former ||shapeshifter Odo tries to raise an infant shapeshifter. When Odo himself was an infant, he was treated as a mere lab specimen and even subjected to painful experiments before he could convince the scientists he was self-aware, and now he works hard to protect the infant shapeshifter from suffering the same fate, ||refusing to allow even the man whose experiments helped Odo gain control over his own shapeshifting abilities in the first place to help||. Instead, Odo chooses to raise the infant shapeshifter in a very gentle, nurturing manner. ||Eventually, however, the scientist who raised Odo demonstrates that raising an infant may also require a bit of Tough Love on occasion when Odo's progress hits a wall.||
-
*The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson*: In 2007, unlike other humorists and late night talk show hosts, Craig Ferguson notably refused to ridicule Britney Spears while she was suffering her Creator Breakdown, as he sincerely sympathized with her struggles, sharing stories about his own struggles with drug and alcohol abuse when he was younger, culminating with a plan to commit suicide on Christmas Day, which he called off at the last minute when he stepped into a pub for some sherry, and decided he needed help. He did the same thing about Charlie Sheen as he suffered his own breakdown in 2011.
- Two examples in
*Wednesday*:
- African-American Mayor Walker initially obstructs exonerating Gomez|| of murder, but relents when Morticia asks him the Armour-Piercing Question of whether he has ever had experience of not being believed when speaking out.||
- Mayor Walker's son Lucas ||initially attempts to help his co-bullies sabotage the outcasts' school party, but becomes conflicted about it, and is then visibly horrified when his co-bullies hurl racist abuse at the outcast Enid, prompting Lucas to disassociate from them for good.||
- Volk from
*Dragalia Lost* exploits (and misappropriates) this trope: The details available on his background show that he came from a life of absolute poverty, struggling to get by and having nothing whatsoever to his name. Blaming others for his deprived youth, he now fights anyone with privilege or in a position of power no matter whether they are responsible for anyone's suffering or not - he is introduced murdering a mayor who has used his influence to help his townspeople prosper.
-
*Ensemble Stars!*: In a downplayed example, Adonis grew up weak and sickly which led to him being taken advantage of by some stronger people. Now that he's grown up into a fit and strong man, he often repeats a declaration to protect the small and weak, because he knows what it's like to be powerless.
- When asked about why he so readily helps the Sole Survivor, Teddy Wright, the local doctor of Far Harbor in
*Fallout 4*, explains that his own family was refused acceptance and aid by the residents for *generations* after their arrival.
- In
*Ikemen Sengoku*, Hideyoshi is especially passionate about Nobunaga's plans to create a more equal world and always does his best to stand up for the lowest members of society because he himself grew up in poverty ||and specifically, as a member of the Sanka gypsies, a maligned ethnicity|| and was only saved from that status due to Nobunaga's charity.
- In
*Journey (2012)*, the various cloth creatures you encounter used to be used to power the machinery ||and engines of war|| of the Ancients. When you free some of these creatures from the machinery they are trapped in, they will insist on leading you to other entrapped cloth creatures so you can free them as well.
- Several cases in
*Knights of the Old Republic*:
- Juhani wanted to become a Jedi knight to fight against awful conditions like those she and her family used to live in when they were fugitives.
- ||The villainous|| Yuthura Ban wants to complete her ||Sith|| training to gain the power to free slaves explicitly because she used to be a slave herself||, which would also make this a case of Evil Versus Evil - by the time you meet her, she has certainly become a Well-Intentioned Extremist at best and is close to even Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and abandoning her heroic cause entirely.||
- Several instances in the
*Mass Effect* universe:
- In
*Mass Effect*, the biotic Jack was both a captive and a test subject of Cerberus when she was a child. If she survives the Suicide Mission in *Mass Effect 2,* Jack later becomes the Mama Bear (if Tough Love-practising) teacher of a group of young biotics in *Mass Effect 3*, when Cerberus comes back and attempts to abduct them in order to turn them into biotic assassins.
- Pretty much all the civilisations ||already wiped out by the Reapers in previous cycles|| who have been working on the Crucible, ||a device that is supposed to end the Reaper threat once and for all,|| count, because they clearly want to make sure the same thing does not happen to other civilisations ||even if it is too late for themselves||. Also counts as Flinging a Light into the Future.
-
*Street Fighter:* The reason Chun-Li becomes an Interpol agent is to stop the evil organization Shadaloo from ruining more people's lives after they played a part in her Dark and Troubled Past (i.e having her father killed).
- Tanimura from
*Yakuza 4* lost his father at a very young age; thus, when he became older, he took to gambling and extortion so that he could provide funds for the Asian Gateway, a group that takes in and supports children who have lost their parents to deportation.
-
*BoJack Horseman*: ||Beatrice had a child out of wedlock, and as a result, she endured a really crappy daily life. As a result, she desperately tries to stop Henrietta from going through the same thing she did in "Time's Arrow" by making her give her baby up for adoption||.
- Defied by Archibald Snatcher in
*The Boxtrolls*, who, as a "Red-Hat," is of lower social status than the "White-Hats," but is quite willing to step on those who are even lower on the rungs of the social ladder than himself, i.e. the eponymous vilified boxtrolls. Played straight and even lampshaded by the Red-Hats Mr. Trout and Mr. Pickles, who have a Heel Realization and, even when faced with failing to obtain a better social status by doing so, decide to aid the oppressed ||boxtrolls and their human allies Winifred and Eggs||.
- Trevor Belmont, the last remaining member of the Belmont Family in
*Castlevania*. Following centuries of hunting monsters to protect the people of Walachia, the Belmonts were falsely accused of practicing black magic by corrupt members of the clergy, leading to his ancestral home being burned down and his parents murdered when Trevor was eight years old. Whilst this has left him cynical and jaded towards most of mankind, Trevor also possesses a deep empathy towards those who are unfairly persecuted by the corrupt. Protecting a nomadic group called the Speakers from being scapegoated by a corrupt bishop marks his transition from simply drifting through to actually taking a stand in general.
- In
*Corpse Bride*, Emily had her happiness stolen from her ||when she was murdered for her dowry by the man she had eloped with||. At the end, she protects Victoria from a similar fate ||even at the cost of her own happiness, and especially because it would now have been Emily who inflicted such a fate on another bride||, because she knows exactly how painful it is.
- Zigzagged two ways from Sunday in
*Transformers: Prime*: Megatron started out as a nameless transformer slaving away in the mines underneath Bad Bosses, and eventually found his way to the Gladiatorial pits, where he earned his freedom through his victories, taking the name 'Megatronus' after the original Tragic Villain of the mythos in the process, hoping to strike fear into his gladiatorial opponents. After earning his freedom, Megatronus gathered a following of disenfranchised transformers and campaigned for a reformation of the political system of their home planet, Cybertron, to make it more egalitarian than it was at the time... but when he was finally granted an audience with the Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering that ran the planet, he saw the flaws inherent in the political process and demanded that he be named Prime - supreme ruler. When this was refused and one of his long-time friends was given the opportunity instead, his gathering of loyal followers began a Civil War against the rulers of the planet to make — the now-renamed — Megatron ruler, a Civil War that would, after millennia of conflict, eventually render the planet uninhabitable and every single remaining transformer The Remnant, and saw his followers rename themselves the 'Decepticons' as their goals eventually became little more than totalitarian control of everything. The final zig of this zagging comes at the end of the series, where ||Megatron has been possessed by Unicron, and is Forced to Watch as Unicron uses his body for the purpose of finally killing off the dormant Primus at the center of the recently-restored Cybertron. Whenever Megatron tries to resist, Unicron enacts Cold-Blooded Torture upon his soul - and this leads to Megatron having a Heel Realization. When the possession is lifted, Megatron disbands the Decepticons and leaves for voluntary exile, realizing that his attempts at becoming this trope have *utterly* failed and that no matter what he does now, his millennia of warfare mean he will always be remembered as an Evil Overlord||.
- Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who had himself escaped from slavery, fought for the abolition of slavery as well as against other forms of political discrimination.
- Elie Wiesel, a survivor of The Holocaust and the author of
*Night*, spent his life after the Holocaust as an advocate against genocide.
- Emily Lindin, a feminist activist who founded anti-sexual bullying website The UnSlut Project, did so due to slut-shaming she experienced in middle and high school.
- Sean Connery was born into a working-class family and had to quit school at age 13 to support his family. He spent much of his later life as an advocate for education, using his paycheck from his final (official) performance as James Bond in
*Diamonds Are Forever* to help establish the Scottish International Education Trust, which helps poorer Scottish families with their education costs.
- English football player Marcus Rashford comes from a poor working-class background and has also been campaigning against children's food poverty because of school holidays and school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic in England in 2020.
- As a child, Neil Young suffered from polio 3 years before the polio vaccine became available. In 2022, he threatened to withdraw his music catalog from Spotify in protest of the spread of COVID-19 misinformation on the platform, especially by radio host Joe Rogan, an infamous anti-vaxxer.
- Ireland endured a famine in the 1840s that was so bad its population still hasn't recovered almost two centuries later. However, modern Ireland has become one of the largest food aid donors. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpposeWhatYouSuffered |
Operator from India - TV Tropes
Spoiler alert: the next representative is also in India. So is the manager they'll demand to speak to.
"You have reached the Operator From India page. My name is Tom. How may I be helping you today?"
A Race Trope, where phone calls are redirected to outsourced operators in far-away countries. Expect the problems other native speakers encounter with foreign accents (and overuse of the Military Alphabet so both parties can understand each other) to be comedy fodder. It doesn't
*have* to be India, but it usually is.
One aspect of it might be using a stereotypical "English" name, when you can probably guess that they don't have an English name. They do this in part to make it seem less like they've routed your call outside the country and in part because you're not likely to be able to pronounce their real name.
While this is a relatively recent thing (almost unheard of before the 2000s), the trope is now firmly established as Truth in Television. While India is a common location for call centers due to its large population and history of British colonization, several languages also have their own "ex-colonial" locations (eg. Algeria for Francophones). The trope often relies on quirky and incomprehensible accents, but modern-day call centers tend to have well-trained speakers.
For Inconvenience, Press "1", or dial The Operators Must Be Crazy.
## Examples:
- Discover's commercials mock this phenomenon with a bearded male phone operator with a heavy (seemingly Eastern European) accent, in what appears to be Siberia, calling himself "Peggy".
- In the Big Finish audioplay
*Fall to Earth*, Ianto is trapped on a privately-owned Space Plane that has suffered a calamity and is falling to Earth. Unable to reach anyone else at Torchwood, Ianto suddenly gets a call offering him health insurance. Deciding to keep the Middle Eastern-sounding woman on the phone, he readily agrees to any terms and even gives her his credit card number (it's not like Torchwood is short on money). The entire audioplay involves Ianto chatting with Zeynep, a call center woman in Izmir, Turkey, while trying to figure out how to bring the craft safely down. ||It turns out the call was no accident, as whoever was behind the sabotage (probably the Committee) wants the building Zeynep is in to be destroyed as well, so the falling craft is actually homing in on Zeynep's headset signal. Fortunately, while the craft does crash into the building, Zeynep has managed to evacuate everyone and has run out of the building just in time, while Ianto finds a parachute and ejects. Zeynep is happy to survive but refuses to meet Ianto for a proper thank you, telling him to call her instead||.
-
*Transformers*: a distress call from a US Army soldier in Qatar is redirected to a disinterested Indian operator. According to director Michael Bay, this was based on a true story, presumably minus the giant robot attack.
**Capt. William Lennox:** This is an emergency Pentagon call! The Pentagon, do you understand—? *[the window behind him explodes]* **Lennox:** I DON'T HAVE A CREDIT CARD! **Operator:** *[bored]* Sir, the attitude is not going to speed things up any bit at all. I'm going to ask you to speak very clearly into the mouthpiece... **Lennox:** I'm in the middle of a war! This is FRIGGIN' RIDICULOUS!!
- In
*Slumdog Millionaire*, Jamal gets an internship at one of these places. The workers are supposed to pretend to be British, and are even briefed on British soap operas to maintain their guise. Jamal isn't actually in charge of the phones — he's just a lowly chai wallah — but he does take a call when no one's looking and pretends to be British, rather unsuccessfully:
**Jamal:** I live near Loch... Big... Ben. Loch Big Ben.
-
*The Other End Of The Line* is a romantic comedy where a woman with this job falls in love with an American customer she first contacted about... well, it was something about identity theft, but that was just to get the plot rolling.
- In
*The 40-Year-Old Virgin*, Andy calls customer support for Viagra-like drug after having an erection for more than four hours. Of course, he never actually took the drug.
-
*Outsourced*, both the film and the TV show, feature these call centers.
- "Gregory" from
*Horrible Bosses*. The guys make a game effort at calling him by his real name, but find it unpronounceable.
- The novel
*One Night @ the Call Centre* by Chetan Bhagat is a partial inversion of this trope, being told from the perspective of Indian call centre workers and going into some detail about how frustrating they find their customers.
- The novel
*Bangalore Calling* by Brinda Narayan digs into the inner workings of a call center in Bangalore and the inner lives of some of its employees. It attempts to examine the sociological and psychological effects of call center employees having to shrug off their real culture and appropriate a different one.
- One sketch on
*Late Night* had Andy Blitz attempting to fix his computer with the help of an Indian telephone IT technician... and traveling to India with his computer (in Real Life!) to pester her.
- Robin Williams has a routine about how he got to one after breaking through the For Inconvenience, Press "1" maze. The operator calls himself "Thomas Edison", and when Robin threatens him, he replies, "Don't fuck with me, Mork,
*I know who you are!*"
- Discussed in a Jeff Dunham bit where he tells Peanut about how it's more correct to refer to American Indians as "Native Americans". Peanut then says that it's better than trying to tell if "Indian" refers to people who chant and own casinos or people who say, "Thank you for calling customer support!"
- In
*Destroy All Humans! 2*, it turns out that even the Furons have outsourced their customer service to India, as Crypto finds out the hard way when he's trying to fix a powerful new superweapon he's found.
- Parodied by
*Homestar Runner* in the Strong Bad Email "isp", where Homestar acts as the tech support for Strong Bad's ISP, and one of the stock phrases Homestar parrots is, "No, I'm not in India."
-
*Neurotically Yours*: One of the reoccurring characters is an Indian tech support operator, until he's fired and becomes a... less than helpful suicide hotline operator. ||His cure for all depression is "Just shut the fuck up!"||
-
*Red vs. Blue*:
- In season five, Sarge attempts to contact Vic while Simmons is exploring the cavern. When Simmons gets too close to Vic's control console, Vic hurriedly hangs up. Sarge thinks this trope is about to kick in and asks not to be transferred to India.
- In a similar vein, a Season 11 PSA about the NSA reveals that when Sarge calls tech support, he ends up getting their Spanish-speaking teammate Lopez. Sarge genuinely thought he was talking to someone named Tim from Ohio.
- The plot of
*Broken Telephone* is kicked off when a woman working in a call center in India overhears a gunshot on one of her calls. She then has to try to solve a murder from half a world away.
-
*The Simpsons*: Apu's cousin in India makes his living as an operator for several American companies, each with a matching American accent.
- In the
*Drawn Together* episode "Toot Goes Bollywood", we are introduced to the king of India. When we first see him, sitting on his throne in full regal regalia, he is wearing a headset and in the middle of taking a tech support call.
- In
*Frisky Dingo*, Killface gets redirected to one of these when trying to contact his health insurance company, where the operator "shrieks" at him, "terminates" the call, and then gets praised by his supervisor.
-
*Monkey Dust* has a sketch where a woman phones her bank and is answered by an operator in India who pretends to be the bank manager in Britain. She complains that the bank is too large and impersonal, and asks to close her account so she can move her money to a small, Scottish-run building society. She calls the building society — and then another operator in the same Indian call centre answers, doing a very bad impersonation of a Scottish accent.
-
*Family Guy*,
- One episode demonstrates how bad crime has gotten in Quahog by showing the bullies in Chris's school outsourcing their bullying to Indian tech support workers. One tells Chris to give himself a wedgie.
- In "Road to India", Brian falls in love with a tech-support worker and spends long periods of time using the tech support chat option just so he can talk to her. Things become complicated when Brian goes to India to meet this woman and Stewie tags along.
- In the
*American Dad!* episode "Four Little Words", Francine runs away to India and is seen working with a computer and headset. "Thank you for calling Apple tech support."
- In the eighteenth season
*South Park* episode "Grounded Vindaloop", Cartman calls Oculus Rift's tech support and gets a guy at an Indian call center calling himself Steve, who tells him that he's trapped in a VR state. Cartman tries to convince Stan and Kyle that *they're* also stuck in the VR world, while they try to convince him that This Is Reality. It ends with "Steve" calling customer service himself and getting a VR version of himself at the other end, then convincing *that* version to call customer service and create an infinite loop — or rather, a customer service "Vindaloop".
- If Indian (and Pakistani) call centers are for the UK and US, and Filipino call centers are also for the US, who does Australia get? Typically, they get Indians and Filipinos trained to sound Aussie. It works; they sound exactly as if they've been trained to sound Aussie.
- Foreign call centers make outgoing telemarketer calls as well. There's a particularly insidious version where someone from India (or pretending to sound like it) pretends to be from Microsoft, the phone company, the police, debt collectors, tax authorities, you name it and tries to trick you into giving them your password or account details (
*don't ever* say your password out loud — no reputable entity will ever ask you to do it). People have been so used to being redirected out of the country that it sounds more genuine when *incoming* calls come from outside the country as well.
- A good rule of thumb as to whether a call is legit or not, is when they don't even address you by name, but still want to "confirm your details". DO NOT give them any details, but instead get them to confirm that
*they* have your details (they will have to have them if they are going to 'confirm' them). Once they say yes, simply ask them what *your* first name is. Chances are high that they will just hang up. Regardless, if you are in *any* doubt, just go into your local bank/police/tax/etc branch to deal with this issue.
- Some companies tout that they
*don't* do this, putting all their call centers within the country. Then they staff them with immigrants from India or the Philippines.
- Many tech companies are stocked with well-trained and technically savvy Indians, so in some cases, the tech support in based locally, but if you need an expert they'll route you to India. This also means that
*Indians* calling for tech support might be routed to America, to them populated by ignorant foreigners with funny accents.
- Non-English speakers naturally will have an operator somewhere other than India, and different languages all have their own foreign countries that serve this trope just as well:
- In Spain, you'll get an Operator from Latin America. Meanwhile, in Latin America itself it's usually an Operator from the Dominican Republic (who can usually speak English as well and do double-duty for US callers).
- In Francophone regions (France, French-speaking Belgium, French-speaking Switzerland, Quebec, etc.), you'll get an Operator from North Africa (usually Algeria).
- In Germany, you'll get an Operator from Turkey or perhaps Bosnia.
- In Japan and South Korea, you'll get an Operator from China. Heck, if you speak Chinese outside of China (
*e.g.* Chinese populations in the U.S., Australia, Singapore, Malaysia), you'll get an Operator from China. These guys have also been known to target the Chinese-speaking diaspora with incessant telemarketing and occasional scams (now pretending to be from the notoriously bureaucratic and hardline PRC government).
- In certain parts of Europe, you'll get an Operator from Portugal.
- India also has a large number of companies that run technical support scams, tricking people into sending them money by pretending to fix nonexistent computer problems, often by pretending to be other computer companies. India's government has started cracking down on these companies and several hackers like Jim Browing have been working to sabotage them but there still currently are a lot of them active.
- They seem to have gotten into headhunting as well, at least for tech jobs. Post a profile on a major job-hunting board and you'll start getting inundated with emails from recruiters with Indian-sounding names, most of which are "urgent", light on details, and only tangentially related to your actual interests and qualifications. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OperatorFromIndia |
Opposite Day - TV Tropes
*♪ Everything is upsy-daisy*
Everyone is acting crazy ♪
**Not A Dude:**
I'm gonna punch you in the face!
*(prepares fist)* **Not A Guy:**
But it's Opposite Day.
**Not A Dude:**
OH NOOOO—
*(fist lands on own face)*
Click the edit button to end this old page.
Opposite day is
**not** the special day when everyone does the opposite of what they would normally do. On opposite day, which everyone agrees happens on a specific day of the year, you always tell the truth and do everything the same as usual.
Do not compare Just the Introduction to the Opposites. Has nothing to do with Russian Reversal, Bizarro Universe, and Mirror Universe. Closely related to NOT!...
**Not!**
## Aversions:
- Yotsuba&! spent a chapter,
*Yotsuba & the Restaurant*, playing the Opposites Game with Dad, Asagi, and Torako. She capped it by calling Asagi "an ugly old hag" without warning...
- In
*Anpanman*, there is a character named Backwards Fairy who says the opposite of what he means. Baikinman has to watch what he says when he disguises himself as him.
-
*Iznogoud*: In "The Day of Misrule" (and its cartoon version, "Nuts' Day"), masters become servants and servants become masters for a day, which makes Iznogoud Caliph until midnight. He scrambles to make the inversion permanent before then, but when he gives Wa'at Alahf his fortune and sells himself into slavery to persuade the people to rally behind him, midnight strikes and he is arrested as a runaway slave.
- In
*The A-Team*, B.A. wonders if it's Opposite Day when Hannibal carjacks him.
-
*Our Miss Brooks*: "Turnabout Day" at Madison High School, the brainchild of Walter Denton. Teachers were students and students were teachers, and Walter Denton was principal, regaled in a Osgood-Conklin style three-piece-suit. Miss Brooks wore a pair of tight jeans to school. Stretch Snodgrass taught English while wearing a dress (and carrying a football). Mr. Conklin wore a three-propeller beanie and a Mickey Mouse shirt. Mr. Conklin had wanted nothing to do with the notion; but the head of the board of education, Mr. Stone, had "ordered" it. That is to say that Walter Denton forged Mr. Stone's signature on a letter to Mr. Conklin . . . .
- There was an Opposite Day episode of
*Salute Your Shorts*, where Ugg and Budnick switched positions; Budnick went Drunk with Power.
-
*You Can't Do That on Television* had a series of Opposites skits Once per Episode, set up by a clever prank on one of the cast members.
-
*The Colbert Report* has a relevant segment available online for leisurely viewing.
-
*The Whitest Kids U' Know* had a sketch on it, here.
- One episode of
*World's Dumbest...* features such things as a guy in a banana costume attacking a guy in a gorilla costume and a convenience store clerk stealing from a customer, prompting Mike Trainor to wonder if it's Opposite Day. He then imagines "World's Smartest Law-Abiders," featuring a man crossing the street on the green light, Frank Stallone complimenting him and saying that he must be Russian, and Tonya Harding using Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness. Trainor then decides that he doesn't like Opposite Day.
-
*Unforgotten Realms* has an episode using Opposite day while dealing with a random encounter.
- The
*asdfmovie* and its sequels had an opposite day, especially *asdfmovie5*, which provides the page quote.
- One
*Cyanide and Happiness* short is set on the titular day. As usual for C&H, things start off innocently enough, and then take a turn for the dark and weird — culminating in some firefighters setting a building on fire.
-
*Archer* had a bit in the episode "Viscous Coupling" where Cheryl believed they were in Opposite World, resulting in her mixed-up communications interfering with Archer's plan.
-
*Craig of the Creek* features an episode fittingly entitled "Opposite Day". In it, Opposite Day happens during solar eclipses, due to the light of day being turned into the opposite, the darkness of night. All the kids of the creek are compulsively acting opposite their true nature, such as Kelsey being a spineless pacifist instead of a confident warrior, or Kit giving away her wares for free instead of trading for them. This even extends to physical attributes becoming opposites, such as Kelsey's sword gaining healing properties, or the short girl Big Red being turned into a giant named Little Blue. After seeing the total chaos caused by this event, Craig, Kelsey, J.P. and Wren decide to end opposite day by lassoing the sun out of alignment. Wren points out that this shouldn't work due to all the laws of science broken by doing so, but Craig points out it is opposite day, so it should work because under normal circumstances it shouldn't. Which it does.
- There was a Feast of Fools in medieval Europe, in which the commoners could do as they pleased, and the Lord of Misrule outranked the nobility for the day. Monasteries celebrated this Feast by choosing a young monk to be abbot for the day, eating and drinking in chapel and replacing services with songs and dancing that bordered on blasphemous. An aspect of this survived until more recent periods as the "Boy Bishop" ceremony on St Nicholas's Day. This was referenced in
*The Hunchback of Notre Dame*, where Quasimodo is mistaken for one of the revelers in a horrible mask and then crowned King of Fools due to his ugliness. In the Disney movie this is depicted with the musical number "Topsy Turvy".
- There have also been similar festivals throughout European history, for example the Roman Saturnalia in which, for example, slaves might be waited upon by their masters and other Roman cultural norms were reversed. During the Middle Ages, some of these traditions even seem to have been attached to Christmas, including those pertaining to this trope. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppositeDay |
Opportunistic Vendors - TV Tropes
*"Several sellers of hot meat pies and sausages in a bun had appeared from nowhere and were doing a brisk trade. [Footnote: They always do, everywhere. No-one sees them arrive. The logical explanation is that the franchise includes the stall, the paper hat and a small gas-powered time machine.]"*
When something big and dramatic happens in public, a big crowd of people will appear, curious to see the spectacle. And in Fictionland, with that crowd inevitably comes vendors looking to take advantage of the event, with carts and hastily-erected stalls and tents full of merchandise. Said merchandise often happens to be conveniently themed around the event, complete with themed T-shirts, even if it just happened a few minutes ago and there's no way they could have obtained those things so quickly. (Of course, they could just as easily turn up with shoddily made goods that fall apart at the slightest touch.)
The scenario is more plausible if the vendor is selling food and pushing a wheeled cart, implying they already had their wares prepared before the commotion happened. But if that happens, expect there to be a chase scene where the cart gets hit by something and flips over, sending food flying everywhere—especially if it's a Fruit Cart.
Opportunistic Vendors have a tendency to be portrayed in a rather negative light, especially if the event is something tragic or involves someone being punished or humiliated in public. In that case, they'll be portrayed as greedy jerks trying to make a quick buck off of someone else's misery. Even if they're not doing that, they can be extremely annoying when trying to advertise their wares, by means of having No Indoor Voice while shouting to draw in customers or putting up large, obnoxious advertisements that take up a great deal of space.
Common variations and gags:
- The most common variation involves a vendor hawking stereotypical movie theatre/sports game food like popcorn, hot dogs, and sodas.
- If the event involves a public shaming of some sort or even an execution, expect at least one vendor to turn up with a cart full of rotten eggs and vegetables for throwing at the unfortunate person on their way to the pillory, stake, or gallows.
- The vendor is selling Torches and Pitchforks to an angry mob, maybe even supplies for making protest signs. May overlap with the previous example.
- Two parties are being pitted against each other and a vendor starts Playing Both Sides by selling merchandise aimed at fans of both parties.
- Alice becomes famous for something and her friend Bob starts selling merchandise themed after her, trying to profit off her new fame. He might justify this as trying to make her even more famous.
- The vendor hastily alters their merchandise based on the opinion of the crowd — for example, using a Sharpie to turn "Alice Rules" shirts into "Alice Drools" shirts.
- Instead of just one vendor, an entire carnival with many vendors is rapidly constructed around the event in a very short span of time.
- Something dangerous is happening, but a large crowd is standing around and watching while treating it like a spectator sport, including vendors selling food. When everyone runs away, the vendors will run away too while pulling their food carts with them as fast as they can, or simply be forced to abandon them.
Needless to say, this trope ignores the massive amounts of work and preparation that go into selling anything at an event in real life: signing up with the organizers, paying to reserve a spot, obtaining any required permits (especially if they are selling food), buying the necessary equipment (table, chair, booth, tent, money box, business cards, storage boxes, etc.), calculating material costs and net profits, making the goods by hand or ordering them from a supplier, advertising themselves in person and/or on social media, and it all has to be done weeks if not months in advance. Fictional vendors can show up at any event they want and pull out large amounts of conveniently themed merchandise from nowhere, due to the Rule of Funny.
Related to Pass the Popcorn, Come to Gawk, Festival Episode, and The Freelance Shame Squad, and frequently involves Ridiculously Fast Construction of stalls and tents. The vendor is probably running an Honest John's Dealership and may be a Snake Oil Salesman. A close cousin of this trope is the Shady Scalper. Compare the equally opportunistic and morally dubious Ambulance Chaser.
## Examples:
-
*Pokémon: The Series*: As part of their numerous money-making schemes, Team Rocket often tries to make quick cash by selling various products to the people of whatever city or town they're in at the moment, with varying degrees of success.
- In "Sleepless in Pre-Battle!", the people of Canalave City are suffering from terrible nightmares caused by Darkrai, which can only be cured by Cresselia's feathers, called Lunar Wings. Team Rocket takes advantage of the crisis and starts selling "Lunar Wings" that turn out to be painted Pidgey feathers.
- During the Sinnoh Grand Festival arc, they sell photographs of the Coordinators who are competing in the Grand Festival. While they sell a lot of them, Jessie isn't happy because nobody is buying the photographs of her Coordinator persona, Jessilina.
-
*Ranma ½*: Downplayed. One Running Gag for Ukyo Kuonji and the Nekohanten crew is that wherever they go they try to peddle their food to the locals. However, it is not that they are exploiting the chaos so much as they are the *cause* of the chaos.
-
*Judge Dredd*: The story "Crash Diner" has a more justified example than most, seeing as the Vendor in question, Accident Eddy, is a precog that can see the disaster unfolding well in advance. By the time the cars start piling up, he's already there selling hot dogs. Eventually he has the Judges following him around, trying their best to prevent the accidents before they happen, but more often than not needing to be content with at least having the emergency services on the scene early.
-
*The Far Side*: A vendor selling "I kicked Santa Ana's butt at the Alamo" T-shirts during the battle starts deeply discounting them as the Alamo's defenders are driven back.
-
*BURN THE WITCH (Miraculous Ladybug)*: When Witch Hunter is about to burn Lila at the stake for her many crimes, an entire festival is rapidly constructed around the event with stalls selling food and merchandise so people can enjoy the spectacle.
- Defied in
*The Negotiationsverse*. When Princess Luna is killed in battle during the Conversion War, some businessponies try to profit off of the tragedy but are immediately shunned for their tasteless and insensitive actions.
-
*Ace in the Hole (1951)*: A man trapped in a cave-in is made into a media circus, with a literal carnival built around the entrance to the cave. This explains the movie's other title, *The Big Carnival*.
- In the film
*Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire*: when the tasks for the Triwizard Tournament are taking place, Fred and George circulate, inviting the spectators to take bets.
-
*Machete*: Parodied when the Mexican Network launch a raid on Torrez's base at the climax. After they bust the main gate open with their lowriders and storm the compound, a lone fellow pushing an ice cream cart follows along, firing an Uzi in the air.
-
*Nope*: After the arrival of the UFO, Jupe capitalizes off of the anomaly, creating and selling costumes and toys based on what he thinks the aliens look like, as part of his "Star Lasso Experience", sacrificing horses and profiting off of the extraterrestrial. Needless to say, things don't go exactly according to plan.
-
*Quick Change*: During Grimm's bank robbery at the beginning, crowds gather to watch and cheer as NYPD quickly surrounds the bank; several hot dog vendors can be seen pushing their carts fast, jockeying to take advantage of the sudden business.
-
*Discworld*: Cut-My-Own-Throat Dibbler and his various Inexplicably Identical Individuals across the Disc primarily sell inedible street food, but will also pounce on any opportunity to make money on every new fad.
-
*Harry Potter*:
-
*James and the Giant Peach*: When the titular peach suddenly grows to the size of a small house, the fat and greedy Aunt Sponge wants nothing more than to stick a shovel in the peach and eat some immediately, but Aunt Spiker persuades her that there is serious money to be made by charging people to come and see the peach.
-
*Judy Moody*: In *Judy Moody Gets Famous!*, Judy is trying to get famous because all of her family and friends have been on the news at one time or another. When her family is having a garage sale, she doctors a cherry pit to make it look old, sets up a table with a display claiming it's from George Washington's cherry tree, and charges people 5¢ to look at it. Unfortunately, a young boy mistakes it for an M&M and swallows it whole.
- In the children's book
*Moon Man*, the unexpected visit to Earth by the man in the moon prompts a huge rush of fire engines, army tanks, and other emergency vehicles. Among these is a mobile ice cream stand, with a footnote that the ice cream man hurried to set up his stand for the spectators.
-
*A Song of Ice and Fire*: In *A Dance with Dragons*, when Cersei is being forced to walk naked through King's Landing as penitence for her sins, a massive crowd comes to witness the spectacle. Some vendors appear selling street food, including a baker's boy selling meat pies and a man selling roast rats from a cart. One man eating a rat calls out to Cersei, "Want some, Your Grace?" When she looks away in disgust, he throws the skewer at her, splattering grease and blood on her legs.
-
*Black Mirror*: In "White Bear", ||when Victoria is being condemned and punished for helping film the murder of a little girl, she is driven through a furious crowd in the back of a glass van with people screaming at her and calling her a murderer. A stall is selling sponges dipped in red paint to throw at the van for $2 each||.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*: In "Hush", the bad guys steal the voices of everyone in Sunnydale, leading an enterprising individual to set up a booth selling portable whiteboards and dry-erase markers.
-
*3rd Rock from the Sun*: When Dick and Harry fall into a hole, it becomes a local media frenzy. Tommy starts selling t-shirts to commemorate "this great marketing opportunity / tragedy".
-
*Veronica Mars*: After the bus crash kills several kids, people start selling merchandise themed around it in a matter of weeks, especially a bus with angel wings.
- In the Kurt Weill musical
*The Firebrand of Florence*, the opening Public Execution scene includes a vendor hawking "souvenirs of the hanging of Cellini." After the protagonist gets a Last-Minute Reprieve, the same vendor starts selling "souvenirs of the pardon of Cellini."
-
*Team Fortress 2*: When Spy and Scout are about to be publicly hanged, multiple vendors can be seen outside the courthouse, selling balloons, bags of popcorn, "Hang-A-Merc" dolls for $1 each, and T-shirts that say "Hanging of the Century" and "Hang the Teufort Nine."
-
*The Band Concert*: Subverted—when Mickey and friends are holding a band concert, Donald arrives, selling peanuts and ice cream from a cart. However, he quickly abandons it in favor of playing "Turkey in the Straw" on his flute, which greatly annoys Mickey as he's interrupting the concert.
-
*Family Guy*: In "Pawtucket Pat", a mob of angry white guys show up to protest the removal of the town's Pawtucket Pat statue. While this is happening, a man who owns a store selling only tiki torches and New Balance shoes (both of which were co-opted as symbols of the alt-right movement) changes the sign on the door from "CLOSED FOREVER" to "OPEN FOR ONE MORE DAY".
-
*Futurama*: In "Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?", Zoidberg challenges Fry to a one-on-one "Clawplach" battle. At the arena, Bender tries to make money by taking bets from the spectators and even tries to rig the fight in Zoidberg's favor.
**Bender:** Fry, I've never asked you for anything before. But if it's not too much trouble, when it comes to the ninth round, just let him win.
**Fry:** But it's a fight to the *death!*
**Bender:** Oh, so suddenly this is all about *you!*
-
*La Ballade des Dalton*: Inverted. A Running Gag throughout the book is the Daltons keeping on encountering a traveling salesman named Tobias Willis, who always has a thing they need (such as shovels and guns) every time they have a need for it. And every time, they take the thing at gunpoint.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*: In "The Best Night Ever", when the Mane Six are attending the Grand Galloping Gala, Applejack sets up a stall to sell her homemade apple treats, hoping she'll make a lot of money for her family. Unfortunately, the rich, snobby ponies attending the event don't want to buy her food because they think it's too low-class for them (and because there's a free buffet inside). Not to be outdone, Applejack bakes a massive, three-tiered apple cake and wheels it into the ballroom on a cart, but Pinkie Pie, who's trying to liven things up, dives into it and sends it flying, starting a chain of Disaster Dominoes that destroys the party.
-
*Robot Chicken*: After almost being dropped into a volcano and having a misadventure in the Schlorps' village, Bitch Pudding makes it home to Pastryville, only to find the villagers celebrating her "death" with a giant festival. Fudge Turnover is selling volcano-fried Bitch Pudding on a stick, and other villagers have set up Toss-A-Bitch and Whack-A-Bitch carnival games and a Bitch Pudding-shaped piñata.
-
*The Simpsons*:
- In "Krusty Gets Busted", Krusty is declared guilty of robbing the Kwik-E-Mart, and the town holds a bonfire of things bearing the clown's image. At the gathering, a vendor is selling Krusty merchandise specifically for people to throw in the fire ("Buy 'em and burn 'em!").
- In "American History X-cellent", Mr. Burns is arrested and wheeled to jail before an audience of townspeople who despise him. Moe takes advantage by selling produce to throw at Burns.
**Milhouse:** How much for a tomato?
**Moe:** Fresh is a dollar, rotten's two bucks.
**Kirk:** Son, do you really need the rotten? I mean, it's not like you're gonna hit him. *(beat)* Aw, since it's your birthday...
- In "The Springfield Files", the town turns out to the forest where Homer had witnessed the "alien." Vendors are present selling T-shirts saying "Homer Was Right." Homer lays this on skeptical Lisa, observing how you don't see anyone selling "Homer Is a Dope" T-shirts, but it turns out the vendors already sold out of those shirts. Marge even bought one herself, because she admired the stitching on the word "Dope."
- In "Round Springfield", a hot dog vendor appears twice to sell Homer hot dogs, once smack in the middle of a graveyard during Bleeding Gums Murphy's funeral. When Marge points out to the vendor how inappropriate it is that he is here, he tells her that his sales to Homer are putting his kids through college.
- In "Radio Bart", a carnival complete with an array of vendors is built around the abandoned well where a little boy named Timmy O'Toole (actually Bart using his long-range microphone) is trapped, a Shout-Out to
*Ace in the Hole (1951)*.
-
*SpongeBob SquarePants*:
- In the
*Yogi Bear* short "Yogi in the City", as Yogi is about to leap from a window ledge high above the city, a street vendor starts selling plush dolls of Yogi. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpportunisticVendors |
Opium Den - TV Tropes
She messed around with a bloke named Smokey
She loved him, though he was cokey
He took her down to Chinatown
And showed her how to kick that gong around
The door opens into warm darkness. The air is filled with smoke, its bitter-sweet scent undercut by a faint stink of sweat and bile. An attendant scurries toward you, seemingly out of nowhere, bearing a pipe and a pill of opium.
You settle into the lower level of a two-tiered bunk much like a train sleeping compartment. Declining to close the curtain — that is for those already drugged to either stupefaction or hypersensitivity — you cast your eyes about the room as the first breaths of hot vapor connect with your lungs. Around you are men and women of every conceivable race and class, some silent in contemplation of their private fantasies, others talking to or amongst themselves in strange accents and hushed tones. They coexist in a peaceful single-mindedness that would be the envy of church or state.
This is not a luxurious place, not a picture-postcard place in red and gilt. The wooden walls know neither paint nor plaster; the floor is grimy; the air is close. But to the habitué, it is paradise.
The image of the opium den is often romanticized, probably because few such places still exist. The media are more realistic in portraying other places where drug users gather to get high, such as "shooting galleries" (where addicts gather to inject drugs, usually heroin) and crack houses.
Opium use was known as "kicking the gong (around)", thus explaining the use of that phrase in many jazz songs.
Historically associated with Chinese culture, but not all are from that area. Limehouse, in London, was not actually that bad at all (the actual reason for the prevalence of this trope is, to cut a long story short, that in the 1800s the British virtually got everyone in China hooked on opium because the Chinese had a lot of stuff the British wanted to buy, but the British had nearly nothing the Chinese wanted).
Not to be confused with Opus Dei.
See also Friendly Local Chinatown and Yellow Peril.
## Examples
- Lau runs one of these in
*Black Butler*. The audience and Ciel enter it briefly at the beginning of, predictably, the opium arc.
- Granny Hao, Minnie May's old associate and underworld contact runs one of these off screen in
*Gunsmith Cats*. She also provides all sorts of highly effective Chinese herb remedies as a side business, that rival synthetic drugs in their effectiveness.
-
*Night Raid 1931*: In "Devil of the Opium Den", Sakurai orders the group to investigate an opium den which is said to be a hideout of spies. However, something goes wrong with Yukina's abilities. As a result, she tries to figure out the events that had happened when she entered the den.
- Peter David's
*Fallen Angel* has an arc where Lee smokes opium in a hookah in Asia Minor's place.
- In
*Immortal Iron Fist*, Orson Randall suppressed his chi by abusing opium, concealing his existence from those hunting the renegade Iron Fist.
- In the beginning of
*The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen* comic, Alan Quatermain is in an opium den.
- Towards the end he has to enter another one, and nearly relapses.
- Where The Mandarin was born, according to the
*Invincible Iron Man* annual.
- In
*The Sandman (1989)*, "Four Septembers and a January" features a belligerent sailor insisting that a Chinese San Fransiscan *must* know where to find an opium den. The person he's accosting just claims not to speak English.
- The Blue Lotus in the
*Tintin* book of the same name. This being a more upmarket, well-painted example, frequented by businessmen and diplomats.
- The least romanticized version possible appears in
*Y: The Last Man* as ||virtually the entire continent of Australia.||
- Harvey Keitel's eponymous (and nameless)
*Bad Lieutenant* visits a latter-day heroin den that otherwise fits the trope.
-
*Blind Woman's Curse*: A Japanese Yakuza boss has one of these where comely topless women smoke pipes, and apparently are used as prostitutes by the boss's mooks.
- In
*Brick*, the area behind Carrow's Restaurant where Dode and the other stoners hang out is intended to reference this, as evidenced by the Asian-sounding musical cues.
- D.W. Griffith's tragedy
*Broken Blossoms* takes place in Limehouse. The Chinese hero, a Buddhist missionary, falls on hard times and takes to the pipe.
- Eddie visits one toward the end of 1935's
*The Cocaine Fiends*.
- The
*Doctor Mabuse* films feature a few ones. The titular Doctor finds his victims there, among corrupt millionaires and aristocrats.
- In
*DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story*, the mockumentary on how to play dodgeball claims that the game was invented in Chinese Opium Dens.
- Lord Henry takes Dorian to one in
*Dorian Gray*.
- Williams from
*Enter the Dragon* met his end in one of these at the hands of Mr. Han.
- Both the graphic novel and film versions of Alan Moore's
*From Hell*.
- In
*The Good, The Bad, The Weird*, Tae-goo ends up in one, though he's really only looking for a room to spend the night.
- In
*Inception*, the dream-den beneath Yusuf's shop seems intended to evoke this.
-
*Indochine*: Eliane is a hard-driving plantation owner in Vietnam who likes to unwind by going to an opium den and getting high. She even introduces her younger lover to them (even though he's supposed to be police its traffic). He drags her out of a den at one point.
-
*The Letter*: The club that Mrs. Hammond lures Leslie to in the 1940 film is pretty clearly an opium den. In the 1929 film it's a little more vague.
- Another French film set in colonial Vietnam,
*The Lover*, has the title character, a Chinese playboy, seeking solace in an opium den after his family force him to break off his affair with the Girl (an underage French girl) and enter an arranged marriage.
- In
*The Mask of Fu Manchu*, Nayland manages to figure out that one of these actually hides the secret entrance to Fu Manchu's underground compound. He talks his way into the opium den and then enters the compound.
-
*The Mountie*: After accidentally killing a child, Grayling became an opium addict. A flashback shows him being roused by the hostess and led out of the den.
-
*Once Upon a Time in America* begins and ends with the guilt-ridden protagonist Noodles seeking solace in an opium den.
-
*Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking* opens with Holmes in an opium den.
- Where the vaudeville troupe is working in
*The Son of the Sheik* when Ahmed returns to rescue Yasmin. Lots of people lounging around smoking.
- Where Lady Leslane likes to spend time in
*Spies*.
- In
*Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street*, Anthony passes by one while traveling through London.
- In
*The Terror of the Tongs*, the Red Dragon Tong operates a string of opium dens across Hong Kong. Captain Sale visits one of them in the course of his investigation.
-
*Thoroughly Modern Millie* has one of these that doubles as a prostitution/white slaving ring.
- There's a scene in an opium den in the action film
*Tian Di*, where the opium is imported by the corrupt military. Even a child is seen smoking on a joint.
- In
*Tombstone*, Curly Bill comes out of an opium den just before he shoot Marshall White. Later a character picks up an opium pipe in a den that instead turns out to be Wyatt Earp's peacemaker, with Wyatt Earp still attached to it.
- In
*Around the World in Eighty Days* by Jules Verne, the detective Fix gets Passepartout drunk and stoned in an opium den in Hong Kong in order to separate him from Phileas Fogg.
- The China Bone where Burnofsky goes in
*BZRK*.
-
*Drood*: While exploring the bowels of London (in more than one sense), Dickens and Wilkie stumble into two of these. Wilkie spends a fair amount of time in each later on.
- An illegal opium den is depicted in the comic novel
*The Fairy Gunmother* (original title: *La fée carabine*) by French author Daniel Pennac. It appears in a flashback set in the 1950's in Paris and is frequented by war veterans and ||high-ranking government officials||
- Opium dens are depicted in all their squalor in Mercedes Lackey's
*The Fire Rose*, which is set in California during the age of trains.
- Appears in at least one of the
*Fu Manchu* stories as a front for the Devil Doctor's activities.
- Rudyard Kipling's "The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows".
-
*Gemma Doyle*: A particularly low point for ||Gemma and her father||, especially given that the whole thing happens as a result of ||Gemma trying to use magic to *cure* her father's laudanum addiction||.
- Charles Dickens'
*The Mystery of Edwin Drood* begins in one.
- Darius goes to one regularly in
*The Phantom of Manhattan*.
- The title character in
*The Picture of Dorian Gray* frequents opium dens.
- Agatha Christie's "The Lost Mine" in
*Poirots Early Cases* features one.
- In the Sally Lockhart novel
*The Ruby in the Smoke*, Sally goes to an opium den to buy some opium for Mattthew.
- One shows up in the
*Sherlock Holmes* story "The Man with the Twisted Lip". Watson got sent to retrieve another man and finds Holmes there; Holmes must reassure Watson that he's only there undercover as part of an investigation and has not "added opium to the list of my vices".
- Robert E. Howard 's Rhomerian "weird menace" novel
*Skull Face* starts with protagonist Steven Costigan (a U.S. veteran of WWI) escaping the nightmares of the Argonne trench warfare in an Opium Den located, of all places, in London's Limehouse.
-
*Soul*: At one point Lavinia and Aloysius have to infiltrate one in order to retrieve ||James|| who has gone on a bender.
- Jack Black's (not
*that* Jack Black) *You Can't Win* is a *brilliant* memoir about his experiences as a train-hopping thief. He becomes addicted to opium and writes extensively about his experiences in these places.
-
*Angel*: In "Not Fade Away", Lorne and Lindsey ambush the Sahrvin clan inside what looks to be an opium bar.
- At the beginning of
*The Blacklist* episode "Cape May", Raymond Reddington is seen emerging from behind the curtain of a smoking berth, presumably trying to smoke out his sorrows following Liz' death.
- In the second season of
*The Borgias*, Juan Borgia starts to frequent an opium den in Rome on the advice of his physician to cope with a leg wound and an STD. The drugs only seem to heighten his paranoia and mental breakdown.
- The "dive" that Sister Clarice frequents (and invites Amanda Greystone to) in
*Caprica* is fairly obviously a Fantastic Opium Den.
-
*Doctor Who*: In "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", Chang retreats to one to smoke opium to dull the pain as he dies after his leg is torn off by a giant rat.
- In
*Dracula (2013)*, members of the Order of the Dragon Ancient Conspiracy go to a 19 th-century London opium den, where a pair of Seers sell their services. Whether their liberal use of the product helps them in their scrying or is just a pastime is left unsaid, but ||Dracula gives them a nasty Poke in the Third Eye for their intrusion either way||.
- Chuck Bass (who else?) takes refuge at one of these when his father dies, on
*Gossip Girl*.
-
*Highlander: The Series*: A good friend of Duncan Macleod's spent the better part of an Old West Flashback in one of these, trying to deaden the panic he'd felt about his role in the neverending Game. He eventually moved on to other drugs as the decades passed, and was a cocaine addict when Duncan was forced to Mercy Kill him.
- In the series
*The Knick* a Chinatown opium den is a favorite haunt of Dr. Thackery.
- One appears in an episode of
*Magnum, P.I.*, in the 1980s(!)
- In
*Mr. Robot* S 01 E 04, Elliot's fever dream has him entering one to get a fix and quell his morphine withdrawal.
- The
*Murdoch Mysteries* episode "Pipe Dreamzz" initially opens in a rather nice room belonging to a white Orientalist professor, where he and his his students smoke opium. Later it features an opium den in Ontario's Chinatown, where one of the students ends up after the professor realises she's addicted and cuts her off.
-
*The Outer Limits (1995)*: In "Ripper", Dr. Jack York spends most of his evenings getting high on absinthe and opium in an opium den. Since it doubles as a brothel, he often has sex with the prostitutes who work there.
-
*Penny Dreadful*: Vanessa and Ethan pass through one on the way to their confrontation with the vampires in "Night Work".
- The Alcoholic anaesthetist John can often be found in one in
*Quacks*.
- In
*Serangoon Road*, Sam's favorite bar has a back room for smoking opium.
- The Granada
*Sherlock Holmes* of "The Dying Detective" (though *not* the original story). Another one appears in both versions of "The Crooked Man."
- Many a Cab Calloway song takes place in or refers to an Opium Den, in which Minnie the Moocher and Smokey Joe 'kick the gong around'.
-
*Men at Work*: The last verse of "Down Under" has one of these.
Lying in a den in Bombay
With a slack jaw, and not much to say
-
*Rush*: The travelers in "A Passage to Bangkok" from *2112* visit a few of these.
Wreathed in smoke in Lebanon
We burn the midnight oil
The fragrance of Afghanistan
Rewards a long night's toil
- One Charles Addams cartoon depicts one of these in all its usual squalor, with a sign prominently posted on a wall stating its officially regulated occupancy limits.
- Pip sinks into dissolution and decay in
*Bleak Expectations* and ends up in an opium den, thinking it's a Chinese restaurant. "Would you like some complimentary prawn crack?"
-
*Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay*: The city of Marienburg has a drug den called the Golden Lotus. Though opium is never mentioned, everything from the bunks to the spaced-out junkies is lifted straight out of the trope's most archetypal depictions.
-
*80 Days*: Passepartout will encounter these in China. As in the novel, Inspector Fix may lure him to one in Hong Kong, though this is avoidable.
- The Copper Coronet in
*Baldur's Gate II* features a hidden black lotus den (at least, it does before you clean the place out).
- In the now lost Playdom interactive game
*Blackwood and Bell Mysteries*, when the group goes to Hong Kong, they have to search for clues in one of these.
-
*Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde*: The 2001 game's second level takes place in one of these.
-
*The Elder Scrolls* has a few similar establishments for the local Fantastic Drug, Skooma:
-
*Oblivion*: There's a skooma den in Bravil, a down-on-its-luck city with some reputation as a Wretched Hive. Clientele include a few Addled Addicts and the local Count's son, and it's an open (and widely disliked) secret among the locals.
-
*Skyrim* Dawnguard Expansion has the Redwater Den, which has a dark secret: the house skooma is drugged, and the proprietors haul unconscious victims to a jail cell in the basement to be turned into Vampire Thralls.
- In
*Fallen London*, "prisoner's honey" is a fantastic version of opium, complete with shady and scandalous honey-dens.
- The Meat King's Party mission from
*Hitman: Contracts* features an opium den where you can pose as an attendant and serve one of your targets an opium pipe before taking him out.
-
*SaGa Frontier*: The Wutai-esque town of Kyo has one. ||Black X runs its drug operations out of it.||
-
*The Testament of Sherlock Holmes*: After finding the body of the man missing a finger, Holmes and Watson look around his ho,e and find eveidence that he was involved in the murder of the bishop. They also find opium paraphernalia. They perform an autopsy and discover that his opium had been laced with the same poison that had been used on the Bishop. They go to the nearby opium den and discover the other men involved in the murder.
-
*Wizardry VII* has one, and your characters *get to participate*. If you do, your characters get visited by some kind of Spirit Advisor who gives you a really powerful item.
-
*Ctrl R*: Their former apartment that their former roommate Rock still lives in, was revealed to have been turned into this.
- The ruined village of Ulon Dosi in
*Runners* (ruination in this case caused by most of the population being addicted to crush).
-
*The Simpsons* Halloween episode set in Ripperian London features one as the lair of Monty Burns.
- In
*Todd McFarlane's Spawn*, Jason Wynn keeps prisoners chained up in the basement of an opium den in something of a personal Black Site prion. When Terry tries to kill Wynn while at the den, Wynn captures him and forces him to smoke the opium.
Do you: | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpiumDen |
Operators Are Standing By - TV Tropes
Yet another phrase heard in direct sale advertisements. If they're flashing a phone number on the screen, then you can bet you will be told that the operators are standing by, waiting for you to give their drab, dull lives meaning.
It implies (without ever actually saying it) that the offer is only for a limited time, and that those operators may
*stop* standing by at any moment, so you'd better get your order in *right now*. In fact, some of these advertisements actually include a ticking clock, suggesting that once the ad or paid program is over, nobody will be there to take your call. There will be, of course; since commercials can be seen these days at any time of the day or night, order desks are generally staffed continuously.
Actual research determined that the phrase had the opposite effect. If operators are "standing by", that must be because they don't spend very much time actually answering the phones and taking orders, because not many people are ordering the product. The phrase "If lines are busy, please keep trying" was found to work much better. If lines are busy, then the company must be swamped with orders because the product is so great. (This allows the vendor to theoretically hire fewer agents, which not only reduces the seller's overhead costs, but also their apparent "supply", which — when coupled with the lack of contradictions at the customer's end of the phone line — make the product seem more valuable.)
Technically these commercials are usually incorrectly phrased. In telephone terms, an "operator" is a person who takes a call to redirect it to someone else. A person who actually takes a call to process it themselves is an "agent," and thus, they should be saying that "agents are standing by" rather than operators. However, the term "agent" is relatively modern, at least in this definition, and the average infomercial customer is over forty and is more likely to associate the word "agent" with "KGB" or "Maxwell Smart" than with "order clerk". | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OperatorsAreStandingBy |
Opinion-Changing Dream - TV Tropes
A character is bored or uninterested in learning something. Or they are just completely uninterested in a certain topic and don't understand why other people value it so much. Or they're just a mean person who doesn't understand why their behavior is wrong. In all cases, they don't care about the topic, and may even poke fun at other characters for taking it so seriously.
Then the character goes to sleep. Before they fall into unconsciousness, they might even say: "I wish that certain person/event/product didn't exist." As they start dreaming, some legendary character arrives and provides the person with a lot of background information about the topic. Sometimes the dreaming ignoramus has put in the action themselves. Or they see a world where the people or things they wished didn't exist now indeed don't exist, with catastrophic consequences. In any case, they finally gain knowledge, respect and enthusiasm for a topic that they originally knew nothing about.
When the character eventually awakes, if they were supposed to be the antagonist, they make a HeelFace Turn. They are glad that it was All Just a Dream and finally realizes the importance of learning math, respect for your country, respect for your ancestors, respect for people they formerly threatened or hurt, why a certain product is necessary,... and so on. In most cases, they even become a vocal supporter of the cause.
This plot device (which some audiences may consider corny if it's not done well) was very popular in old educational films and TV series.
Compare Dreaming the Truth. Sometimes doubles as a Guilt-Induced Nightmare.
## Examples:
- In the final episode of
*Sands of Destruction*, while trapped in the Cave of Memories, Morte dreams of her family. While she desires to stay with them and forget the real world, they convince her that not only should she return to live life, but that the world doesn't need to be destroyed after all - just changed, through her life and what she accomplishes with her friends.
- At one point in
*Legend of the Galactic Heroes*, Reinhard von Lohengramm of the Galactic Empire contemplates grinding his rival and Worthy Opponent Yang Wen-li's battlefleet down via attrition with his overwhelming strength, but a visitation by ||his dead friend Sigfried Kircheis|| convinces him to offer a cease-fire instead.
- Mr. Slowy's nightmare about ||Wilie becoming a clone of Wolffy|| at the beginning of
*Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Happy, Happy, Bang, Bang!* episode 30 leads him to decide to expel Wilie from Goat School. However, this doesn't last long, and a peace agreement between goats and Wolffy is signed in order to let Wilie continue to study in Goat School.
- In one of the earlier
*Batman* stories, Robin (at that time Dick Grayson), was getting so disobedient with Batman that the latter scolded him that his son would end up disobedient like him. Robin ended up having a dream of getting married, having a son, inheriting the Batman costume while his son inherited his Robin costume, but the son was also disobedient like him, but this time with fatal results of trapping him *and* his son in a missile heading towards explosion, death was inescapable. When Robin actually woke up, he became more obedient with Batman's instructions. ||In hindsight, it became more tragic that disobedience was what caused the second Robin to die horribly, he did not receive similar opinion-changing dream.||
- At the beginning of
*Alice in Wonderland*, Alice longs for a world where everything is nonsense. She then dreams of falling into just such a world, and by the end, the sheer insanity of Wonderland makes her tired of nonsense and anxious to go home.
- Happens in the 1943
*Cabin in the Sky*, where a man who gambles too much has a Dream Within a Dream where some angels and devils try to get his soul. As he awakes in real life he throws the dice away and swears to repent and devote his life to going to Church more often.
- Wayne's plan for Waynestock in
*Wayne's World 2* is the direct result of a dream with Jim Morrison telling him to set up a huge show in Aurora. Others he recruits also mention having the Jim Morrison dream later on. WHOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
- This is the concept of the movie
*Inception*, including the title, which refers to the act of specifically engineering an Opinion-Changing Dream for another person without them realizing it.
- Also the entire point of the film
*North*. The titular character is annoyed with his parents until he wakes up from his dream and accepts them for who they are.
-
*A Case of Spring Fever*: This trope is one possible explanation for the film's plot, in which a frustrated man grumbles "I hope I never see another spring in my life!" and is confronted by Coily the Spring Sprite, who demonstrates how critical springs are to modern life by making the man do without them. He's so affected that he spends the last few minutes of the short lecturing his (clearly annoyed) golf buddies about how great springs are.
-
*The Family Man*: A mysterious man named Cash shows Jack an alternate life where he chose to start a family with his college girlfriend Kate rather than become a Wall Street executive who doesn't yet realize he's Lonely at the Top. Cash describes this as a "glimpse" and thus only temporary, but Jack does wake up in the same place and time before the glimpse began, his downtown bachelor's apartment. The experience leads him to track down Kate and reconnect with her after by giving a heartfelt description of the life he saw they had together.
- In
*The Wizard of Oz*, Dorothy dreams of escaping from dull, dreary Kansas where the local busybody persecutes her dog and going "over the rainbow" to "a place where there isn't any trouble." Her dream of Oz teaches her that there's no place like home.
- In one of the
*Arabian Nights* stories, a princess hates men because she dreamt about a male bird who left his mate to a birdcatcher, to save himself, after she had stayed behind to rescue him. A strange plot device, considering that the princess lives in a world where her father will *execute* her for losing her virginity ... it's not as if she needs a dream to have a low opinion of men. But, of course, her hate of men is easily remedied by telling her the truth about the end of that story; the hero (who, for some reason, had the *same* dream) tells her that the male bird was killed by a falcon before he could return.
- One
*The Berenstain Bears* book centered on environmentalism had Papa Bear go through one after he decided he didn't need to recycle or plant trees to replace the ones he cut down.
-
*A Christmas Carol*: Ebenezer Scrooge hates Christmas and helping the needy. But after a long dream where he is visited by his late partner Jacob Marley's ghost and then three more ghosts he changes his character completely and becomes a good person.
- The children's book
*Just A Dream*, a classic Green Aesop, is entirely based on this idea. As in the above example, the main character is uninterested in environmentalism until he has a series of dreams showing what the world might be like if no one took care of the earth.
- In the
*Vita Nuova*, the course of the Dante's life is changed when a dream convinces him to give up loving anyone but his deceased One True Love. The dream is probably the least spectacular in the *Vita Nuova*, since it avoids any cannibalized hearts or crying stars in favor of a lone vision of the World's Most Beautiful Woman at the moment Dante saw her and experienced Love at First Sight.
-
*Highway to Heaven*: Two episodes from the late winter of 1986:
- "Heaven On Earth," where Mark vents his frustration over how unfair it was that a cute 5-year-old girl he had just met was killed in a car accident caused by a drunk driver, and a number of other more mundane situations, and wishes he could be God for a day to "make things right" in his view. When Mark goes to rescue a teen-aged girl who was trapped in a burning house, he is overcome by smoke and falls unconscious. Instead of burning to death, however, Mark is allowed to have a dream where his desire to play God is played out, only with results that he didn't foresee (such as the aforementioned teen-aged girl, who was a hard-working young girl learning about responsibility becoming an Alpha Bitch that would make Nellie Oleson look like nothing) ... and the little girl that died in the car accident is still dead. Mark soon realizes that God has a reason for things happening the way they are and that some things, as bad or unpleasant as they are, are out of his (Mark's) control. Mark soon realizes that his vision of "Heaven on Earth" is best left to God.
- "The Torch," where a Holocaust survivor, Everett Soloman, who is on the speaking circuit to talk about his experiences and to warn students against complacency, comes into conflict with a neo-Nazi group who try to intimidate him by killing his son. Soloman has a bad heart and needs a transplant and there seems to be no hope ... until the man that killed his son is accidentally killed himself after a machine gun in his basement accidentally discharges. The upshot is that the killer's heart is a perfect biological match for Soloman, and the transplant is a success ... until Soloman learns the identity of his donor. Soloman has a heart attack and nearly dies, but while he is being revived, the trope kicks into play: He has a dream where he is visited by his mother and father (who both died in the Nazi war camp, in a method that would be indescribable anywhere) and his son, who urge him to continue to speak about the Holocaust, how it was allowed to happen and what can be done to never let it happen again. Soloman soon recovers and, with renewed purpose, is back on the speaking circuit.
- An episode of
*Sister, Sister* ("I Had A Dream" (1998)) features Tamera ridiculing the deeds of her African-American ancestors and feeling reluctant to carry on with her own miserable life. In her dream she is visited by several historical Afro-American figures who all claim they want to give up and do something else. She convinces them to do otherwise and do the historical deed that they are famous for. When she wakes up, she respects her ancestors, and realizes that ambition can also help her make important contributions to history.
- In an episode of
*Cosby*, Bill Cosby's character Hilton Lucas is uninterested in studying William Shakespeare, until he has a dream where Shakespeare himself (played by Tom Conti) explains the relevance of his works. One notable Casting Gag moment finds Lucas cast in the role of King Lear, with Sabrina La Beauf(Sandra from *The Cosby Show*) as Goneril. By the end of the episode he's much more interested in Shakespeare's plays.
- In the
*Dinosaurs* episode "And the Winner Is...", B.P. Richfield runs for Chief Elder and has Earl Sinclair run against him so Richfield would win. At first Earl is willing to lose, until he has a dream of a world run by Richfield, where Earl's family is poor and minimum wage is lowered to a few cents. This dream inspires Earl to try harder to win. Later, when his popularity goes up but the family remarks that Earl might not be smart enough to make a good chief elder, Earl refuses to sleep knowing he'll have a dream convincing him that he'll make a terrible chief elder. And he is right.
- In the
*M*A*S*H* episode "Dreams", several characters have dreams, and for some this seems to affect them.
- On
*The Sopranos*, several characters have opinion changing dreams. Tony has one about Big Pussy which finally forces him to confront the truth that he had betrayed them, and has another after being seriously wounded that lasts several episodes.
- It's notably subverted in the episode "Employee of the Month." Tony's therapist Dr. Melfi is raped in a parking garage, and later discovers the guy working at a fast food restaurant. Once she knows his name, she begins having dreams about a massive dog ripping the guy to pieces. In talking to her own therapist, Melfi realizes that the dog represents Tony—all she has to do is tell him what happened, and he'll ensure that the rapist dies an
*extremely* painful death. Despite having the dreams again, though, when Tony finally asks her if there's something she wants to say to him, Dr. Melfi says "No," choosing to keep her moral code intact.
-
*Zoey 101*: Chase has one, leading him to return Zoey's DVD to the time capsule.
-
*The Brady Bunch*: In the episode *Bobby's Hero* Bobby becomes so fascinated with Jesse James that he brings a toy gun to school and makes his teachers and parents very concerned. They arrange for the grandson of one of James's victims (who was alive long enough to meet the outlaw) to talk with Bobby, and the elderly man informs him that James was nothing but "a mean, dirty killer." When Bobby goes to sleep with those words echoing in his head, he has a dream wherein his family are riding a train in the Old West. Jesse James shows up to rob the train and "kills" the entire family, helping Bobby realize that the crook is not a hero.
-
*Punky Brewster* renounces Valentine's Day, then that night dreams she's a lonely old spinster. When she wakes up, her opinion on Valentine's Day in regards to boys doesn't change (she's a tomboy at this stage), but she does share Valentine's Day love with Henry.
- An episode of
*Now and Again* has the main character Michael Wiseman complaining about a need for reading material which is dismissed as unimportant by Dr. Morris, only for him to then dream that the nanotech used to maintain the artificial body Michael's brain is in that the doctor created have run amock and begun eating all the printing ink off of all paper in the world including money. After witnessing the apocalyptic loss of all printed works from the world when he wakes and realizes it was a dream he changes his mind and begins making reading material available to Michael.
- An episode of
*Smart Guy* uses this, with a twist: Yvette has been struggling with her college applications, afraid to apply to her dream university Brown for fear of rejection and instead "playing it safe" with a less renowned state college. Then she has a recurring dream in which she marries Marcus's dimwitted friend Moe Tibbs, whom she isn't attracted to at all such that the initial dream is treated as a Catapult Nightmare. After several nights of trying to find out why she's having these dreams, she eventually plays along and joins Dream!Moe on their "honeymoon" at a cheap motel room. When Yvette questions Dream!Moe on what their future will be like, Dream!Moe responds that he's content to just coast on by with minimum wage job and his Zany Scheme of the week, putting in the bare minimum amount of effort. Yvette, horrified that *this* is what her future will be like, realizes that because she settled on her choice of college, she settled on love and on life as well, only "choosing" Dream!Moe because he was safe and familiar. Dream!Moe then inspires her to apply to Brown like she had wanted, and when she wakes up she immediately rushes to fill out her application.
- Corey from
*That's So Raven* is initially flippant and dismissive of his black history month assignment. He's motivated to take it more seriously after meeting various African American trailblazers and pioneers in a dream, realizing that their struggles and achievements are important and need to be remembered.
- In the
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* episode "Business as Usual", Quark gets into the business of arms dealing, but despite raking in huge profits very quickly, he finds all his friends in Starfleet now refuse to have anything to do with him. While wrestling with the prospect of selling weapons to a tyrannical ruler who wants to exterminate 28 million of his own people as an example, he has a nightmare where he is confronted by the ghosts of his friends, killed by the weapons he sold, who call him out. After waking up screaming, (and whispering "What have I done?") he resolves to sabotage the deal, betray his crooked business partners, and never deal in arms again.
- This was a very popular trope on
*Bewitched*. Since magic users were unable to rely on direct mind control to make people change their opinions, they often resorted to invading their dreams.
- In one early Halloween episode, Darwin's latest client insists on using a stereotypically ugly Wicked Witch as part of an advertising campaign. Samantha explains that such caricatures are deeply offensive to her kind, so Darrin tries to use a Cute Witch instead, only to get shot down. That night, Samantha and her aunts Mary and Bertha team up to teach the client a lesson by giving him a dream wherein
*he's* an ugly witch.
- Another episode has Abner and Gladys Kravitz, the Stephens's neighbors, have a big fight and separate, with Abner staying with Darrin and Samantha and quickly wearing out his welcome. Since they're both too stubborn to apologize, Samantha hits upon the idea of having both Abner and Gladys have a simultaneous dream of the day that Abner proposed to her, hoping that it will make them remember their love. It works—as soon as they wake up, they immediately run into each other's arms.
- In another client-based episode, the CEO of Darrin's latest campaign is a Bad Boss and petty tyrant who treats his employees like garbage. As it happens, Aunt Clara's latest magical mishap has summoned Queen Victoria from the past. Her Majesty's presence inspires Sam to give the CEO a lesson in humility by having him dream that he is Queen Victoria ruling over his company, only to be violently overthrown when people get sick of his cruelty. The CEO quickly changes his tune the next day.
- A few episodes of
*Gilligan's Island* involved circumstances wherein one of the castaways would grab the Jerkass Ball, be rude to their friends, fall asleep, have an elaborate dream sequence, and see the error of their ways. The cast later went on record as saying these were some of their favorite episodes to do, as it gave them a chance to get away from the island setting once in a while.
- In one episode, a would-be dictator on the run from the law washes up on the island and convinces Gilligan to try to "take over." Gilligan then dreams that he's the leader of a country with the other castaways as his cabinet and the dictator as his Treacherous Advisor, who keeps telling him to execute his friends. Gilligan realizes that the man is trying to make him into his puppet (and even has a vision of himself as a
*literal* puppet on strings), wakes up, and declares that he won't listen any longer.
- One episode has Gilligan discovering that a lottery ticket he purchased before that fateful "three-hour tour" is a winner, making him a millionaire. The Howells "adopt" him and let him into their exclusive beach country club (keep in mind that there are literally
*eight people* on the island), but Nice Guy Gilligan insists on giving the other castaways I.O.U.s so they can afford to get in. Mr. Howell dislikes the club's exclusivity being broken and steals the lottery ticket so that no one can join. That night, though, he dreams that he is an Old West forty-niner who's come across gold, with the other castaways as desperate souls who need money. When Thurston wakes up, he realizes that he's been a jerk and tells Gilligan to welcome the others back. In a final twist, it's then revealed that Gilligan's ticket has been declared void since no one claimed the prize, but Thurston decides to let the other castaways stay in the club regardless.
- In
*The Bible* (Acts 10:9-23), Peter falls into a trance and sees many animals which were forbidden (unclean) for a Jewish person to eat. He is commanded by God to "kill and eat," but replies that he had never broken Jewish dietary laws before. God replies, "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou unclean." Peter learns from this to accept the Gentiles (non-Jewish people) as converts to Christianity and to no longer treat them as outsiders to the faith.
- When Joseph discovers that Mary is pregnant before they are even married, he plans to quietly break things off with her,
note : During this period in time, a woman becoming pregnant out of wedlock could result in her getting executed if he willed it, so this is considered a merciful act. but then an angel comes to him in a dream, telling him to go ahead and marry her anyway, saying she is pregnant with the Son of God.
- Act II of
*The Book of Mormon* ends with Elder Price having a "Spooky Mormon Hell Dream", complete with a song of the same name. Price was content to just leave Elder Cunningham alone in Uganda, but Price realizes through the dream that he's done something terrible. That, and he pissed off Jesus at the same time. So Price tries to go back and reconcile things with Cunningham.
- In
*Guys and Dolls*, during the scene when the gamblers are attending the revival at the Save-A-Soul mission because Sky won a bet, Nicely-Nicely Johnson recounts a dream he had that turned him from his wild gambling ways. This turns into the rollicking number "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat". (Clip from the 2011 Broadway revival is here; the film version (performed by Stubby Kaye) is here.) The trope is subverted, in that Nicely didn't change his ways and may not (probably didn't, in fact) even have such a dream at all.
- In
*Fiddler on the Roof*, after Tevye decides to cancel the Arranged Marriage between his daughter Tzeitel and the elderly drunk Lazar Wolf, he realizes that his wife will not accept the decision without some spiritual reason underlying it, so he pretends to have a dream in which he is confronted by the vengeful ghost of Lazar's late wife, who threatens to haunt and kill Tzeitel if the marriage goes forward.
- Sunny spends the entirety of
*OMORI* refusing to tell anyone about the nightmares and psychological issues he is experiencing because ||he would have to confess accidentally killing his sister Mari to his friends, who loved her as much as he did||. But in the best ending route, ||after a scuffle with Basil ends with the both of them in the hospital, Sunny engages in a Battle in the Center of the Mind with the titular Omori, who tries to drive him to suicide- should Sunny win by accepting what he did, he decides when waking up that he should not bottle his feelings any longer, and the game ends with him about to confess what he did||.
- A few days after firing Kyle in the prologue to
*Last Window*, Ed has a bizarre dream in which he found Kyle dead by the road. He decides not to take his chances and agrees to rehire Kyle if he can manage to prove himself.
-
*Bob's Burgers*: In "Flu-Ouise", Louise is sick with the flu, and mad at her family for accidentally wrecking her favorite toy, a Kuchi Kopi nightlight. She has a fever dream where she imagines her melted Kuchi Kopi inviting her to move into his fortress, where they can be alone and away from the people who annoy, disappoint, and generally hurt her. Along the way, she encounters plush toys voiced by her family members' voice actors trying to persuade her not to wall herself up in a (metaphorical) fortress, and it's ultimately an un-melted "Good" Kuchi Kopi who persuades Louise to destroy the fortress and forgive her family. Louise naturally hangs a lampshade on all the heavy-handed imagery, and the random musical numbers.
- In the Pluto cartoon, "Pluto's Judgement Day", Mickey Mouse punishes Pluto for chasing a little kitten. Pluto then goes to sleep and has a nightmare where he is sent to Hell and tortured by several cats. When he awakes he changes his ways and acts gentle towards his feline friends.
-
*Looney Tunes*:
- The
*Porky Pig* cartoon *Old Glory* has Porky struggling to get through the Pledge of Allegiance. He falls asleep and is visited by Uncle Sam who tells him about the American War of Independence. Porky learns the value of American freedom and wakes up. Now he is able to recite the entire Pledge from memory.
- Subverted in "Pigs Is Pigs", where Piggy is seen eating too much for his own good. When he goes to bed he has a nightmare where a scientist forcefeeds him. Eventually Piggy has a Balloon Belly and eats one more piece of food before he explodes. After he wakes up, he still rushes downstairs to continue eating, having learned nothing!
- "The Big Snooze" has Elmer Fudd tearing up his Warner Brothers contract after being bested by Bugs Bunny one time too many. Bugs invades his dreams and induces a truly bizarre nightmare as only Bob Clampett can produce, prompting Elmer to get back to work.
- The
*Tom and Jerry* cartoon "Heavenly Puss" shows Tom dying and going to Heaven. There he is told that he should go to Hell, but if he can make Jerry sign a contract of forgiveness he may enter Heaven. Tom goes through great lengths to do so, but in the end he fails and is cooked in Hell. Then it turns out it was All Just a Dream and he hugs Jerry to become friends again.
- In
*South Park*:
- Mocked in "I'm A Little Bit Country" where Cartman acts as if he doesn't care about American history so that he can induce an opinion changing dream. He elaborately stages incidents that would render him unconscious so that he can have the educational dream and thereby avoid the bother of actually studying. After many amusing failed attempts, he succeeds.
- Played straight in "Cartoon Wars: Part I". At first, Kyle opposes Cartman's efforts to have the
*Family Guy* episode pulled, but changes his mind after having a dream in which he sees his brother killed in a terrorist attack.
- Happens a second time with "Jewpacabra", where Cartman's tranquilizer-fueled dream of the Book of Exodus has such an effect that he
**converts to Judaism**.
-
*King of the Hill*:
- In "Hillennium", Hank gets swept up with the worries about the Y2K bug and is terrified of what the Turn of the Millennium will bring, and when he puts some varnish on Peggy's grandfather clock, the smells of it combined with lack of ventilation in the garage make Hank fall unconscious. He has a dream where he's a mole in a a game of Whack-A-Mole, with several moles (including a version of Peggy). Hank is initially fearful of getting whacked, with mole Bobby de-aging back to a baby and making a fort of toilet paper. It's not until he talks to a mole version of legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry that he should stop fearing getting whacked and enjoy the moments when he pops out and doesn't get whacked. When Hank recovers, he then learns that he shouldn't be afraid of what the future will bring.
- Similarly, in "Trans-Fascism", Hank drives a lunch truck serving then-illegal trans-fat foods. At first he sees himself as a patriot for disobeying an unjust law. A dream featuring George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Tom Landry (on Landry's B-17 during World War II) in which they express their disapproval of Hank's actions gives Hank the strength to tell Buck that he wants out.
-
*Arthur* featured this plot with Binky in "Thanks a Lot, Binky!". Binky regularly does good deeds because he knows they're the right thing to do. He told a teacher to stop his friend from doing a dangerous stunt, causing his friend to get detention and hate him, and doing so made him miss the wrestling special he wanted to watch. He resolved to stop doing good deeds until he had a dream where his favorite wrestler told Binky that doing good deeds was the best thing he ever did and the world would be a much worse place if he didn't do them.
-
*The Simpsons*: "Bart the Lover" sees Bart's class watching a short movie that's a parody of *A Case of Spring Fever* (see Film, above) except that the man in question wishes to get rid of zinc. It reaches its peak when, in desperation, he tries to shoot himself only to discover that the gun won't work without zinc either, causing him to lament "Zinc! Come back!"
-
*House of Mouse*: The short "Donald's Goofy World" has Donald becoming angry at Goofy after Goofy drives him crazy trying to fix his door and telling him that he never wants to see his face again. Then the door falls on top of him, knocking the duck out, and he has a dream where EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING is turning into Goofy - including various TV shows, animals, plants, his neighbors, the sun, Mickey, Pluto, Daisy, and his nephews. The dream eventually culminates in Donald barricading himself in his house, after which Goofy (who appears on Donald's television) suggest that Donald give being Goofy a try. Donald refuses, but then realizes that he's suddenly wearing Goofy's clothes... and then, to his horror, Donald turns into Goofy himself (to which Goofy says, "Now YOU'RE Goofy too!"). After that, Donald wakes up and realizes that it was all just a dream. He initially lashes out at Goofy, then apologizes and says that he's glad there's only one of him. Goofy agrees: "There IS only one of me! And I'm gonna fix your door!"
- The
*Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat* episode "Time for Everything" centers around a conflict between Dongwa and his father, Baba. They both come from a family of cats that have primarily been scribes, but Dongwa is more interested in practicing kung fu than in doing his "scrolls" homework. When Dongwa coaxes his sister Sagwa into doing his work for him, Baba finds out and scolds them. But when Baba goes to bed, he has a nightmare that flashes back to *his* younger days, when he wanted to play outside but his grandfather insisted on him doing his scrolls. The next morning, partially due to this, Baba and Dongwa are able to reach a compromise: writing is still an important tradition, but Baba will give Dongwa less scrolls to do so Dongwa doesn't have to think of it as work, and Dongwa can use the additional spare time to practice kung fu.
- In the
*CatDog* episode "It's A Wonderful Half Life", Cat and Dog go to bed angry after an argument, each wishing he wasn't stuck to his brother so he could live his own life. They have a shared dream done in Inkblot Cartoon Style where Cat is a wealthy and successful factory owner with no friends, and Dog is a happy-go-lucky hobo without a place to call home. They end up meeting and becoming friends after Dog saves Cat's life, and after the two wake up from their dream they reconcile.
-
*Star vs. the Forces of Evil*:
- In "Marco Grows a Beard", Star accidentally gives Marco a beard so long it fills the Diaz house with hair, and she loses her Magic Wand in the mess. After struggling to get through the forest of hair, she's about to give up and lies down for a nap. Star then has a dream where one of the Laser Puppies talks to her, encouraging her not to give up by pointing out she's been able to kick butt since before she got the wand.
- In "Star vs. Echo Creek", Star goes on the run after accidentally wrecking a police car, and ends up in a bubble at the bottom of a river. There, she encounters a jolly talking dragon who tries to convince her to live in his underwater realm, where she can do whatever she wants... provided she never sees her friends and family again. The dragon eventually admits to being a figment of Star's imagination trying to convince her that running away is a good idea, but the experience actually convinces Star to turn herself in to the police.
-
*Bojack Horseman*: Whenever BoJack goes on one of his benders, expect this to happen:
- "Downer Ending": After reading "One Trick Pony", he disowns and refuses to allow its publication out of fear and self-denial, claiming he can do it better. After a night of drug-binging and postponing, he goes into a journey of self-discovery and psychological scars, culminating in the happiest moment he has ever lived, only to have it yanked away. By the time he regains consciousness, not only has he failed to present an alternative to the autobiography and convinced himself that Diane should publish the original, but he has realized what an utter wreck he is and worse, how bad it can affect him and others. He spends the last portion of the episode asking Diane if he is a good person.
- "That's Too Much, Man": Once the Oscar nominations, the groupies and his friends fade out, BoJack contacts Sarah Lynn and they enter a six-weeks long bender with every drug imaginable: vicodin, LSD, heroin, etc. In between his blackouts, the constant shifts in scenery and light-headed visions, he has some flashbacks to his reunion with Sarah Lynn in 2007 when he was planning his comeback and needed a guest star in the first episode. Sarah Lynn was having some problems with stardom and wanted to rely in a true friend...until she realized he had come for the guest spot, leading her to drugs and booze to cope and the state she was at the beginning of the series. And he's repeating the same mistake again. Unlike the example above, BoJack doesn't realize the lesson in time and the bender combined with keeping up with the lower tolerance due to her brief sobriety kills Sarah Lynn just as she was starting to realize what she wanted in life.
- Invoked by
*Rick and Morty* in the episode "Lawnmower Dog", when Rick uses a device to allow them to enter dreams. The original idea was to convince Morty's teacher to give him good grades, but things go awry and they end up meeting Scary Terry, a "legally-safe knockoff of an '80s horror character with miniature swords for fingers instead of knives". Scary Terry hunts them relentlessly, until he just gets tired and goes home to sleep. They decide to go into *his* dreams, where they help him through a nightmare of his own. Terry wakes up thinking they're cool guys and befriends them. He in turn helps them with their original plan with Morty's teacher. The same trick is used in the B-Plot where Rick has to use the same device to get Snuffles/Snowball/Snuffles to leave Earth with the rest of his super smart dogs and not take over.
- Invoked in the
*Futurama* episode "Obsoletely Fabulous." Bender escapes before he can receive a "compatibility" upgrade that will make him love the new model of Job-Stealing Robot and goes on a journey that ||ends with him learning to love the new robots on his own. Then he wakes up and discovers that he received the upgrade after all, with the whole story being the way his consciousness processed it.||
- In the
*DuckTales (2017)* episode "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!", Lena ends up falling under the spell of a magic dream catcher that makes her witness her worst nightmare (which ends with her accidentally vaporizing her best friend) and it ultimately helps her commit to the HeelFace Turn that she had been on the edge of for the whole season. ||It's just too bad that Magica takes over her body immediately afterwards.||
- An odd example from
*Captain Planet:* in "Numbers Game", Wheeler opines that people shouldn't have more kids than they can afford, and the other Planeteers yell at him for being insensitive. Then he goes to sleep and dreams that he and Linka are married with a lot of kids. He wakes up with the moral that large families are miserable and bad for the environment, and it's *framed* as this trope...except that the writers apparently forgot that *that was his opinion to begin with.* It's perhaps the best example of how Wheeler is always treated as wrong, even when espousing the show's own viewpoint.
- In the early 1950s, Lucille Ball had grave doubts about adapting her popular radio sitcom,
*My Favorite Husband*, for the new and untested medium of television... until she had a dream in which her close friend, Carole Lombard (who had been dead since 1942), told her to "give it a whirl". She did, and you may have heard of the resulting series: *I Love Lucy*.
- According to IMDb, Steve Whitmire was incredibly nervous when taking over as Kermit the Frog for
*The Muppet Christmas Carol* (the first Muppet project since the death of Jim Henson). He felt more confident after having a dream where he met Henson in a hotel lobby and talked about his fears, which Henson assured him would pass. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpinionChangingDream |
Opposites Theme Naming - TV Tropes
Opposites Theme Naming a variation of Theme Naming using a set of names within a work that create a theme by using words that are opposite to each other or act as foils to each other. Authors like to use themes to create a sense of unity or cohesiveness within their work. Some extend themes to the names of the characters, often beyond the similarities that would be expected for characters from the same culture or who all speak the same language. When the author does this, you have Theme Naming.
Using Opposites Theme Naming puts the named persons in strong contrast to each other. Sometimes it is used to set up the characters as enemies or foils to each other, though it may also signify that they balance each other in a way that is complementary and productive rather than antagonistic. Other times it simply serves to provide symmetry in the names without actually signifying anything about the personalities or relationships of the characters.
This often overlaps with Theme Twin Naming, especially with Polar Opposite Twins; and Couple Theme Naming, particularly if the lovers in question have an Opposites Attract thing going on, and Ironic Name.
## Examples
-
*Digimon*:
- Omegamon and Alphamon. Omegamon is white, Alphamon is black.
- In
*Digimon Adventure*, there are Angemon and Devimon, and Angewomon and LadyDevimon.
-
*Haikyuu!!* has several examples of Opposites Theme Naming.
- The main characters Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio are often framed as foils and/or complementary forces that balance each other. Hinata means "sunny place" whereas Kageyama means "shadow mountain". Hinata is the loud, sunny, passionate red-head in contrast to black-haired and blue-eyed Kageyama's colder and introverted demeanor.
- The kanji for "sun" in Hinata's name is also a contrast with Tsukishima's name which has the kanji "moon" in it. While they both play as middle blockers, Hinata is a short and impulsive player whereas Tsukishima is the tallest guy on the team and is very analytical. Their personalities are also opposites as Tsukishima is often unpleasant and snarky in contrast to always enthusiastic and friendly Hinata. Tsukishima also does not share Hinata's overzealous passion for volleyball, often calling it just an after-school club. They are also Book Dumb and Smart People Wear Glasses, respectively. Their sun and moon personality is Lampshaded in the series.
- Another duo who has meaningful names that are opposites are Asahi and Nishinoya. Asahi's full name, Azumane Asahi, translates to Eastern Peak Morning Sun. He is a Gentle Giant who has the physical stature but also a glass-heart. Nishinoya's full name Nishinoya Yuu, on the contrary, translates to Western Valley Evening. He is the shortest person on the team but has a loud, blunt, and wild personality. Their names are also meaningful with their positions in the team. Asahi is a wing spiker who is deemed The Ace of the team, he jumps above (peak) and attacks. Whereas Nishinoya is the libero. He is often on the ground (valley) as his job is to keep the ball from touching the floor. He receives the ball and is the backbone of team's defense.
- Karasuno team's wing spiker Tanaka Ryuunosuke has opposite names with their friendly rival Nekoma's Yamamoto Taketora. Taketora is referred as Tora by his close friends while Tanaka is called Ryuu by closest to him. Ryuu and Tora are the kanjis for "dragon" and "tiger" respectively, two animal motifs often seen opposite to each other in Asian cultures. Ryuu and Tora are similar to each other both in personality and appearance and initially clash and try to intimidate each other, later becoming friends.
- Two agents in
*Kiddy Grade* are named Dextera and Sinistra (right and left hand, respectively).
- The two main characters of
*Kiss and White Lily for My Dearest Girl* are named Shiramine Ayaka (shira meaning "white") and Kurosawa Yurine (kuro meaning "black") − although, ironically, despite their names Ayaka is black-haired while Yurine is blonde. Their names also have the exact same number of syllables, with the first name written in Hiragana. And if you push even further (but it might be coincidental there), Ayaka has a last name ending in [ine] and a first name ending two [a]; Yurine has a last name ending with two [a] and a first name ending in [ine]. So you could say their very names highlight their paradoxical dynamic.
- In
*Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid*, Kanna and her father Kimun have a Sky/Earth contrast, being named after storm and mountain deities respectively. It helps underline their Like Father, Unlike Son dynamic.
- In
*Naruto*, the Mangekyo Sharingan has the two jutsus Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu, named after the two Shinto goddess of moon and sun, respectively. Also, the Sharingan has the forbidden jutsus ||Izanagi and Izanami, named after the parents of the gods Susano'o, Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi. Izanagi is a Reality Warper, while Izanami directly counters Izanagi users||.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh!*:
- Lumis (light) and Umbra (shadow).
- The two famous dragons Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Red-Eyes Black Dragon play this trope twice. And their upgraded versions Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon and Red-Eyes Darkness Dragon. It's mentioned, that Blue-Eyes has more power while Red-Eyes has more potential.
- Many other cards are have this kind of theme naming.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL*: The tag team partners Gauche (left) and Droite (right).
- Conjoined Twins Nora (noir/black) and Blanche (white) Olney from Shelley Jackson's novel
*Half Life*. Their middle names are Gray and Grey respectively.
-
*Lords and Ladies* has a character whose mother tried to follow the tradition of naming daughters after virtues, but got very confused about it: her daughters had the names of virtues, so she reasoned that her sons should have the names of vices. Meanwhile, all her children completely lacked the traits they were named for. Her daughters had names like Charity (a miser), Hope (chronically depressed), and Chastity (a lady of negotiable affection). She named her sons after vices, such as Anger (a kind and nonviolent man), Bestiality (very kind to animals), and Deviousness (an honest and straightforward chap).
- Richard Scarry's piglet twins are named Pig Will and Pig Won't.
- The twin princesses Dawn and Eve in the
*Xanth* series.
- Played for a bit of light-hearted comic relief in the 911 Tribute episode, "Indelible." A pair of suspects are named Mike White and Mike Black. Their nicknames, Black Mike and White Mike, respectively, coincide with their races, not their names.
- Kath Day and Kel Knight of
*Kath & Kim*. Kel tries to propose by asking Kath if she'd like to "turn Day into Knight".
-
*Hēibái Wúcháng* ("Black-White Impermanence"), a duo of Shinigami in Chinese Taoist myths. The Black one is named *Fàn Wújiù* ("those who sin are unsalvageable"), while the White is named *Xiè Bì'ān* ("those who repent will have peace").
-
*Transformers: Generation 1*: The original Autobot Targetmasters are named for accuracy (Crosshairs, Pointblank, Sureshot) while the Decepticons are named for *in*accuracy (Slugslinger, Triggerhappy, Misfire).
- Sideways' Mini-Cons from
*Transformers: Armada* are named Rook and Crosswise, but their Japanese names are Bright and Shadow respectively. However, they are both evil, though Sideways wears Rook (Bright) as a head when he poses as a benevolent Autobot and Crosswise (Shadow) when acting evil. In the toy's original release, it was the opposite way around (Shadow represented good, Bright evil), but due to an animation error in the anime wherein the animators accidentally used the wrong head, a running change was made to the toy to switch the Autobot and Decepticon faction symbols around.
-
*Devil May Cry*
- Trish's twin handguns are named Luce and Umbra ("Light" and "Shadow" in Italian) and are appropriately colored.
- Dante's handguns are named "Ebony" and "Ivory".
- Nero's primary weapons are named Red Queen and Blue Rose.
-
*Diner Dash Adventures* has Sibling Yin-Yang Minnie and Max. **Max** is a buff guy who surprisingly orders very little food, while **Min**nie is a tiny girl who is a Big Eater and always orders twice.
- The two blue-skinned assassins in
*Ghost Trick* are named Jeego and Tengo. Jeego's name comes from 'jigoku', and Tengo's name from 'tengoku', Japanese words meaning 'hell' and 'heaven', respectively.
-
*Pokémon*:
- Plusle and Minun, named for positive and negative electrical charges.
- The energetic Vigoroth ("vigorous") stands in stark contrast to its younger and older forms, the exceptionally lazy Slakoth and Slaking (as in "slacking off").
- The two heroes of Kalos in
*Pokémon X and Y* are Dexio and Sina, from the Latin for 'left' and 'right'.
- Mario Mix has Hotmetal, named as such in contrast to Coldsteel, the character he is an Ex Py of.
- Dawn and Dusk from webcomic
*Gene Catlow*.
- Minor character couple in
*The Wotch*: Scott Winters and Julie Summers. This is doubly thematic: first the contrasting seasonal elements, but secondly, if you switch the last names you get the names of Cyclops from the X-Men and Julie from *The Maxx*. Whether this *means* anything, though...
-
*Gargoyles* has Demona and her daughter Angela. In an odd twist, the fact that they have opposite theme names is just a coincidence; when Macbeth gave Demona her name in 1040, he had no idea that Demona had an unhatched child who would later be named Angela; and when Angela hatched in 1058 and the Magus, Katharine, and Tom named her, they had no idea that her biological mother had been named Demona.
-
*Johnny Test* has a pair of secret agent partners named Mr. Black and Mr. White (who are Caucasian and African-American, respectively).
- The Biskit twins in
*Littlest Pet Shop* have names whose first letters coincide with the opposite sister's hair color ( **W**hittney has **b**lack hair, **B**rittney has **w**hite hair).
- In
*Miraculous Ladybug,* Adrien and Luka are Foils and on opposite sides of a love triangle with Marinette. Their names mean "dark" and "light," respectively. (Which is also a bit ironic, since Adrien is a blond model and Luka has more of a Perky Goth look.)
-
*Teen Titans* gives us Más y Menos, Spanish-speaking superheroes with Wonder Twin Powers. Depending on the context, their names can be translated as "more and less" or "plus and minus" (the latter of which is displayed on their costumes). Their real names are unknown, however. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppositesThemeNaming |
Opportunistic Bastard - TV Tropes
**Jim Sterling:**
You know your entire plan depended on me being a self-serving utter bastard.
**Nathan Ford:** *[sarcastically]*
Mm, yeah, that's a stretch.
We all know The Chessmaster: Theyve got a plan ready to go months in advance, with every detail jotted down. If that plan fails, theyve got backup after backup already in place.
Then you've got this guy. The Opportunistic Bastard doesn't have a plan, or at least not a clearly outlined one. He may have a vague goal that he's working towards, but when it comes to getting there, he's winging it. Other times the Opportunistic Bastard doesn't even have that going for him and just latches onto other people's schemes in the name of making as much short-term profit as he can. The evilest ones often choose to align themselves with a Big Bad that can offer them a share in his power and a lot of rivalry may ensue regarding who will get the biggest share from the others.
As the name suggests, characters like this excel at grabbing onto the opportunities that others present. Unlike The Chessmaster, who often fails when things don't go according to plan, the Opportunistic Bastard typically rolls well with unexpected results, exploiting every new circumstance to his own advantage. Where they tend to suffer is in the long term a good opportunist can keep his head above water on any given day, but is ultimately going to crash and burn because they lack the vision to stay in it for the long haul. A particularly capable Opportunistic Bastard might actually be able to give the impression of being a Chessmaster, due to their ability to adapt to new situations, but even then, they are liable to paint themselves into a corner due to their lack of forethought.
Opportunists of this type are usually motivated only by their own self-interest. If their actions do benefit someone else, it's either accidental or because that person belongs to the select group of people that our opportunist actually cares about. Similarly, they are rarely loyal to any cause larger than their personal self-advancement, or at best, the well-being of themselves and a select group; if an Opportunistic Bastard has an ideology, it is likely to be ill-defined, self-serving, and/or shallow. As a result, this character is liable to be an antihero at best, and outright villain at worst. Unlike The Starscream, who has a pretty clear goal and lives for the moment that he will manage to become the new Big Bad, many of these opportunists will gladly take over and become a Dragon Ascendant if it so happens, but in general do not have such grand visions and just try to grab as much as they can without caring about the status quo.
Hierarchically, they could be anyone from a minor character to the Big Bad himself. Some of the less ambitious can be Creons if they are fine with someone else getting the lion's share as long as they get their piece.
Compare/contrast with The Chessmaster. Related is Gambit Roulette, where someone (who may be The Chessmaster or this trope)'s plan seems to partly involve events that happen randomly, which the guy shouldn't be able to see coming. See also Manipulative Bastard and Xanatos Speed Chess. Can easily become a Wild Card. Likely to be a Dirty Coward or to suffer from Chronic Backstabbing Disorder. Might belong to Les Collaborateurs or even become The Quisling. Always personifies the 12th of The Thirty-Six Stratagems.
## Examples:
- Tenzen Yakushiji from
*Basilisk* is a vicious ninja who takes advantage of the shogun succession war to seize control of the Iga clan and routinely seizes any opportunity he can get to control the war and eliminate the Koga while trying to make the Iga leader Oboro his own. Later attaching himself to the entourage of the potential heir Takechiyo, and his caretaker, Tenzen intends on using them to rule the Shogunate from the shadows himself, constantly using and abandoning those he comes across as is convenient.
- In
*Death Parade*, the Myth Arc gets kicked off because Nona took advantage of the extremely overworked Arbiters in the Information Processing Bureau. People are dying at higher rates than the staff is capable of analyzing, which often leads to mistakes in how they are organized. Usually these mistakes are corrected, but when one of these humans ends up at Quindecim, Nona takes advantage of Decims interest in humans and allows her to stay as his assistant. This was all just part of her plan to ||change the system according to her own whims||. In fact, most of the important plot beats in the show were implied to have been set up by Nona as well.
- ||Dante||, the Big Bad from
*Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)*. There's no question that she's a talented manipulator, able to keep most of the Homunculi under her thumb, including one who's ||the leader of Amestris||, but despite the power and resources at her disposal, her plans are remarkably basic. ||Since it's too risky to keep openly creating Philosopher's Stones for herself, she uses her alchemy and control over the government to start plagues and wars to generate as much suffering in the world as possible, while ensuring that the recipe to create one is *just* available enough. All this is done on the off chance that an alchemist talented and desperate enough will seek out the instructions and create a Philosopher's Stone for her, keeping Dante's involvement hidden. Once they do that, she steals it and uses it to prolong her own, already centuries old, life.|| Her master plan essentially boils down to spreading chaos so she can profit off of someone else's work.
- Nezumi Otoko, or Rat Man, from
*GeGeGe No Kitaro* is frequently a headache to Kitaro and friends. Frequently seizing on to insane schemes that inevitably go wrong, Ratman often ends up causing all sorts of catastrophes and relies on Kitaro and his friends to save people from his errors. However, Rat Man is not above sheer treachery if he feels it's better for him. When the Tanuki Yokai invade, he switches sides to them instantly when he feels they'll win and assists them against his supposed friends before switching back to Kitaro's side to avoid punishment.
-
*JoJo's Bizarre Adventure*:
-
*Golden Wind*: Secco, as soon as he's learned Cioccolata was killed, discards his act to remain as a pet, noting that betraying Diavolo would be more beneficial for him.
-
*Stone Ocean*: Donatello Versus considers himself to be the one worthy of obtaining the power of Heaven. As soon Weather Report is near his location, Versus quickly restores his memory in an effort to have Pucci killed by The Virus so that he could have a chance at achieving Heaven.
-
*Steel Ball Run*: Diego originally didn't know about the corpse parts and likely had a different plan to achieve his ambitions, but meeting Valentine and accepting the latter's offer gave him an opportunity to use the corpse to his advantage.
-
*JoJolion*: Ojiro Sesame follows after Tsurugi for an opportunity to steal the fruits Jobin has been harvesting.
- Char Aznable from the original
*Mobile Suit Gundam* is a competent planner, and is able to stay a step ahead of most people, but he's more of a short-term opportunist than a long-term schemer, and more often than not is flying by the seat of his pants. He has the vague goal of "eliminate the Zabis", but no real plan for doing it instead he just hangs around with them, hoping to get the chance to murder them. He hangs around with Garma Zabi and is able to betray him, leading to his death in battle. He then just bounces around from commander to commander and mission to mission until the very end of the show when he's able to take a shot at Kycilia Zabi, who by then (no thanks to Char) is the only Zabi left. He spends most of *Zeta* hoping the AEUG will force the world to follow his father's philosophy without him having to lead it; when things go south, he abandons the cause after his defeat by Haman Khan. Even in *CCA*, when he does take power in Neo-Zeon, it's not through planning he just waits until everybody else with a claim to the throne (Haman Khan, Glemmy Toto, Mineva Zabi) is dead or in hiding, and declares himself leader.
- In
*My Hero Academia*, the pro hero Mt. Lady makes her debut by upstaging fellow hero Kamui Woods, delivering the final blow to the villain he'd been battling and subsequently hogging all the media attention for herself while Kamui sulks miserably on a nearby rooftop.
-
*Naruto*:
- Madara Uchiha had a plan with an actual claim to Chessmaster status before his resurrection. However, he was returned to life with a series of mishaps: his former apprentice having hijacked his old plan and him being revived by the dark Impure World Resurrection technique rather than the true resurrection he expected, and since then has been trying to improvise his way to victory. Madara proceeded to wait for an opportunity to break free of the caster's control before finding his apprentice Tobi had already revived the monstrous Ten-Tailed Beast with no intention of sharing that power with Madara. Then Madara tries to regain control of the situation using his backup plan but eventually got Out-Gambitted from Tobi. ||Further Madara sits and waits until the Alliance weaken Obito sufficiently, in order to have Black Zetsu force him to revive Madara.||
- Sasuke Uchiha is no better; his role as an antagonist is a series of him merely betraying a more ambitious and powerful villain and hijacking their resources or achievements for his own use. First Orochimaru, then Tobi ||and then Kaguya. At the conclusion, he finally executes his masterstroke, waiting until all of the most powerful threats amongst the heroes and villains had eliminated each other, with only Naruto to stop him||.
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*One Piece*:
- How could a rather ineffectual, lazy, and really goofy number like Buggy get to where he is now, despite being largely outclassed by most of his cohorts and the people he acquaints with? Simple: Buggy is nothing short of excellent at spotting and seizing the right opportunities at the right time and taking advantage of any situation and other people's gullibility, as he showed during the Impel Down Arc. And while he never meant to become one of the Warlords, he was quick to adapt to his accidental notoriety and entrench it firmly enough to build a successful business of mercenaries.
- Marshall D. Teach, aka "Blackbeard", is best described this way. He wants to become the Pirate King, but being The Fatalist that he is (which the rest of the crew shares), he's content with just waiting for good opportunities to show up so that he can seize it. He used to be a humble member of Whitebeard Pirates, but when he saw his higher-up, Thatch, acquiring the Devil Fruit Yami-Yami no Mi, he killed Thatch to gain the fruit and its powers, then ran away to make his own pirate group. Some time later, when Ace (another member of Whitebeard Pirates) hunted him down, Blackbeard used this opportunity to defeat him in a duel, bring him to the Marines, and use him (Ace is a highly-wanted pirate) as a bargaining chip to become one of the Shichibukai (Seven Warlords), getting special privileges in the process. He then exploited it to sneak into the world's largest prison, Impel Down, and take a few of the powerful prisoners to be part of his crew (all while there's a Prison Riot courtesy of Luffy). It culminates in the Marineford Arc, where he uses the opportunity to enter the battle of Marineford (between the Marines and Whitebeard Pirates, who wanted to stop Ace's execution) to kill Whitebeard and gain his earthquake powers in the process. Only then can he safely declare that from then on, "this is [his] era".
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*Puella Magi Madoka Magica*: Arguably, ||Kyubey||. While ||the Incubators|| do have a goal in mind, they are shown to exploit new circumstances ||to try and manipulate girls into contracting (best example: he waits until Mami is literally *dying* in a car crash before appearing)|| and invoke Exact Words, Literal Genie and You Didn't Ask to conveniently hide the (multiple) uncomfortable facts of being a Magical Girl. Also, ||he tends to cut corners while granting wishes as a means of conserving energy; making the phrasing of each girl's wish essential||.
- Malty of
*The Rising of the Shield Hero* has a habit of jumping on any opportunity for amusement, revenge, or personal gain without considering the consequences fully. As this usually comes at the expense of her comrades she makes a lot of enemies while gradually increasing the potential rewards if she succeeds. This escalates from getting a better Hero while stealing Naofumi's money to ||killing her sister to gain the throne, killing her *family* to gain the throne, and finally killing her family *and* the Heroes for the world||.
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*Sonic X*: Eggman's first reaction upon arriving on Earth is to simply decide to conquer it if he can't conquer Sonic's world. Near the end of Season 1, after tricking Knuckles into giving him the rest of the Chaos Emeralds, he flat-out admits that he only cares about establishing the Eggman Empire; whether he does so on Sonic's world or Earth makes no difference.
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*Sword Art Online*: Sugou Nobuyuki admits to Asuna that he'd been researching mind control using FullDive for a while, and took advantage of the SAO incident to reroute 300 survivors to ALO for human experimentation. He's the same in the video game continuity; ||he confesses that he ended up in SAO by accident, but inherited a super account and took advantage of the situation for the sake of his research||.
- Diabolik is usually the Magnificent Bastard, but sometimes he's forced to resort to this because whatever he's planning to steal is too heavily protected under normal circumstances or otherwise out of his reach.
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*Dynamo5*:
- With Captain Dynamo's death, numerous villains are now taking advantage by targeting Tower City for their crimes.
- In particular, it is implied that the mother and daughter supervillain team Chrysalis and Synergy are taking advantage of Captain Dynamo's death (Chrysalis' former lover and Synergy's father) by having Synergy impersonate Captain Dynamo/William Warner to increase their power base.
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*Nemesis the Warlock*: Nemesis seizes on any opportunity to undermine Torquemada's power, but always stops short of killing him, which inevitably allows the Grand Master of Termight a chance to regroup and rebuild his forces. On more than one occasion this has led to Nemesis requiring his allies to get him out of a sticky situation. This is because Nemesis is the avatar of chaos, and also a Blood Knight who doesn't *want* to stop battling Torquemada.
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*Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)*:
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*Ultimate X-Men*: Despite not knowing Colossus is gay, Longshot manipulates the latter's overprotective nature, and also manipulates the X-Men in general by ||playing up the "wrongly condemned innocent" angle||.
- In
*Violine*, Kombo endangers the heroes regularly for his greed, at one point even contemplating turning Violine and her father in for a reward. Still not a villain, though.
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*Dodged a Beetle*: On top of his willingness to exploit anyone having a bad time by akumatizing them in their moments of weakness, Gabriel decides to punish Adrien for attending a birthday party his friends threw him by refusing to attend the upcoming Parental Career Day. At least, that's what he *tells* him; Gabriel never actually intended to go in the first place, and uses the incident as an excuse while guilt-tripping his son and making him believe it's his own fault that his father refuses to spare the time for him.
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*Feralnette AU*:
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*Graffiti Heart*: The Stealth Recovery Exam encourages all of the students involved to behave this way in order to retrieve the items they've been secretly assigned to collect. The only thing off-limits is using violence; everything else goes.
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*Guardians, Wizards, and Kung-Fu Fighters* has the Ludmoore brothers. While they have a long-term plan towards conquering Meridian that they're working on, they have no reluctance to adjust those plans to jump on new opportunities when they present themselves.
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*Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger*: This is Darth Nihilus's *modus operandi*. Unlike Salem, Nihilus doesn't think in the long term; preferring to sit back and wait for an opportunity to present itself as the situation develops around him.
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*The Karma of Lies*: Part of what makes Lila so dangerous is her ability to play Xanatos Speed Chess, quickly adjusting her schemes in order to capitalize upon *any* opportunity that might present itself. Got an interest? She's more than happy to spin a web about how she just so *happens* to have big-name connections that could help you out. And once she's got her hooks in somebody, she'll tailor her schemes specifically towards exploiting whatever her victim has to offer.
- This gets highlighted especially well when her classmates are comparing notes, figuring out what each of them lost to her. She bilked each one out of the most valuable things they had to offer, promising them whatever they desired most while systematically destroying their chances of actually
*achieving* any of their dreams.
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*Le Papillon Rising*: As a Villain Protagonist, Adrien has no long-term plans; he's really just winging it, pouncing upon any opportunities that present themselves. Even the ones that make his stomach churn when he lets himself contemplate what he's actually doing.
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*Marinette Dupain-Cheng's Spite Playlist*: Lila eagerly leaps upon any opportunity to slander her 'opponents', *especially* Marinette. Never mind how Marinette transferred to another school; so far as she's concerned, that just leaves her free to twist the knife even further.
- In Lenore Raven's
*Mayura Marinette*, Lila became Ladybug and uses her position to spread Malicious Slander, convincing all of Paris that Marinette is responsible for causing all kinds of akumas and potentially working with Hawkmoth. Gabriel exploits this by offering Marinette a job, luring her in with an apparent lifeline before revealing his secret identity to her and making clear that if she *doesn't* work with him, he'll ensure her family's reputation *never* recovers.
- In
*Origins*, a *Mass Effect*/ *Star Wars*||/ *Borderlands*/ *Halo*|| Massive Multiplayer Crossover, the Republic Intelligence Service's director slides into this territory. There's no evidence he or his organization knew that ||the Flood|| was coming, but boy does he take advantage of it like no tomorrow, using it as an excuse to receive ever greater power along with increasingly unaccountable budgets. He even implies in press conferences that yes, RISE knew about this whole thing in advance to buy more credibility.
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*Quirk: Sequencer*: Since Izuku's Quirk lets him copy other people's abilities from their DNA and use them to create his own powers, he quickly learns how to take advantage of any opportunities to gather new samples. For instance, he likes spending time around kids because of their tendency to get hurt while playing, and rushes to the aid of an old man who'd burned himself with ulterior motives.
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*The Scorpion Jar*: When it looks like Katsuki has finally managed to break Izuku's will and forced him to give up on his Tragic Dream of becoming a Pro Hero, many of the other bullies at Aldera latch onto the idea that they can force Izuku to do their homework for them. This comes back to bite them all when Izuku spins this to his advantage, playing them against each other to gather enough evidence of everyone's misdeeds to take to the Board of Education.
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*There and Back Again*:
- Ser Brynden "Blackfish" Tully regards his brother Hoster as always having been one of these. During Robert's Rebellion, he married both of his daughters off to two high lords of the continent's great noble houses in exchange for the Riverlands' military support despite having no real reason to rebel against the crown at the time and the fact that House Tully only became the ruling lords of the Riverlands because of the Targaryens. Similarly, Jon Arryn believes Hoster would have no problem with marrying Sansa off to King Robert just to have a granddaughter as the queen of the Seven Kingdoms without any consideration for her own well-being with regards to the big age gap between them (as was shown by how Hoster pushed Lysa to marry the much older Jon).
- Lord Eldon Estermont sees the Tyrells this way and considers them to be worse than the Targaryen loyalists since they could easily switch sides at a moment's notice should the winds start blowing in another direction.
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*Two Letters*:
- Chat Noir knew that Ladybug needed his help against Hawkmoth, and that their enemy could use strong negative emotions to akumatize others. He gleefully exploited this in order to screw around and do whatever he pleased — after all, Ladybug couldn't express all her anger and frustration with his antics and sexual harassment without risking Hawkmoth swooping in.
- Several citizens of Paris began taking Ladybug's protection completely for granted, to the point that they saw nothing wrong with letting themselves be akumatized as an emotional outlet. Sure, they'd be going on unchecked rampages, but so what? As long as Ladybug was around, she'd swoop in and save the day, right?
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*The Wolves in the Woods*: The whole plotline is kicked off by ||False Friend Alya|| exploiting Lila's false claims about Marinette to turn almost the whole class against her, out of envy over Marinette's recent successes as a fashion designer and wanting to 'knock her down a few pegs'. This appears to be their regular MO, as it's heavily implied that they only helped Marinette deal with Chloe in order to 'play the hero' and make the other girl dependent upon them, and are not pleased by the prospect of her being more than an Extreme Doormat.
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*Mandalay*:
- Tanya is a heroic example. First, she blackmails a police officer into not only releasing her without charges but also handing her 1000 rupees because he happens to be one of her clients in the brothel. This quick thinking allows her to escape to Mandalay. While doing that, Tony finds her and tries to convince her to be the hostess of a brothel he'll open. While still processing the fact Tony's alive, Tanya devices a plan to get rid of him permanently. She remembers Dr. Burton's stack of iodine, so when Tony dares to ask her to make him a drink, she poisons it with abundant, deathly iodine.
- Tony, by contrast, embodies both the opportunistic and bastard parts of this trope. His gun-trafficking affairs land him in a sticky situation — he's got to pay lots of money he doesn't have. What does he do? Sell his girlfriend as a Sex Slave. Later, when Nick informs him he's got the police hot on his heels, he fakes his own suicide by leaving hints that he took poison and jumped overboard.
- Loki Odinson from the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a knack for adapting to most situations. In
*Thor*, he originally sneaks some Frost Giants into Asgard as a prank, then capitalizes on the fallout to ruin his brother's reputation, and takes advantage of Thor's banishment and his father's coma to try to wipe out the Frost Giants and prove himself worthy of the throne. He is quick to make and break chance alliances with Thanos in *The Avengers* and the Grandmaster in *Thor: Ragnarok* so as to take over the Earth and Sakaar, respectively. After Thor temporarily frees him in *Thor: The Dark World*, he seizes the opportunity to secretly oust Odin and becomes the Fake King of Asgard. In *Ragnarok*, after Thor anticipates Loki's most recent betrayal, he points out how limiting and predictable his actions make him, ||which Loki takes to heart, causing a HeelFace Turn||.
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*No Name on the Bullet*: Stricker is this, both in his method of acquiring part of Ben Chaffee's mine, and later suggests to Reeger that they let a drunk Lou Fraden challenge Gant to a duel rather than intervene, out of the off chance that he might win.
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*Pirates of the Caribbean*:
- René Belloq from
*Raiders of the Lost Ark*. He's not as successful an archaeologist or adventurer as Indiana Jones is, so he usually lets Indy do all the work before swooping in to steal the artifacts his nemesis recovers. After Indy retrieves a golden idol at the beginning of the movie from a booby-trapped temple, Belloq just takes it from him by conning the local Hovitos into helping him. Later he helps the Nazis steal the Ark of the Covenant from Indy after the latter discovered its rightful location. The Novelization says Belloq's essentially made a career out of doing this to Indy, not just stealing artifacts from him but also plagiarizing an essay in graduate school and excavating a dig site while Indy spent months preparing.
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*Short Circuit:* When Sandy tries to make a lucrative deal to buy toys from Ben, Frank (who is just introducing himself to Ben) quickly cuts himself into the deal and talks up the price before Ben can figure out what's going on. On the other hand, it's only because of Frank that Ben gets the start-up money (albeit by visiting a Loan Shark) and factory space necessary to start production.
- Kraven of the
*Underworld (2003)* film franchise has no loyalty to anyone or anything but his own ambition. When spared from death by his own cowardice at the hands of the Lycan werewolves' leader Lucien, Kraven aligns himself with Lucien's plans to seize power for himself in the vampire covens. Kraven seizes on a chance to allow Lucien's Lycans to massacre the vampire elder Amelia, and when his treachery is exposed, he later betrays and murders Lucien before taking advantage of the resulting power vacuum from the large scale battle at the conclusion of the second film to attempt to murder the final sleeping vampire elder and rule the coven. Lacking his own plans, Kraven simply ingratiates himself to whoever is in power for his own success and has no compunction taking any chance fate gives him in pursuit of it.
- Benna Murcatto of
*Best Served Cold* is an amoral snake of a man who latches on to his talented elder sister Monza while she uses her skills in strategy, tactics, and combat to bring them to higher positions. Benna's role seems to be deciding who to betray and when, while charming his way into the good graces of others. When they're taken in as kids by the mercenary Nicomo Cosca, Benna has him deposed when he realizes Monza is more popular than Cosca. when they attack a city known as Caprile, Benna takes the chance to 'lose' Monza's orders to spare the populace to benefit him further. Finally, it's revealed Benna was ||going to double-cross their current employer, Duke Orso, if Orso hadn't acted first to kill Benna before he got the chance||.
- In the
*Ciaphas Cain* books, Cain himself rarely goes into a situation with a concrete plan for how to tackle it (or even, at times, a complete picture of what he's actually getting into), but he has a remarkable tendency to find and exploit any advantage that could possibly give him an edge when he's in the thick of things. Interestingly, he's one of the rare few examples of this trope who's self-aware enough of just how shallow his motives run and who has enough of a conscience to actually beat himself up over it in quieter moments (that is, if we take his own account at face value).
- Esketra from
*Dark Crusade*. She has no qualms about using her good looks to her advantage, first seducing aspiring general Javro and then, when her city is overrun by the Dark Crusade, living in comfort as the lover of leader Orted Ak-Ceddi. And she would betray anyone if she thought it would help her. Unfortunately for her, women are immune to her charms and there is one that really wants to get her Revenge and ||righty suspects that Esketra would be able to convince Javro to forgive her||.
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*Flashman*: Flashman himself is a British soldier with no loyalty to anything but himself. Constantly roped along into adventures despite his intentions, Flash will seize on any opportunity, betray anyone and do whatever he has to in order to stay on top. Flash almost never goes into his adventures with a plan, instead preferring to seize on opportunities as they present themselves, always eager to end up with wealth, women and to make himself appear to be a hero.
- The
*Godzilla vs. Kong* movie novelization's expansion reveals that the Big Bad Wannabe, Apex CEO Walter Simmons, is this trope. ||Godzilla being driven to his first attack on Apex's Pensacola factory was a *genuine* accident on Apex's part, but once they realized what they'd done, Simmons was all too happy to take advantage of the disaster to paint Godzilla as a monster that needs to be put down before he tries to *deliberately* engineers a repeat of the incident in one of the most densely-populated cities in the world, so that everyone will assume Apex are saving mankind from Godzilla once they set Mechagodzilla on him with the aim of usurping the King of the Monsters||.
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*Harry Potter*:
- Lucius Malfoy is a Smug Snake of an opportunist, latching onto anything that will either help his ambition or help him save his own hide. He doesn't usually have a plan either—he'll let somebody else do the thinking, and try to benefit from their work. In the backstory, he joins Lord Voldemort for the power involved, and also because its racist cause adhered with his prejudiced mindset. After Voldemort's power is shattered and the Dark Lord disappears, Lucius abandons his master and pretends his deeds were because of brainwashing, allowing him to escape justice. Perhaps the best example of Lucius's "planning capabilities" is how he orchestrated the opening of the Chamber of Secrets. He simply ||plopped Tom Riddle's diary into Ginny Weasley's lap, let Tom Riddle do all the work,|| and sat back, taking advantage of the chaos for his own ends. When Lord Voldemort returned to power in
*Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire*, Lucius goes back to Voldemort to avoid incurring the Dark Lord's wrath, and once again carries out Voldemort's will. Throughout the series, Lucius only has one consistent loyalty and that's to his family. Eventually, ||when Voldemort's cause endangers his son's life, Lucius defects from the Death Eaters for Draco's safety||.
- Wormtail is a humbler example as a Dirty Coward and chronic backstabber who just looks for the biggest shadow to crawl and live in. First he "befriended" the Marauders at Hogwarts because they were popular, then he betrayed them as an adult, becoming The Mole for the Death Eaters in the Order of the Phoenix because Voldemort was gaining more and more power. Wormtail sold out his "friends," the Potters, and their one-year-old son to their deaths, just to secure his position, then after that backfired, he went and framed his other "friend" Sirius and went into hiding. It speaks volumes of Wormtail's level of cowardice and self-interest that he was willing to live as a rat for over a decade, just on the off chance Voldemort returned and he needed to offer Harry up as a sacrifice to get back in his good graces. It's only when he has literally no other option that he seeks out Voldemort and helps him return to full power, just to have the protection of someone powerful again.
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*Land of Oz*: Oscar Diggs, a third-rate carny and con artist from Nebraska, ends up getting his hot air balloon caught in a storm. The storm lands him dead-center in the world of Nonestica, in the capital city of Oz. The king and queen recently died, the only heir is their infant daughter, the four arch-mages ("Witches") have secured territory and are threatening all-out war. Using a combination of carnival tricks, Steampunk gadgetry, and sheer bullshit, Diggs manages to bluff the people into thinking he's more powerful than the Witches, making the four stand down in an Enforced Cold War. From there, he is able to sell the true heir to the throne into slavery (bespelled as the wrong gender!), and weasel his way into becoming a de facto God-Emperor with unquestioned rule. It was working pretty well until Dorothy blundered into Oz and set off a chain reaction that exposed him as a humbug, and Ozma was able to free herself.
- Obadiah Hakeswill, Richard Shape's Arch-Enemy from the
*Sharpe* series is a toadying sadist of a British drill sergeant with his only goals being his own profit and enjoyment. Hakeswill relishes bullying the men in his command, but throughout the India Trilogy, he is quick to desert the British whenever he thinks he has a better shot with the local rulers. He deserts and betrays the British no less than three separate times there and murders the colonel who could have exposed him. In the Napoleonic Wars in Spain, Hakeswill returns and continues attempting to weasel his way up in rank before he takes a chance to desert the British and captains a group of Bandits where he opts to Rape, Pillage, and Burn for for fun with no greater goal in mind.
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*A Song of Ice and Fire*:
- Bronn intends to rise in the world any way he can and attaches himself to anybody who can do that for him. Starting out as a simple sellsword, he first latches onto Catelyn Stark's retinue transporting Tyrion Lannister to the Vale, for the possibility of a reward. He then proceeds to quickly switch sides from Catelyn to Tyrion, championing him in a Trial by Combat, thus becoming the right-hand man of one of the richest and most powerful men in the Seven Kingdoms. He stays on for a while, accumulating riches, titles, and a knighthood, before eventually refusing Tyrion's request to ||champion him again in the trial over Joffrey's murder|| because Cersei Lannister offered him a marriage into a powerful noble house with no risk to himself. Seizing any opportunity that came his way, Bronn went from an ordinary mercenary all the way to the Lord Protector of House Stokeworth.
- Lord Walder Frey, head of House Frey and Lord of the Crossing, only reacts to the plans of others and only openly aligns with anyone when he believes it will serve his best interests. In the backstory it's established he didn't join Robert's rebellion against the Targaryeans until it was all but confirmed Robert would be victorious, earning him the nickname "The Late Lord Frey." In
*Game of Thrones*, he only joins Robb's war with the Lannisters when Catelyn grants him generous enticements, including a marriage between Robb and one of his daughters. When ||Robb breaks his marriage vow, Walder happily latches onto Tywin's side when he offers Walder's son Emmon the position of new Lord of Riverrun. Lord Walder then proceeded to butcher Robb and most of his bannermen when they were defenseless and assumed themselves safe under Lord Walder's roof||; a pragmatic move that made Lord Walder one of the most powerful, and despised, men in all of Westeros.
- Brown Ben Plumm, the commander of the sellsword company the Second Sons. Prior to his promotion, Ben first works for Yunkai as another mercenary defender. However, after Daenerys defeats his company and causes their leader, Mero, to disappear, Ben becomes the company's new leader and joins Daenerys against his former employers. He stays with her until she conquers Mereen at which point, believing she can't win against the newly reformed Yunkai forces and having found out she can't control her dragons, he abandons her and again allies himself with Yunkai. When he believes Daenerys is about to become a Dragon Rider, however, Ben plans to sell out Yunkai
*again* and realign with Daenerys. He's also a man who notices golden opportunities when presented with them. At a slave auction, he tries to buy ||Ser Jorah Mormont and Tyrion Lannister||. The former he plans on killing and presenting as a "wedding present" in order to get back into Daenerys's good graces. The latter he plans on selling for the bounty on his head, which includes a lordship in Westeros. Eventually ||Tyrion|| is able to talk Ben into allowing both him and ||Jorah|| to join the company, but only after convincing him he can give Plumm vast more riches as ||Lord of Casterly Rock|| than he can as a head on a pike. Ben is a man of no loyalties who will backstab anyone if the odds aren't in their favor, and who is driven by a lust for riches and self-preservation above all else. Plumm believes that successful and long-lived sellswords like himself are opportunistic bastards at heart, and those that aren't tend not to be very long-lived.
- Petyr Baelish manages to be both this
*and* The Chessmaster. He concocts elaborate plans, plots and counterplots like The Chessmaster; yet, never misses a beat when one or more of them get disrupted, and adapts to gain *something* from it so quickly and smoothly that it appears to be Just as Planned, even though a large chunk of the original plan actually got bolluxed up to a fare thee well. Most of his plots are, in fact, aimed at nothing more or less than *causing more chaos*, because a destabilized realm allows for more upward mobility for a suitably flexible and opportunistic man such as himself to ride on. So, it doesn't matter too much exactly how things become disorganized, just that they do become messy. Heck, he'll even make plans to counter other plans of his... just to keep others confused as to what he's actually aiming at acquiring.
- Marillion, a bard, shows what can happen if you only have the skills to partially follow through. He manages to Butt-Monkey his way into Catelyn's entourage at the same time Bronn spots his chance to make good. From there, he successfully becomes the court minstrel of the Eyrie when he flatters Lysa Arryn enough. Unfortunately, Marillion's an unlikable Slime Ball who manages to make himself so thoroughly disliked by most of the nobles of the Vale that, when he is made into The Scapegoat in a scheme aimed at facilitating a regime change,
*nobody* cares to look too hard into it, let alone question it, ||especially before his actual and very convenient death. There are hints that some Vale factions may be poking into the events surrounding Marillion's judicial murder for their own opportunistic reasons (since they are being fairly discrete), but this does him absolutely no good *now*.||
- Aurane Waters is chosen to be Cersei's Master of Ships for little more reason than because she finds him attractive, but when she's imprisoned he takes the opportunity to abscond with nearly the entire fleet, freshly built at ruinous expense, and uses it to become a pirate lord.
- Sylvester, the narrator of
*Twig*, is fundamentally this, but tries to act as The Chessmaster, often to his detriment. A twelve-year-old Tyke Bomb created with the ability to plot but not the ability to strategize, he has severe difficulty setting realistic goals and is often distracted by other objectives which he makes up on the spot, such as getting himself and his fellows official badges or making sure that the Villain of the Week respects him as an adversary. Even if he has a goal in mind, he'll often try for everything at once and get nothing.
- Cavilo from
*The Vor Game* is the leader of a mercenary company who has no qualms about betraying her employer if she gets a better offer from someone else. After capturing her at the end of the book Miles gives her a "Reason You Suck" Speech about it.
You should have stuck to your original contract. Or your second plan. Or your third. You should, in fact, have stuck to
*something*. Anything. Your total self-interest did not make you strong, it made you a rag in the wind, anybody's to pick up.
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*Blackadder*: The various incarnations of the title Edmund Blackadder will take any chance that offers itself to make money and gain influence, with the exception of the First World War incarnation, who is more concerned with getting out of the trenches. And even he qualifies as he chose to become a soldier of fortune as an easy and safe way to make money and travel around the world and only kill enemies with weapons too primitive to be considered weapons. Actual plans made by Blackadders tend to spiral into chaos during the first 25 minutes of the episode, but spontaneous opportunities are seized, exploited, and turned into admittedly temporary profit. ||Most obvious when his Regency incarnation had swapped places with the Prince Regent in order to duel the Duke of Wellington; when Wellington shot the "butler" and killed the Prince Regent, Blackadder effortlessly replaced him and ended up as King George IV.||
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*Black Sails* has John Silver (later to be known as "Long" John Silver) who is a self-described opportunist and will latch onto any chance to advance his position or at least keep himself from getting killed. When told that in a few months his usefulness will be gone and he will probably be killed he merely sees this as a time to make friends with his captors. Most of the other major characters have some sort of plan or goal they are working toward but Silver simply jumps at any opportunity that presents itself and goes where it takes him. This almost backfires on him in season 2 when he volunteers to join Flint on a Suicide Mission convinced that Flint has some brilliant plan to get them out of the trouble they are in. To Silver's horror, Flint fully intends to go through with the mission.
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*Boardwalk Empire*:
- Gaston Bullock Means is a shameless manipulator and back-stabber who acts only to swindle as much money as he possibly can out of whomever he's currently conning. Means spends most of his time in season three Playing Both Sides on the Nucky Thompson and DA Daughtery power struggle, waiting to ally himself with whichever one comes out on top. In season four, he again pretends to be on Nucky's side only to sell out information about him to the FBI to save his own ass. Even when he's being ||raided by the CIA|| he spends his remaining seconds trying to extort increasingly exorbitant amounts of money out of Nucky for information on The Mole in Nucky's organization.
- Mickey Doyle, a Polish bootlegger working in Nucky's organization who has a habit of betraying anyone if it looks like he can get more power from the other side. He betrays Nucky to the D'Alessio brothers in season one, then betrays the brothers to Nucky before the season's out, then he betrays Nucky again in favor of Jimmy's coup in the second season. After that fails, he somehow manages to not only survive again but once again weasel his way back into Nucky's organization, where he stays until the final season. ||He finally meets his end when he attempts to betray Nucky for a third time in the middle of a Mob War, this time to "Lucky" Luciano and Meyer Lansky. At this point, Luciano is in no mood for his crap and shoots him in the throat just to finally shut him up.||
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*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*:
- Angelus in Season 2 has no real plan beyond "screw with Buffy". It isn't until the last few episodes that Acathla arrives and gives him an actual goal to work towards, and even that falls into his general attitude of "I will be as big a dick as I can."
- The First Evil in Season 7, as revealed in "Showtime." Buffy's resurrection in the opening of Season 6 caused an imbalance in the powers protecting the Slayer line; the First took advantage of it to try to wipe it out completely.
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*Game of Thrones*:
- Tywin Lannister. Joffrey himself points out that during Robert's rebellion, Tywin effectively hid underneath Casterly Rock and only supported King Robert when all was decided. He effectively pulled a Walder Frey
*before* Walder Frey. He did not see Joffrey's murder coming at all despite knowing how hated he was, but he still finds some utility to it by grooming a less psychotic king (and thus more amenable to Tywin's advice) to replace him in Tommen, and force Jaime into becoming Tywin's successor with promises to spare Tyrion's life by exiling him to the Night's Watch.
- The show version of Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish falls into this category. While the book version is adept at seizing opportunities that come his way, he predominantly relies on long-term plans to get what he wants. The show version of Littlefinger puts much more emphasis on sowing chaos explicitly for the purpose of reaping any opportunities that arise in the fallout, with the nebulous end goal of sitting on the Iron Throne with Sansa Stark as his queen. His constant betrayals and warmongering gain him substantial power in the short-term but ultimately end up coming back to bite him, first by arranging Sansa's marriage to the psychotic Ramsay Bolton he destroys any goodwill he'd earned from her, and second, ||trying to turn Sansa against Arya results in the exposure of his crimes and subsequent execution||.
-
*Justified* lends itself to characters of this type by its very premise. With all the competing families and gangs, there will always be those looking to exploit the chaos to their own advantage. Some of the more notable include:
- Johnny Crowder, Boyd's power-hungry cousin, never missed a chance to improve his own position at the expense of others. Whether it was backing Boyd against Devil's internal coup, blackmailing Colton Rhodes about his drug addiction, providing the US Marshals with information, or manouvering between genuine power players like Boyd, his Uncle Bo, Wynn Duffy, Nicky Augustine, Hotrod Dunham, and Mr. Yoon, Johnny would grab at any chance to make a profit or increase his chances of taking over the Crowder family. Even after gaining control of Hotrod's organization in Season 5, he doesn't have a plan, beyond "hurt Boyd as much as possible", which leads to his defeat at the hands of his chessmaster cousin. Driven by greed and revenge (he held Boyd responsible for his crippling), and superb at playing the odds, Johnny could survive almost any situation, but the conclusion was never in doubt.
- Season 5's Daryl Crowe Jr. is described as such by his right-hand man, Jean-Baptiste, who comments on Daryl's penchant for finding employ with someone else and then making their business his. He did this to the Muchado family's sugar smuggling operation in Florida. After coming to Kentucky he first tries to take over his cousin Dewey's brother, leading to conflict with Boyd Crowder, then hires himself out to Boyd as an enforcer. Most recently, while on a job for Boyd in Mexico, he and his brother Danny have sabotaged Boyd's operation in an attempt to weaken Boyd enough that he will not have a choice but to offer Daryn an equal partnership. If anything, this unpredictability, and general lack of attention to detail makes Daryl
*more* dangerous, as nobody can really anticipate how he'll try to take advantage of the situation, only that he will.
- The same season gives us Mara Paxton and Sheriff Nick Moony, both of whom bounce back and forth between working for Boyd and working for Lee Paxton (Mara's husband) based on whoever seems strongest at the time, in an attempt at getting the best possible position for themselves. Moony had a history of this sort of behaviour long before Season 5, selling out Doyle Bennett to Boyd, Tillman Napier to Boyd, and then Boyd to Paxton, all based on who was offering the most at any given time. His refusal to just pick a side in the Boyd Crowder/Lee Paxton war is ||what ultimately gets him killed||.
-
*Leverage*: Jim Sterling will do what he needs to in order to come out on top or at least reduce collateral damage to himself. In the first season finale, protagonist Nate Ford offers him a choice: ||take Nate's "oversight requests" to remove the corrupt CEO Ian Blackpool from his position in Sterling's company and other policy changes, or Nate will reveal to the police and the victims of the art gallery Nate just robbed Blackpool was given notice by Nate of his intention to rob the gallery and, on tape, admits he won't bother calling the police, which leaves Blackpool and the company open for negligence lawsuits||. Nate notes that the people who will come after his target may not bother with Sterling if he helps offer the man up. It takes Sterling all of five seconds before laughing and agreeing to Nate's demands, while said target is there begging and pleading with Sterling to not betray him.
**Jim Sterling:**
You know your entire plan depended on me being a self-serving utter bastard
.
**Nathan Ford:**
Mm, yeah, that's a stretch.
-
*The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power*: Sauron didn't have any plan and met Galadriel by chance, and from there, he just latched onto her schemes. He didn't plan either to confront Adar or meet and influence Celebrimbor, all those events happen by chance and he goes along with it, taking advantage of the situation. He states that his initial goal was reaching Númenor, and stumbling upon Galadriel in the middle of the ocean was also a cosmic coincidence.
-
*Marvel Cinematic Universe*:
- Turk Barret tends to take dirty jobs rather than spearhead any plans himself. This is why he'll betray criminals to dangerous bosses, like selling the Russians out to Fisk or ratting out Chico to Cottonmouth.
- In
*Jessica Jones (2015)* Malus refers to Dr. Kozlov as such, citing he stole Malus' drugs to develop the combat enhancers for the military.
- Hernán "Shades" Alvarez from
*Luke Cage (2016)* is always try to get in the graces of someone with more power than him, be it a corrupt guard at Seagate or Diamondback, the latter even calls him out on it when he guessed that Shades planned on being Mariah's right-hand man and Evil Mentor as he saw more potential with her than with Diamondback.
- Ashur from
*Spartacus: Blood and Sand* decides, after he is crippled by the Gladiator Crixus, that his only goals in life are revenge and rising in power. Using his cleverness to ingratiate himself to his master Batiatus, Ashur becomes his errand boy and supporter, hoping to tie his fortunes to Batiatus's own. When he is indebted to Gladiator named Barca, Ashur quickly makes it appear as if Barca has betrayed Batiatus and arranges his death. Ashur takes advantage of Batiatus's gratitude to steal Crixus's lover, and after Batiatus falls, Ashur simply aligns himself with Praetor Gaius Claudius Glaber and uses Spartacus's rebellion to get Glaber to assign him his own private squad of enforcers with which he terrorizes Capua. Ashur uses his intelligence and lack of morality to make himself invaluable to those he serves while simultaneously using their favor to push himself higher.
-
*Stargate Atlantis*: Todd is a Wraith who is noticeably more pragmatic than the rest of his vampiric ilk, constantly forging Enemy Mine alliances with the Atlantis expedition for his own benefit when the opportunity falls into his lap. While his schemes often don't go the way he intended, he's always able to adapt to new circumstances and walking away from it unscathed, usually in a more powerful position than he was in before. Colonel Sheppard is fully aware that he'd betray them in a heartbeat if he saw some benefit to it.
**Sheppard:**Every time we get involved with you, I feel like I'm walking around with a live grenade in my pocket, just waiting for it all to go wrong - for that 'one thing' you forgot to mention.
-
*Succession*:
- Cousin Greg has no discernible goal beyond keeping his job at Waystar and proves himself to be adept at hitching rides on the shoulders of more powerful people, aligning himself with whoever seems to be in a more advantageous position at any given moment.
- Kendall's ostensible best friend Stewy is a parasite constantly piggybacking off other people's success and influence. Even his job as a private equity shark is centered around benefiting from other people's failures.
"I can promise you that I am spiritually and emotionally and ethically and morally behind whoever wins."
- Crowley from
*Supernatural* has worked his way from a demonic salesman to the King of Hell by working his way into various situations, betraying those he works with, and being fully willing to subvert situations to his benefit. He takes advantage of Dean and Sam's wish to kill Lucifer to aid them while keeping his involvement secret. Crowley later uses Sam and Dean to defeat Lucifer and takes the opportunity to seize control of Hell by becoming its king. Crowley spends the next few seasons playing up and shifting alliances with various characters, always ready to seize an opportunity when it presents itself.
-
*Torchwood: Miracle Day* had Jilly Kitizgenger. An opportunist, fast-talking PR rep, she was mostly concerned with getting work. She represented the evil cooperation and the crazy murderer/child molester even she admitted was off-putting, but her loyalties lie with whatever will get her to the top. Before approaching the murderer, she approached a doctor working with the heroes for the exact opposite goals.
- Calvin "Cheese" Wagstaff of
*The Wire* is defined by his ambition and his utter lack of loyalty to anyone. Cheese starts out as an enforcer and lieutenant of his uncle, the notorious drug kingpin "Proposition Joe." When Marlo Stanfield begins his rise to power, Cheese promptly aligns with him for a bigger slice of the pie and betrays his uncle to his death. He then aligns with Marlo instead. When Marlo is no longer in the picture, Cheese tries to seize control of the loose alliance of Drug Dealers, basically admitting his shifting loyalties and opportunism in front of them.
- Garfield the Deals Warlock of
*The Adventure Zone: Balance* doesn't care that he sells weapons to adventurers aiming to save all of humanity he's out for money. ||And a replica of Magnus's body.||
-
*Absented Age: Squarebound*: ||Karen Alias|| states that the Gangers didn't turn Karen into a ghost and send her into the Driftworlds, and they presumably didn't have contact with the culprit. Throughout the game, they try to take advantage of this situation by hunting down the Heart Fragments. ||Karen Alias plans on becoming the real Karen so she can merge the real world and Driftworld.||
-
*ANNO: Mutationem*: After his proposal to reinstate the Gatekeeper Project was rejected, C sets off a scheme to access Hinterland by ||engineering Ryan's capture to lure Ann in and forcibly using her powers to obtain the Artifact of Doom||.
- Queen Anora from
*Dragon Age: Origins* will manipulate or backstab anyone so long as it satisfies her two goals: remaining in power and securing the physical safety of her father Loghain. Being a choice-based game, there are a number of options for how Anora will react if certain decisions are made. Should the Player Character, the Warden, decide to back her at the Landsmeet, she will turn against her father, the regent, to secure power for herself. However, should the Warden decide to back ||Alistair|| instead, she will betray the Warden and side with her father, despite the fact that Loghain had arranged her husband's death, conducted numerous evil actions, and in doing so risked a civil war in Ferelden even as the Archdemon led the Darkspawn to Rape, Pillage, and Burn the country. In order to preserve her political power, Anora will also go through with political marriages, such as she will to a Noble Human Grey Warden, seeing him as a popular figure. She'd even go so far as to ||marry Alistair, the bastard brother of her beloved, late husband||, the very same man she'd also ||order executed for being a threat to her in another possible play through where she rules alone||. Anora has no master plan to get her way and few scruples, she'll simply latch on to anyone who is most likely to give her the power she wants and do as they ask in return. The one exception to this is ||marrying whoever personally executes her father||. That is the one thing she will not do no matter the benefits.
- Benny from
*Fallout: New Vegas*. The Big Bad Wannabe of the game, Benny wants to seize the city of New Vegas for his own but has little in the way of actual planning ability. In the backstory, he killed the chief of his tribe in a duel to the death and supplanted him because the former leader wanted their people to remain nomadic rather than take the more profitable route of joining the New Vegas leadership. Though nominally aligned with New Vegas's "autocrat," Mr. House, Benny really craved more power and had one of Mr. House's securitrons reprogrammed to spill all of Mr. House's secrets. The securitron, Yes-Man, told Benny about a platinum computer chip that could be used to upgrade the securitrons of New Vegas into unstoppable killing machines, and then formulated plans on how Benny could foil Mr. House's plans while hijacking the platinum chip for Benny's own use. Benny was an ambitious man who forged alliances as often as he broke them, but it's made abundantly clear that he was only a danger because he leeched off the plans of those smarter than himself, such as Mr. House and Yes-Man, for his own use.
-
*Final Fantasy IX*: This applies to Kuja, from disc 3 onward. In the first two discs, Kuja had a true Evil Plan, but it gets immediately curbstomped the second that ||his boss, Garland, decides that he has outlived his usefulness.|| Kuja immediately goes into hiding and, with his treachery revealed, has no choice but to acquire power by any means necessary. He tries a few things that also fail before opportunity shines and one of the good guys taps into their Super Mode right in front of him. From that moment on, his plan is to ||let the heroes fight both him and Garland, and win, and then Turn Red and invoke his own Super Mode *permanently*.|| *And it works.* At that point, Kuja had everything he needed to take over the world, but there was one thing he didn't count on.
- Acheron from
*Fire Emblem: Three Houses* and *Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes* is nicknamed "The Weathervane" for his tendency to switch sides based on what he thinks will give him the most clout. He has no respect for Claude, the heir to the Leicester Alliance leadership, so he often attempts to curry favor with The Empire in hopes of increasing his political standing. In turn, neither the Alliance nor the Empire takes Acheron seriously, and his failure to read the prevailing winds always spells his downfall, especially in *Three Hopes* when (on Scarlet Blaze) he tries to sell supplies he stole from the Imperial army, thinking they'll pay out the nose to recover them and/or buy his services, or (on Golden Wildfire) he defects from the Alliance in the middle of a rescue mission, potentially dying before the Empire finds out about his betrayal.
- Dimitri Rascalov of
*Grand Theft Auto IV*, a man with serious loyalty issues starts as the number 2 to the unstable Russian gangster Mikhail Faustin. When protagonist Niko Bellic shows up, Dimitri takes his chance to manipulate Niko into murdering Mikhail so Dimitri can take over. He then tries to have Niko killed as well by quickly allying with Ray Bulgarin, an old enemy of Niko's. Dimitri spends the rest of the game getting friendly with those who can aid his pursuit of wealth and power, and will betray anyone in an instant if he finds a better opportunity in it.
- In
*Melody*, theres no indication that Bethany plans very far ahead to force the protagonist to come back. Shes mostly just doing whatever she can think of.
-
*Peret em Heru: For the Prisoners*:
- Professor Tsuchida discovers a sprawling underground ruin beneath the Great Pyramid of Giza. Problem is, he's not supposed to be there and doesn't want to alert the proper authorities and have them 'steal his glory'. Good thing there's a tour group passing by he can talk into joining him, spinning it as the chance of a lifetime... when really he's just looking for free labor, and unwitting meat shields he can use to get past the booby traps inside...
- Then there's ||Mizumi||, who figures out one of the women's Dark Secret and promptly decides to Blackmail her into sex. Jerkass even gloats about how this isn't the first time he's taken advantage of someone like this.
-
*Sonic and the Secret Rings*: Early on, the Erazor Djinn tries to shoot Shahra with a flaming arrow, but Sonic takes the hit and is afflicted with a life-draining curse. Erazor uses it to his advantage, telling Sonic he'll remove the arrow and break the curse if Sonic gathers all of the World Rings for him. ||As it turns out, he just intends to sacrifice Sonic in order to obtain full mastery of the World Rings for himself since he couldn't use their true power as long as their collector is alive, but settles for Shahra instead when she jumps in front of the killing blow||. This ends up biting him in the ass ||because not only does this *not* give him the full mastery he desired, a rip-roaring pissed Sonic ends up stealing three of the Rings from him and using them to power up and rip him a new one||.
- Darth Malak from
*Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic*, who usurped his former master Darth Revan by ordering his ship to fire on Revan's vessel while the latter was distracted. Despite Revan ||apparently|| perishing in the attack and Malak becoming the undisputed Dark Lord of the Sith, it's also established that the other Sith don't respect him since his actions are quite contrary to Sith principles: while usurping your master is pretty much universally expected, victories are supposed to show superior strength or cunning, thus strengthening the Sith as a whole; whereas cheap shots like Malak's only encourage Chronic Backstabbing Disorder which would prevent *anything* from getting done.
- The Bounty Hunter Player Character from
*Star Wars: The Old Republic* gets two opportunities to address a huge audience. They're expected to either make inspiring speeches or threaten The Republic. But instead, you can... make a sales pitch. Heck, you're never going to get a better chance than this!
**Hunter:**
Corellia's all wrapped up. The Empire is a happy customer. I could do the same for you. Rogue Sith Lords, crime syndicates, kings, queens—I hunt 'em all. Don't be afraid, it only takes a call.
**Darbin Sul:**
Better hire this hunter before the enemy does!
**Darth Decimus:**
A sales pitch wasn't quite what I had in mind.
-
*XenoGears*: Krelian gets the Gazel Ministry into having Cain killed so they could bring Mahanon out to the surface. After obtaining the data from Razael's Tree, Krelian has the ministry terminated.
- Jared from
*Weak Hero* can't fight well and isn't even that smart; his position as Wolf's Number Two came about by him latching on to anyone that was strong and steadily pulling himself up the ladder that way. This comes back to bite him when all of his wrongdoings are exposed; he has no strength to fight back against the people seeking revenge on him, and his superficial allies are quick to turn on him.
- Prince Zuko in the first two seasons of
*Avatar: The Last Airbender*. He's hellbent on capturing the Avatar to restore his former position in the Fire Nation, but unlike his Chessmaster sister Azula, he never has a concrete plan in place for how he's going to accomplish it. He spends most of his time tracking Aang, winging it as he goes, teaming up with anyone from pirates to bounty hunters so long as it gives him an opportunity to capture Aang. Eventually, Iroh calls him out on his lack of long-term planning, pointing out the times he's nearly died because he never thinks through what he should do after achieving his immediate goal.
- Hondo Ohnaka from
*Star Wars: The Clone Wars* and *Star Wars Rebels*. Hondo is quick to side with and backstabs anyone if he thinks he can make a quick profit out of it.
-
*Steven Universe*: Marty stopped by Beach City to give Greg a royalty check, but when he found out Sour Cream was going to DJ at a concert, he decides to use it to promote Guacola.
- The
*Transformers: Prime* incarnation of Starscream tends to fall into this trope. He's not got the brawn to overthrow Megatron by force, and Megatron is cunning enough to spot and foil most planned gambits, so his best chance is seizing on events as they come up. To this end, he's ended up both working with and against Decepticons and Autobots alike... sometimes at the same time. In a subversion, he ends up growing out of the trope somewhat and seems genuinely content to be second in command (though he turns his attention to keeping that position.) | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpportunisticBastard |
AB Negative - TV Tropes
Heroes come in two types.
**Grace:**
I've got a very rare blood type. I'm AB positive.
**Bruce:**
Well, I'm IB positive. I be positive they ain't touching me with no needle.
Although most of the real world gets by quite peacefully with the more common blood types, in the world of entertainment only the rarest will do; if a character's blood type is mentioned, you can bet that it's going to be rare and special. Blood in fiction really comes in only two types: universal donor (O-, rare) and special needs (common), so that blood banks are overtaxed whenever the plot requires. Because AB- is the rarest blood type (found in less than 1% of the population), cases of the latter will often give the character an AB- blood type.
In reality, while doctors do
*prefer* to match blood type exactly when possible (especially when doing organ transplants, to reduce the risk of rejection), in a life-or-death situation — which is the only situation this trope would find worthwhile — any compatible blood type will do. note : In a sufficiently critical situation, such as when a patient is literally going through dozens or hundreds of units, even incompatible blood can be used, with compatible units reserved for the first few and last few transfusions; all the problems that would normally result from transfusing a type O patient with type A blood are negated when the patient's own blood is long gone and the type A blood is hemorrhaged out almost immediately. This is also how James Harrison became "The Man with the Golden Arms". When it comes to compatible matches, AB- blood is actually not that hard to match, because an AB- patient can receive transfusions of any Rh negative blood type (A-, B-, AB-, or O-), which are found in about 15% of the population. The most difficult type to match is actually O-, since the same factors that make O- the universal donor also mean that O- patients are only compatible with O- blood, note : and O- being the universal donor can also reduce the availability of this type, given that it's the go-to for emergency situations where blood type is unknown and is also a fallback for all blood types when other compatible matches run out while every other blood type is compatible with at least itself and O-; however, O- blood is also not as rare as AB-, appearing in just under 7% of the population, so the chances of having some available or finding a donor are better.
The situation of needing rare blood types
*is* an actual problem that occasionally happens in medicine, but it's almost always related to blood types and factors that fall completely outside the normal blood type groupings (see the Real Life folder for examples).
A subtrope of Blood Transfusion Plot. Not to be confused with Did Not Do the Bloody Research or Personality Blood Types.
## Examples:
-
*Diabolik* is identified as AB- in the story *The Bird of Prey*. This is actually a plot point, as the sudden disappearance of five AB- blood donors is a clear warning that Diabolik is injured and needs blood (and, being a wanted criminal sentenced to death, going to the hospital would mean getting arrested, healed as required by the law and then executed). Ginko reacts by placing bugs on all the AB- blood donors, stopping Eva as she discovers it immediately, but it also causes a My God, What Have I Done? moment when he discovers why Eva kidnapped specifically AB- donors instead of compatible people: Diabolik had been victim of radiation poisoning that could be healed only with a *full* transfusion, requiring as much blood as five or six persons had, with Eva not being willing to take any risk. And, being unable to kidnap more people and take the standard donation doses, Eva *exsanguinated the five donors she had kidnapped*.
- A later story indirectly identifies Ginko as AB (unknown if positive or negative) when ||he's shot and needs an emergency transfusion, and a disguised Diabolik volunteers||.
- In the miniseries
*Hawkeye*: Blindspot, the only clue Clint has to Trick Shot's killer is his blood type being A+. This trope is subverted, as the blood type really doesn't help much. Clint even lampshades that's *his* blood type. Eventually, this comes back to help him at the end, as ||it is revealed the killer, his brother Barney, is a perfect genetic match for a stem cell transplant that can save him from permanent blindness||.
- In
*Hellblazer*, Brendan Finn is "O Guinness positive", which makes him a "universal recipient". No, it's not magic, he just drinks a lot.
- In the infamous "I am Curious (Black)"
*Superman* comic, Lois Lane turns black for a day (for a story on racism) and befriends a grassroots, er, community leader (it's never clarified what he is, he just stands on a soapbox, rants to a crowd, and later breaks up a drug deal), who hates him some crackers. When the man needs a blood transfusion, the doctor at the black hospital proclaims that the man is O-, but, horror of horrors, the hospital doesn't have enough money to carry *all* blood types! Luckily Lois, who has returned to her "white lady" status, is O-, and with the blood transfusion, they bridge the gap of racism.
- In the
*Yoko Tsuno* album *La Frontière de la Vie*, the entire plot evolves from how a child has an exceedingly very rare blood.
- In one
*Steel* story, Steel's niece Natasha Irons is injured and in need of blood. It's stated that she has a rare blood type, and John Henry's is incompatible. This necessitates Natasha's father, who had been thought dead and was acting as a vigilante, to come to the hospital to save her life. Interestingly, in a later story, Natasha is able to provide an emergency blood transfusion to John Henry without issue, apparently meaning the incompatibility is only one-way.
-
*My Very First Vampire Blood Drive* is about Bunny, a girl with "extra-rare type AB" blood who attends her college's annual blood drive, only to learn it's actually specifically for the local community of friendly vampires. Bunny freaks out, but is charmed by Velvet, a gorgeous, prince-like vampire girl who happens to have a rare condition that makes it so she can *only* drink type AB blood. Sure enough, the two are paired up.
- In
*Seven Days in Sunny June, Part 1*, it's revealed that Sunset Shimmer has a rare blood type (A2B-negative), most commonly found in ungulates, primarily horses. In Real Life, it's present in 2% of the USA's population.
- The
*Naruto* fanfic *Son of the Sannin* has a variation with chakra. In order to share chakra with someone else, you need to have compatibility with said person. Naruto is revealed early on to be able to mold his chakra to adapt to his receiver, which he uses during his training sessions with Hinata. ||Later it becomes useful when Gaara gets kidnapped by Akatsuki, and they need to perform a chakra transfer on him to save his life.||
- In one of the
*Discworld* fics by *A.A. Pessimal*, it is mentioned that vampires can get indigestion if they drink from more than one person in a night. Years later, after blood groups were discovered, it was theorized that this was caused by incompatible blood types mixing in their digestive system.
-
*Fractured Sunlight*: Sunlight has type *K* blood. That's a horse blood type, which provides more evidence proving that she's a transformed pony.
- The plot of
*Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero* involves Mr. Freeze kidnapping Barbara Gordon because she shares the AB- blood type with his wife. Barbara even brings up that he could use any negative blood for a blood transfusion, but it turns out that he needs more than just her blood. Truth in Television in that organ transplants are ideally done between people of the same blood type to reduce the risk of rejection, and Mr. Freeze is obsessive enough over getting his wife back that he'd try to be as exact as possible.
- In
*Andhadhun*, Dr. Swami says that it has been difficult to find a liver transplant for the Sheikh's daughter since her blood type is B negative.
- In the film
*Blood Work* (based on a Michael Connelly novel), the FBI hero needs a heart transplant, but he has a rare blood type. So the serial killer bad guy, who likes it when the hero chases him, kills someone with that same blood type so the hero can get a matching heart.
-
*Bruce Almighty* sees Jennifer Aniston proudly declare herself to be AB+, a "very rare blood type." This comes into play later in the film, when ||Bruce apparently has this type as well, as God sends him some of hers when he gets hit by a truck and needs a donation. It's some pretty awful research failure if you wanted to put any drama into it since in reality, Bruce could receive blood from anybody||. (In an outtake, she declares herself to be AB *negative*, derailing the joke.)
- Played straight in the South Indian "sandalwood" film
*Doctor Krishna*. The eponymous protagonist ex and her new husband are victims of a road accident. While Dr. Krishna's ex only has minor lacerations, her husband is in critical condition and needs AB Negative blood. Dr. Krishna is type AB- and agrees to donate. He doesn't realize that his patient needs *three liters* of blood just to survive. The transfusion comes dangerously close to killing him.
- In
*Earthquake*, a first responder at an aid station can be overheard pleading for an emergency shipment of AB- blood on a CB radio.
-
*Get the Gringo*: Javi has Bombay Type blood (the Mother calls it "Bambi Blood") and killed the Kid's father for his liver when he needed a transplant and he was the only compatible donor that Javi could find. He also keeps the Kid alive since he has the same blood type as his father and Javi knows that he is going to need another liver
-
*The Greatest Show on Earth*, winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1952, involves a train wreck with a victim that needs a blood transfusion. Guess what his blood type is? (As mentioned in the *M*A*S*H* example elsewhere on this page, it was thought in the 1950's that the more blood the patient lost, the more important it was for the donor to be an exact match to the receiver. However, if no exact match could be found, the doctors would have accepted a less ideal match if the alternative was the patient's death. That is not how it's portrayed here, though. The donor has to be AB-, or nothing!)
- A major plot point of
*John Q.* was that the title character's son was a rare blood type and needs a heart transplant. Meanwhile, a woman dies in a car wreck of the same blood type, and they eventually use her heart.
- Max is captured in the opening of
*Mad Max: Fury Road* but as he's a universal donor (specifically O-) he's kept alive as a living blood bank for the War Boys, who are dying of radiation poisoning. This means he's taken along when the War Boys pursue Furiosa, thereafter becoming part of events. Eventually, he uses his own blood to save Furiosa's life.
- Drives the plot in
*Made in America*. The daughter learns her blood group in a biology class at school. She happens to know the blood group of her mother and her dead father and realizes that she can't be her father's daughter. Whoopi Goldberg admits that in fact she wasn't pregnant when her partner died and used a sperm donor and pretended (even to herself) that it was her partner's child.
-
*Seven Pounds*: Emily Poza, a woman with a potentially fatal heart condition, has an unspecified rare blood type, rare enough that a doctor places the odds of finding a compatible heart for a transplant at no more than five percent.
- The abducted victims in
*The X-Files: I Want to Believe* all had AB- blood. ||It turns out that this is because the kidnapper is trying to perform a full-body transplant||.
- A key plot point in James Herbert's post-apocalyptic Alternate History
*'48* is that only those with AB- blood have immunity to The Plague that wiped out most of the population.
- Invoked in a short story,
*Blood Money* by Timothy O'Keefe, where a man with "a rare blood type" learns that his donation is being used by a vampire who can only digest that blood type.
-
*The Bronze Horseman* by Paullina Simons. After Major Belov is severely wounded during a river assault, his wife Tatiana, a nurse in the Red Army, saves his life by donating her own blood. Belov is told it's lucky she's a universal donor. Belov can only think with irony "Of course she is."
-
*Dracula*:
-
*Dracula*, thanks to Science Marches On. When the book was written, the concept of blood transfusions was radical, cutting-edge science and the possibility of an allergic reaction to someone else's blood wasn't known. Thus, Lucy can get transfusions from four different men without anyone worrying about blood type compatibility. Since she's in the process of becoming a vampire, blood types may be irrelevant to her in a very easy retcon. Another easy Fan Wank is to claim that Lucy is AB+ (one of the rarest types), the "universal recipient."
- Fred Saberhagen's Perspective Flip
*The Dracula Tape* makes use of this; while his Dracula did drink from Lucy, it was the blood transfusion that was killing her.
- Also theorized in
*Anno Dracula*.
- One of the annotations in
*The Dracula Dossier* (specifically in *Dracula Unredacted*) suggests that the first stage of vampiric transformation changes the proto-vamp's blood type to AB+ (universal recipient), meaning Lucy could have survived those transfusions if they'd been able to keep Dracula away from her.
- In
*Dracula Cha-Cha-Cha* by Kim Newman, the vampire Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock boasts that he can only *drink* AB-.
-
*Everworld* uses this trope correctly when the main characters have to give an emergency blood transfusion to Galahad. April volunteers because she's O-, the universal donor.
- Robert A. Heinlein himself was AB+, and a member of the National Rare Blood Club (which he mentions in an appendix to
*I Will Fear No Evil*). To this day, sci-fi conventions sponsor Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Blood Drives.
- AB- figures in the plot
*I Will Fear No Evil*, which involves the protagonist's brain being transplanted into a new body. Part of the plot setup is the rarity of the AB- blood type; the protagonist is shocked when his body donor was actually someone he knew well.
- Also discussed, when protagonist Johann tells a friend that none of his putative children were actually his biological offspring. How is he sure? All three were type O, which a type AB parent is extremely unlikely (to completely unable) to produce. He still loved his kids anyway.
-
*Outlander*: In *An Echo In The Bone*, one character, Ian, has it suggested that his wife's miscarriage was due to issues with their respective Rh blood types. (The ability to manage Time Travel intact is treated like a matter of genetics or blood type as well.)
- Dana from the
*Pilgrennon's Children* series has a rare blood type, which her biological mother Jananin Blake shares, allowing Jananin to donate blood after Dana is found to be anemic ||from a forcible blood draw|| in *The Emerald Forge*.
- In the Joe Gunther novel
*Scent Of Evil*, the fact that the person who left saliva on a cigarette left at the scene of a murder is is type AB, along with the brand of the cigarette, winds up implicating a member of the police force because it's such a rare type. The fact that the man is a secreter is also specifically called out as a bit of good luck since it allows them to identify his blood type through his saliva. The book was written in 1992, and actual DNA testing is not mentioned, but given how new the technology was at the time and the series being set in Vermont using an ABO system was much faster.
-
*The Twilight Saga*: In *Breaking Dawn* the Cullens keep a refrigerator full of blood in their house. Naturally it's the very rare O-.
- Nyko of
*The 100* has Rh-null blood, one of the rarest blood types in the world. This proves a problem when they can't find a match for him when he's dying from a wound.
-
*The Adventures of Superboy*: In "The Road to Hell", Superboy gets severely injured, then gets sent to an alternate universe that is a utopia and Lex Luthor reformed and became a doctor. Lex treats him but says he needs a blood transfusion. Since Superboy isn't human, the only available donor is that universe's adult Superman, who of course agrees to help.
- Comes up
*twice* on *The A-Team*. The first time, B.A. needs a blood transfusion, of this type. The only other member of the team with this blood type is Murdock. The second time, Murdock needs a transfusion. Guess.
-
*All My Children*:
- Rare blood types always uncover parentage secrets on soap operas.
*All My Children* used it to reveal that Jack was Greenlee's father, though the rare blood type was never named.
-
*All My Children* even inverted the trope—when Dimitri learned that his presumed daughter Madeline was O-, he realized that she couldn't be his daughter because her *common* blood type was not possible, given his rare one.
- Much worse than just rare,
*One Life to Live* back in the 80s had Tina find her lost son because they both had Blood Type G.
- In "Anslo Garrick" (Part 1) of
*The Blacklist*, it is revealed that both Red and Ressler share the same blood type (B-), which came in handy since Red needs to give Ressler an immediate blood transfusion to help him recover after having been shot in the leg.
- On
*Charmed*, Piper has AB negative blood as does Andy. This is shown in the episode "The Wendigo". The Wendigo also attacks people with the AB negative blood type.
**Piper:** Yeah, I'm fine. If I pass out and I need a transfusion, I'm AB negative. It's very rare. It could be a problem. **Andy:** Uh, I was just thinking how I'm probably not the best cop to be on this stakeout with, seeing as how I'm, uh, AB negative. **Andy:** Maybe. I've just gone over the coroner's reports from Chicago, New Orleans, and now local. It turns out all the victims were AB negative.
- A third season episode of
*Chuck* features Casey ||having to donate his AB- blood to save the life of a man he'd been trying to kill off and on for years (well, Chuck 'stole' it, but whatever)||.
- In a variant on
*CSI*, a power outage shuts down the lab's equipment, and the investigators must resort to old-school ABO typing of blood evidence. Greg remarks that he's got clumping in his Type O sample; this is an error, as Type O is distinguished as such by its *failure* to clump when exposed to anti-A or anti-B serum. (It could've been O-positive and clumped in anti-Rh serum, but Rh-typing wasn't otherwise mentioned.) Unless he was also doing a reverse type, where O does clump with A Cells and B Cells
- In
*El corazón nunca se equivoca*, Temo mentions that his and Ari's blood types are incompatible since Ari has A negative blood.
- One episode of
*Dad's Army* was based around Pike being called up to join the regular army. The platoon can't get him out of it, so they hold a fish and chip supper to say goodbye to him - after which Pike announces that he was excused from joining the army because he has a very rare blood type, but didn't want to tell anyone until after the fish and chips.
- On
*Dark Angel*, Max, all of the other X5s, and most likely other transgenics as well, are specifically genetically programmed to have O- blood, so they could swap blood (and organs) on the battlefield. Also, the show makes the goof of a blood transfusion for Logan being difficult to find because he's AB-. Fortunately, universal donor Max was handy.
- In
*Degrassi*, Holly J. only learns that she is adopted after discovering that she is type B, while both her parents are AB. She says—incorrectly—that children tend to have the same blood type as their parents, and Revelations Ensue. In fact, there is absolutely nothing unlikely about two AB parents having a B child. Even if the script had been reversed—an AB child with B parents—it might only have implied that her *father* wasnt who she thought.
- In
*Desperate Housewives*, one of the characters began to suspect that another was their father because they both had AB- blood. Never mind that blood types don't actually work like this in real life (it's something to do with which factors you have and how they add together, he was far more likely to be A or B, and then positive simply because more people are positive and the positive genes are dominant, which is also why Rhesus negative women are more likely to have birth complications). It's also how ||Gabrielle ultimately learns that Juanita was Switched at Birth, which Carlos had tried to keep a secret from her||.
- The title character of
*Dexter* has AB- as his blood type. It's shown in flashback that ||Dexter's foster father contacted Dexter's biological father when Dexter was injured and needed a blood transfusion, which falls into the Artistic License Biology trope since in reality, Dexter could have had *any* negative blood type given to him and been fine||.
-
*Due South* inverts it in one episode, when an over-eager FBI agent excitedly declares that they now know the suspect's blood type. Fraser points out that the suspect's blood type is shared by a significant portion of the population of Chicago (in a city that large, there are likely tens if not hundreds of thousands of people with any blood type you care to name in the area, no matter how rare it is proportionately).
- In the
*Ever Decreasing Circles* episode "A Strange Woman", Paul (Peter Egan) is taken away in a police car in the middle of the night. The following day, he explains that he is a registered blood donor and has a rare (yet unspecified) blood type and had to be rushed to the hospital to donate to an accident victim. His neighbour and self-perceived rival Martin (Richard Briers) promptly registers as a blood donor and is disappointed to learn that he has Type O blood.
-
*The Flash* plays with this in the episode Trajectory. Jesse needs an emergency blood transfusion but she has the blood type PZ-negative. Justified as she is not from this earth, she's from a different dimension, Earth-2. Luckily her father is a match.
- In
*Forever Knight*, they actually not only get the blood type info right, saying Schanke, who is AB+, "can take anything but motor oil," while O- can only receive O-, it's involved in a plot point, too. ||The killer's mother had died from hepatitis contracted from a blood transfusion, which slipped through the screening process; he was taking out only O- donors who could have been the source||.
-
*The George Lopez Show*: When George's father Manny needs a kidney transplant, George's half-brother George II volunteers to donate one of his. However, despite being AB- like his father, they are not a complete match and thus George II cannot donate a kidney. The other George shares his father's blood type and after much pleading, agrees to donate one of his kidneys. ||Unfortunately, Manny died shortly before the operation.||
-
*Good Times* featured a rare blood type, U-, to facilitate a Who's on First? joke: "I have a very rare blood type, U Negative." "You positive?" "No, U Negative." And so forth.
-
*Gossip Girl*: Dan and Rufus Humphrey are both AB+. ||Georgina's and Dan's "son" Milo is 0-||.
- In season five it turns out Chuck Bass has a super-duper rare blood type (never specified which one) that means the only people in the whole wide world who could possibly give him blood are blood relatives. ||Which is how he ends up finding out his father is not quite as dead as we thought he was||.
- The
*Hancock's Half Hour* episode "The Blood Donor" is an iconic piece of British comedy. The Hancock character is nervous about giving blood at first but changes his mind when he discovers that his blood is AB- (although at one point the doctor tells him he is rhesus *positive*, causing him to remark "Rhesus? They're monkeys, aren't they?"). This is really Truth in Television given that the Rh factor is indeed named after the Rhesus monkey in which it was first discovered. On returning home he pesters the hospital to make sure his blood is given to "the right sort of person", but then ||he injures himself, is rushed back to hospital and is given a transfusion of the blood he has just donated. Here We Go Again!||.
-
*House* both lampshades the first and subverts the second. The subversion is something we expect from a medical show, while the lampshading comes later as House solves a case based on a patient's blood type (and a conversation with Wilson): the patient had blood type A, but ||due to his condition, his body was producing the wrong antibodies causing the blood type test to give an incorrect result||, so when he was given a blood transfusion, it was the wrong type. Nobody ever thought to ASK him what his blood type even was to begin with. Then again, the fact that doctors do not ask patients their blood type is Truth in Television. Many people don't know, some think they know but are wrong, and very few people know that more than the ABO/Rh factors even exist. And that's assuming the patient is conscious and coherent. It's easier just to do a spot test across the board, and those tests are usually correct; ||false results as in the episode are rare.||
- In another episode, they play the trope straight. A woman in need of a liver transplant is apparently disadvantaged by having AB- blood. In fact, blood type would be the least of her worries.
- This is how Tommy discovers ||that he's adopted|| in
*Heroes Reborn*. ||He's AB while his mother Anne is O negative, making their relationship biologically impossible. Anne has wanted to tell him about his true parentage, but doesn't out of fear that Tommy would be captured because Tommy is an evolved human||.
- BSM Williams in
*It Ain't Half Hot, Mum* has Type AB blood. In the episode "It's a Wise Child", this provides the Concert Party with evidence that, contrary to what Williams suspects, he is not Gunner Parkins' father, as Parkins has Type O blood.
-
*iZombie* has a slightly justified example in the first season finale when ||Evan is caught in an explosion at Meat Cute||. He has O Negative blood, which can only receive itself in transfusions, and the hospital is in short supply (Truth in Television, as O Negative is the universal donor and is used quite often). Since he needs a transfusion immediately, the only option available at the moment is ||his sister, Liv. She refuses, however, because she's also a zombie and doesn't want to infect him||.
- Zig-zagged in
*Law & Order: Special Victims Unit*:
- On the subversion side, Benson and Stabler are both A-positive, the second most common blood type. Unusually for any version of this trope, said blood types have zero plot relevance; it's mentioned in a casual conversation and is just the setup for a Friendship Moment ("I'd give you a kidney." "Not if I gave you mine first.").
- On the played-straight side, Mike Dodds is B-negative, the second rarest blood type after AB-negative (and actually harder to match due to compatibility factors), and Sonny Carisi is O-negative, allowing the latter to donate blood to the former. In an unusually nuanced version of this trope, the issue is not that they can't find compatible blood anywhere, but that the hospital is running through its immediate stock and they're still waiting on a car from the central blood bank to bring more, so they're just buying time until the added supply gets there. Also downplayed in that it's not in any way a major part of the story; the relevant discussion occupies about a minute of the episode, and is really just there as part of showing the detectives rallying to support their injured colleague.
- A plot-relevant example occurs in one episode where they realize that a victim isn't who she says she is because of her blood type; the the person she's claiming to be is the child of two parents with type A blood, but the victim has type B, which would be biologically impossible if she was in fact their child.
note : The doctor actually asserts that her mother could not have given birth to a child with that blood type, but that's actually incorrect — a type A mother could have a type B child if she has the genotype AO and the father has a B gene. A full DNA test subsequently confirms that her identity was faked.
-
*Lost* features a scene in which Jack needs A- blood for Boone. He sends Charlie out to find some among the survivors, but few of them even know their own type to begin with. Failing to find a match, Jack reveals himself to be O- (universal donor) and performs the transfusion using his own blood.
- Season 5 reveals that Kate is actually universal donor when she volunteers to donate blood to ||a young Ben Linus||.
- In
*Major Crimes*, during their investigation, the team discovers that the father that was missing had AB type blood, ||which means he couldn't have fathered his type O daughter||.
-
*M*A*S*H*:
- In the episode "Life Time", Hawkeye and company are racing against the clock to save a soldier who of course has AB-, luckily Winchester has "that elusive type." In this case, the use is accurate and believable for the time period: in the '50s, it was thought that the more blood the patient had lost, the more important it was to provide the exact blood type, and it's only stated that AB- blood would be
*best* for him, not that he can't have any other type. Additionally, the doctors had already used up the last of the blood they had in stock (matching type and otherwise), so given that they needed to find a donor to take blood from regardless, they might as well try to find a perfect match.
- An early episode has a North Korean patient with AB- needing a transfusion, and the only one in the entire camp with the same blood type is Frank. When the patient shows signs of hepatitis, Hawkeye and Trapper must keep him away from Hot Lips until his test results are in.
- The episode "Your Hit Parade" in Season 6 features an AB- patient during a period of heavy casualties. Hawkeye asks for 4 units during surgery, Klinger informs them they only had 2 to start with and both were used during the first batch of wounded. They mention collecting the patient's blood during surgery to filter and give back to him, then spend the rest of the episode trying to find more. The unavailability of any donors is partly justified by the heavy casualties and the other medical units being forced to bug out, but it is implied there are only 2 other people available to donate in Asia with the correct blood type; not once does anyone suggest using a different blood type, even as an emergency measure. (It also creates a possible Continuity Snarl with "Life Time" because there's apparently no one in the unit who can donate AB negative blood, but Winchester is already in the unit; even if there's a reason he can't donate at that time, you would expect it to at least be mentioned. A further snarl comes with the episode C*A*V*E, in which Klinger, Mulcahy, and Winchester are all stated to have the same blood type - and Klinger's had already been stated as B+.)
- The season-two finale of
*Monk* featured a victim whose blood group was "AB-negative with a D- antigen — the rarest blood type in the world!" In fact, no such blood type exists. note : Although it is possible for certain blood subtypes to show up this way on a test, the one doing the testing should have recognized an impossible result and retested. This turned out to be why he was murdered — he was a death row inmate about to be executed, with his kidneys earmarked for a dying billionaire. A prison employee had a grudge against the billionaire and couldn't let that happen, so the prisoner's last meal was poisoned, destroying his organs in a way that lethal injection would not.
- On
*Moonlight (2007)*, Beth Turner has "AO-" blood, which is especially tasty to vampires. While technically a real blood group, AO is just a rather pedantic way of giving one of the two genetic possibilities for type A blood.
-
*Murdoch Mysteries* toys with this concept in the episode "Tour de Murdoch", which takes place in early 1901, *just* as ABO blood types were codified among the scientific community. The Victim of the Week — an athlete who died of complications from blood aggulation — was found to have been injected with the blood of his teammates (essentially blood doping decades before it received mainstream attention), sending the characters on the search for athletes with "the bad kind of blood." As the investigation narrows down, they inadvertently discover the AB blood type (beating the rest of the scientific community in real life by almost a decade), explaining why one combination of blood is lethal while others were not. Though Murdoch hypothetically names it "Type C".
-
*My Babysitter's a Vampire*: Vampires pose a nurses for a blood drive and the team investigate. Eventually Ethan is captured by the vampire nurses who claim he has H-deficient type blood, the rarest blood type. They agree to only take his blood.
-
*Never The Twain*: Oliver tries to get out of donating blood to his rival Simon by claiming his blood type is 'Z'. (He's...not a doctor.)
-
*Oz*. When a prison guard is stabbed in the eyes and needs a blood transfusion, the only donor immediately available is inmate Ryan O'Reilly, who makes it a condition of his helping that his mentally-ill brother be moved into Em City with him.
- In
*Person of Interest*, Shaw is AB+, which allows her to accept blood from anyone. She takes advantage of this in one episode after being wounded by taking a Russian mobster prisoner and stealing his blood for a transfusion.
-
*Preacher*: Tulip has AB- blood. Not surprisingly, Cassidy does not have a blood pack from among his dozen or so that matches. Apparently having little to no medical knowledge, neither he nor Jesse consider the option of using A-, B- or O-.
-
*The Pretender*: Jarod and Kyle both had AB- blood, along with a young boy from one episode who was in dire need of a heart transplant. Guess where that went.
-
*Psych* actually did the research in an episode. When a man needed O negative donations, Lassiter had the needed blood type. But it's also played straight when Lassiter's O-neg blood is referred to as such a rare blood type that donors are extremely difficult to find.
-
*The Rat Patrol* has "The B Negative Raid", which goes farther than most to justify the trope. Moffitt, who has a B-negative blood type, gets hurt and needs a transfusion. However, they're stuck in the desert far from any blood bank, whole blood transfusion requires the same blood type, and none of them are a match. They decide to raid a nearby German camp to steal a soldier with the same blood type.
- In the last season of
*Queer As Folk*, after the bombing in Babylon, Michael has been seriously hurt and taken to the hospital. The ER doctor says he needs a blood transfusion, but he's AB negative and they are short on his type. Brian answers he's O negative, universal donor and wants them to take his blood. But they won't take it because he's gay and they are considered too high of a risk for HIV. Brian then goes berserk, but Ben tells him he couldn't give his blood anyway because he had cancer. This is a reference to the Ban On Blood Donations From Gay Men in the USA implemented in 1985, and despite what the show says the policy isn't as set-in-stone as many media outlets make it seem. Doctors at hospitals are desperate for any compatible blood type in a pinch, and in real life, they more than likely wouldn't turn Brian away if he were on the scene. It's only at blood drives that they screen for gay men. It was all just a convenient excuse for a blatantly dramatic take on a real gay issue.
- In
*Star Trek*:
- In
*Star Trek: The Original Series* episode "Journey to Babel", Ambassador Sarek requires open heart surgery which is hampered by his T- blood, noted as being rare, even for a Vulcan. Luckily, another person on board also had T- blood — Sarek's son, Spock, and that had to be filtered because of Spocks human heritage. Since Vulcans have copper-based rather than Humans' iron-based blood, it's realistic that it would use a different blood type system.
- In the
*Star Trek: The Next Generation* episode "The Enemy", a Romulan that gets brought up to the *Enterprise*-D has a unique blood type that only one person on the ship has - Worf. Unfortunantly, Klingons and Romulans hate each other's guts and Worf refuses to give blood and the Romulan doesn't want it. Picard realizes that they need to save the Romulan to try and prevent an incident with the Romulans, but he isn't willing to force Worf to give blood. Ultimately, the Romulan passes away. note : This episode actually makes zero sense whatsoever, as Romulans are an off-shoot of Vulcans, and have copper-based blood, which would be totally incompatible for donations from species with iron-based blood such as Klingons or Humans.
- Blood types were the source of a goof in
*Supernatural*. Through freeze-frame pausing, you can check the dog tags of John Winchester and his son Dean. John had AB blood, while his son Dean had O-, which would normally be impossible.
- Bay in
*Switched at Birth* has AB blood, though she doesn't mention her Rh factor. This is a clue to her parentage, since both her parents are type A. (Type AB requires inheriting an A from one parent and a B from the other. A child of two type As can only be type A or type O.)
- In
*Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles*, they mentioned that Sarah had O- blood but John had AB- blood; this would mean that she couldn't possibly be his mother, barring vanishingly rare situations like mutation or Bombay blood type. note : For the record, type O is recessive, and Sarah is therefore by necessity homozygous for O. Johny could be AO (type A) or BO (type B), but type AB is not possible. Sarah being unable to give blood to the AB- Derek Reese despite being a universal donor is correct due to compatibility for plasma being reversed compared to blood cells — someone with type O is the least useful donor because their plasma could contain antibodies against non-O blood types.
-
*Trace*: After being poisoned with psychotropic drug, Danilov needs blood transfusion in "Insanity" to keep him sane. The biggest problem is that he has Type AB negative blood. Selivanov was not able to find enough AB- blood in the blood bank. Thankfully, Kholodov has AB- blood type, so the transfusion becomes possible.
-
*True Blood*. The (sorta) title drink has each blood type as a separate flavor, and vampires have preferences on their favorite. Newbie vamp Jessica drinks a cocktail of several different types to get used to the taste.
- Vampires on the show also express preference for different "flavors" of real blood; Jessica orders room service in a hotel and a young man at the door introduces himself as "male, straight, B positive." Later, Erik offers another vampire "a human, AB negative, very rare."
-
*Twin Peaks*: In the first episode of the second season, the blood of the killer ||later revealed to be Leland|| is said to be "a rare type, AB Negative".
- In
*Victorious*, Robbie is about to have surgery, but needs O- blood. Tori is the only one of their friends who has this blood type but is about to star in a play. After Tori donates a pint of blood, the doctors end up losing it, and after donating another pint, Robbie ends up dropping it on the floor, forcing her to donate a third pint. Tori then becomes weak and disoriented during the play.
-
*The Windsors* parodies this beyond the bounds of reality, with Camilla seeing an opportunity for good publicity in offering a kidney to a dying little girl with the rare blood type "AB BA AB negative", which just happens to be Camilla's, too. Apparently, Prince Edward also has it, as he's the one who actually ends up selling his kidney to the girl for £80.
- In the present-day scene at the end of one episode of
*The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles* (which took place in a hospital waiting room), a doctor comes out and asks if anyone present has a certain blood type, as they're running low and there's a kid with that blood type who needs immediate surgery. The person who Indy had been telling part of his life story to over the course of the episode volunteers to donate.
- The song "0 rhesus negativ" by German singer Udo Lindenberg involves the singer meeting a vampire but being spared because the vampire can't stand that blood type.
- In the middle school musical
*Dracula, Baby* Dracula offers to do anything in his power to help Lucy. He is asked if he's type B (Lucy's type) or O - the universal donor. He replies that he's type AB - the universal receiver.
- In
*Dead Island* all four of the virus-immune survivors have O negative blood. This is presumably not a coincidence, although it is never really explored.
-
*Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth* reveals Rise Kujikawa has type AB blood. The inverse side of this trope is also Lampshaded, as the groups note the strangeness of neither the Persona 3 or 4 cast having any girl with type A blood, the most common type in Japan.
- Both Futaba Sakura and Goro Akechi in
*Persona 5* are AB-, which is especially notable as RH- is so rare in Japan that most works don't even list positive/negative distinction in blood types. It's very fitting for Futaba, as her Persona is a UFO (based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft at that) and she's a very eccentric Hikikomori. For Akechi, ||it may be an allusion to how he was born and raised as an outcast due to his parentage.||
- In
*Resident Evil 6* Albert Wesker and by extension his son Jake possess a rare blood type that grants immunity to The Virus. Jake is willing to share his blood to save the world... for a price. ||He gets a lot better and ultimately drops his price as low as a single tank of gas for his motorcycle||.
-
*Shadow Hearts: Covenant* has a door in one dungeon that will only open if a person with AB blood tries to open it; this was done by its builder to ensure her apprentice, the party member Lucia, wouldn't get into things she shouldn't. Only one member of your party can open it, leading to a brief puzzle to determine which of your party members is AB. Oddly enough, it isn't Yuri (type A) or Karin (also type A), the main characters — it's ||Gepetto. Joachim is type O and Lucia is type B. It's also not a coincidence that Yuri and Karin have the same blood type||.
- In
*Yakuza* 4, ||Lily's rare blood type is the reason why when she suffered kidney failure, Saejima located her biological father and did whatever it took for him to donate one of his to her||.
- In
*DOOM Eternal*, it's mentioned that the Doom Slayer is AB Positive, though the only significance this has is to confirm that he's a human.
- Toko in
*Kara no Shoujo* is of the Bombay blood group ||which means that she can't get a blood transfusion after getting hit by a truck||.
-
*Steam Prison* doesn't use the standard terminology, as it takes place in a Steampunk setting with an appropriately pseudo-Victorian-era level of medical science, but early in the storyline there is some mention of heroine Cyrus's blood being likely to react negatively to transfusions and the description given indicates that she is type O negative. This fact becomes plot-relevant on Adage's path, in which ||Glissade|| wants to harvest her blood in his quest to revive his "daughter" Priscilla.
- In
*Darths & Droids*, Jim, playing Qui-Gon, has his character's blood type written on his character sheet. It's O-, making him a universal donor, however he *actually* wanted AB+ to make the character more capable of receiving medical treatment, but didn't know that there was a difference and the type he picked would only be useful if he just needed blood plasma. Pete is the one that brings the difference to his attention, and points out that that universal *recipient* would be preferable for the reasons Jim was going for, but Qui-Gon being a universal donor ends up being useful when he needs to give Anakin a blood transfusion.
- Feral from
*Strong Female Protagonist* takes the universal donor version of this trope farther than usual in addition to her strong Healing Factor superpower. Any of her blood or organs are perfectly compatible with anybody they are transplanted to, and she volunteers to provide as much as possible of them. The downside is that she is immune to drugs such as painkillers and anesthesia, and has to endure being constantly chopped open in the process all by herself.
- Sandra from
*Sandra and Woo* is AB-. The trope is played with heavily, as Larisa discovers this by stealing her medical records because ||she has been told by the Devil that Sandra is destined to die the following day if Larisa does not prevent it||. Larisa remarks that it's "good to know", but it ends up not mattering whatsoever.
- While it doesn't rise to the level that examples of the trope generally make it out to be, Rh-negative blood types
*are* comparatively harder to find compatible matches for because only 15% of the population is Rh-negative and most people with Rh-negative blood types (with the exception being, ironically, AB-) are limited to only a subset of that due to ABO compatibility. In particular, O- patients can only receive blood from the approximately 7% of the population that is also O-, and B- is only slightly above that since those patients can only receive O- or B- and the latter appears in less than 2% of the population; A- is moderately less so because it's not as rare, appearing in about 6% of the population, so between A- and O- donors, those patients are compatible with blood from about 13% of the population. (Rh-positive types are much easier because not only are all of them far more common than their Rh-negative counterparts — even AB+, which is still fairly rare, is over three times as common as AB- —, but the most common of them all is O+, which is compatible with all Rh+ types.) None of this is likely to be a problem as long as a hospital is dealing with a relatively well-stocked blood bank note : this is probably the biggest difference between real life and the trope's use in fiction, which would make you think that all hospitals perpetually run short of rare blood types, but it does come into play in places where shortages are more common (often hospitals in less developed countries and/or more isolated areas), or if a hospital has an unexpected run on the blood bank that depletes their supply, such as in the case of a high-casualty disaster.
- There are also areas of the world in which almost everyone is Rh positive, so that Rh-negative blood is correspondingly rare.
- There are actually more blood types than the usual ABO+-, although most of them are incredibly rare. Because of this, just knowing a patient's type is helpful, but not enough; wherever possible, a blood bank will "crossmatch" blood, testing the patient's blood against the specific unit of blood they plan to give them.
- Bombay Type blood is an extremely rare blood type that cannot accept any ABO-normal blood. Genetically they may have any of the normal ABO types, but they test as type O due to a lack of H antigen, which is present in ABO-normal people (type O only has H; in A, B, and AB, the H acts as an anchor for the additional antigens). They will have a hemolytic reaction if given O negative (which is otherwise considered the universal donor for blood) and must be given Bombay (Oh) blood. For this reason, when a blood bank receives a Bombay donation, they never discard it as they do with other blood types after a certain period or expiration date. It's named after the city in which it was discovered, and people who have it are mostly concentrated in that region of India (even there, they're a minority), and practically nowhere else in the world.
- Patients with active systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) sometimes become intolerant of their own ABO/Rh blood type, as their overly-picky immune systems launch attacks against even their own blood cells. A perfect cross-match is essential before such patients receive a transfusion, and the blood itself must be infused slowly and at body temperature to minimize any risk of reaction.
- The Rh-null phenotype comes around when a person has no Rh antigens in their bloodstream.
note : The term "Rh-negative" refers to the lack of Rh antigen D, the most clinically significant; Rh-null means 99% or more of the known Rh antigens are not present. Because of this, people who hold this blood type are the universal donors for the Rh system, but can only receive blood from other Rh-null people — something that may prove difficult because it's *extremely* rare. First reported in 1961, there are currently less than 50 known people with this blood type around the world.
- Scientists are continually discovering new blood group antigens so rare that they may only be present in
*one family* (or so common that they're only *absent* in one family). Typically, these antigens are only discovered when a daughter or daughter-in-law of one of said families finds herself unable to carry a child to term, and the doctors pin the cause on HDFN caused by an antibody or lack thereof that no one has ever seen before, such that either a person's blood reacts to anything but a family member's blood or blood from that family will be reacted to by the blood of anyone who is not a family member note : if possible, if the antigen in question is a variant of a known antigen, genetic testing will also be done to confirm that this is a completely new variant. In the case of families missing an antigen that basically everyone else on Earth possesses, a family member who develops an antibody to said antigen will literally only be able to receive blood from a close relative.
- While not as difficult as matching extremely rare blood types, blood transfusions to infants present an additional challenge because infants cannot receive blood from donors who have antibodies for CMV,
note : a common virus that is harmless to adults, but dangerous to babies which it's estimated that 85% of people will have by the time they turn 40. This extra layer means that finding suitable blood for transfusion in these cases often isn't easy, even moreso if the infant also has an uncommon blood type (and especially if that uncommon blood type only has a few compatible matches).
- In something of an inversion, 150 people around the world have been found to have an antibody that actually
*prevents* the immune system from attacking foreign blood types, something that gained a bit of media attention due to the famous case of James Harrison, "The Man with the Golden Arms"; it's still not entirely clear what causes this antibody to develop, but it's believed that Harrison's case specifically was caused by him receiving incompatible blood during a surgery (he needed a large amount of blood and the rural hospital didn't have enough of the right type in stock) and his immune system's reaction to said blood. Plasma from donors with this antibody is used in the manufacture of a treatment to prevent HDFN in Rh-positive children of Rh-negative mothers (which is by far the most common cause of the disorder). | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OPositive |
Opinion Myopia - TV Tropes
*"It turns out personal taste is a matter of taste."*
—
**Unknown**
A fan is
*shocked* to find that the loud, mindless summer blockbuster they hated has made so much money! Surely the low Rotten Tomatoes rating should have tipped viewers off. Okay, even if they didn't care about those, surely they would have seen how horrible it was for themselves after the first weekend. What are they? Sheep?
Conversely, how could the movie based on their favorite cult TV series not have made loads of money? Okay, many people didn't know about the movie, but surely word of mouth would have carried. And the blogs went wild for it!
Well, the truth is that some people genuinely like those big, dumb blockbusters, and that works you might be obsessed with just don't appeal to everyone. If the fan can't or won't understand that, then they have Opinion Myopia. Some people take it further by believing that what you like and dislike determines what kind of person you are. These beliefs are justified to an extent, as somebody who cites controversial things like graphic violence as the reason why they like a work is bound to raise eyebrows among their peers; but most people understand that some themes in the works they enjoy would be a very bad idea to carry out in reality.
The formal academic term for this phenomenon is the "false consensus effect", where a person tends to overestimate the extent to which their beliefs or opinions are typical of those of others. It's also related to Confirmation Bias in that people tend to ignore evidence that might prove their cherished opinions are inaccurate. Psychological studies conducted in The New '10s have given evidence that the human brain blurs the lines between facts and opinions, which becomes heightened by the strength of emotions, making it more likely for somebody to assume an opinion that aligns with their beliefs is a fact.
A Super-Trope to Fan Hater (hating people directly for positive opinions you don't agree with), Complaining About People Not Liking the Show (getting upset about negative opinions you don't agree with), He Panned It, Now He Sucks! (same but with reviews) and Fan Myopia (fans thinking that the subject of their fandom must be well known and generally liked). Sometimes results in either Fan Dumb or Hate Dumb, and can be related to No True Scotsman.
Compare It's Popular, Now It Sucks!, Broken Base, Bias Steamroller, Vocal Minority, and Casual-Competitive Conflict. Usually the end result of Americans Hate Tingle, where viewers from another region cant fathom how the thing they hate is well-liked in its home region.
See also Small Reference Pools (people stick to referencing certain works simply because those are the only ones they know... or think the audience will know). Someone who thinks this way about life in general is Captain Oblivious.
## Examples:
- Some Western XY(Z) fans believe that
*Pokémon: The Series* was able to Win Back the Crowd after the fiasco BW was, and that TV Tokyo messed up again with SM so that they needed to bring back Misty and Brock to avoid cancellation. Fact is, XY did not do very well in ratings from the second year in Japan contrary to SM which is doing great in Japan but no so much in the West.
-
*Gundam*: Given the incredible breadth of the franchise, a *lot* of fans have become overly opinionated on which series is any good, and what constitutes a good introduction for new fans. A lot of the older fanbase will vehemently deny that anything outside of the Universal Century timelines is any good, most of the younger fanbase will find the older UC shows to be entirely too dated.
- Lurks in the depths of the perpetual Subbing Versus Dubbing debate, where personal preference often boils down to whether one is watching primarily for the story or for the art. The sub side points to things like Cultural Translation, Bowdlerisation, and Filling the Silence while the dub side points to visual distractions and inability to multitask while watching. Not to mention the ongoing debate over which set of voice actors does the job better. This was much more prevalent back in the VHS days when sub vs. dub decisions had to be made in the store. Some within the industry also note that even today, releases with dubs tend to sell better than non-dubbed releases, though it's also more expensive to make a dubbed release of a show that doesn't have a dub already, thus why sub-only releases of less popular shows still exist today.
- If your only exposure to the various books in the X-Men line is the Uncanny X-Cast podcast, you'd get the impression that it's just accepted that X-Force (vol. 3) was the only consistently good book in the line, X-Factor is entirely useless, and Greg Land is a wonderful artist. Start with certain other online reviewers and you'll come away with the impression that it's a universally accepted, scientifically proven fact that X-Force (vol. 3) was rubbish and X-Factor is the only X-book worth reading, and that it's literally impossible NOT to believe that blindness would be preferable to having to look at Greg Land's art. It's not
*just* that both sides disagree, it's that they seem completely unaware that anyone in the world holds the other opinion.
- The concept of Wolverine Publicity falls under this. Many of the characters fans often cite as worn out or overexposed (like the Trope Namer, Batman, Iron Man, Spider-Man, etc.) tend to be the most popular and profitable ones, which comes down to there being a large and less vocal group of fans who
*do* actually enjoy them, despite what the internet may lead you to believe.
- A lot of famous movies hailed as classics, such as
*Jurassic Park* and *Forrest Gump* did more poorly with critics than one would expect. They still did *well*, but it wasn't all acclaim. For example, *Forrest Gump*'s Tomatometer score is only 71%, and both it and *Jurassic Park* only have an average rating of 7 out of 10. note : However, the first Jurassic Park has a Tomatometer rating of 93% at the moment, so it is currently exempt from this.
- The film critic community as a whole has many people who fit this type. The basic logic principle that you can only "accept" or "reject" an opinion naturally does not sit well with the people whose self-described job description is that they speak their opinion and people on purpose want to listen to them. So it's not surprising when some easily switch to name-calling and blame games when someone interacts with them to disagree about an opinion or not take their thoughts as anything important.
- With movies that have multiple cuts and director's cuts, many fans automatically prefer the director's cut simply because it's marketed as the 'film presented in the way the director intended'. They will often regard the original release as inferior even if it's the release that they originally loved for decades, ignorant of the existence of a director's cut. Such fans will often dismiss those who stick to the cut that they "loved growing up", regarding them as improperly viewing the movie through a Nostalgia Filter. Conversely with the
*Star Wars* movies; George Lucas's various re-edits and remastered editions are frequently and bitterly denounced by many fans, in many cases precisely because they over-ride the versions that the fans grew up loving. See, for example, the controversy over whether Han Shot First.
- Tying in with that, the Nostalgia Filter trope easily also brings in this trope. Where some people are so committed to the idea that they "matured" and saw some things now as inferior will outright deny that there is any other option. The other option in this case probably has another word for these people than "mature".
- Similarly, there are many fans who can't fathom that someone could prefer a newer version of a character, the one they see as "desecrating" the character's image and legacy, either assuming they simply haven't experienced older versions, have been "brainwashed" to accept a new take or even outright hate what the original supposedly stood for or make insulting claims about their intelligence, morality, and reasoning skills. The idea that a person could like and appreciate both for what they are but simply have a preference or not being as into their preferred version for valid reasons is one many fans simply can't comprehend.
- You either think Disney is an amazing company that can do no wrong or an all-consuming monster the world would be better off without. Disney fans often can't imagine why anyone would dislike the company, and Disney haters often can't imagine why anyone would still watch their movies as adults.
- Many either think the
*Beautiful Creatures*, *The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones* and *Vampire Academy* films failed because they were half-assed *Twilight* ripoffs or think they failed because *Twilight* was so bad that it poisoned the well for other, better supernatural young-adult novels being adapted to film.
- It does not take much searching around online to find remarks about how high-profile children's movies like
*The Smurfs*, *Alvin and the Chipmunks*, and *Minions* will cause financial harm to the studios that make them because of their perceived unwatchability. They do not realize that these movies are very well-liked by kids, which is why they can have such a high profile in the first place. *The Smurfs* and *Alvin's* last films were box office disappointments, but they didn't outright bomb.
- A trend (circa late 2010s) among some audiences who strongly dislike a successful film is to insist its success was somehow 'faked'. Films like
*Captain Marvel (2019)* and *The Last Jedi* are popularly hated by certain audiences and have been met with accusations that Disney (who own and produced both) had instead lied/faked/bribed the numbers to inflate the success of these movies. Of course, this is *insane* as it would be *incredibly* financially unwise to do this (as it would then force them to pay tax on the additional money they faked earning, would have to pay bonuses to the people who produced them, and the huge loss of money would be traceable, meaning that people would uncover these fraudulent box offices). In actual fact, what happened was that despite their personal hatred of the movies, general audiences *liked* them enough to go see them in droves, but the Vocal Minority refuse to believe that *they* are the minority. Crucially, the portions of the audience who either like or dislike the movies most intensely have the greatest investment in broadcasting their opinion (especially online) whereas the large mass of the moviegoing public will either: like the movie when they see it, move on to the next one, and maybe stream it or buy the DVD a few months later (both *Captain Marvel* and *The Last Jedi*, it may be worth noting, sold very well on home release) without any fanfare; or dislike the movie without making a deal about not liking it and move onto the next one which they might like, because at the end of the day, it isn't worth becoming preoccupied with something you didn't like in the first place.
-
*Harry Potter*: Potterheads who are going to study English in college should be prepared — they disparage Rowling all the time there. Some creative writing classes devote entire lessons to teaching pupils not to put the books on a pedestal. Same goes for other popular and well-loved books. On the other hand, you can also find literature departments that offer full-length courses on the Harry Potter books by professors who are willing to take the books on their own merits, analyzing J. K. Rowling's uses of folkloric elements and literary devices. It's almost impossible for either camp to acknowledge the other's arguments.
-
*The Da Vinci Code*: Two sides. One: "Holy crap, how do people actually *like* this trash?!" Two: "Hey, I thought it was a good book! Can't you understand Dan Brown's genius?"
- People who loved
*Fifty Shades of Grey* don't seem to be aware that anyone hates it. Those who hate it cannot believe that anyone aside from lonely single mothers in need of a good lay could possibly like it.
- One can either think
*Twilight* ruined literary vampires, or vampires in general, or *literature* in general, and that Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a hill of beans, or that it's the only real vampire novel out there and that all others (including those that were published before *Twilight*) are just cheap imitations written by jealous hacks who only *wish* they could write like Meyer.
- People who enjoy
*Hush, Hush* see nothing wrong with the romance and Nora changing the bad boy Patch is romantic. People who hate it see nothing but stalking, verbal and emotional abuse, and manipulation on Patch's side towards Nora and her being too stupid to even attempt to run away.
- Robert Jordan and his epic fantasy series
*The Wheel of Time* are among the highest-selling fantasy of all time. Naturally, this has created some backlash, with readers pointing out Jordan's odd tendency to spend a lot of time, ink, and paper to ultimately say very little, bloating his series from its initially intended trilogy to *fourteen volumes*, and that's not including the prequel novel. There are those who will say "I know it's flawed, but I still love it", but most fantasy readers fall into two categories:
- Robert Jordan is the world's most successful hack, creating a bloated nightmare of a Kudzu Plot overloaded with Padding, lots of characters, many of them never adding anything to the story, including "strong females" who can only claim that title due to their tendency to argue over every decision and having to be rescued by the men, and taking forever to get to the point, only to die with his series unfinished, and you're better off simply ignoring this series.
-
*The Wheel of Time* is the greatest fantasy series of all time, surpassing even *The Lord of the Rings* and Robert Jordan is the new father of modern fantasy. Don't talk to us about George R. R. Martin or *Harry Potter*; those are flashes in the pan, only popular because they got film and TV adaptations, and they are writing in Jordan's shadow. Jordan and *Wheel of Time* will be remembered forever.
- Jane Austen's novel
*Emma* has an In-Universe example with Mr. Woodhouse, Emma's father. The narrative explicitly notes that he is incapable of believing that other people have opinions that differ from his own, and so he assumes that whatever he thinks about something (particularly food and activities) is exactly what other people will, or *should*, think about that same thing. Emma has to delicately circumvent him in order to, for example, provide guests with food they actually want to eat.
-
*Doctor Who*:
- The eternal war between the Classic Series fans who can't believe that
*anyone* could possibly enjoy the flashy, superficial soap opera that is the New Series over the complex, deep masterpiece that is the Classic Series, and the New Series fans who can't believe that *anyone* could possibly enjoy the cheap, tacky snooze-fest that is the Classic Series over the complex, deep masterpiece that is the New Series. And, of course, both sets of fans find it hard to believe that there's anyone out there who might like both, and they find it impossible to believe that anyone might not like *either*.
- Steven Moffat, the latest in a long line of divisive showrunners who ruined everything the show stood for, and the
*very worst of them all* until the next one, has been getting this for taking liberties with the concept of regeneration in "The Time of the Doctor". His critics often point to "The Deadly Assassin" as a cherished piece of lore from the original series. "The Deadly Assassin" was every bit as contentious when it first came out, and fans bashed it precisely for taking liberties with Time Lords and regeneration.
- Conveniently forgotten by said fans was the real enthusiasm for Moffat from fans who absolutely hated everything Russell T. Davies had done to the series (save bringing the show back after nearly two decades). In particular he was criticized for focusing too much on the companions (making it into a soap opera) and ludicrous series finales (destroying ever-increasing amounts of reality then hitting the reset button).
- There's usually a lot of issues between fandoms when it comes to Super Sentai and
*Power Rangers*. As an example, *Power Rangers Super Megaforce* is absolutely hated on the Internet, and yet its intended younger audience loves it and many fans don't understand why.
-
*Ressha Sentai ToQger* is also a point of tension. Due to trains not being so prominent in America, Western Sentai fans will usually have opinions that harshly differ from Japanese fans. Some have even gone to the point where they say "those people [who like the show] are on drugs".
- There's also fandom rivalry between
*Sentai* and *PR* fans that aren't fans of both over which is better. *Sentai* fans will bring up its more consistent maturity and mature elements that *PR* rarely uses. *PR* fans will bring up that *PR*, usually, has a more better mix of humorous and serious elements, as *Sentai* usually flip flops depending on the series, and Japanese humor tends to be more in-your-face and over the top versus American humor, which is much more restrained and subdued. There are even fans who'll disavow one for reasons why they hate it.
-
*Star Trek* fans can be divided into several distinct groups: Purists, who only will accept the show in its original form, which is to say the classic series and *only* the series (the films don't count), classic "Trekkies" who think of the various series as " *Star Trek* and those newer shows", more modern "Trekkers", who tip the hat to the classic series but think *Star Trek: The Next Generation* was when *Trek* really begins and ends (to the point where some deny that the other spin-offs are even canon), "Niners", who think the grit of *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* made it the best, proclaim Ira Stephen Behr to be the true heir to Roddenberry's throne and even suggest that Roddenberry's vision for *Trek* wasn't all it was cracked up to be...and finally those that just like anything with the name " *Star Trek*" in its title.
- A smaller, but incredibly vocal minority, swear off anything produced after Gene Roddenberry's death in 1991 because nothing can be canon if Roddenberry wasn't around to put his seal of approval on it. These people apparently do not realize that Roddenberry only had direct creative input for the first two seasons of the classic series, the first theatrical film, and the first season of
*TNG*. For that matter, if it's his seal of approval they're concerned about, then none of the films beyond *Star Trek: The Motion Picture* are canon, as Roddenberry didn't like the direction Harve Bennett took with them, particularly the fifth and sixth films. This led to the widespread belief that Roddenberry had declared *Star Trek V* and *VI* to be non-canon, which he never did.
- More recently, the controversy regarding
*Trek* fan films (largely caused by the creators of *Prelude to Axanar*) has split the fanbase firmly into three camps: those who consider the fans to be the true owners of *Trek* lore, while Paramount (until the franchise was bought by CBS) is just a bunch of Corrupt Corporate Executives; those who believe that Paramount/CBS's legal ownership of the copyright means they're free to do whatever the hell they want with it; and those who haven't watched any fan films and don't get what all the fuss is about.
- The
*Arrowverse* shows, due to their divisive nature, naturally bring this out. Some audiences adore them over all else, finding them to be the single-best adaptation of the DC Universe, and anyone who disliked the show-original characters and concepts are just bitter that it's not like previous versions, often pointing to the highly successful 'event crossovers'. Other audiences *despise* them with a passion, finding it to be the *worst* adaptation of the DC Universe, and anyone who likes their show original Creator's Pet characters and Canon Defilement concepts is just blindly supporting the franchise because they've never experienced the original comics and previous adaptations, often pointing to the shows' comparatively low ratings as proof they suck. Middle ground doesn't exist.
- People who talk about what is and what isn't "real music" or how "there isn't any good music anymore". If someone has heard examples of a genre that they dislike they will automatically write off the whole genre as bad and "how can anybody listen to it?"
- Seth Stevens Davidowitz argues that our brains are heavily impacted emotionally by music when we're teenagers and somewhat in our twenties, so new music literally just doesn't feel as good when you're in your thirties and older.
- In a similar manner, don't tell certain vinyl collectors (the kind who collect old, rare records merely to put on display) about how you listen to your records. Expect a massive diatribe if you casually mention you opened a sealed record.
- People who refuse to share rare music on the grounds that they have something hardly anyone has are like this. Especially when someone else shares their copy of the same material and says they're doing it because they want to make people happy.
- The director's cut example mentioned for films also applied when the British versions of the early Beatles albums were released on CD in the U.S. in The '80s. Most fans embraced them and they gained retroactive status as the
*official* Beatles discography. But there was enough nostalgia for the original U.S. Capitol Records releases that the LPs and cassettes circulated widely among collectors. Consequently, Capitol released two deluxe CD box sets of the U.S. albums, only to get bashed by purists accusing them of greed and peddling inferior mixes of the music.
- Shipping wars. So many vicious, seething, blood-boiling wars have been launched because so many fans
*could not comprehend* how *anyone* could not support their One True Pairing. Not even fans who don't ship them with anyone or have no interest in shipping will be spared, because shippers believe that their OTP champions true everlasting love and if you don't agree with them, then you *must not believe in love*. Conversely, those who don't ship might get into a rivalry with the shippers because *obviously* those delusional loons can't see that nobody has subtext with *anybody* and can't see why they have to "shoehorn" pairings where there are none.
- The comparisons of earlier works to newer, updated, or reimagined versions. Those who stick by the earlier works and admit they were enjoyable are often accused of wearing a Nostalgia Filter. At the same time, those who prefer the newer versions are accused of not understanding what made the original compelling in the first place or only capable of liking newer productions simply because they are more recent and made on better budgets with newer technology (
*especially* CGI effects).
- Niche fandoms can have this sort of reaction when more mainstream attention starts rolling in. The newer fans are only exposed to more contemporary works while older fans scratch their heads at some of the best works of the medium/genre being ignored. Some examples include young fans calling
*Naruto* the best anime ever while older fans tend to disagree or the hardcore versus casual gamers.
- On the flip side, there are a number of tight-knit cult followings who believe the obscure work they like
*should* be more mainstream, and won't accept most explanations for why it isn't. And that's if they're even *aware* that the work is obscure in the first place.
- Windows vs Linux (or any other operating system). Visit any tech support message board and view posts that describe the problem and their system specs. Inevitably someone will always say something along the lines of, "[system runs on Windows 10], that's your problem right there." There is just as much of a debate about which Windows version is better. Many users (Both 7 and 8) bash 10 for its telemetry which eats up RAM, also atop the forced updates that may have bricked their computers or nagged them like mad to auto-update.
- Intimacy is a major one with some people. For instance, people who are social butterflies tend to have difficulty comprehending how anyone could actually enjoy being alone. Likewise, people who crave hugs and/or other intimate forms of affection tend to believe that, deep down inside,
*everyone* craves that type of affection. Some do not even know what introversion is, as the thought that some people prefer being by themselves has never once occurred to them (or they never took the thought seriously).
- Any new form of technology can develop this among its early adopters but some are more notable than others. Generally when something new comes along the pike that's touted as better gets held to that standard. Where anyone who dares not care to adopt clearly just hasn't seen it yet to be amazed or are just not smart enough to appreciate it. The idea that other people have seen it and not care is considered alien.
- Generally a problem in contemporary politics, as it is such a controversial and divisive topic that many people will keep quiet about it to avoid having to deal with an argument or being hassled by others who disagree with their opinions
*unless* they're among people who share their beliefs. This results in some people who care passionately about one side of a divisive issue associating almost exclusively, online and off, with people who share or at least sympathize with their position, putting them in the proverbial bubble where they've spent so much time affirming their opinions with others and hearing like-minded statements that they become unable (or *unwilling*) to understand why anyone would have the opposite point of view, and attributing it to naïveté, emotionalism, or stupidity. In 1984, feminist Betty Friedan said that she couldn't understand how Reagan had gotten elected, much less re-elected, since she didn't know anyone who had voted for him (She lived, at the time, in Greenwich Village).
- It's common among car enthusiasts to highly criticize cars that have bad or uninteresting handling, with the Top Gear magazine being egregious in it through giving otherwise-OK cars bad reviews if they aren't rewarding enough to drive (e.g. 4/10 points for the Toyota Yaris). However, this group often forgets that a vast majority of car buyers don't care about it; they simply want cars that will get reliably get them from A to B, while offering the right amount of equipment, style, and safety.
- Any conspiracy theories will have ardent defenders, no matter if the facts there don't line up with reality or how the attempts at covering up the conspiracy would be much more complicated\expensive than necessary, basically "I Reject Your Reality because my opinion says so" or with the catch-all statement that any facts/reasoning/common sense/proof to the contrary is "created as a coverup by the conspirators".
- Almost all pinball fans know that video games have completely overtaken pinball in popularity, leaving pinball a niche. However, what video games are popular is a big source of confusion for them, as many of them do not follow (or, in more extreme cases, they'll avoid) any news on video games. The result is a lot of them having
*no idea* what video games are popular to real-life cases of Pac Man Fever thinking that kids today are still playing *Donkey Kong* and *Street Fighter II* (vanilla). A lot of these fans are left scratching their heads as to what exactly it was that allowed video game companies to completely take their thunder. That being said, pinball nowadays is consumed largely by middle-aged men, who would mostly socialize with other middle-aged men and be largely unaware of what people younger than they are would be into.
- Within pinball communities themselves, there are some hardline Bally-Williams fans who think that the only reason Stern is still in business is that they can talk big to clueless operators and because they can secure attractive modern licenses like
*Game of Thrones* and *The Avengers*. Never mind that there are plenty of pinball fans who genuinely like what Stern makes, and that Data East did exactly what the Stern-haters described (very good licenses, but shoddy build quality and rushed programming) only to go out of business after several years.
- Pinball also has an inverted case of Opinion Myopia: Many of the most-liked games, like
*Medieval Madness*, *Cactus Canyon*, *Cirqus Voltaire*, and *Monster Bash*, are actually quite rare due to being poor sellers, but that fact only ever comes up when someone wants to buy one of these machines in the used market. If someone not familiar with pinball were to go to a message board or social media group about pinball, they might think these were some of the most common machines made because of how they dominate discussion and how people talk like everyone has played them.
- The Internet Wrestling Community, or the IWC. As a whole, they tend to favor wrestlers with a higher "work rate." At times, this tends to conflict with who's actually over and receiving a push in various promotions.
- Any Message Board that is enforcing conformity in opinions will likely have this. Any message board aimed at a particular group or interest will have the majority of posters holding the opinion and any poster who doesn't will tend to be the type to post on message boards they specifically disagree with. Sometimes the moderators of the message board will kick off those who do not toe the party line.
- Even Message Boards that allow for comment scoring via votes often enter into a feedback loop of sorts, where the most popular common opinion gets enforced autonomously. People begin to realize if they go against the common opinion they will be downvoted into oblivion, and so either keep quiet about such things or leave. This creates the illusion that everyone unanimously agrees, and the few who don't are Trolls who should be heckled away, which in turn strengthens the popular common opinion and encourages more posts supporting it owing to the Skinner Box nature of posting high-scoring comments. The end result is a circlejerk of a community that genuinely believes they are unanimously right about such things, even when they are a minority at best: this has a nasty habit of shifting the entire tone of a website,
*particularly* if spicy topics like current events or politics get involved, and one of the reasons many sites employ a Ban on Politics.
- A popular question posed by radio stations on Facebook is "you're on a date. Your date says their favorite TV show/movie/artist and you immediately leave. What's the show/movie/artist?". A fair chunk of the answers are beloved and acclaimed pieces of media (for example, one such question had many answers of Bruce Springsteen and others had many answers of
*Seinfeld*, there are also intense genre biases against science fiction and animation). The commenters hardly ever give any reasons beyond "I hate it" and often get huffy whenever someone says that they enjoy X movie/TV show/artist. Clearly, there is a wide difference between something that is actually So Bad, It's Horrible and something that is inherently good, but is not to someone's taste or is part of that person's Public Medium Ignorance.
- Any Message Board/blog with a sufficiently strict moderation/comment policy will be accused of this. How dare the owner of the blog decide that some opinions are not worth hosting and some people not worth arguing with.
- Reviewers, especially vitriolic ones, who point out Unfortunate Implications present in works get this a lot.
- This is one of the main reasons that the Television Without Pity forums maintained strict 'no talking about the boards on the board' and 'talk about the posts, not the other posters' policies. Posts like "I don't get why everybody wants her to win" or "what's wrong with all these people who don't like
*him*?" would net at least a warning and possibly a ban.
- This overlaps often with Critical Dissonance. Many reviewers, especially Video Game reviewers, seem to think that because their tastes are limited, that means that any game they review should be strictly along those.
- A very notable example are the reviews of
*Grand Theft Auto IV*, which gushed about recreating a living, breathing world while minimizing the gameplay and technical issues, which were noted strongly in user reviews.
- A common form is if they think the content of a game is "kiddie", they will put that well above whether the gameplay is any good, how the game performs, replay value, and other factors that would appeal to many gamers more than whether a game is kiddie or not. Because they don't like kiddie games, it's clear no one else will.
- Players respond to video game reviews (seemingly more so than other forms of reviews) especially strongly in this way. Expect any review of a video game that disagrees with someone's opinions to be met with numerous comments about how the person/the site is biased and that reviews should be objective, even though an objective review is impossible; any criteria or theory you choose to follow in a review is in and of itself a form of bias. Jim Sterling once mocked this with an "objective and unbiased review" of
*Final Fantasy XIII*. Reviews for re-released "classic games", especially, tend to get hit with this pretty hard. If a re-released classic game gets a relatively poor or even average score from a reviewer, you can expect accusations of the reviewer being "biased towards modern games" or (in a subtle invoking of Moffs Law) "unfairly holding the game to modern standards."
- One game reviewer talked about this, stating more or less, what while most reviewers talk about what the game is, what you do, and why they thought it was fun, a truly good reviewer also talks about why you the reader might like it.
- Parodied in
*The Onion* article "Man Who Enjoys Thing Informed He Is Wrong".
- In Facebook fan pages, while you'll find a lot of posts about how good a work is or gushing about certain characters, you'll invariably get haters of the work liking the page simply to say, 'How can you people like this crap?' or 'You people are stupid, [Work] is obviously bad!' Some more extreme haters will demand the page get deleted because it dares to like something they don't. Similarly, browse pages devoted to hating certain works and you'll find the same thing in reverse: fans posting on the page saying, 'You people are stupid!', 'You obviously don't realise how superior [Work] is!', or 'You just haven't read/watched it!', and some demanding that the page get taken down because it dares to not like something they do.
- IMDb forums are similar — people often seem unable to comprehend another opinion. Many users assume those who dislike films they themselves like are automatically trolls, and those who like films they themselves dislike are automatically involved with the movie. These people will very often seem incapable of talking about the movie without stating their dislike. Occasionally, you'll come across someone who disagrees with the majority but actually asks why [movie] is loved/hated.
- The YouTube series "Everything Wrong with...", produced by CinemaSins, has a tendency to include everything that bothered the reviewer, ranging from plot holes and continuity errors, to debatable aesthetic choices such as the use of voiceover, to the reviewer's pet peeves, like his opinion that characters eating apples "makes them look like assholes".
- The Outskirts Battle Dome is pretty much considered this by plenty of people. Especially the wiki. The idea of an OBD Hive Mind is actually an in-joke to members.
- Arin of
*Game Grumps* often brings this up this phenomenon when he speaks of how he dislikes things like *The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time*, only for the much more optimistic Danny to remark that he likes said thing for the exact same reasons Arin dislikes it. Arin will acknowledge that he is indeed the minority on it and often even remarks that he wishes he *did* like such things, as it would give him one more thing in his life to enjoy.
- The general feedback loop of 'Oh my God, grown men like
*My Little Pony* now?!'/'Yeah, we like *My Little Pony* now, what are you gonna do about it?' has led many bronies to forget that the show has just as many fans in its target demographic (that is, small children, especially of the female variety) as it does grown men and women (and small boys, although this is generally ignored), which occasionally causes friction when people who *haven't* forgotten this ask them to try and make their... not quite work safe material a little less accessible for the young'uns. Which has apparently led to the "Brony Pledge", which is less a "pledge" and more of a "stern reminder from one of us to the rest of you". Which, admittedly, is in and of itself rather more decorum than one usually sees from fandoms that have an excess of Rule 34.
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*The Simpsons* fans of a certain age generally take it for granted that the show is no longer worth watching and hasn't been for a lot of years, with abstinence from "new Simpsons" episodes a badge of honor for some. Go ahead, just *try* to find a clip of "old" Simpsons on YouTube without a slew of comments waxing poetic about "how good Simpsons was back then, before the dark times", and just try to find a clip of "new" Simpsons without the comments bemoaning "Simpsons is terrible now!" While the show isn't as broadly popular as it once was, a consistent supply of new, young viewers has kept the show's ratings respectable enough for it to be continually renewed year after year.
- Animation vet Bruce Timm has said that he rarely lets online criticism get to him for precisely this reason. He reasoned that statistically speaking, the people who post on message boards are a very small fraction of the actual fandom and audience, so just because some people are screaming Ruined FOREVER, that doesn't make it representative of the overall opinion of his work.
- Anyone who spends five minutes on a comic book message board would think
*Ultimate Spider-Man* is the most hated cartoon of all time, when in reality, it does quite well among its target demographic of young children. Brian Michael Bendis pointed out that even though "It's for kids!" is a common admission of a lack of quality, the network and advertisers don't actually care what the Periphery Demographic thinks.
- Similarly to the above,
*Teen Titans Go!* has a *very* vocal audience of detractors, consisting mostly of outraged fans of the original series, that makes up a sizable chunk of its online presence. As a result, it is very easy to find claims of it being one of the worst things on television on the internet. Despite this, it is actually one of the highest-rated programs on Cartoon Network and receives consistently mixed reviews from professional critics; a far cry from what the naysayers perceive it to be. This dissonance reached its apex when the series' Big Damn Movie was released, where the same detractors predicted that it would be a travesty worthy of being called the worst movie of all time only for it to be released to both positive critical reception and box office success.
- Older fans of Nickelodeon widely believe that the channel has gone downhill. They also believe that Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, and even Discovery Family are beating it. In reality, Nickelodeon easily defeats the latter two, and they have a small head up on the Disney Channel.
- As is the case with most Sequel Series, fans of
*Avatar: The Last Airbender* that didn't like *The Legend of Korra* have a tendency to believe that no one could possibly like the latter let alone like *The Legend of Korra* as much or more than *The Last Airbender*. They often think that it is a bad series that is disrespectful and contradictory to the original series, and they think that most people think it is bad. In actuality, critics and most fans find the opposite (that the series is really good, pays respect to its predecessor, and is careful to keep track of continuity and consistency) to be true.
- Similar to the backlash against the popularity of
*My Little Pony*, there are a vocal minority of people who get very angry at the popularity of *Bluey*, as they can't imagine the idea of anyone over the age of six watching a children's cartoon. Ironically, some fans of *My Little Pony*, *Sonic the Hedgehog*, anime, and other "cringe" fandoms tend to promote this mindset, disliking Bluey's Periphery Demographic for watching a 'toddler show' despite the fact that shows such as *My Little Pony* are also geared towards small children. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpinionMyopia |
Oppressive Immigration Enforcement - TV Tropes
If there is one branch of law enforcement that is almost guaranteed not to be presented sympathetically, then it has to be immigration control. After all, it's hard not to sympathise with individuals who simply want to make a new life for themselves, especially with all the hardships they already face in a strange new country or if they are refugees fleeing from war or persecution.
Likewise, the tactics that immigration control officers have been known to use when dealing with undocumented immigrants (i.e. random raids, mass roundups, detainment and sentence without trial, etc.) can come across as severely disproportionate and bear a disturbing similarity to those employed by the Secret Police of authoritarian nations.
All of this adds up to making the practice easily comparable to state repression and infringement on human rights. Thus, it's not hard to see why immigration control agents are most often than not presented at best as cold and apathetic enforcers of unfair laws, and at worst as needlessly aggressive, sadistic, bigoted abusers who delight in the suffering of those helpless to stop them.
Expect presentations to lean heavily into the worst stereotypes of law enforcement and state repression.
Don't expect this corruption to interfere with their zeal and effectiveness (though also don't expect this to translate into actual competence outside of making arrests). More often than not expect them to immediately leap into action the second they receive a report about an undocumented immigrant, who is then immediately detained and quickly deported (to the point that often even other officials are powerless to do anything about it). Don't expect issues with resources or legal appeals to be an issue for them, even though in real life this is a major issue for most agencies leaving them unable to respond to every report and the legal process leading up to deportation can take years.
At best you might occasionally get an individual enforcer who is sympathetic (especially if they are themselves descended from immigrants) and hopes to change the system from the inside, but they are most likely to be presented as naïve and foolish, and often end up either disillusioned into quitting or else dead.
Beyond the enforcers themselves this presentation can extend to those who implement and authorise the policies, and thus expect similar presentations to extend to them such as firebrand anti-immigrant politicians, callous unwelcoming community leaders or especially vicious judges. At its furthest, it can be used to demonstrate the growing oppression of the society as a whole, with its growing xenophobia reflecting an increase in the erosion of civil liberties and rights.
This trope is likewise often used by the writers to express their own views on real-life immigration policies.
Subtrope of Dirty Cop. Compare Naughty Narcs for another brand of law enforcement to most likely be presented as corrupt or evil, Overreacting Airport Security for security forces who are similarly scorned, more so in the past, and Right-Wing Militia Fanatic who also often enforce oppressive anti-immigration policies but (at least usually) hold no actual legal authority to do so (though there is occasionally an overlap such as officials maintaining off the books ties, officials being group members or even flat-out outsourcing to said groups for what they can't accomplish through legitimate channels).
In real life, the ethics and procedures surrounding Border and Immigration Enforcement is a highly controversial issue. Whilst there have been multiple real-life scandals around the actions of Immigration Enforcement agents and nation immigration policies, several of which have fuelled fictional depictions, due to these controversies No Real Life Examples, Please!.
Sub-Trope of Order Is Not Good, when law and order in general, are presented as anti-freedom and oppressive, and Politically Incorrect Villain.
### Examples:
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*Fantastic Four*: Traditionally, the border guards of Latveria, the domain of Doctor Doom, are portrayed as arrogant and suspicious of outsiders. The comic book tie-in to the computer game "Doctor Doom's Revenge!" also suggests they aren't above a bit of illegal seizure, as a group of guards is shown confiscating a man's collection of CDs with the excuse that the CDs are "decadent" despite it being clear they're simply taking the CDs because they want them. Alas, they're so pleased with their haul they fail to notice the man was actually helping Spider-Man and Captain America sneak into Latveria...
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*The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye*: In an alternate universe where the Functionists note : enforcers of a Fantastic Caste System where a Cybertronian's position on the social ladder is completely dependent on their alternate mode, with rare alternate modes like microscopes being higher up while common ones like data drives and projectors are basically slaves are still in power, a group of guards harasses the returning Minimus Ambus and demand that he transforms because they can't identify what he is. When he does so, they draw weapons on him demanding to know what he is, as they can't find his vehicle mode on the Grand Taxonomy, and only relent when he explains that it's a war machine and he's only just returned from action in deep space.
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*Blue Bayou*: All of the tragedy of the film occurs because Antonio LeBlanc, who has lived in the United States of America since he was three years old when he was adopted, is discovered to have never been registered as a citizen and is facing extradition. He and his family try to fight it, but their lawyer tells them that his chances are extremely low and that is without counting ||Denny, a bigoted New Orleans Police officer, beating the everliving crap out of Antonio|| on the day of his hearing, so he is unable to arrive and is sentenced for extradition *in absentia*. The immigration officers even rip Antonio away from his baby daughter when they say each other goodbye at the airport. The only reed of hope he has left in the end is the possibility he will be able to file for citizenship in the future because of his family.
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*Born in East L.A.*: The protagonist Rudy Robles is a Mexican-American man who, because he's Mexican and doesn't have his papers on him, gets mistaken for an illegal alien and deported to Mexico by a racist, incompetent immigration bureaucracy despite being a natural-born US citizen and military veteran who knows more German than Spanish. He spends the rest of the film scheming to get back into the US "illegally".
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*Children of Men*: The United Kingdom has turned into a Police State due to the infertility crisis, in response to massive waves of migrants and refugees trying to enter the nation. Illegal migrants who are arrested are subject to draconian laws, with many being imprisoned or executed.
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*Fun with Dick and Jane*: The remake has Dick Harper (played by Jim Carrey, who could not be more Caucasian) arrested by Immigration alongside a number of labor workers, mistaken for Mexican because he has a mild tan from being on the street all day and mumbles because of an injured jaw (and his son said "Hola" to answer the phone when Dick used his One Phone Call to call his house — the Immigration agents immediately hung up the phone after that and dragged him away) and sent to Mexico within a few hours, forcing Dick to cross the border (and nearly get shot) to return home. They showcase even more incompetence when they ignore an actual illegal immigrant because he had Dick's wallet and ID (that he stole), even when he looks absolutely nothing like Dick's photo.
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*Machete*: Texan Senator McLaughlin is a racist bigot who campaigns heavily on immigration control and closing the border, with him openly comparing immigrants to vermin and his campaign video against them is deliberately shot to resemble antisemitic Nazi propaganda videos. Secretly he also has links to and accepts payments from the Mexican Drug lord Torrez, with his campaign to close the border really being to wipe out his completion and so it will be easier for Torrez to smuggle his own illegal products across. He likewise is linked to Von Jackson, the local Right-Wing Militia Fanatic group's leader, with McLaughlin regularly joining them to murder migrants crossing the river. By the end of the movie he's mistaken for a migrant by those same people and shot and killed by them.
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*Men in Black*: Agent K and Agent D interrupt a bunch of border patrol agents snatching up a group of illegal immigrants from Mexico to pick out a literal blue alien who has overstayed his visa on Earth. The border patrol agents are treated as rather incompetent and obsessed with insignificant problems. But then, that goes for all Muggles who aren't in on The Masquerade.
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*Official Secrets*: Katherine is married to Yusuf, a Kurdish refugee who is applying for permanent residency in the UK. Though he was facing deportation when they married, they are genuinely in love and it's not a Citizenship Marriage. When Katherine breaks the Official Secrets Act by leaking a memo about the Iraq War, immigration enforcement tries to deport Yusuf in the middle of the night, accusing them of fraud, despite the fact that Yusuf isn't involved in Katherine's actions at all and she is already being punished for it. She manages to stop the deportation by rushing after him in the middle of the night and rescuing him.
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*Terminator: Dark Fate*: The Terminator sent to kill Dani impersonates a Border Patrol agent in order to try to kill her in the detention camp where she, Grace, and Sarah have been confined after being caught trying to cross the US-Mexico border. The genuine border control agents meanwhile are depicted as being uncaring, cruel, and lecherous.
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*The Terminal*: Frank Dixon, the Acting Field Commissioner of John F. Kennedy International Airport, is an Obstructive Bureaucrat who refuses to allow Viktor Navorski to enter the United States of America because his country is undergoing a civil war and his passport has been disavowed. He then goes on to perform a number of petty acts to make Viktor's life whilst stranded in the airport a living hell in the hopes that Víctor will try to leave the airport and put him in the hands of Immigration. By the third act, Viktor's continuous refusal to leave turns Dixon's obstructiveness into a vendetta and culminates with him threatening Viktor to take the first flight back to his country when the civil war ends or else he will have all of Viktor's friends -- employees of the airport -- fired or deported. ||Ironically when Viktor finally leaves the airport on a one-day visa to fulfil his Humble Goal, Dixon decides it's too much of a hassle to call the cops on him and lets him go.||
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*The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada*: The whole plot occurs because a Jerkass Border Patrol officer hears gunfire near him (Mr. Estrada, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, shooting a coyote that was attacking his flock), thinks he is under attack, and without any further thinking shoots Estrada dead and, once noticing what he has accidentally done, buries him to try to fend off investigation. He is partially successful — when proper authorities encounter Estrada's burial site, they just place him in a common grave without looking into things further, but Estrada's former boss finds the officer and forces him at gunpoint to unbury Estrada and come with him to Mexico to bury Estrada in his home town as he often had told his boss he desired.
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*The Missing*: After Jonah starts trying to investigate the circumstances of his adoption, supposed FBI Agent Mr. Reardon threatens to arrest Jonah's parents and deport Jonah. Notably, Jonah is only thirteen and was adopted as a baby and Reardon refuses to even tell Jonah where he might be deported to.
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*Nevermoor*: The Free State is safer for minorities than most of the world, but has strict anti-immigration laws, even in cases of life or death. At the start of the series, Jupiter smuggles Morrigan into the Free State with the help of a sympathetic border control officer, but she's then hounded by Flintlock, a Bigot with a Badge who's extremely xenophobic and determined to deport her. Even though she's a child with nowhere else to go, and will be *murdered* if she's sent back to the Wintersea Republic. The "closed border" policies of the Free State and those prejudiced against immigrants are deliberate echoes of anti-immigration laws in the real world, and a very pointed Take That! to boot.
**Flintlock:** Illegals are a plague, and it's my solemn duty to guard the borders of Nevermoor and protect its true citizens from Republic scum trying to weasel its way into the Free State. **Jupiter:** A noble and valiant cause, I'm sure. Protecting the Free State from those most in need of its help.
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*Wild Cards*: In this series of superhero novels, there is a great example in the novel "Mississippi Roll". In an early novel, Kazakhstan suffered an extradimensional incursion from Lovecraftian horrors. Kazach "jokers" (as the mutated victims of the wild card virus are called) are scapegoated and a lot of them flee to the US. The immigration policy of the Conservative US administration is very callous, and the ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents are among the villains of the novel. It is remarkable that long-standing protagonist Carnifex (he's been a superhuman agent for the Department of Défense since the 1980s) finally resigns in disgust, taking other heroic agents with him, instead of continuing to cooperate with the immigration agents tasked with rounding up the Kazach jokers.
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*The A-Team*: "Bad Time On The Border" features Border Patrol Lieutenant Jack Taggart, who is secretly corrupt and in bed with a coyote named Prince to run a Human Trafficking ring, smuggling desperate Mexican immigrants across the border by promising them better lives, then robbing them of all their possessions and selling them as slave labour to local sweatshops. Taggart is so callous his only concern about sick immigrants dying is his loss of revenue.
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*Baptiste*: Hungarian radical Right-Wing politician Kamilla Agoston features heavily in Season two, who is campaigning heavily on strict anti-immigrant policies and presented as a cold-hearted bigot. Following their investigations Baptiste and Zsófia Arslan come to suspect that she is secretly Gomorrah, the mastermind behind the neo-Nazi anti-immigrant terrorists they are after. ||She isn't, but she does approve of their brutal murders and happily exploits them for her own capital||.
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*Blindspot*: 'Rules in Defiance' presents multiple ICE Agents as on the payroll of Maxwell Tate, with them selecting suitable women from those who are about to be deported, and then allowing Tate's thugs to abduct them during transport for his forced prostitution operation, whilst falsifying the records to claim the deportations took place. Being responsible for literally hundreds of women having been taken. There is a single honest agent who attempted to help Ronnie Vargas after Tate framed him for murder, however, he was quickly silenced by his co-workers framing him for sexual harassment on Tate's orders.
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*The Cleaning Lady*: ICE (specifically its ERO branch) is presented as a cruel, inhumane agency that treats immigrants like cattle. In "ICE" when Garrett uses his FBI connections to have them detain Thorny's illegal workers so he can force them to cooperate, they simply go behind his back to deport them.
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*The Closer*: "Help Wanted" features Joe Myers a vicious, bigoted ICE agent who uses his much-abused son to find him nannies and babysitters who are undocumented immigrants. Myers then proceeds to torture and rape the poor women, silencing them with the threat of deportation. Panicking when he discovers his latest victim is in fact a legal immigrant, Myers beats her to death and then starts rounding up all his victims to kill or deport, to ensure the police don't link her death to him.
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*Criminal Minds*: In the episode "A Rite of Passage", the serial killer of the week is Ronald Boyd, a crazy sheriff's deputy of a New Mexico border town who spends his nights hunting down illegal immigrants trying to sneak into the United States and killing them. When the BAU arrives to town because of the huge body count he has left behind, he escalates to insane levels to not be caught, including annihilating a local Cartel group to try to frame them for the deaths, killing a fellow deputy when he is a witness, and trying to shoot it out with the FBI agents. He's even infuriated that his boss Sheriff Ruiz investigated his victims' disappearances, declaring his victims can't be missing as they "ain't supposed to be here in the first damn place" right before killing him.
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*Come Fly With Me*: Gatwick Airports Chief Immigration officer Ian Foot is a recurring character and presented as a moronic racist who blatantly abuses his position to exercise his bigotry, regularly detaining, insulting, and harassing anyone who comes through the airport who isn't a white Englishman. Boasting to stop anyone whose name he considers foreign sounding, and even harassing his fellow staff at the airport like Taaj (a Bradford-born English Muslim). Despite this, he is also utterly incompetent, with Ian being effortlessly fooled by a genuine illegal immigrant, an elderly foreigner, cause they had a fake passport saying they were a 12-year-old British girl.
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*Deputy*: Bill Hollister see's ICE in this regard and holds their tactics in utter contempt, seeing this as a flagrant abuse of power and an insult to everything being a Sheriff's deputy stands for, with the first episode involving him facing disciplinary actions for disrupting an ICE-coordinated raid using the LA Sherriff's deputies. Upon becoming Sheriff, Hollister makes it clear to the senior ICE official that under his command the Sheriff's office will no longer support them in or participate in raids or mass roundups, only in the arrest of specific fugitives determined through the proper channels, despite Undersheriff Jerry London pointing out this will cost them the massive federal grant the cooperation nets them.
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*Desperate Housewives*:
- Played for Laughs in Season 5 when Susan embarks on a Citizenship Marriage to stop Jackson from being deported since he overstayed his welcome on his visa. Though most of the housewives are supportive, it's a Running Gag that characters (Katherine in particular, who wants Susan to marry Jackson) agree that they
*can't* let Jackson go back to the big bad country of...Canada. Dave also furthers his revenge plot against Susan by reporting Jackson and getting him deported on their wedding day.
- In Season 7, Gaby's backseat driving gets Hector arrested, which in turn puts on Hector and Carmen, who are Juanita's biological parents and Grace's adoptive parents (Juanita and Grace were Switched at Birth, and both Gaby and Carlos and Hector and Carmen raised each others' daughters without knowing it) on ICE's radar. Gaby was tempted to suggest that she and Carlos look after or even adopt Grace. However, upon realizing how much Hector and Carmen love Grace (and vice versa), she manages to pose as Carmen and get the drop on the bullying, armed ICE agents who come to the door. As a result, Carmen, Hector, and Grace are all forced to leave the Eagle State so that they aren't picked up again.
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*Doctor Who*:
- "Carnival of Monsters" features Commissioner Kalik a snooty, egotistic xenophobic Inter Minoran official with political ambitions. Historically Inter Minor had banned all aliens from immigrating or even visiting (and all residents from leaving) following a horrific plague outbreak 2000 years previously, however, this rule has recently been repealed as part of a series of sweeping reforms by the new liberal President Zarb, Kalik's own brother. Outraged at this upon discovering two of the first alien visitors are a pair traveling showmen, Vorg and Shirna, who have brought with them a Minoscope (a device that miniaturises and traps individuals in time loops for the purpose of entertainment) Kalik sabotages it to release the trapped Drashigs, ignoring Vorg's warnings about how dangerous they are. Planning to scapegoat Vorg and Shirna for the disaster, Kalik will then use the outrage it sparks to force Zarb out of office and take over so he can restore the previous xenophobic laws. He ends up being the first one devoured alive by the Drashigs.
- Following the numerous disasters, in a world without the Doctor in "Turn Left", causing Britain to become increasing restrictive and oppressive, it climaxes in the new government implementing "England for the English" laws but being unable to deport them due to borders being closed leads to armed soldiers rounding up immigrants (including Donna's Italian housemate Mr. Colasanto and his entire family) to send them to "Labour Camps", the sight of this causing her grandfather Wilf to break down to tears.
**Wilf**
: "Work camps". That's what they called them last time
.
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*Evil*: Minor recurring antagonist, the quiet mysterious ICE agent Adam Gardner secretly serves Doctor Leland Townsend and his satanic agenda, who uses his position to further Townsend's goals, such as arresting and deporting suspected Prophet Grace Ling. It is also him who Townsend dispatches to train budding Incel Sebastian in handling guns, out of Townsend's desire to groom the young man into becoming a mass shooter, with Adam doing his own part to corrupt Sebastian, assuring him that killing will prove him to be a real man.
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*FBI*:
- In "Salvation", following seventeen-year-old Jessica Sanchez risking her life to help the FBI put away the Gang members who murdered a teacher who tried to help free her, before they are able to get her safely into witness protection Jessica is arrested by ICE agents for being an undocumented immigrant and sentenced for deportation. Despite Isobel's best attempts, she's sent back to Mexico, into the Gang's stronghold despite it being effectively a death sentence for the poor girl.
- Played With in "Protective Details" the killer is revealed to be motivated by his parents' deaths due to them being deported back to El Salvador after peacefully living in the US for decades in spite of the clear evidence they would be killed by the same brutal gang they originally fled from, and overall presented sympathetically, especially as the judge (his second victim) had a reputation for harsh decisions on undocumented immigrants and ensured they were deported before he had a chance to appeal. However, the ICE agent who arrested them (his first victim) is presented as simply a member of law enforcement doing their job (and implied to think the law is too strict). Likewise whilst the loudly anti-immigrant Congressman Grange initially comes across as a repugnant bigot and a stereotypical hard-nosed conservative, he turns out to have a sympathetic motivation and as he reveals to OA his actual views on immigration are really more moderate and nuanced, admitting that whilst he would prefer to focus more on his actual views, the reality is he's lagging behind in an election year and firebrand anti-immigrant rhetoric is what appeals to his voting base and financial backers.
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*FBI: Most Wanted*: In the first crossover with the parent series, it's revealed the White Supremacist domestic terrorist group their facing has several ICE agents as members, including a branch head. In retaliation to the FBI capturing their leader, they launch a raid on a charity food bank to abduct Jess's daughter Talia (who is half Native American) with them threatening to deport her to a third world nation and destroy all records if the FBI doesn't halt their investigation into their activities. Jess likewise independently voices his disgust at the horrific conditions he witnesses whilst searching the detainment centres for her, and the investigation uncovers a secret chat room where a very large number of ICE agents (most of whom aren't even involved with the terrorists) discuss their contempt for immigrants many voicing their desire to hurt, rape or even kill them, with Jubal denouncing all who participate as a disgrace to everything being a federal agent stands for.
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*Law & Order*:
- Throughout the franchise, immigration authorities are often used as a Spanner in the Works. If a victim or witness is in the country illegally, one phone call from the Villain of the Week will cause them to be instantly deported. While the agents involved will usually show a lack of concern for how their actions will impact the prosecution of a heinous crime, they are rarely portrayed as outright evil, just Punch Clock Villains.
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*Law & Order: Special Victims Unit*: "Zero Tolerance" tackles the Trump Administration's Family Separation policy, with the children of migrants being separated from their families at the border and transported to detention centres. This leads to pre-pubescent Gabriela arriving in New York, circumstances conspiring to lead to her falling into a child sex trafficking ring. The detention centre itself is presented as outright dystopian with dozens of children locked behind chain link caging away from their families, sleeping on concrete floors with only thin mats and metallic emergency blankets for bedding. The Office of Refugee Resettlement officer Jeff Phelps overseeing Gabriela is likewise presented as a smug, smarmy man who is utterly apathetic to moral concerns of his actions, dismissing them as simply following the policy at the time.
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*Lie to Me*: "Depraved Heart" features Lightman and his team stumbling upon a forced surrogacy operation, revealed to be led to by ICE agent Mike Personick. Personick abuses his position to force immigrants into being surrogates to his wealthy clients, keeping them in appalling conditions and then goading them into committing suicide when they are no longer anymore use to him.
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*Little Britain*: In one recurring sketch, David Walliams plays a bigoted and unpleasant immigration officer at a major airport who considers his job to be all about turning away illegal entrants into Britain.
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*Madam Secretary*:
- "Hijriyyah" deals with Liz having to deal with Arizona Senator Carlos Morejo whose campaign runs heavily on an Anti-immigration platform, disrupting President Dalton's plans for the US to take in two hundred Libyan refugees, publicly arguing they could be terrorists. Liz confronts him over the fact that his own parents were refugees from Cuba which he dismisses, and falls into No True Scotsman when Liz points out that the terrorist attack he's using to justify his platform was committed by a natural-born citizen.
- "Family Separation" parts 1 and 2 involve Liz having to deal with Governor Richard Barker, who has instigated a policy of separating the children from all undocumented immigrants who cross the border into his state. Even the cynical and politically apathetic Russel Jackson is disgusted by it.
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*New Amsterdam (2018)*: In the episode "In a Strange Land", the New Amsterdam hospital is swamped by the arrival of a huge number of sick and injured illegal immigrants to the emergency room. Max and the rest of the hospital staff try to help them, and their efforts are stymied by the arrival of an Immigration team who would rather prefer to arrest them all and process them for deportation with no care about the possibility of them dying in the processing center.
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*On My Block*: ICE Agents setting up in the neighbourhood is presented as one of the many issues the residents of Free Ridge have to put up with, presented in the same leagues of severity as the gang violence, poverty, and overbearing police presence. The agency itself is presented as ruthless, callous, and cruel, with them forcing the church clear out its sanctuary of undocumented immigrants.
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*Orange Is the New Black*: ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is the overall villain of Season 7. The women are crammed into tiny bunk beds close together, the hotline (and only route to the outside world) is very expensive, and people are depicted as being deported without even having their rights correctly explained. When they finally find a phone card, the phone is broken.
- Kids (clearly under the age of 10) are shown being forced to listen to immigration tribunals without lawyers. Babies are also crying without parents.
- Pregnant inmate Santos Chaj is Guatemalan and is potentially miscarrying. ICE drags their feet on getting her medical attention and can't communicate to her that she
*hasn't* miscarried because they can't be bothered to find a translator for her. Fig, usually an Ice Queen, is visibly shaken and insists on getting her a translator. Then, it turns out that Chaj doesn't want the child, but ICE refuses to take her to have an abortion. Fig has to break the rules to sneak the abortion pill to her.
- Maritizia is picked up by ICE during a raid at a nightclub. She is deported in the middle of the night and without saying goodbye to the other inmates, despite knowing nobody in Columbia; she didn't even know she was born there (her mother had told her that she was born in the US).
- Karla is a Struggling Single Mother to her two sons and an illegal immigrant from El Salvador. Her (now deceased) husband was a journalist and risked being murdered by gangs. However, Karla is detained by ICE and separated from her kids. She pleads to be allowed to raise her sons in America, who would be at risk of having to join murderous gangs (and she may be murdered by criminals who wanted her husband dead). Her sons are abandoned in foster care begging her to come back to them, the judge doesn't listen to Karla's pleas or her valiant efforts at an appeal, and she's deported to El Salvador where she knows no one. She is next shown on a long hike through the Mexican desert to get back to the USA, but falls off the trail and is injured. That's the last we see of her and, though the coyote promises to come back for her, it's likely that she either died of dehydration or was killed by an animal attack.
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*Queen Sugar*: In season 4 Charley and Romero start a clinic for undocumented migrant workers, but it gets raided by ICE. Despite their best efforts to stand up to the ICE agents, they're ultimately powerless to stop ICE from taking their patients into custody. During the raid, Romero is asked to show his documentation and mentions to Charley that it isn't the first time he's dealt with this. Among those detained are a father and his two eldest sons, while his two younger sons are left behind because they are US citizens by birth. The younger sons are eventually placed in foster care because their mother left and their father can't return to the US.
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*Star Trek: Picard*: In season 2, Picard and his new crew travels back in time to 2024 Los Angeles. Cristobal Rios is mistaken for an illegal immigrant when they raid a charity clinic and gleefully deported by a group of antagonistic ICE agents who are presented as needlessly aggressive, violent, and vindictive, before Seven and Rafi rescue him.
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*Superstore*: When the employees start to organize a union, management attempts to shut them down with several underhanded and illegal measures including an ICE sweep, which was a problem for Mateo who entered the United States illegally with his parents when he was an infant. While management is portrayed as the real villain, the ICE agent in charge of the sweep said to Amy (who is Hispanic) "They look just like you and me. Well, like you."
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*SWAT*:
- Invoked in "Fences", where an illegal immigrant fleeing an ICE Raid is apprehended and arrested by Street, who had no idea they were one and assumed they were just a regular criminal fleeing the authorities, leaving them facing deportation. Being in violation of California's status as a sanctuary state, it leads to SWAT facing a major public backlash, complete with the immigrant's sister leading a protest outside police headquarters, and putting Street in hot water with the brass. Matters are only made worse when all the publicity the case is receiving inspires radical anti-immigration group to kidnap and forcibly deport his sister.
- In "Safe House" the team's sting operation to rescue a hostage from dangerous gang members is interrupted by ICE agents launching a surprise raid in the same area with them recklessly turning up guns blazing, throwing the entire situation into chaos and endangering multiple civilians all because ICE didn't bother to give local law enforcement a heads up to their activities, with one agent even nearly shooting Officer Chris Alonzo just for being a Latina woman. Commander Hicks, who holds a suspicion for all "three letter agencies" due to seeing them as arrogant, irresponsible glory hounds, openly admits to considering ICE easily the worst of them all.
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*The Twilight Zone (2019)*: The government agency hunting immigrants from another dimension in "Point Of Origin" are overall presented as vicious bigots, who despite all the immigrants we see being peaceful, honest, productive members who have long acclimatised to the new society are fixated on detaining then deporting them back overall for no other reason than they are technically different, justifying it with accusations of theirs's being a "lesser dimension" and their presence "diluting the natural evolution of our lives". Their detainment facility is concrete prison with no lighting, staffed by apathetic guards who don't care in the slightest about the prisoners well being, and their interrogators are merciless sadists who regularly utilise torture in ascertaining whether the accused is from another dimension.
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*Wisting*: Downplayed but present, season three involves the Larvik police force investigating the murder of a child refugee, with their efforts to get the refugees to cooperate with them hampered by the issues and struggles that exist within Norway's immigration system. The centre in particular is fresh with the memories of a previous incident where a teenager from Afghanistan lost his refugee status when the authorities found a distant living relative and was forcibly deported, with the police arriving at six in the morning to drag him out of his bed. Overall the enforcers themselves are presented as simply doing their jobs, with Hammer stating he's never in his entire career encountered a police officer who wanted to be part of deportations, but Wisting accepts their reluctance to trust them is understandable and overall everyone admits the system fails far too often whilst the refugee's struggles are largely ignored.
-
*Years and Years*: The increasing anti-immigrant stance of the UK is presented as one of the signs of civil liberties being eroded.
- As Daniel Lyons discovers to his horror following his boyfriend Viktor, a Ukrainian refugee arrested for working at a petrol station, whilst on paper he might possess options and rights to appeal in practice all deportations happen mere hours after arrest long before any of them can be explored.
- Viktor is also an illegal immigrant only because he can't prove that he was tortured for being gay and his testimony isn't believed. He notes that this is deliberate; the regime uses electric torture to the feet because it leaves no visible marks and therefore can't be proven.
- It's also noted that anti-immigrant sentiment has spread across most of the globe, with Spain being mentioned as particularly susceptible before the worst becomes clear in Britain.
- Matters only continue to get even worse under Vivienne Rook regime whose solution to the rising immigrant and refugee crisis, is to simply ||imprison them all in secret concentration camps until they die, with the management subcontracted to private industries and at least one businessman boasting his intention to put no work into maintaining hygiene or any standards for the inmates to increase his own profits||.
- The ||detainment camps are also noted to be breeding grounds for the spread of the highly contagious and deadly strain of monkeypox, which is implied to be deliberate so it can infect and kill as many immigrants/refugees as possible. Even when the horrors of the camp have been revealed to the public, that hasn't been mitigated at all.||
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*Das Känguru-Manifest* ("The Kangaroo Manifesto"): A right-wing populist party named "Security and Responsibility" founded an Orwellian Ministry of Productivity that categorifies all foreigners into productive and unproductive. Being The Slacker, the Kangaroo is a target for that mechanism and labelled unproductive. The different public administrations the Kangaroo encounters are all overly bureaucratic, unfriendly, unhelpful, and in one chapter, straight inspired by Franz Kafka's infamous The Trial. In the last chapter, ||The Kangaroo is officially deported, but returns secretly in the next book.||
-
*A View from the Bridge*: The immigration authorities are seen this way by the Italian American community of the 1950s. When Eddie wants to stop Catherine's marriage to Rodolpho, Alfieri warns him that if he reports Rodolpho to immigration, he will be completely ostracized from the community and won't have a friend in the world.
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*Fallout 2*: Skeev, assistant custom official in Vault City, is a corrupt official selling false citizenship papers and enslaving the mentally challenged to sell them to the city. The rest of Vault City's immigration policies and enforcement aren't much better, with the city levelling huge fees from all foreign traders and being involved in slave trade. Any "Outsiders" caught within the city after curfew are imprisoned, and whilst they are permitted to live in the Court Yard (outside the city proper) it comes with a significant regular charge with them being deported for any late payments. Likewise the law is noticeably harsher upon outsiders than regular citizens, with even minor offenses netting imprisonment or even enslavement.
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*Genshin Impact*: One of the Raiden Shogun's policies is the Sakokku Decree, which prohibits any travel into or out of Inazuma. This has notably caused a lot of problems in that it has stranded some of the nation's natives outside of the border and non-natives inside for over a year. It has also indirectly destroyed Inazuma's economy via hyperinflation due to there being almost no money from importing and exporting goods and services. ||Said decree was born from Ei's misguided concept of eternity, thinking that everything had to be forever unchanging regardless of what kinds of long-term damages it would cause. She eventually abolishes it after realizing just how much harm it and her other policies have harmed Inazuma and its populace, with Ei wanting to make up for all the needless suffering she inflicted||.
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*Liberal Crime Squad*: At C+ immigration and death penalty, illegal migrants arrested by the police are summarily executed.
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*Life Is Strange 2*: The U.S. Border Patrol is depicted as being authoritarian, having constructed and finished a border wall spanning the southern United States which prevents Sean and Daniel from easily crossing. At the end of the game, ||they may arrest or kill Sean, depending on the various choices the player makes throughout the game||. There's also a notable moment when two non-police vigilantes shoot Daniel after he ||destroys part of the wall||, acting cruel and aggressive toward the brothers while detaining them.
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*Not Tonight*: Being a game made in response to Brexit, it depicts a dystopian version of Britain where a fantastically Europhobic government has risen, threatening anyone who has less than two generations of citizenship with deportation unless they make an arbitrary amount of income every month. The player character has to deal with a Dirty Cop named Jupp who's been assigned to oversee their income, who repeatedly insults and threatens them over the course of the game.
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*Papers, Please* has the player assume the role of a border patrol agent inspecting the paperwork of people trying to enter the country, a grim repressive totalitarian state. The player must decide whether to follow government protocol, often harsh and arbitrary (and regularly changing), or make their own judgment about the immigrants.
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*Kevin & Kell*: Caniche the French poodle is being pursued by M.I.C.E. agents, who refuse to accept that she's in the country legally (which, to be fair, is because Lindesfarne Un Personed her to protect her from her former employers) or that the Kindles' tree is a sanctuary area.
- There're some Porn niche studios like "Fake Border" and "Border 69" that invoke and plays with this trope, where usually girls are caught trespassing illegally, and the only way they get free by the corrupt male border officers is to let them cross to some other "borders". Even for more niche content, there're female officers that offer the same to male immigrants (or even female ones).
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*Bordertown*: Features a rare example where one of these as the protagonist, Border Patrol Agent Bud Buckwald, described as "the lowest-ranking government employee in the United States", is a bitter, jaded, selfish, spiteful, stupid man who nevertheless convinced he's a brilliant government agent and a respected member of the community (despite the entire town openly hating him), blaming all his failures and his family's loss of status on immigrants. He is so incompetent in his job that his rival El Coyote deliberately keeps him alive, to ensure he's not replaced by anyone more intelligent. His co-workers are hardly any better, being lazy jerks who are more interested in bullying Bud than doing their job; whilst his superior Steve Hermendez is an immature, smug bully who is only marginally smarter than Bud, but also far more openly corrupt, with him regularly abusing his authority to harass immigrants and torment Bud.
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*The Simpsons*:
- In "Much Apu About Nothing", Mayor Quimby creates a law project to instantly deport all illegal immigrants from Springfield if it's passed (and it does, although Apu is able to get naturalized as a citizen almost on the nick of time) to toss chaff on a $5 tax to create a Bear Patrol that made the population angry (It Makes Sense in Context). What little we see of the deportation process (on top of being a heavy case of Artistic License Law because it affects only one small town) implies that Chief Wiggum, in his customary style, rounded up all of the immigrants and placed them in an old cruise ship that heavily resembles the
*Titanic* to send them to Europe (the fact Springfield's geography changes from episode to episode raises the additional question of if the ship is actually set in the ocean and, thus, if it wouldn't be more practical to just send them to another state).
- Played for Laughs in "Midnight Rx" when the up to that point friendly and personal Canadian Border Patrol aggressively react upon mistaking Apu for a vocal Muslim (Apu had burned his tongue on Ned's coffee causing him to start ululating, so Ned wraps a towel around his head to cool him off), with multiple agents pulling guns on them. To hammer it home, the same agents behave much more reasonably and professionally when they discover the group are really smuggling prescription drugs.
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*South Park*: The agency U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are depicted in "Mexican Joker" as a bunch of over-zealous idiots blissfully ignorant of the harm they cause. They detain Kyle and his parents without trial when Cartman tells them that they're illegal immigrants, misinterpret Kyle's attempts at reasoning with them to outlandish extremes (thinking that there is a "Mexican Joker" when Kyle tried using Joker as an analogy) and doing everything *but* the right thing trying to fix it (trying to dissuade their child-prisoners from being vengeful instead of just returning them to their homes and applying pointless electroshock onto them). | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppressiveImmigrationEnforcement |
Opposed Mentors - TV Tropes
*"Two tigers can't rule the same mountain."*
Mentors are always helpful to any self respecting hero. Not only can they pass on knowledge or training, but also points of view, philosophies and even allies (or possibly enemies...). Unfortunately, sometimes The Hero is particularly talented (or maybe in the right place at the right time) and has more than one mentor trying to recruit them as a student...and they have opposing philosophies.
Opposed Mentors are an excellent opportunity for character development; the hero is given a choice between them, and the one he chooses (and whether he comes to regret it eventually) can represent what the hero is on the path to becoming (or risks becoming). Expect the mentors to alternately argue with each other by proxy as they give the hero advice (The hero may be "trapped" between them as they shout back and forth, eventually ignoring the hero all together in favour of their opinion). If one of the mentors is evil you can almost guarantee that they were once a student of the other mentor and if not, that both mentors were students of the same master (who the evil mentor no doubt betrayed, although a good mentor being a Defector from Decadence isn't unheard of).
It's also just as likely that both mentors are good but disagree on some key point. In this case it's far more likely that the hero will either remain neutral and learn from both of them or that one of them will die or turn evil. Sometimes one of the mentors is proved to be right (in which case the other mentor is likely to accept that and mend their ways or, as you might guess, turn evil). Other times the hero will, through accepting both their philosophies, surpass them both (generally by becoming a Jack of All Stats).
If the hero rejects a mentor then the spurned mentor will almost certainly take on The Rival as a student (possibly tempting them towards evil) or stick around until the hero discovers that their chosen mentor wasn't all they appeared to be.
Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand is a Sub-Trope. Other ways mentors can be opposed include, but are by no means limited to: training regimes (Wax On, Wax Off versus Training from Hell), ethics (With Great Power verses Might Makes Right), choice of techniques (Magic Versus Science or Fighter, Mage, Thief can both be a source of duality), whether talent matters (Hard Work Hardly Works and The Gift versus Taught by Experience and Training from Hell) and progress (the new ways versus the Good Old Ways). See also Dueling Messiahs, who are more concerned with doing right by the world than just one person.
## Examples;
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*Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple*:
- Kenichi once finds himself in a situation where he can choose between Hayato's and Evil Mentor Ogata's mentorship. It's very tempting for Kenichi because previously Hayato seemingly abandoned him and Ogata seems like a very friendly person. The catch is that the Trickster Mentor Hayato himself put Kenichi in this situation to test his moral priorities.
- Within Ryuzanpaku itself, this is an averted trope. Despite one student having as many as
*seven* mentors, each with their own style, there is no conflict between them. They take turns using rock/paper/scissors. Perhaps this is because they all believe in Training from Hell?
- A number of characters have these in
*Vagabond*.
- For example, the way Miyamoto Musashi approaches being a swordsman is influenced both by his father (who coveted his title of "Invincible Martial Artist" but was driven into a a paranoid, Trigger-Happy state because of it, convinced that everyone would try to kill him to claim that title for themselves... including his 12 year old son) and by mentor figures he encounters along his journey, like the practical Retired Badass monk In'ei, and philosophical Old Master Yagyu Muneyoshi, who has renounced violence in his old age.
- Musashi's great rival Sasaki Kojiro also has opposed mentors. First is his adopted father Jisai, who frantically tries to keep Kojiro away from the dangerous life of a swordsman, (despite being a skilled Old Master himself) and then there's the half crazy Blood Knight Ito Ittosai, who knows only too well how to bring out Kojiro's inner Blood Knight.
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*Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger*: For the first half of the fic, Jaune is caught between two mentors with clashing ideologies: Glynda Goodwitch (Jaune's teacher at Beacon) and Darth Nihilus (the Enigmatic Empowering Entity who gifted him with his powers). Glynda is of the belief that With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility and teaches Jaune to use his telekinesis without being fueled by his emotions. Nihilus influences Jaune to embrace all his worst impulses and to let his emotions flow through him while using the Force. At first, Jaune doesn't want to become like Nihilus and tries to follow Glynda's advice. ||After falling to the Dark Side, he chooses Nihilus and rejects everything Glynda ever taught him.||
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*A Bronx Tale* is a Subversion. The movie is about a kid called Calogero growing up under the conflicting influences of his hard-working, honest, but poor father, and the charismatic, rich and powerful, Affably Evil local mafia don Sonny. Despite their different social standings and lifestyles, both of them want the same future for him: doing well in school so he can go to college and stay out of trouble. The real difference is that Lorenzo just wants him to keep his head down and off the streets while Sonny wants to teach him street smarts so he knows how to navigate trouble and avoid it.
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*The Forbidden Kingdom* had Jackie Chan and Jet Li as the two mentors. It even provides the quote at the top of this page, "Two tigers can't rule the same mountain."
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*Good Will Hunting*: Will has Sean Maguire and Gerald Lambeau arguing about what direction he should take his life in. Lambeau is convinced that Will has a duty to use his genius-level abilities and become an academic like him, while Sean believes that he first needs to find himself and deal with his demons before he can go forward in life.
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*I ♥ Huckabees* featured philosophically opposed existential detectives (who both served as Trickster Mentors for their clients) who may or may not have actually been working together, but would never admit it.
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*The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King*: In the Extended Edition, Faramir is emotionally torn because he wants to be a dutiful son to his father Denethor, but Gandalf (whom Denethor loathes) has a strong influence on his mindset because the wizard is his former tutor. Gandalf approves of Faramir's decision to release Frodo and Sam from his custody, whereas Denethor is *furious* that he let them go, and angrily accuses Faramir of being a "wizard's pupil." When Denethor orders him to go on a suicide mission, Faramir chooses to obey his father in a desperate attempt to win the latter's respect despite Gandalf's plea that he shouldn't throw his life away needlessly.
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*Platoon*: Wide-Eyed Idealist Chris is torn between two Sergeants about how he should conduct himself in Vietnam. As his closing monologue goes *" The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days. As I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called "possession of my soul"*.
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*Ride the High Country*: Steve Judd and Gil Westrum spend much of the movie contesting with each other for the loyalty of their mutual protege, Heck Longtree; Judd wants him to stay honest and reliable, while Westrum hopes to enlist him in his plot to steal the gold.
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*Star Wars*: Anakin Skywalker has to choose between following: Obi-Wan Kenobi — representing both Jedi tradition and authority, and general goodness — and Palpatine — representing an apparent sensible opposition to Jedi strictness really hiding lust for power and temptation to evil. For a long time, as Palpatine hides his evil and lets Anakin stew in his own dissatisfaction rather than openly encouraging rebellion against Obi-Wan, he doesn't even realize there's a clear opposition. Eventually, he chooses Palpatine and turns to the Dark Side.
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*The Karate Kid Part III*: Terry Silver plays his way into Daniel LaRusso's life with the intention of manipulating him into leaving Mr. Miyagi, then setting him up for a humiliating loss to Mike Barnes in the All-Valley Tournament to reassert Cobra Kai's superiority and humiliate Daniel and Mr. Miyagi as payback for costing John Kreese his reputation.
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*X2: X-Men United*: Pyro has the choice between Xavier or Magneto, and he eventually sides with the latter, which leads to his FaceHeel Turn.
- An evil example is in the C. S. Lewis novel
*That Hideous Strength*, where the two chief villains disagree on the best way to dehumanize their initiate/captive.
- A classic example is
*Candide*, in which the title character falls under the influence of Pangloss and Martin, who are at opposite ends of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism.
- In the
*Warrior Cats* novel *Crookedstar's Promise*, the titular character is taught by his real mentor, Cedarpelt, but, unknown to other cats, he also is trained in his dreams by the deceased warrior Mapleshade. Mapleshade focuses more on combat skills, while Cedarpelt tries to explain that being a warrior is about more than just being a good fighter. Even their advice on battle moves differs, though that can be explained by the fact that ||Mapleshade came from another Clan||.
- In
*Life of Pi* the title character has two mentors, both named Mr. Kumar: the first is an uneducated but devout Muslim shopkeeper while the other is Pi's intelligent, atheistic science teacher. Despite their antithetical worldviews they actually get along well the one time they happen to meet each other, and Pi, whose two main interests are religion and animals, doesn't seem to feel conflicted between them.
- In
*Atlas Shrugged*, science professor Robert Stadler and philosophy professor Hugh Akston competed for college students John Galt, Ragnar Danneskjold, and Francisco d'Anconia. The latter won and later joined their movement, while the former went on to become a government sell-out.
- In
*Good Omens*, Heaven and Hell both send hand-picked childhood influences (a nanny, a gardener, two teachers) to the home of the boy they think is The Antichrist. It's the wrong boy. It's also intentional; Crowley and Aziraphale are secretly in cahoots to make sure the final "score" is a tie.
- In
*The Dresden Files*, after Harry ||temporarily dies||, Lea takes over his responsibility as Molly's mentor. Her more violent training clashes strongly with Harry's methods, and is much more painful for the student...but it's more effective at teaching her how to fight, as Harry concedes.
- In
*The Witchlands*, Aeduen is pulled from both sides by Ragnor's and Evraine's teachings. The former argues that Aeduen should concede to being a demon and embrace his nature, whereas Evraine believes that he's more human that he wants to admit and should help the newly-manifested Cahr Awen.
- In
*Scrubs* Dr. Kelso and Dr. Cox have this dynamic for the first few episodes, with both being presented as possible mentors to JD. With Dr. Kelso being concerned with money (arguing that if the hospital doesn't make a profit, it'll close) and Dr. Cox arguing that the patient should come first. JD chooses Cox, earning him Kelso's contempt (although later episodes show Kelso in a better light). They recycled this plot a few times;
- One episode had JD
*think* that Cox and a Private Practice Doctor were warring mentors to him, but really it was about the PPD having slept with Jordan back when *he* was Cox's protege.
- When JD moved up to attending in the middle of the series they replayed the Cox vs Kelso only this time with Cox taking Kelso's part and JD taking Cox's part with some of the new interns being the ones caught in the middle.
- In the last season, after the Retool, Drew was subject to the warring between Denise and Cox (although given he was in a relationship with Denise it was as much about the sexual relationship as much as the mentorship).
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*Xena: Warrior Princess*: In Xena's backstory, the evil shamaness Alti is pitted against Cyane, the noble Queen of the Amazons. They even have a mental struggle with Xena literally between them. Cyane wins, but Xena ||chooses Alti, and kills Cyane and the other leaders of the northern Amazons, helping Alti to trap their souls and prevent them from crossing over. Xena eventually sets things right.|| Alti is also pitted against Lao Ma, though they never directly argue over Xena.
**Alti**: "Your friend you told me about, Lao Ma, her powers come from denial, from self-sacrifice, from the light. Thats not for people like you and me. I wanna tap into the heart of darkness - the sheer, naked will behind all craving, hatred, and violence. Ill become the face of death itself - capable of destroying not only a persons body, but their soul. Help me, and Ill make you Destroyer of Nations.
- An episode of
*Parks and Recreation* sees Ron and Chris clash over the best way to train April to be a manager. They get competitive, and have a wager over whose method can get the most productivity out of Jerry in the course of a workday. In the end, they discover that ||April set the two of them against each other so she could blow off the management training||, and see this as a sign that she's going to be fine on her own.
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*Justified*: After her father's "disappearance" in Season 2, Raylan Givens and Mags Bennett both take an interest in Loretta's future, with Raylan attempting to extract her from the criminal underworld, while Mags leads her further into it. Loretta eventually sides with Raylan once his cold war with the Bennetts turns hot, but as future seasons show, Mags is the one whose influence has ultimately lasted, even if she ultimately still has a soft spot for Raylan.
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*Cobra Kai*:
- Johnny Lawrence reopens Cobra Kai with the intention of teaching bullied nerds how to stand up for themselves. His success at turning the dojo around draws the attention of his old sensei John Kreese. It's clear that Kreese and Johnny have different ideas of what's best for their students, with Kreese wanting to teach the old ways of Cobra Kai that Johnny now realizes as wrong. Eventually, this conflict ends in Kreese taking over Cobra Kai completely and turning it into the Thug Dojo it was in the 1980s, and Johnny starting his own dojo, Eagle Fang, to teach his version of karate. Their conflict trickles down to their students, as Miguel stays loyal to Johnny the whole time in season 2 while Hawk and Tory are loyal to Kreese.
- Kreese is also one when it comes to Johnny's son Robby Keene. He doesn't like that Robby is being trained by Daniel LaRusso, and in season 3, manages to manipulate Robby into pushing away his dad and Daniel and coming to train at Cobra Kai.
- A lot of the conflict between Johnny and Daniel can be described as this, given that there are areas where they both have the same idea in mind, but different ways of going about it, with Robby being one of these subjects.
- Chris Hero and Dave Prazak, two of the trainers of Nadia Nyce, got into a feud with her in the middle during their shared time in IWA Mid-South. Nyce ended up siding with Hero, who (at the time) had her best interests in mind.
- Triple H and William Regal regarding Eugene Dinsmore on Monday Night Raw. This is a case of two evil mentors, as Regal is a self described "Dirty Rotten Scoundrel, With Hate In His Heart!" but Eugene is Regal's Morality Pet, Triple H saw Eugene as a tool to win him the World Heavyweight Championship.
- In SHINE, one of the primary reasons behind the formation of Daffney's All Star Squad was Valkyrie, and one of Daffney's first recruits was Solo Darling, who was trained by Valkyrie's odd member out, Ivelisse Vélez.
-
*Avatar: The Last Airbender*
- Katara and Toph have
*very* different opinions on how Aang should be trained. Katara, his waterbending teacher goes for the soft, encouraging, positive attitude, while Toph, his earthbending teacher, prefers the rougher, blunter, drill sergeant style. Both are completely correct in their different approaches (because bending different elements requires different mindsets), but this personality clash culminates in a joint training lesson turning into an interesting Mud Wrestling scene between the two.
- Zuko had the dueling influences of his father, a power-mad warlord attempting to raise his son to follow in his footsteps (or get him killed so his sister could do so, whatever) and his uncle, a wise Atoner/Defector from Decadence who wanted his nephew to pursue peace on taking the throne.
-
*American Dad!* played with this. Stan and Francine wanted to raise Steve different ways. But when they settle the disagreement with a bet (which Francine wins), Stan clones their son to prove his parenting method is better by raising Steve-O his way. It turned out neither one alone worked, both versions of Steve quickly turn out terrible (the original is disgustingly lazy and entitled and the clone turns into a total psycho who tortures animals and tries to Kill and Replace the original to claim the easy life for himself)
- In a gag on
*The Simpsons* Lisa makes a square on a family heirloom patchwork quilt honoring her two musical mentors:
Look Mom, I've finished my patch. It depicts the two greatest musical influences in my life. On the left is Mr. Largo, my music teacher at school? He taught me that even the noblest concerto can be drained of its beauty and soul. And on the right is Bleeding Gums Murphy. He taught me that music is a fire in your belly that comes out of your mouth, so you better stick an instrument in front of it.
- In
*El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera* Manny had his dad, the hero White Pandera, and his grandfather, the villain Puma Loco.
-
*The Legend of Korra*: In season two Korra ends up with two mentors. The Chief of the Northern Water Tribe who is also her uncle, Unalaq. And the Airbending master Tenzin, the son of her previous incarnation. Unalaq wants to teach her how to understand and heal the new corrupted spirits ||which he is responsible for twisting.|| While Tenzin has his doubts about Unalaq's intentions and wants her to work with himself. In the end Korra rejects ||Unalaq|| but goes along with part of his goal.
- In
*Star Wars Rebels*, Ezra Bridger has been Kanan's Padawan for about a year when Clone Captain Rex joins the squad. Rex starts giving Ezra advice that, while valid and useful, doesn't always gel with Kanan's teachings re Jedi philosophy. (It doesn't help that Rex is a clone, meaning that Kanan distrusts him on principle because of Order 66.) At one point, Ezra gets tired of their arguments and tells them both off; shortly thereafter, both mentors learn how to actually work together and become Fire-Forged Friends.
-
*Steven Universe*: This often comes up when Pearl and Amethyst are trying to tutor Steven. Pearl seems to be more of a rigid motherly-figure to Steven while Amethyst is a more irresponsible but more fun Cool Big Sis. Ultimately Downplayed as the two will always defer to Garnet's judgement anytime she intervenes. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpposedMentors |
Opposite-Sex Clone - TV Tropes
*"I'M TOO YOUNG AND TOO MALE TO BE THE MOTHER OF A SEVENTEEN YEAR-OLD FEMALE ME!"*
While clones and most other sorts of sci-fi duplicates are identical to the original character and, by definition, the same sex, exceptions do exist. The idea dates at least from
*Nine Lives* by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969), where recognized geniuses are routinely cloned in large mixed-sex groups and *Time Enough for Love* by Robert Heinlein (1973), where the opposite sex clones become sexual partners of the original. Nowadays the trope is more often used as a quick way of producing a Distaff Counterpart rather than for titillation. Merely being of the opposite sex of his or her original greatly increases the chance of the clone surviving the denouement and showing up in a future story. This way writers can invoke the First Law of Gender Bending without sacrificing an original-sex character they've grown fond of.
Biologically, this is somewhat plausible for male-to-female cloning, because a male has an X-chromosome that can be doubled to produce a female clone, as in Garrett's poem and Heinlein's novel.
note : Strictly speaking, you don't even need the second X chromosome, though omitting it is a good way to kill 99% of your fetuses and give the surviving 1% Turner syndrome. Alternatively, the SRY gene, which causes maleness, can be removed from the Y chromosome. For female-to-male cloning, the Y chromosome would have to come from another subject, preferably a paternal relative and most ideally the father, as if the original subject were a male, she would have had a Y chromosome virtually identical to her father's. Nevertheless, this would technically not be a pure clone. A Y chromosome could be formed from one of the X-chromosomes, which would require absurd amounts of genetic engineering and amount to simple fiat anyway. Alternatively, the SRY gene can be implanted in one of the X chromosomes to create a sterile clone that appears male. Somewhat fittingly when given the above, the majority of these characters are female.
If the Opposite-Sex Clone retains the memories and personality of the original this is effectively a Gender Bender, at least from the perspective of the clone.
See Cloning Blues. Subtrope of Modified Clone. Compare Distaff Counterpart, Half-Identical Twins and Screw Yourself. See also Trans Audience Interpretation, as that is a common fan explanation as to why this trope occurs.
## Examples:
- In
*Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS*, Uno of the Numbers Cyborgs was revealed in the Sound Stages to have been created by Jail through cloning, using his own genetic material.
-
*Ranma ½*:
- After accidentally looking into an enchanted mirror, Ranma creates a copy of his female self. She is, of course, infatuated with him. In the end, he accidentally copies his male self and the two copies fall for each other.
- In an anime episode, Happosai attempts to split Ranma into male and female forms for his own selfish reasons. However, he misses the fact that, A: Ranma despises him and would never obey him no matter the form, and B: the incense he uses is called Personality Splitter. The result is an Enemy Without situation, as the Clone is a vampiric ghost-like entity that is the living embodiment of Ranma's evil.
- The title character of
*Battle Angel Alita: Last Order* and several others are cyborg clones of the same woman. Sechs was original female, but decides to alter their body to be male.
- The female Nemu is the clone of the male Mayuri Kurotsuchi in
*Bleach*. It's more apparent when Mayuri doesn't have his make-up on.
- In the
*Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko* TV series, Yohko's male clone, Yousuke appears. ||He turns out to be female and in disguise, but then actually becomes male later.||
-
*Getter Robo Armaggedon*: ||the pilot Go|| is a male Artificial Human made from the DNA of ||Dr. Saotome's deceased daughter Michiru||.
- In the hentai manga
*Alice's Adventures in Sexland*, obviously an erotic retelling of Lewis Carroll's book, there is a furniture maker whose furniture is special because it will spring to life and play with the user. Her "masterpiece" is a mirror, which sprung a magical clone of Alice, because, as the creator says, *Who knows best what you like and what you need, if not yourself*. Only it wasn't an exact clone. She does state, however, that the mirror would have given a perfect clone if that was what Alice had wanted.
- The former trope picture is from the artist Pisipisi and is of a series of drawings where a perverted Mad Scientist college student clones the girl he's stalking — but puts his own mind in the clone instead of her's. Of course, then "she" wakes up, realizes that "she" now has a horny pervert expecting "her" to be a personal sex toy for him and his friends, and is less than enthused about the idea. Then she discovers that his male mind has no defense against female erogenous zones... Unfortunately, Pisipisi banned all American visitors to his website years ago due to harassment, and (possibly due to rumors of "Pisipisi" being the pen name of professional artist Saiwase Okiba) frequently goes months or years without updates.
- Keith Violet of
*Project ARMS*, the one female amongst the many clones of Keith.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh!*, it isn't a clone exactly, but the digital copy of Mokuba Kaiba that Seto Kaiba creates in a video game is *Princess* Adina. It makes a bit more sense in the Japanese version, where the Big 5 programmed the female Mokuba rather than Kaiba.
- The Innovators in
*Mobile Suit Gundam 00*. They are all technically genderless but come in pairs; out of the four pairs only one has both members having adopted a persona of the same gender (both male), so each of the other six Innovators has their own opposite sex clone of sorts.
- One of Naruto's techniques involves either transforming into and occasionally summoning several more, scantily clad female versions of himself. And by "scantily clad", we mean "clothed in convenient smoke".
-
*Darker than Black* Gemini of the Meteor reveals that ||Suou is an opposite-sex clone that Shion created of himself to pass as his twin sister complete with Fake Memories. The real Suou died during an unrelated assassination attempt||.
-
*Knights of Sidonia*: Norio Kunato's "sister" Mozuku is in fact a clone of himself, but altered to be female. She takes care of all of Norio's responsibilities as head of the Kunato family while he devotes his time to piloting, and is mostly just seen as an extension of Norio himself.
-
*Ayakashi Triangle*: About half a year after Matsuri was turned from a boy into a girl, exposure to The Corruption somehow resulted in both a male and female Matsuri, each with all of Matsuri's previous memories and personality. Because only the girl has the mark of the initial transformation, it's judged most likely the spell was turned into an ayakashi with a copy of Matsuri's mind, turning the original back into a boy. However, it's entirely possible the boy is a clone, and thus an inversion.
- After Fantomex of the Uncanny X-force died, he was going to get a cloned body to come back with. However, he has three different brains and each brain received its own cloned body. The nicest brain got a female body called Cluster.
- Spider-Woman (who later went by Black Widow), in
*Ultimate Spider-Man*. Ultimate Spider-Woman is a clone of Peter Parker, with all of his memories and personality traits - except she's considerably more abrasive, especially to Miles. (They were going to blank her memory and give her an entirely new made-up personality and set of memories, but didn't get around to it before wackiness ensued.)
- X-23 is an Opposite-Sex Clone of Wolverine, developed by Dr. Sarah Kinney as a solution to not being able to recreate a Y chromosome from a sample of Wolverine's DNA. So instead, she doubled the X chromosome.
- Also in Marvel, The Collector (whose hobby with species is exactly what his name suggests) captured both Howard the Duck and Rocket Raccoon, and proceeded to create female clones of both, named Linda and Shocket, respectively...for a breeding program. Both managed to survive and become their own individuals. (Incidentally, this suggests the Collector isn't as good at his job as he seems, since while there are only one of Howard's species in their universe, there
*is* a female Halfworlder raccoon out there named Captain Sale.)
- Used in a
*classic* *Supergirl* comic where a criminal tries to clone Supergirl in order to use her twin to commit crimes. The (male) twin ends up committing suicide due to an Ethical Conflict between what his criminal creator has told him to do and what his twin wants him to do.
- In
*Spider-Gwen*, The Falcon is the teenage, male clone of Captain America, who is a black woman named Samantha Wilson in this continuity.
- One
*Judge Dredd* story set during a flashback to Chaos Day portrayed a group of cadets trying to survive. One of them is stated to be a Dredd clone. Falcone is the obvious, but wrong, candidate. Turns out the clone is female. ||And pregnant.||
- In
*DC Comics Bombshells*, ||Superman|| is an opposite-sex clone of ||Supergirl||, created by ||Hugo Strange||. He also created a same-sex clone, who is that continuity's ||Power Girl||.
-
*Wonder Woman (1987)*: Kreel biology means that attempting to clone a man may result in a female infant, as is the case for ||the Emperor||.
-
*X-Cellent* introduces Phatty, a female clone of Phat, one of the dead members of *X-Statix*.
-
*Legion of X*: ||Mother Righteous is revealed to be the Sinister of the hearts suit, making her a female clone of the original (male) Nathaniel Essex. Given her expertise in magic, stark white hair, and red skin that her concept art describes as metallic (plus the original Esssex's chauvinism), it's probable she was created male and mystically transformed to be female.||
-
*Naruto* fanfictions happen to do this a lot to the main character, due to his Opposite Sex Clone actually being real. This is strengthened in the fact that it's not really a clone, but a disguise that quite literally changes Naruto into a girl. He can do this to his clones making literal Opposite Sex Clones.
-
*Kid Icarus Uprising 2: Hades Revenge* has the main character, Cloud Angle, create one, named Azul. Her first scene involves her and Cloud as a plan to avoid becoming virgin sacrifices.
-
*The Bridge*: As a visual gag. Changelings can only mimic ponies of the same sex, so when a female one tries to mimic the transformed kaiju-to-unicorn Godzilla Junior the result is a female version of Junior.
-
*Hero: The Guardian Smurf*: Wonder Smurfette is one of the series' main protagonist Hero Smurf, who was created with the magical Mirror of Opposition when lightning struck it, thus creating a second adult female Smurf in the village besides Smurfette.
-
*Sunsplit Saga*: Basically the core idea of the saga, and a First-Episode Twist, ||Sunset Shimmer|| is ||Sunburst||'s magical construct clone, whom he made to take on a date.
-
*Logan*: Laura was created from samples of Wolverine's blood, doubling the X-chromosome.
-
*BattleTech* Expanded Universe: The Clans are a race of supermen and women that are mass-produced in batches from the DNA of their greatest warriors. During their childhood, all the clones engage in casual sex with each other to build bonds. This sometimes continues into adulthood, such as the Pryde siblings from the novel *Legend of the Jade Phoenix* and the Hazen siblings from the *Mechwarrior: The Dark Age* novels; both from Clan Jade Falcon. Maeve Wolf, of the Wolf's Dragoons, is secretly a sex-swapped clone of Jaime Wolf.
-
*Biting the Sun*: The heroine goes male so as to be able to produce sperm which s/he stores, then uses (once she switches back to female) to impregnate herself. It doesn't end up that well...
- In "A Clone At Last", a short story by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg, a man commissions a female clone of himself because he has no luck with women.
-
*Dune*:
-
*God-Emperor of Dune*: Leto is introduced to Hwi Noree, the new Ixian Ambassador, who turns out to be ||an Opposite Sex Clone of the previous ambassador, genetically tweaked to be irresistible to the inhuman Leto||.
-
*Dune Encyclopedia* provides a history of all of Leto II's Duncan Idaho gholas, it includes that the Tleilaxu once provided a female Duncan Idaho ghola in a similar ploy to what the Ixians attempted with Hwi.
-
*Forges of Mars*: The scientist Linya Tychon is a female clone of her father Vitali Tychon. Hed intended her to be male like himself, but an error in the creation process altered her sex.
-
*Genome*: In *Dances on the Snow*, a genius geneticist named Edward Garlitski manages to create a female clone of himself named Ada Snezhinskaya. She shares his ambition and a vision of a world where genetic engineering is the norm. However, they have different ideas on how to achieve this goal. He chooses to work within the system by perfecting genetic engineering (in another book he is hailed as the father of genetic engineering). She decides that the entire society needs to be remade through political means. She creates hundreds of clones of herself and Edward and sends them out throughout The Empire to be adopted by unsuspecting parents. She then plots a rebellion, which would result in her ruling with her clones. Her plan fails but Garlitski's succeeds.
- In
*House of Suns*, by Alastair Reynolds, the various posthuman clone houses, such as Gentian Line, consist of male and female clones of a single individual.
-
*InterWorld*: Joseph Harker, after accidentally traveling between dimensions for the first time, realizes that he has been replaced in this dimension by Josephine Harker, an almost-exact female copy of himself.
-
*Nine Lives* by Ursula K. Le Guin: From 1968, it's possibly the oldest example in modern SF. Earth is in a sorry state, most people suffer from inborn defects. To remedy the situation, the best people are cloned. Usually, the donors are male, since it allows to easily clone both sexes, and mixed-sex groups of clones are proven to function better. note : Women are sterile, which means even the second X chromosome wasn't added. No other symptoms of Turner syndrome are mentioned. Or maybe they are present, but don't stand out against the background of other sick people. The story explores the reaction of normal humans who have to work with a "ten-clone" created from a genius who died young. ||And then how the sole survivor reacts to the death of his 9 siblings.|| Among other things it's mentioned that clones routinely share sleeping bags and sex seems just as natural for them as breathing. ||An observer wonders if it's sex or masturbation.||
-
*Otherland*: The Corrupt Corporate Executive Felix Jongleur's daughter is a clone of himself. ||She's actually a byproduct one of his early attempts to make himself immortal. The idea was to have a clone of himself implanted in a surrogate mother. Of course, the child would need a similar upbringing to his own to produce an effective copy. To this end, Jongleur wanted the surrogate mother to be like his own mother. Unfortunately, he couldn't bring himself to unearth her body... so instead, he made an Opposite-Sex Clone of himself. That's right: he intended to impregnate an opposite-sex version of himself... with himself. Very Squick. Fortunately, the project never went beyond the initial stages because a far more appealing (yet no less unethical) option presented itself, so Jongleur adopted the Opposite Sex Clone for his daughter.||
- After being murdered several times, the protagonist of
*The Phantom Of Kansas* eventually ||hooks up with her murderer (an illegal clone of herself that has undergone a sex-change) and buys a spaceship to head out for the most remote settlement in the solar system||.
- In James Patrick Kelly's story "Solstice," one of the main characters has himself cloned as a woman. ||Later he turns it into Screw Yourself. He eventually has a moral epiphany and is filled with guilt, both about the incest and his selfishness in cloning himself.||
- The
*Stardoc* series has for a main character Cherijo Grey Veil, who is introduced as the daughter of renowned geneticist Dr. Joseph Grey Veil. ||Later in the series, we discover not only is she a female clone of the good doctor, she was created as a wife for him. Basically, he was such an egomaniac that he felt only his Distaff Counterpart would be a worthy mate. And he was willing to get laws passed declaring her a non-person in order to make sure *she* had no say in the matter.||
- The character of Lazarus Long in Robert A. Heinlein's book
*Time Enough for Love* is the world's oldest living human. At the beginning of the book, he is trying to kill himself by avoiding "rejuvenation therapy", and a squad of his descendants rescues him. He makes a deal with them: he will go through rejuvenation therapy if they can unearth one experience he could do that he hadn't done already. Two of his female descendants arrange for Opposite Sex Clones of him to be implanted in them; both are born, and he finds himself raising twin female versions of himself.
- Lois McMaster Bujold's
*Vorkosigan Saga*:
- Not quite the same, but it's stated in various novels that opposite-sex clones are possible, and that the corrupt rich people who choose to have their brains transferred into a younger clone sometimes pick this option (with optional plastic surgery beforehand, to make sure it's a
*pretty* clone).
- It's implied in
*Mirror Dance* that some people order clones of themselves chiefly for the purposes of sexual experimentation, although the opposite-sex option isn't brought up at that point. It's also stated outright that the mass-produced Durona Group are of both sexes, although there seem to be more females than males. (The original is a woman.)
- In
*A Civil Campaign*, Lady Donna Vorrutyer becomes Lord Dono thanks to a cloned set of male anatomy. The missing Y chromosome was supplied by her dead brother. ||Ivan gets really squicked by all this because he had previously had an affair with Lady Donna.||
-
*Doctor Who*: In "The Doctor's Daughter", a female Truly Single Parent-offspring is made of the Tenth Doctor. She's a genetic duplicate made of a tissue sample, entirely against his will. The relationship between them is presented as father/daughter throughout, as she was created from splitting his chromosomes then randomly recombining them like sexual reproduction, but him being both parents. The Doctor calls her a "generated anomaly". Donna shortens that to "Jenny". note : The actress that played Jenny is the daughter of the actor who played the Fifth Doctor, and later married the actor who played the Tenth Doctor. So she's now a Doctor's daughter who played the Doctor's daughter and then had the Doctor's daughter. Gallifreyan DNA is weird.
-
*Orphan Black* focuses on several clone characters played by Tatiana Maslany. One of them, introduced in Episode 8 of Season 2, is a trans man named Tony (formerly Antoinette). ||In Season 3, the focus is on Project CASTOR, which involves a series of male clones that are genetic siblings to the female clones. In fact, both lines come from a single donor, who happens to be a genetic chimera, having absorbed her male twin brother in the womb and thus has two sets of DNA.||
-
*Red Dwarf*:
- "Parallel Universe" has opposite-sex versions of the whole crew, where Rimmer's female double (Alternate Universe rather than cloned) comes on to him in a spectacularly unsubtle way, and where Lister proceeds to
*sleep with and get pregnant by his female counterpart*. This episode also features an obvious joke:
**Arlene Rimmer:** *[to Lister]* What could possibly have made you contemplate... making love to yourself? **Arnold Rimmer:** Well, why break a habit of a lifetime?
- "Rimmerworld" has Rimmer try to go the pervy route with this when he winds up stranded on an unoccupied planet. He screws up the cloning, though... several times. Even when he gets it "right", the clone still has his (male) face, but by that time, he's a prisoner of his own male clones and thus has bigger problems...
**Rimmer:** Technically, she would be my sister, and therefore unable to take me as her lover. After much soul searching, I reluctantly decided, "What the hell", I just wouldn't tell her.
-
*Sliders*:
- An episode has Quinn meet Logan, his Distaff Counterpart. Turns she actually
*is* him—in this universe Quinn was born a girl. ||She's also an Evil Twin.||
- In another episode Quinn is on a talk show and mentions meeting Logan, and of course the host immediately asks if he slept with her. They did kiss, though for his part Quinn was unaware of the connection at the time.
- It's interesting that Logan found out that Quinn is her double via a "thermal scan", basically, an advanced biometric system that maps each person's unique "heat signature". The Fridge Logic comes from a man and a woman having the same heat signature, even if they do share the same parents.
-
*Star Trek: The Next Generation*: When a non-corporeal entity impregnates Troi in "The Child", the baby is half-Betazoid and half-human, just like its mother in every way, except male.
- In many Mesoamerican and Southwestern Native American cultures, the gods often come in male-female pairs. Whether they're intended to be different aspects of the same god, brother and sister, husband and wife, or this trope is not always clear.
- In The Bible, it is said that Eve was created out of Adam's rib, making her for all intents and purposes one of these.
-
*BattleTech* General Maeve Wolf of Wolf's Dragoons is a female clone of founder Jaime Wolf. Rumors had it she was his illegitimate daughter even though public records claimed her as one of the war orphans the company took in while their own records had her as one of their Trueborn warrior of such mixed heritage that she refused a proper Bloodname.
-
*Traveller*: Archduke Norris Aella Aledon never married, but needed an heir, so he had a daughter (Seldrian Aledon) created. Cloning to have children happens so often, there is a term specifically for clone offspring (especially ones created to provide an heir for nobles): "true-son" or "true-daughter".
- In
*BioShock Infinite*, ||it turns out that Robert Lutece is not Rosalind's twin brother, but rather an opposite-sex version of her from an alternate universe||.
- The
*Crusader Kings II* mod *Crisis of the Confederation*, being a space opera mod, includes cloning as a possibility. Males cloning themselves can choose whether the clone will be male or female (females can only make female clones, though).
- The female version of Alex in
*Deus Ex: Invisible War* is a clone of Paul Denton.
- In
*Drakengard 3*, each of the Intoners has their own Disciple to serve them as a companion, bodyguard, and to sate their ramped-up sexual needs. Instead of a normal Disciple, One somehow spontaneously created a male clone of herself, who she keeps hidden from the other Intoners as a secret weapon against Zero. He only appears in the main story at the very end of Branch A, as a Diabolus ex Machina who backstabs Zero out of nowhere, but he co-stars in One's DLC missions, turns out to be the founder of the Cult of the Watchers that features so prominently in *Drakengard*, and is the main character of the *Drakengard 3* spinoff manga. And yes, One used her brother to meet her sexual needs as well - she at least felt guilty and conflicted about it, he didn't see what the problem was. And no, he isn't given a name beyond One's Brother, and in Route A's epilogue is able to pass himself off as One to take her place.
- In
*The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind*, Divayth Fyr (a very powerful, very old wizard), made four female clones of himself: Alfe, Beyte, Delte, and Uupse. They're variously described as wives or daughters. Surprisingly this isn't particularly played for Squick... at least within his tower.
-
*Endless Space* has the Horatio faction, an array of clones of ultra-rich Horatio the First. Some of them are female, because Horatio got bored with just his male clones.
-
*The King of Fighters* series has Kula Diamond, one of the many clones of Kyo Kusanagi. In addition to the sex flip, Kyo's powers over fire became Kula's powers over *ice*.
- The series can be inconsistent about "clones," sometimes using the term to describe unrelated people who have just been altered to be like someone else, and not clones in the normal sense. This makes Kula's status as a clone unclear.
- Kula did say in her storyline in
*KOF 2001* that she was "grown from a petri dish" (at least in the English version, anyway), which would make her fall squarely into this trope.
- However, Kula's bio in
*Maximum Impact 2* hints that she's a clone in the "genetic manipulation" sense (i.e. a normal girl surgically implanted with Kusanagi DNA, much like K' and Nameless). While the *MI* series *is* an Alternate Continuity, most of the characters' backstories seem to be unchanged, so...
- In
*Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days*, ||Xion is a clone of Sora literally made out of memories.|| It's played with a bit, as what you see while looking at them varies from person to person (such as Xigbar seeing her as Ventus), but the Shapeshifter Default Form is ||Kairi with black hair.||
- In
*Mass Effect 2*, Miranda Lawson is genetically engineered using her biological "father's" modified genome to be perfect. Unsurprisingly she has some pretty severe daddy issues resulting from what she perceives as her father's egotistical arrogance. Ultimately by the end of *2* and in *3*, they turn out to be two *VERY* different people, with Henry Lawson turning out to be even worse than Miranda described and Miranda showing herself to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, with the Jerk part eventually being shed.
- By the time of
*Mega Man Zero*, the four Guardians were created from Mega Man X's DNA. One of these Guardians is the obviously female Fairy Leviathan.
-
*Nintendo Wars*: Caulder/Stolos from *Advance Wars: Days of Ruin* has his 'daughters', Opposite Sex Clones of himself. They don't look that much like each other, so he appears to have fussed about with their genetics a little (which could explain their different eye colors). He does have a male clone as well, Cyrus, but he plays little part in the story.
- In
*The Sims 2*, a cheat can be used to impregnate a Sim by him/herself. Doing this will produce offspring that is a clone of the parent, but it will always be of the opposite sex. Notably, the child Brandi Broke is pregnant with when first played is such a clone, and isn't genetically related to his supposed father at all.
- In the
*Street Fighter* series, Cammy is a female clone of M. Bison (Vega in Japan, or simply "Dictator" in international discussions), meant to serve as one of numerous backup vessels for him due to the inevitable Psycho Power-induced burnout of his body. Also a case of mix and match girl, given how she's basically an identical clone of the kidnapped Russian girl named Decapre, with some Bison thrown in for maximum Psycho Power containing capability.
-
*Super Robot Wars*:
- Ingram Prisken and Viletta Vadim were the male and female options for the protagonist of
*Super Hero Sakusen*. The *Alpha* and *Original Generation* games re-envision them as this trope, with Viletta being a female clone of Ingram who wouldn't be subjected to the same mind control that he was under.
- Kazuma Ardygun has a female clone named Aria Advance. Unlike most examples, she's not a
*genetic* clone, but rather a digital being based off Kazuma's data.
- In
*Xenosaga* URTV #668, named Citrine is the opposite sex clone of Dimitri Yuriev, as were all of the female variant URTVs.
-
*Fate Series*: A weird one. In real life Arthurian legend, Mordred is the illegitimate son of King Arthur, made through the intervention of Morgan le Fey (exactly what she did varies depending on the legend). In *Fate/stay night*, one of the first major reveals is that ||King Arthur is actually female||. Many fans assumed that Mordred would therefore be an Opposite-Sex Clone. In *Fate/Apocrypha*, we find out that Mordred is indeed an Opposite-Sex Clone... except ||she's still female. Specifically, Artoria was temporarily transformed into a pseudo-male by Merlin, and Artoria's sister Morgan le Fey used the opportunity to get a DNA sample. She then used that to grow a homunculus of the opposite gender, meaning Mordred came out female||. Word of God explained some of this before *Apocrypha* came out.
- Arcueid of
*Tsukihime* is more or less a female clone of Crimson Moon Brunestud, the Ultimate Life Form of the Moon and the original template of all Nasuverse vampires. She wasn't intentionally created as such, but as the most powerful True Ancestor to have ever existed, she is, per Nasuverse logic (that copies are always inferior to their originals), the closest it gets to a being a carbon copy of the original vampire, Crimson Moon (who was a guy).
-
*Majikoi! Love Me Seriously!* has Yoshitsune and Benkei, as per their namesakes, are the female clones of the famous historical figures. Seiso is likely this as well, though it's not yet revealed who she's a clone of.
-
*El Goonish Shive* had protagonist Elliot using an ancient magical artifact to try to undo a Magitek Gender Bender, inadvertently creating Ellen in the process. She was "born" with a perfect copy of Elliot's memories and personality (though she says the memories feel more like stuff she learned, rather than experiences), but her initial Cloning Blues and subsequent (successful) attempts to establish her own identity led to Divergent Character Evolution, so she isn't a simple Distaff Counterpart. People calling her a clone (before getting to know her) is a *huge* Berserk Button. More than a few scenes make it clear that the classic sex partner idea seriously squicks both of them, since they *genuinely* care about each other like any two siblings would. Elliot in particular has gone on record saying that his *first thought* when he saw Ellen mid-freakout was "She's family, help her.". Furthermore, since Ellen was split off by the Dewitchery Diamond, Elliot can be considered Ellen's father and (since this is *El Goonish Shive* and a Gender Bender was inevitably involved) her *mother* as well. Unfortunately, all of this (plus Elliot's Chronic Hero Syndrome and Ellen's initial Cloning Blues) causes him to treat her like a *little* sister, which tends to annoy her no end.
- This potentially may get even more complicated, now that ||Magus (a Alternate Universe version of Ellen who had used Gender Bender magic in his home world
note : while he excuses this on some rather sketchy logic about physical strength, the evidence seems to point to this Ellen being Transgender, hence the switch before getting trapped in the EGS universe in a ghost-like state) is now walking around in a a *male* Dewitchery Diamond duplicate of Elliot's body. For now, Magus is avoiding the other two, but it is likely that he will re-appear eventually.||
- The community-driven interactive fiction
*MS Paint Adventures*: *Problem Sleuth* introduces a trio of detectives: Problem Sleuth, Ace Dick, and Pickle Inspector ("pickle" in this context is meant to connote "problem"), who, through spirit quests, are psychically linked with female counterparts of themselves, whom they eventually meet in person and are instantly attracted to. Problem Sleuth gets Hysterical Dame, Pickle Inspector gets Nervous Broad, and Ace Dick, lacking the imagination to think of a female counterpart, simply becomes linked to another male version of himself (albeit one who owns a blonde wig).
- In
*Dragon Tails*, when Norman the squirrel orders a clone of himself, he marked the sex box with an F (for "Fine the way it is") and got a female clone. The clone is also a child, since this was done with genetics.
- They were also really drunk while designing her genetic pattern, so they made her glow-in-the-dark as well.
-
*The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!:* While trying to manipulate Galatea, Riboflavin shapeshifts into his idea of what a male of her species would look like. Unfortunately, she doesn't actually *have* a species, and her reaction is, "Oh my G...! A sex-swapped version of my own *face?* I'll have nightmares for a week!" He then disguises himself as a handsome human male, and gets a much more favorable reaction from her.
- Not an example, but in
*Dumbing of Age,* Sarah refers to Joyce's nearly-identical older brother ||actually sister|| Joshua as this.
- In
*I Don't Want This Kind of Hero*, Tracy is this to Baek Morae, created by a group of scientists in an attempt to duplicate the latter's power of purification. Baek Morae, on his part, considers her existence disgraceful and so tries to kill her when they meet in the present.
-
*Holy Bibble* portrays Eve as this to Adam, since she is created from his rib. Due to the comic's simplistic art style, this is primarily shown by her having a similar curly forelock to him, as well as the same skin and hair colors.
- Subverted in
*Skin Horse*- when the characters travel to an alternate dimension, Tip discovers that this universe's version of him is a woman- but eventually they realize that although they were born at the same time from the same parents, they're no more genetically related than a different brother and sister.
- In
*The Guild* Bladezz' little sister looks even more like him than you'd expect (the androgynous clothes probably help). This isn't to put her down, if anything it makes Bladezz retro-actively prettier.
- As a corollary to Rule 34, Rule 63 (it would have been Rule 36, but it's reversed, get it?) says for every male character, someone has made a female version of that character, and vice versa.
- Quoth many an anonymous users: "It's not sex; it's masturbation!"
- The web-toon series
*Bonus Stage* featured a female clone of main character Phil Argus as a gag character, once as a "perfect girlfriend", the next as a "cheap ploy for additional viewership" (applified by bunny ears and fox ears (presumably to appeal to a wider spectrum of viewers).
- A variant from the Whateley Universe: In "The Second Book of Jobe", kleptomaniac devisor Belphegor ends up downloading a copy of his own personality into a cloned female drow body based on Jobe's "drow formula" and DNA. Hilarity quite naturally ensues, though the overall awkwardness of the situation (and not just because campus security shows up right the next moment) isn't neglected — for one, both Belphegor and Jobe find themselves promptly declared "Belphoebe"'s
*parents* of record, and there's every reason to believe that she's here to stay because there's in-universe evidence that she's managed to dodge the Clone Degeneration bullet...
-
*Bionic Six*: Dr. Scarab's attempt to create a female companion resulted in this. Later, his female clone created opposite sex clones of his henchmen.
- Danielle "Dani" Phantom in
*Danny Phantom*. She and Danny continue to call each other "cousins" even after she reveals the truth about what she is.
-
*DuckTales (2017)*: The finale shows ||Webby|| is some kind of artificial daughter to ||Scrooge McDuck||, which Bradford made because retrieving an Artifact of Doom required a direct descendant of the latter. She's not quite called a "clone", or identical-looking, but no mention is made of adding any other person's DNA. ||May and June are also genetically Scrooge's daughters, although they were actually made by cloning Webby via magic. Scrooge, for his part, after his initial shock at being called Webby's dad, is elated to find out they're biologically related.||
- In a Valentines episode of
*House of Mouse*, Ludwig Von Drake deduces that the perfect partner for someone would be an Opposite Sex Clone. The two can't stand each other, and she breaks up with himself.
- In
*Infinity Train*, it's revealed that ||Hazel, a six-year-old girl|| is a failed clone of ||Alrick, Amelia's deceased husband||.
-
*Johnny Test* has at least three female doppelgangers of Johnny. Princess Maribel is by far the most exact and doesn't get an upgrade in hairstyle or even a clothing change aside from a little lipstick. Sissy is the second and Joni West is the last.
-
*The Powerpuff Girls (1998)*: The Rowdyruff Boys, in a twisted-Evil Counterpart way. They aren't so much clones as bargain-basement knockoffs, made when Mojo Jojo imitated the Powerpuffs' creation using more "manly" ingredients. Despite the resemblance to their counterparts, no one treats them as genetically related. The girls defeat the boys by exploiting their disgust for romantic interest without any sort of incestuous implications.
-
*Star Wars: The Bad Batch* has introduced a single female clone of the very masculine Jango Fett: ||Omega||, who is not under the control of Order 66 and has joined the Bad Batch. The season two finale introduced another female clone in ||Dr. Emerie Karr|| who works for the Empire.
-
*Transformers: Animated*:
- Each of Starscream's clones represents some facet of his personality, which includes a female one (retroactively named Slipstream)—who refuses to explain what part of his personality she represents. Fan theories range from his ambition, to his feminine side, to his opportunism, to his treachery, to his... ah,
*feelings* for Megatron. Word of God has deemed it a Riddle for the Ages, and won't even say if Slipstream herself knows.
- ||Sari Sumdac|| seems to be a partial example: She is an organic Cybertroninan, but looks like the daughter of ||her human "father" Isaac Sumdac||. Even besides sexual characteristics, the resemblance is far from identical. ||They share skintone, but not hair or eye color||. It's not clear if this was because her protoform was designated to be female, or it just randomly became such.
- X-23, a female clone of Wolverine, and an eventual Canon Immigrant from
*X-Men: Evolution* to the comics. See the entry under Comic Books for more detail. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppositeSexClone |
Opposing Sports Team - TV Tropes
The villains of any sports series or movie, the Opposing Sports Team is the number one team before the main hero's eventual victory. They seem to be made up of Designated Villains and Villainy Free Villains, but they are not: they got to this point not because of Team Spirit, but because of either cheating and/or bullying and abusive behaviour or at the best of times a grueling, soulless regimen that goes against whatever the Aesop of the show is. They almost always wear a uniform that is mostly black. These may be The Psycho Rangers to sports what the "Stop Having Fun" Guys are to video games; the types who play the game solely to win, and will resort to any means to do so.
Also seen in commercials as the side that does not endorse the main product, whom the hero defeats through Cereal-Induced Superpowers.
In 1980s and 1990s vintage sports movies, this team is the posse of bullying, snobbish, white private school rich kids, while the hero's team comprises ethnically diverse middle- to lower-class public schoolers and Lovable Jocks - making it overlap with Slobs Versus Snobs. Watch for a dirty scheme to close the neighborhood rec center, and lots of northeastern-accented trash-talk.
If the competition is international, expect the Opposing Sports Team to be either Soviet (Red Commies trained from birth in athlete factories and pumped on steroids) or German (hyper-efficient, arrogant, and we'll never forgive them for the war). For bonus points, they could be East German, combining both. Nowadays the reputation of the from birth athlete factory has largely shifted towards the Chinese, as Russia radically downscaled old Soviet youth sports programs, while China took this tactic and ran with it. In Chinese works and Cyberpunk stories however, there are chances that the opposing sports team will be Japanese, or even the white and rich kids aforementioned.
In Professional Wrestling, an Opposing Sports Team is usually a team full of Heels, while the hero team usually consists of the Faces.
In competitive video games, they are generally considered SNK Boss teams due to how rampant they cheat to reach their goals. A single player has to use hidden skills or even bribe with real money to defeat them.
See also Technician Versus Performer, Outclassed at the Gym. Jerk Jock is about individual athletes who are jerks, but there is some overlap, in that they have similar attitudes of cruelty, aggression, the acceptability of kicking dogs and abuse of all the privileges of being a winning athlete.
## Examples
- Averted with
*Haikyuu!!*, where opposing teams are never villainous; they simply have different philosophies and strategies. The opposing teams and characters' own emotional backgrounds are explored enough that it is hard not to feel bad when they lose or not to cheer when they win. A famous saying in the fandom is "The best thing about *Haikyuu* is you love all the teams. The worst thing about *Haikyuu* is you love all the teams".
- Subverted with Aoba Johsai and its captain Oikawa. While at first it seems like Aoba Johsai will be set-up as their arch-enemy "villainous" school, they are a great team on their own right with great teamwork and have compelling and empathetic characters. In his first appearance, team's setter and captain Oikawa belittles Hinata and Kageyama, and it is clear Kageyama - who has known him in middle school - does not like his personality. It is also later revealed that Oikawa was once about to ||hit a 12-year old Kageyama when they were in middle school||. He also comes of as the intimidating super-star of his team. However, it is later revealed that his teammates trust him 100%. He is very supportive of each of them and is the best at giving them the most accurate sets. His dynamic with Kageyama also gets explored and shines a sympathetic light on Oikawa. The exploration of his character, his Backstory, and his Character Development subverts his initial "villainous"ness.
- In
*Attacker You!*, You and her team the 7 Fighters have quite a few rivals such as Eri Takigawa's team, the Sunlight Players, who are more of a Worthy Opponent; and more prominently the Saiei team lead by Heinz and Crosby, a duo of notoriously bitchy and contemptuous foreign girls who often take advantage of their strength to bully and browbeat their opponents.
-
*Big Windup!* — For the first team, It's Personal between the entire team and the main character. For the next, between another main character and just one guy. They're both hyped-up enough to invoke Underdogs Never Lose for the protagonists, but only the first one kicks the dog. Overall the series is too nice to have evil opponents, though.
- Usually averted in
*Captain Tsubasa*: The opposing team is almost always a sympathetic team of fair players, and when it's *not*, usually only a *few* of them are a threat... and those Can't Get Away with Nuthin'.
- Mostly averted in
*Cross Game*, the exceptions being the teams coached by Shugo Daimon. Most other teams seem to be enjoying the game no matter how competitively they play. During the tournament, many players on opposing teams are smiling even as they lose because of the high level of play they witness. Daimon's teams, on the other hand, are stuffed with recruits who care nothing for the school they play for or even other members of their team, just winning and impressing professional scouts.
-
*Eyeshield 21* features a few of these. The Amino Cyborgs are the "soulless regimen" type, while the Zokugaku Chameleons start out as the "filthy cheaters" type. The Hakushuu Dinosaurs would be considered cheaters in most other series, as their game revolves around injuring the opposition, but they're just looked down on as unfair and mean. Lastly, the Teikoku Alexanders have the anti-aesop thing going, since the rivalry inside the team is almost bigger than that against their opponents. The series also averts this, as many of the opposing teams are portrayed sympathetically, or as rivals. The series doesn't play down the fact that the Devil Bats are crushing many, many other players' dreams, either. In some games, the opposition comes off so well, you almost root for *them*.
- Agon of the Shinryuuji Nagas fulfills this trope pretty much all by himself; he manages to drag an otherwise pleasant team down by being overtly villainous, cruel, and hateful.
- The trope is played very straight by the American Pentagram; on a team led by Clifford and Mr. Don, only Panther is remotely sympathetic.
- Subverted by the Samezuka swim team from
*Free!*. They're tough competition and don't play around, but most of them are perfectly friendly guys, especially their captain, Seijuro Mikoshiba. Really, the only one that directly antagonizes the Iwatobi team is Rin, and even he gets over himself and becomes a friend later on.
-
*Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu* puts a spin on this with the Garasuyama High rugby team, who fit the mold for the most part. Their rivals at Jindai win not through determination and wits, but because Sosuke puts them through Training from Hell that changes them from weak-willed cowards into violent psychopaths. Garasuyama gets beaten (both in the athletic **and** physical sense) so badly that they become a bunch of Shell Shocked Veterans who never reclaim their former glory.
- Not to mention, when the Garasuyama team does the obligatory Evil Gloating and trash-talking, Kaname is so frustrated with her own team's wussiness that she actually agrees with Garasuyama and laughs along with their taunts.
- Averted most of the time in
*Future GPX Cyber Formula*, as the racing teams are mostly sympathetic as the series progresses, while some (like Missing Link, at least in the first half of the TV series) did use cheating tactics like crashing racers' cars under the orders of Smith.
- Kuromorimine (the protagonist's former team) and Pravda High Schools in
*Girls und Panzer*, the former more than the latter. Kuromorimine is a German-themed school with black uniforms that emphasizes efficiency and winning at all costs, which is why Miho actually left it. Pravda, a Soviet-themed team, is much more laidback, and aside from their captain being a bit of a jerk, note : was it really necessary to rub her last year defeat into Miho's face, Katyusha? is portrayed far more sympathetically. They are also apparently on a good terms with the very sportsmanlike and proper St. Gloriana Academy, one of the most sympathetic opponents in the series. What they share, though, is that they're much better equipped and funded than the protagonists' team.
-
*Gundam Build Fighters* and its sequel *Gundam Build Fighters Try* typically subvert this, mostly by showing that Sei, Reiji, and Team Try Fighters' opponents might be serious about winning, but they're still decent people who love *Gundam* and Gunpla Battle as much as they do. In fact, most of the time, said opponents end up becoming the heroes' friends after all is said and done. Two straight examples of this trope include the Renato Brothers from the first series (who treat the game like real war and want to destroy Meijin's good public image with a humiliating defeat) and Team SRSC from *Try* (who fit the "soulless regimen" version of this trope and aren't prepared to deal with anything that doesn't match up with their grueling statistical analysis of the opposing team).
- As a basketball manga,
*Harlem Beat* is of course loaded with these.
-
*Haruhi Suzumiya*:
- Subverted in the baseball story — the SOS Brigade enters a tournament and immediately gets paired against the reigning champions, who are actually perfectly decent fellows who've spent long hours practicing. The Brigade resorts to cheating in order to win the game, leaving the other team in tears at the degree to which they got pummeled. Yeah, that's right, Our Heroes are the Opposing Sports Team.
- Played straight in the Day of Sagittarius III story, where the computer club fills the role.
- Averted in
*Hajime no Ippo*, where the opponents usually are just as sympathetic and dignified as Ippo himself, and the anime does not shy away from spending at least one entire episodes to flesh out the character of Ippo's current opponent. Even dirty Mashiba is shown as an orphan who fights to give him and his little sister Kumi a decent life.
- From
*IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix*, Teams Sledge Mama and Velshtein in the first season. Sledge Mama is made up of a bunch of violent thugs who aren't above cheating to get ahead. Team Velshtein, meanwhile, are the arrogant reigning champs whose coach treats them like soldiers. The second season introduces Team White Snow, who are even worse, cheating more often and more flagrantly, and being meaner and more arrogant.
- Renko's slate of Student Council candidates in episode 1 of
*Kujibiki♡Unbalance*.
-
*Kuroko's Basketball*:
- The Kirisaki Daiichi team is full of unrepentant cheaters. They are led by Makoto Hanamiya, who tells Kuroko that he plays the way he does for no other reason besides liking to see the faces of the players whose dreams he has crushed. They are also responsible for injuring Teppei Kiyoshi a year ago and compromising his career. They don't regret it even a bit.
- Zigzagged with the Fukuda Sōgō team. Their ace player is Shōgo Haizaki, an arrogant and violent delinquent who pushes his own captain around. Said captain and the rest of his teammates are actually decent people, but powerless to put a leash on Haizaki, so they let him run amok on the court. Haizaki's special ability is an Evil Counterpart to Kise's Power Copying; whereas Kise just copies his opponents' abilities, Haizaki is considered to steal them, since the players become unable to use their abilities once he copies them.
- Zigzagged with the Generation of Miracles. When they were together at Teiko, the discovery of their talents made them very arrogant and they didn't take their opponents seriously since they could win without even trying. They were never as awful as the above examples, though. When they entered high school, they went their separate ways and joined different teams, resulting in their new, more down-to-earth teammates offsetting them.
- The antagonists of the movie
*Last Game* are the American team Jabberwock, who are contemptuous towards Japanese players to the point of racism, calling them "monkeys" and saying they have no right to play the game. They're not shown to repent at the end after they are beaten by the Vorpal Swords.
- These are ever-present in
*Major*, but especially in the 3rd season, where defeating Kaido High is the motivation for almost everything the protagonist does. However, ||in a bit of a subversion, his team doesn't win.||
-
*Negima! Magister Negi Magi* gives this treatment to a group of high school students during a dodgeball game early in the manga.
- There is a solid ton of these in
*The Prince of Tennis*, though most of the members of these teams are made just sympathetic enough to allow for mountains of Slash Fic. Special cases are Higa (whose coach is a Evil Teacher and are portrayed almost textbook Jerkasses at first) and Rikkaidai (tennis-playing Knight Templars... as well as a particularly strong set of True Companions led by a Delicate and Sickly whom they genuinely care for).
- Kituragi Academy's boys' baseball team in
*Princess Nine*.
- Subverted and downplayed in
*ViVid Strike!*. The Frontier Gym seems like this due to Jill's belief that only Born Winners can excel in competitive martial arts conflicting with Nove's belief of hard work, but it's revealed very quickly that their supposed animosity was due to a slight disagreement they had during an interview getting blown out of proportion by the media. Also, several members of Frontier Gym were already friends with Team Nakajima back in *Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid*.
- Not a sports team, but in
*Wake Up, Girls!*, I-1 club is essentially this, being Japan's top Idol Singer group (and an AKB48) Expy) enduring a soulless training regimen where members can be fired for a single screwup (and in the backstory, Mayu was essentially ||fired for standing up for her friend||).
- In
*Uma Musume*, Team Rigil is a Lighter and Softer example of the trope. They are the best of the best in racing, with an extremely strict coach that has a harsh training regime. Silence Suzuka felt too restricted by these methods, and decided to switch teams out of concern that she would lose her love of running. But no one resents her for this decision, and several of the Rigil girls are close friends with Team Spica. Their coach, Hana, even turns out to be a stern Team Mom, and is hinted to have romantic feelings for Spica's trainer.
-
*Zoids: New Century* has the Backdraft Group, an illegal organisation which subverts the "noble" sport of Zoids battles and forces the hero team into unsanctioned battles. Fortunately, the Backdraft Group seems to be primarily made up of maladjusted screwups...
- In
*Archie Comics*, Riverdale plays almost exclusively against Central City, an entire city with a population of nothing but criminals, cheaters, and con artists, all of whom hate everything pertaining to Riverdale. The one time a Central player was portrayed sympathetically was when Archie and Chuck saved his life, while his friend *abandoned him to die* so he could win the race.
- The Leader team from
*Michel Vaillant*.
-
*2000 AD*
- A common feature of the "future sports" series. For example, almost every team the Slayers go up against in
*The Mean Arena* is either entirely this, or has a Jerkass star player who makes It's Personal part of the story. The notable exception is the Oxford Invaders who despite having had plastic surgery to look like alien monsters are sweet to children and honorable to a fault. (And enraged when the villain of the week makes it look like they're cheating.)
- The first story in the
*Lowborn High* setting, about a Good Old British Comp version of Wizarding School, mentioned Wychdusk Manor as the posh boarding school counterpart. The second story has Lowborn play Wychdusk at the Fictional Sport Orbitus, and Snobs Versus Slobs is very much in effect, with the main representative of Wychdusk referring to the Lowborns as "oiks" and suggesting that, after they win, the Lowborn team can clean their changing rooms. He also offers the main character (a member of a posh wizarding family who ended up at Lowborn because his grades were so bad) a chance to get into Wychdusk after all ... if, of course, he throws the game.
- Tank, Cody's main surfing rival from
*Surf's Up* , is a egotistical yet skilled bully who won the championship nine times. Interestingly, ||neither wins the championship this time. This honor belongs to Chicken Joe, who didn't even know he was competing||.
- The MonStars in
*Space Jam*, who can only win by stealing the power and talent of actual professional basketball players. Even having *Michael Jordan* as part of the good guys' squad was just *barely* an equalizer.
- Team Hostile Takeover Bank (Chick Hicks' sponsor) from
*Cars*. Francesco in *Cars 2* as well, if only for his arrogance.
- Also from Pixar, Roar Omega Roar from
*Monsters University*.
- The Shadowbolts from
*My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Friendship Games* who care so much about winning that they ||pressure Human Twilight Sparkle into using magic to win.||
- In
*Shaolin Soccer*, the opposing team is called *Team Evil* in some translations (the Devils in others). They train using soulless scientific methods and "American drugs," as opposed to the heroic Shaolin monks, who use their spiritual martial arts.
- All three
*The Mighty Ducks* films. The teams are this trope to a T.
- It can actually go into a bit of depth as the three teams are on a bit of a sliding scale. In the first movie the Hawks are made to be almost complete sociopaths, bullying District 5/the Ducks for no reason, Reilly ordering Banks (who was on the Hawks only a mere WEEKS ago) to be taken out which is done in the final game with gusto (though one of the players did express disgust over the act) and they were even willing to outright cheat the system in order to keep the best team, to the point that Bombay gets fired from his actual job over it. In the second movie, Team Iceland are particularly violent and volatile on the ice but are otherwise inoffensive, have no outright grudge with Team USA other than being the other favorite to win and are the most Graceful Loser of any of the three. In the third, the Varsity have the biggest personal feud with the Ducks with the two sides sparing no expense making the other go through hell, however the Varsity also have the most legitimate reason to have beef with the Ducks with their younger siblings getting screwed out of a chance to even make the JV Team because the entire Ducks squad got brought in on Scholarships instead courtesy of Bombay's connections.
-
*The Sandlot*: there's one bit where the Ragtag Bunch of Misfits playing for sheer fun on their run down field get teased by a group or kids who look like they just came off a prep school field, complete with matching uniforms. The misfit kids respond by giving the bullies a humiliating beating in baseball.
- Despite being in the title, the opposing team in
*Facing the Giants* hardly had a role (save to be hyped as nearly unbeatable) before the climactic game; when they did, though, they turned out to be black-clad, unpleasant, clear-cut antagonists.
- The Globo Gym Purple Cobras in
*DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story* served this role: Assembled by the rich owner of Globo Gym solely for the purpose of defeating the group of poor misfits trying to save Average Joe's Gym via the Dodgeball Championship's $50,000 winner's prize.
- If there's a baseball movie and the Yankees aren't the protagonists, you can put down your savings on them being the antagonists. This even extends to non-MLB movies, like
*The Bad News Bears*.
- Cobra Kai (naturally) from
*The Karate Kid (1984)* are every bit the opposing team, down to the sadistic coach, imposing black uniforms, and sneering superiority. In the end Sensei Kreese (the sadistic coach in question), even resorts to ordering his students to cheat and intentionally injure their competition. When Daniel manages to continue competing despite the injury, Kreese then orders star student Johnny Lawrence to Attack the Injury. The continuation series *Cobra Kai* has Johnny attempting to rebuild the dojo, which he sees as My Greatest Second Chance, but despite his wishes, by the end of the first season several of his students have turned from being outcast and bullied kids into brutal bullies themselves. It culminates with his top student deciding of his own initiative to flagrantly do everything possible to attack the injured shoulder of his opponent in the final match, **against** Johnny's orders. Johnny was not proud of winning after that. It gets worse in the second season as despite Johnny managing to wean one or two of this students off the thuggish mentality they've adopted, most of the Cobra Kai dojo essentially becomes a gang and practically gets into a street war against the reborn Miyagi-Do Dojo, with people on both sides getting seriously injured while others wind up in trouble with the law. Johnny was even less proud of this, considering that one of the Miyagi-Do students is *Johnny's own (estranged) son*.
-
*Slap Shot* inverts it by having the protagonists be a down and out hockey team who suddenly hit the big time when they recruit three brothers who teach them the value of violent tactics deliberately designed to hurt the other team. This ends with them facing a team that's a conglomeration of all the most violent players their opponents can find, with no one making any attempt to play the game as they just try to kick each others' asses instead.
- In the Bollywood film
*Lagaan*, a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits from an Indian village face off against a bunch of snooty British soldiers in a game of cricket.
- The trope is both played straight and subverted in
*Remember the Titans*, the fictionalized account of the 1971 T.C. Williams High School football season. Due to the team's integrated racial makeup, the Titans face severe persecution from other (all-white) schools in the state, culminating in a semi-final matchup that sees the opposing coach call the Titans' black coach Herman Boone a "monkey" and the referees attempting to rig the game in favor of the Titans' all white opponents. In the final game, however, the trope is subverted. The Titans' final opponents, Marshall High School, show hardly any racial prejudice at all, and the team's coach accepts his defeat gracefully, even shaking Boone's hand at the end of the game.
- The Slytherin quidditch team in
*Harry Potter*. It extends to the Quidditch World Cup too. The team Harry is supporting play fair while the opposing team use all manner of dirty tactics.
- Refreshingly subverted with Cedric, Fleur, and Krum, who, whatever their flaws, are pretty decent people and end up having a cordial relationship with Harry.
- Played With during the Triwizard Tournament—Madame Maxime and Karkaroff are both willing to get illegal knowledge to help their Champions in the First Task, but Dumbledore won't (though Moody admits to Harry that cheating is a traditional part of the tournament, making Dumbledore a case of Honor Before Reason). The thing is, this sense of honor doesn't extend to his staff, so Hagrid passes the information onto Harry, who then feels compelled to pass it to Cedric (because, well, if
*everyone's* cheating then the field is level again). Cedric later pays him back by providing a hint to solving the puzzle.
- The rowing team of the Saint Anne's boarding school in J.K. Rowlings The Casual Vacancy . Lexie and Libbie, the graddaughters of the chairman of the local council, Howard Mollison, go there. Both Howard and his son Myles, who is a layer, are rich and sucessful middle class people - which is the reason why they can afford that school. This team is contrasted by the team Barry Fairbrother brought to live: The school is an average school and the most important members are Sukhvinder and Krystal. Sukhvinder's family has an indian cultural backround so they are the only (explicetly mentioned) people of colour in the village. Krystal comes from the lower social class and has huge family problems regarding her drug addict mother and her little brother. All three of them - Sukhvinder, Krystal and Barry - are sympatic main characters and so is their rowing team.
- Subverted in
*Unseen Academicals*. For one thing, Our Team is the upper-class university faculty, and the Opposing Sports team (Ankh-Morpork United) are the scrappy and diverse working-class souls. For another, AMU, while somewhat antagonistic, and with a history of violent play (admittedly before there were any rules against violence) play fair ... with one exception, and ||after the match he gets walloped by his own captain for nearly ruining it for everyone||.
- In the original book
*Friday Night Lights*, a true account of the 1988 Permian Panthers, a West Texas high school football team, the final opponent they meet in the playoffs is a very intimidating team from Dallas that was involved in an eligibility controversy that split across racial lines. Permian ||lost the game on the final play||.
- Salamander Army of
*Ender's Game* fits the archetype in just about every way. Averted in that Ender is forced to *join* the Opposing Sports Team and try to function there. By the time he gets his own command and faces them in battle, they're not longer a threat. In the game, at least. This has a slightly interesting twist in that while it's unclear how much of this was intentional in the first edition of the book, it's now clear that not only is Salamander Army an Invoked Trope (as are a few other student groups), but it's not being invoked for the plot of this book. While Ender was tracked into Salamander Army as a "useful learning experience", it and several other student groups were actually created as a place to develop ruthless, fairly disciplined, *incompetent and predictably beatable* military commanders to lead the worst countries' militaries in the global shakeup expected after the Formic War ended. (Although some of the students in those were just there to fill out a roster of flunkies, with the intent of either untraining them after their leaders graduated or just slated for places where they shouldn't be tested.)
- In the
*Bailey School Kids* series, the main sports rival of Bailey Elementary (and Camp Lone Wolf) is the Sheldon Sharks, who are usually shown as the typical "rich kids with fancy equipment" variant, against the "average Joes" of Bailey Elementary. (Or, as average as a school that may or may not be full of monsters can be.)
- In
*All for the Game*, the Foxes play a lot of teams, but the Ravens stand out as the Jerkass team—not only for their terrible sportsmanship, but also because their captain and star player is yakuza.
- Valley Tech are Milford's rivals in
*Gil Thorp*, and often fit the "gruelling soulless regimen" version of the trope.
- Big Walnut Tech in
*Funky Winkerbean* are this to Westview High, except for the part where Westview has an eventual victory.
- When the cast of
*Safe Havens* was in high school, Havens High's rivals Sprawling Acres tended to show up often as their basketball rivals. This causes problems in their later junior and senior years when overcrowding at Havens causes Sprawling Acres to take in 2000 students...as long as one of them was star basketball player (and Samantha's boyfriend) Dave Hamper.
- Cold War musical
*Chess* subverts the trope by introducing a International Showdown by Proxy chess championship between an American and a Russian, but then revealing the American to be a bit of a Jerkass and ending the first act with the Russian winning the title and defecting.
- The original London version of the plot then plays it straight in act two by introducing a new Russian opponent described as "a disciplined, Soviet chess-playing machine."
- Success Mode of
*MLB Power Pros 2008* pits your AAA team (the Golden Apples) against the Galaxy Sharks, the game's rough equivalent of the Yankees (with a ruthless general manager who fires anybody unable to play for more than a month). If you've been deemed good enough to play in the majors, your team will play against them for the league championship. Normally in this mode, you only get to control your created character, but during this game you're in charge of most of your team, essentially making this a Final Boss battle. Plus, ||a player named Sittch who used to be on your team, is their star player (and has hair like a Super Saiyan.)||
- The Success Mode of the 2007 version also had something similar, with the monsterous "Champion Rings" team. If you go up against them in Season 2, your best friend comments that nobody on the team stands out, since they're all ridiculously strong. In Season 3, they gain ||one or two new pitchers, in the form of Zero (a rookie in college ball with perfect skills in pitching and batting), and possibly Alvin (a former star member of your own team, a strong pitcher and hitter, who may wind up with the Rings depending on the route you take through Success Mode.)||
- In
*Final Fantasy X*, you encounter some irritating blitzball players on the Luca Goers team; while very difficult in the forced blitzball game, they aren't actually that tough afterwards.
-
*WarioWare Smooth Moves* has Team Dinosaur as the opposing sports team to the one Mona is cheerleading for. The team is made up of the antagonists from the local Predatory Business.
- In
*Super Mario Strikers* (aka *Mario Smash Football*), the final battle of the last Super Cup is a match against ||Team Omega, robots based on Next-Level Games's mascot.|| They're the strongest team in the game, both due to their perfect stats and because ||they all act as captains, which means they can all use super shots.||
- The Los Angeles Legends in
*All-Pro Football 2K8*. They have several more Gold players then you are allowed, which means they will nearly always run through the AI teams and meet you in the Championship game, where they can easily curbstomp you if you aren't ready.
- Subverted in
*Inazuma Eleven* with Teikoku Academy's soccer team. They start out giving this impression, but halfway through it turns out that all the actual villainy is committed by their "commander"/coach and some of his henchmen, all behind the backs of the actual players. The players themselves actually turn out to be perfectly nice people (if a bit intimidating due to their skill and military-grade discipline) and revolt when they find out about their coach. Their team captain Kidou even voluntarily offers to forfeit the match because of it, but Endou's not the type to take an easy victory on a technicality.
- Mikage Sennou is called "Brainwashing Jr. High" in the English games and anime, in case subtlety isn't your thing. It's exactly what it sounds like — 'soulless regimen' is taken to a new level, as their players have little personality or emotion left after being brainwashed in an attempt to improve their skills. The team captain doesn't believe (or even understand) the idea of sports being fun. After being beaten by Raimon, they start to come around.
- Subverted in
*GRID* with Ravenwest, the player's biggest rival team. While they do possess many attributes common in a generic villain team (insane skill, dreaded reputation, all-black paint scheme, etc.), they don't cheat, drive especially aggressively, show any sort of hostility toward the player's team at any point during the story, or do much of anything to suggest they're anything other than a normal racing team. They're just really, *really* good at what they do.
- The Babylon Rogues from
*Sonic Riders* could count as this, being more jerkish counterparts to Team Sonic, not to mention being their main rivals in the Extreme Gear tournament.
-
*Least I Could Do*:
- Averted and deconstructed by
*xkcd* in this comic. When a pair of high schools try to start the "ragtag, misfit team vs bad guy sports team" rivalry, multiple student point out how illogical it is considering that schools districts are drawn up purely along zip codes. Furthermore, since the two schools are close together, plenty of people from the two schools know each other and are friendly. As a result the attempt to build this sort of rivalry is nipped in the bud.
- Spoofed with this
*CollegeHumor* video. As it turns out, it's the same group playing in multiple sports, trying (and failing) to win against a werewolf pointguard, a field goal kicking horse, and a child in magic shoes. And finally, ||with a cry of, "We are *done* being made the fool! OOH-RAAAAAAAH!" the team turns rather...psychotic.||
- Inverted in Cracked's video "If Characters Knew They Were in a 90s Kid Movie", where the unseen Ragtag Bunch of Misfits
*is* the Opposing Sports Team to the protagonists. The coach is immediately disheartened upon seeing them take the field, knowing it's going to be an uphill fight for them since Underdogs Never Lose.
- The other boys' team in
*Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown*.
- The Gas House Gorillas, a recurring team of dirty cigar-chomping baseball players from the Looney Tunes universe.
-
*Hurricanes*, an animated series about a team of American soccer players, had the Garkos Gorgons, the typical "cheating" team. Occasionally, however, The Hurricanes themeselves would exhibit the behavior of the Opposing Sports team, and be defeated for it.
- Perfecto Prep in the sports-based episodes of
*Tiny Toon Adventures*.
- The Gammas from
*An Extremely Goofy Movie*.
- 'Meteor' in the Russian
*Shaybu* cartoon. They get a bit better by the time the football based sequel comes around.
- The Winter Olympics team of the Principality of Nessir, from the French series
*Pierre et Isa*.
- Practically all teams that play against the Midway monsters in
*Mutant League*, but especially the Slayors.
- The Really Rottens, in
*Laff-A-Lympics*.
-
*Disney Fairies: Pixie Hollow Games* has the Lightning Fairies, who have won four Championship Rings over the past four games and are aiming for "One for the thumb!" Rumble plays the trope completely straight, while his partner Glimmer is a Spirited Competitor and Graceful Loser who doesn't realize at first just how determined her partner is to win.
- One episode of
*King of the Hill* revealed that the members of the high school football team that defeated Hank's team for the championship come around every year on the anniversary of the game and publicly humiliate every member of Hank's team — even Dale, who was just the towel boy. Getting sick of the taunting, Hank challenges them to a rematch and his team wins...at which point they do the exact same bragging.
- The Murderflies in
*Futurama*.
-
*Supa Strikas*: Just about every other team the Strikas faced, always come up with some scheme to cheat or sabotage the team. Such dirty tactics include physical brutality (Invincible United, Cosmos FC, Iron Tank FC), gaslighting (FC Cognito), or leveling the pitch (FC Hydra).
-
*The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin*: The Mashers in the Grungeball Episode and Tweeg's team (composed of himself, his mother and the bounders) in the Wizard Week.
-
*Galactik Football*: There were at least two of them at the first season.
-
*Clone High* has an ongoing rivalry with Genetically Enhanced Superhuman High (GESH).
- The White Fall Wolfbats from
*The Legend of Korra* are the main opposing team of the protagonist Fire Ferrets. The enemity is well earned as the Wolfbats cheat in the fight and it's implied they have done it before. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpposingSportsTeam |
Opposing Combat Philosophies - TV Tropes
**Zoe:**
Always remember, little one, the first rule of battle is to never let the enemy know where you are.
*[Mal blasts in, shooting and yelling]* **Mal:**
Woo-hoo! I'm right here! I'm right here! You want some of this? Yeah, you do! Come on! Come on!
**Zoe:**
Of course, there are other schools of thought.
There are many ways to fight and win. Some folks think that offense is the best defense; if you kill the other guy, defense is irrelevant. On the other hand, if you plan to fight tomorrow, or the day after that, you'd better have some contingency plans in place to protect your attackers, heal the wounded, and prepare for a possible retreat or invasion. Which do you go with? Some folks think that small numbers can overcome greater numbers with superior firepower, teamwork and training; others think that even the greatest can be overwhelmed if you just throw enough at them, and if you do lose, there's more where that came from. Which do you prefer? Some folks prefer stealth and deception, some folks prefer open battle. Which one is best?
When you've got two or more groups with two or more ways of winning the battle, you've got Opposing Combat Philosophies. One general prefers to obliterate the enemy with long range bombardment, while the other prefers to send in the infantry to really silence the other side. Or, in a fantasy setting, the choice between magic, which is astoundingly powerful but takes decades to perfect, or melee combat, which is easier and faster to master. These differing philosophies can be found between the heroes and the villains, or between opposing factions on the same side.
See also Ace Pilot, which includes a section on various piloting styles, as well as Force and Finesse and Soldier vs. Warrior. Faction Calculus and A Commander Is You are both about ways that video games often quantify Opposing Combat Philosophies in terms of game mechanics. It's also a key element of Rival Dojos or Elves vs. Dwarves. Watch for a Red Oni, Blue Oni contrast.
## Examples
- A variation exists in
*Ace of the Diamond*. Both coaches of the Seidou High team are effective but their methods differ greatly: Main coach Kataoka works with almost a hundred players and strives to make the team grow as a whole, in both practices and with each game, even encouraging the bench players to keep going regardless of whether they'll play or not. Meanwhile, assistant coach Ochiai at first wants to build up an ace pitcher the team can revolve around, and is perfectly willing to sacrifice victories in important matches or even other players to do so (in fact, he intended to limit the roster only to twenty players, keeping only the exceptionally talented ones while discarding the rest).
- During the Golden Age arc of
*Berserk* the nations of Midland and Chuder/Tudor had different armies. Chuder seemed to favor brawny Mighty Glacier units that were themed after huge animals, Black Rams, Whale Corps, Holy Purple Rhino Knights. While Midland preferred lightning fast units, most successfully the Band of the Hawk, and had white everything. White Dragons, White Tigers ect.
- In
*Claymore* there is a division between Defensive Warriors who have superior regeneration abilities and Offensive Warriors who can develop devastating special attacks like Jean's Drill Sword or Flora's Windcutter. In universe it has been theorised that the mentality of the Warrior in question is what determines their type; those who win by surviving against all odds vs those who simply cut the enemy down to ensure victory.
-
*Gundam*: In stories set during the One Year War, The Federation utilizes general-purpose technology, while Zeon's units tend to be specialized for the terrain they are deployed in.
-
*Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple* has this in two forms. The first is between fighting styles. "Dou"-type martial artists fuel their skills using aggressive emotions like rage, while "Sei"-types usually stay calm and collected. Despite what that may sound like, Dou-types no more or less likely to be evil than a Sei-type is to be good.
- Later on, another set of opposing philosophies appear in the forms of Katsujin-ken and Satsujin-ken. The former, as practiced by Kenichi and his masters, is to fight without taking life if at all possible. The latter are of the belief that martial arts are meant to be used for killing one's opponents. Unlike the above, this
*does* tend to mark the line between Good and Evil in the series.
- Later on it turns out a third path exist. The way of Gedou. Unlike Satsujinken fighters who believe the most authentic meaning of martial arts is to kill opponents to prove martial superiority, those who walk the path of Gedou seem to just fight and fight for the pure sake of it, until they themselves are destroyed.
- In the world of
*Lyrical Nanoha*, Midchildian tactics generally focus on defensive barriers and long range Beam Spam, while the Belkan Knights first introduced in Season 2 prefer to get up close and personal with the enemy to overwhelm them with superior strength and aggression. The heroes eventually incorporate both approaches.
-
*Negima! Magister Negi Magi*: Negi is asked to decide between combat philosophies at least twice so far: first between being a standard battle-mage who relies on his partners to run interference, giving him time to chant devastating attack spells, or a Magical Swordsman, who enters the fray directly. He chooses the latter, like his father before him. Later, he has to choose between The Power of Friendship, again like his father, or The Dark Side as taught by his Master. He goes with the dark side.
-
*Rebuild World*: Akira really hates the idea of fighting in melee, preferring guns, which gets him into arguments with the Ninja Maid sisters Shiori and Kanae who prefer melee. After Akira has an In Love with Your Carnage moment watching someone else cut down monsters with their swords whom he could barely stagger with his guns, Akira ends up harping on Kanae for using Good Old Fisticuffs (via Power Fist) while getting excited watching Shiori's sword fighting, which prompts Kanae to complain about Friendship Favoritism. Soon after, Akira takes up Sword and Gun.
- Similar to many fantasy works, the evil Marmo hordes of
*Record of Lodoss War* are focused entirely on offense, with most goblins and werewolves going into battle with nothing but a dagger, scythe, or similar villainous weapon. On the other hand, the Holy Knights of Valis routinely carry shields into battle, and Parn's party alone has 3 people capable of healing: Deedlit the High Elf, Slayn the Wizard, and Etoh the Cleric.
-
*Tekken: Bloodline*: The Kazama-style of martial arts emphasizes defense, balance and only using the necessary amount of force. The Mishima-style, as demonstrated through Heihachi's brutal training regimen, emphasizes offense, to the point that even its defensive moves are all about inflicting as much damage against the opponent as possible.
-
*Star Wars* has various examples:
- The Jedi and Sith orders. While the Martial Pacifist Jedi prefer to resolve conflicts without fighting if possible and try not to kill their opponents if they can avoid it - though they shouldn't be underestimated, since they are fully prepared to kill if they need to - the Sith are The Unfettered and won't hesitate to attack right away and don't care if they slaughter innocents to achieve their goals. Don't mistake that for a disregard of more subtle methods though, they're perfectly happy to be Manipulative Bastards in the shadows and are usually Combat Pragmatists.
- The Imperial Navy focuses on capital ships and uses cheap and short-ranged starfighters to cover and protect them, almost as if they were just another ship weapon, and favor set-piece battles. The Rebel Alliance, on the other hand, uses high-performance hyperspace-capable starfighters as their main offensive arm, with their ships (that are often militarized civilian vessels) being used more in support role and to finish off weakened targets, and favors hit-and-run tactics by jumping in, torpedoing the target, and then jumping out. This usually gives the advantage to the Rebels, as they can choose to pick their battles, but whenever the Empire manages to pin them down their superior firepower often carries the day, as brutally shown in
*Rogue One*: at Scarif the Rebels jump in and manage to disable one of the two Star Destroyers before they can launch their fighters, but when they're launched and run interference the remaining one is able to match the entire Rebel squadron by itself until the Rebels manage to throw the disabled Star Destroyer at it.
- During the Clone Wars, the Old Republic uses highly skilled and well-equipped Clonetroopers led by Jedi and supported by other organic soldiers, while the Separatists deploy far larger hordes of cheap battle droids.
- Anakin and Obi-Wan. Anakin is a deadly master of Form V, which relies on overwhelming your opponent with a nigh-endless onslaught of strikes. His master, Obi-Wan, is a master of Form III, which instead relies on going the defense and ending the battle in quick order when the opponent makes one error. When the two throw down on Mustafar, it's basically the greatest offensive master VS the greatest defensive master of the Jedi order.
- The martial styles used by Gabe and Yulaw in
*The One* mirror their personalities. While both are genetically identical and even sharing the same first name (Gabriel Law and Gabriel Yulaw being alternate universe doubles of one another). Yulaw is driven by his desire to become the One, to kill all of his doubles and gain their strength and speed, resulting in him favoring the Xingyiquan style, which focuses on aggressive linear movements. Gabe has been taught by his grandfather to seek a spiritual center, thus he tends to focus more on peace and harmony. His chosen style is Baguazhang, which uses subtle, circular movements. During their climactic Mirror Match, Gabe confronts Yulaw on a narrow catwalk, giving Yulaw a decisive advantage with his direct style. Yulaw has also had far more practice with his increased Super Strength and Super Speed, unlike Gabe, who wasn't sure what was happening to him (with each dead double, the energy gets redistributed to the rest equally). Even when the fight moves to the open factory floor, Gabe is angry enough over ||Yulaw killing his wife|| to use a more aggressive style he isn't as familiar with, which gives Yulaw the advantage. Then Gabe calms down and switches to a Tranquil Fury state, using his preferred style and the open environment to outmaneuver Yulaw and turn the tables on him.
- In the
*Drizzt* novels, Entreri believes in fighting without emotion, while Drizzt thinks his passion improves his fighting. Entreri gets *way* too into proving he's right, going to enormous trouble to set up a death match between them after several fights in which outside factors interfered with the result, and completely loses control of his anger during the fight. Drizzt meanwhile, is mostly just annoyed that he won't let it go, and after beating him points out that this fight didn't *prove* which of their styles was better either.
- An ongoing political struggle in the early
*Honor Harrington* books pits Honor, a student of the traditional tactical school of thought, up against the *jeune ecole* note : "new school", a seemingly out-of-touch group associated with many Strawman Political characters, which thinks that they can use small warships equipped with various super weapons to change the way battles are fought. As the books go on, however, and some new developments in missile design and ship power-plants mature, Honor ends up allying herself with them, using their ideas to complement the traditional tactical school of thought, rather than trying to replace it entirely. This blending of practical tradition and radical innovation *dramatically* changes the capabilities of the Manticoran Alliance's forces, and by extension, those of Haven as well. Later books also point out that the major problem with the *jeune ecole* was that some members tried pushing their new developments into the fleet before they were ready, which is why said developments tended to fall short of expectations when in the field.
- On a larger scale, the conflict between the Star Kingdom of Manticore (and their ally the Protectorate of Grayson) and the People's Republic of Haven pits the Manticoran Alliance's smaller fleet of technologically advanced ships (with rigorously trained volunteer crews) against Haven's much larger fleet of more outdated ships manned largely by conscripted personnel. Haven also has quite a bit more territory to protect (and control, due to - ah -
*considerable* civil unrest), and a much more limited logistical capability, which limits their ability to use their greater numbers to project force as effectively as Manticore can. ||Later books have the Grand Alliance of Manticore, Grayson, and a finally-politically-stable Haven going up against the monolithic but obsolescent forces of the Solarian League.||
- In
*Belisarius Series*, each political power has its own combat philosophy. The Persians are armored horsemen supported by horse archers meant for wide plains. The Romans have this too, but the Persians are ultimately better at it, and rely more on technology and formations of heavy infantry. The Axumites emphasize naval boarding parties and so have little room for tactics and stress close-combat ferocity. The Rajputs are a little like the Persians but spend more time in broken terrain. They are great cavalrymen and swordsmen and definitely Born in the Saddle. The Marathas stress Hit And Run tactics. The Kushans tend to be a Jack of All Trades, though they seem to spend more time on foot then on horseback. The Malwa tactics are primitive and based more on the need to keep their people under their thumb than to fight their enemies; they rely chiefly on reserves and dakka; when they need actual military prowess it is usually the Rajputs and the Kushans that provide it.
- A variation in
*The Lost Fleet* series. By the time Captain John "Black Jack" Geary is awoken from his 100-year Human Popsicle state, the Forever War the start of which he witnessed has made both sides virtually identical. Both fleets are full of Glory Seekers who put more emphasis on fast, unarmored ships due to the fact that they can close with the enemy faster instead of the Mighty Glacier battleships, which they consider to be postings for cowards. The prevailing tactical doctrine is that each ship commander's "fighting spirit" will determine victory or defeat with fleet tactics being largely nonexistent. Geary strives to return to the "old ways" of fighting battles that rely less on individual honor and more on fighting smart. Formations are key. However, many of the ship's commanders prefer their way of fighting and are reluctant to adopt Geary's methods. Pretty soon, he realizes that his changes result in the fleet being severely undersupplied, as the computer systems in charge of supply prioritization are designed with a different combat philosophy in mind. Basically, under Geary, ships maneuver a lot more (i.e. more fuel cells needed) and more ships survive (i.e. more repair parts needed). The system is reprogrammed after this, but lack of fuel cells is a major concern until the fleet returns. There are a number of excellent ship commanders in the Alliance fleet, and they end up leading parts of Geary's formations, but the art of effective fleet command has been lost due to attrition and propaganda. In fact, when the fleet finally returns to Alliance space, the admirals call him a liar for claiming to have fought so many battles, pointing at his relatively low casualties as proof. Later on, the fleet encounters several alien races, and Geary is forced to adjust his tactics to fight them (for example, the Enigmas rely more on subterfuge, while the Bear-Cows use We Have Reserves tactics and gigantic superbattleships, and their ancient formations would put Romans to shame).
- Azania and the Northern Confederation in
*Victoria*. The former is a Lady Land, and so can recruit only women for its military. So they invest heavily in hardware to minimize their main weakness (the physical inferiority of their manpower base) and build a high-tech, heavily mechanized military with its doctrine based on air supremacy and firepower. The Confederation for its part has little industry and money, and so can't field much in the way of modern aircraft or heavy artillery. They do have a large and high-quality recruitment pool, and play up their strengths by specializing in light infantry operations and unconventional warfare.
- The Union army from
*The First Law* is divided among those officers who value discipline and structure and self-sacrifice, and those officers who value flair and initiative and derring-do. In the original trilogy, both approaches are presented as working about equally awfully, and West has to deftly play one side against the other to ensure that anything actually gets done. They get a more sympathetic portrayal in *The Heroes*, with each side being shown to have reasonable arguments for why their way is best, and the army's sole Reasonable Authority Figure claims that a commander who subscribes to one philosophy should have a second-in-command who subscribes to the other to avoid falling victim to dogmatic blindness.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*:
- The Scoobies munch chips, dress in bright clothing and talk loudly while ex-Initiative soldier Riley Finn is creeping through the cemetery in olive drab. While on the surface this is because Riley is a professional soldier and the Scoobies are civilians recruited from Buffy's friends, it's also due to this trope. The Scoobies act as The Bait to draw out vampires so they can be killed, while the Initiative had to sneak up on vampires in order to capture them alive.
- Faith, who prefers to charge in where Slayers fear to tread, and Buffy, whose greater experience gives her a more cautious approach. While Buffy enjoys playing along with Faith's Leeroy Jenkins act for a while, it leads to disaster when her hot-headed colleague accidentally stakes a human during a melee.
-
*Firefly* provides the page quote during a flashback to the civil war. Zoe considers it very important, in a warzone, to keep your position hidden. Mal...disagrees.
-
*Cobra Kai:* Borrowing from the original film, season 1 pits Cobra Kai (which emphasizes self-reliance and unfettered brutality) against Miyagi-Do (which emphasizes inner peace and self-defense). By the end of the first season, ||Johnny leads the Cobra Kai to victory in the All Valley tournament at the cost of creating a new generation of violent bullies.||
- In training philosophies, Cobra Kai is all about going as hard as you can, pushing yourself to your breaking point and coming out stronger on the other side. Miyagi-do is about letting your mindful efforts flow through your entire life. Acting mindfully in certain areas of life will bring benefits in other areas of your life, bringing balance to your life. Cobra Kai is a fighting method that can be applied to life. Miyagi-do is a life philosophy than can be applied to combat.
- For Robot Combat shows like the UK's
*Robot Wars*, the USA's *BattleBots* and China's *King of Bots*, there are two emergent styles of robot that have become popular: Spinners, and Weaponless Robots.
- Spinner robots are armed with high-powered, continuously rotating discs or cylinders, and in some extreme cases the
*entire outer shell* of the robot is the spinner. Spinners can literally rip other robots apart due to the sheer forces involved and this makes them The Dreaded to repair crews and a delight for the viewers, but on the other hand they have many problems: the weapons tend to take up 20-25% of the weight allotment alone, which negatively affects the amount of armour that can be added, and the robot itself can be damaged through the sheer recoil. For example, US reigning champion Tombstone has a record of ripping opponents to shreds with a spinner so powerful that it literally sends *itself* flying across the arena when it hits something that can withstand the impact, and it once *gutted itself* trying to hit another immobilized robot.
- Weaponless Robots, as you may have gathered, have no weapons to speak of. They attack by ramming other robots into the walls or arena obstacles to damage internal components, and because they save weight from not having a weapon, they can really pile on the thick armour and add bigger, more powerful engines to run rings around their opponents. They require more skillful driving than Spinners usually. Depending on who you ask, this approach is Simple, yet Awesome or Boring, but Practical, but it's hard to argue with the win records of robots like this.
-
*Stargate SG-1:* In "The Warrior" Bra'tac sees two Jaffa training and comments that one of them overcommits on his attacks, which leaves him unbalanced and vulnerable to counter-attacks. He also states a philosphy that warriors that find balance in combat can find balence in life. Their leader K'tano however trains his Jaffa with the philosphy that they must strike with single minded focus towards victory without regards for ones survival. Of course it's revealed ||that K'tano was in fact a minor Goa'uld pretending to be Jaffa to try to gain an army so his belief that Jaffa are basically expendable so long as they achieve victory makes a lot more sense by the end||
- The same episode highlights the difference between the Jaffa/Goa'uld and humans via their weapons: the Jaffa staff is a weapon of terror (powerful and flashy, but slow-firing and inaccurate) designed to intimidate the enemy, while the human P90 is a weapon of war (less visually impressive, but much faster and more accurate) designed to
*kill* the enemy. This is demonstrated in a competition with the Jaffa's "best marksman" scoring 2 out of 3 hits on a stationary target log, causing large scorch marks - followed by Carter opening up full-auto on the same log after it has been set swinging, * ripping it in half*.
- Boxers can be
*very* broadly divided into 3 types: out-fighters, swarmers (or in-fighters), and brawlers (or sluggers). Out-fighters are long range punchers who use distancing and strategy to control the fight. Swarmers are short range fighters who prefer to get into point-blank range and unload with torrents of body blows and uppercuts. Finally, brawlers are power punchers who rely on sheer physical strength to devastate their opponents, often at the expense of speed and skill. Historical heavyweight examples are Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and George Foreman, respectively.
- In soccer certain teams are traditionally known for a style one could sum up as Attack! Attack! Attack!, notably the Netherlands whereas others are more known for a highly defensive style, most notably Italy.
- Another axis along which soccer styles differ is the emphasis on physical prowess, "fighting" and team effort as exhibited by Germany roughly between the 1950s and early 2000s and a style much more focused on individual class, pretty play and outsmarting, rather than outfighting the opponent, traditionally associated with South American nations, mostly Brazil. When Jürgen Klinsmann and later Joachim Löw changed the German style from the traditional Germanic Efficiency and "fight fight fight" to the more "Brazilian" style, it caused a lot of controversy. Arguably, Germany only
*could* chose the change in style due to having a better talent pool available as the Shocking Defeat Legacy of the 2000 European Championship induced them to heavily invest in youth development, producing the "golden generation" that won the 2014 World Cup
-
*BattleTech*:
- The factional combat philosophies weren't that sharply distinct when it was simply the Great Houses fighting. When the Clans came, though, their philosophy favored individual actions and the glory of single combat with their foes, so whole units would break down to a dozen one on one battles... whereas the Inner Sphere forces tended to be more professional and pragmatic and would do 'dishonorable' things like having an entire company of 'Mechs focus their fire. The Clans technological advantage gave them the upper hand despite their silly code of honor, until the Inner Sphere commanders began to catch on and exploit it.
- With the advent of recovered technology and outright new tech, the lines between the various Inner Sphere Houses became more distinct.
- House Davion favors skirmishers, autocannons, and high tech, willing to lower armor or employ vulnerable components to get the job done.
- House Kurita prefers PPC weapons, Gauss rifles, and later their homegrown Omnimech technology, banking on long ranged power to win the day.
- House Liao is the sneaky and pragmatic faction, primarily employing ECM jammers, stealth suites, and economical long ranged weapons.
- House Marik is the oddball—their combat doctrine is unfocused, but they show a distinct preference for lasers and unusual missile launchers.
- House Steiner sacrifices speed in favor of more armor, weapons, and tonnage, all thrown together to slowly but surely crush the opposition.
- Word Of Blake used the most advanced equipment known to man, fielding equipment decades ahead of the Great Houses. The Wobbies also employed weapons and tactics forbidden by the Fictional Geneva Conventions, happily dropping nukes, viral bombs, and Orbital Bombardment on population centers whenever they start to lose.
- In
*Traveller: Intersteller Wars*, the Terrans focus on maneuver and the Vilani on their numbers and logictic capability. However the Vilani underestimate the Terran threat and the Terrans are able to gain resources by conquest and economic hegemony over vast areas of the Vilani Empire until they have an even match.
- One of the most drastic divides in
*Warhammer* armies is between the Warriors of Chaos, which fight in solid blocks of heavy infantry and has *no* ranged damage options beyond spells and a daemonic siege engine, and the Wood Elves, which fight almost exclusively as skirmishing archers.
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*Warhammer 40,000*:
- In a meta sense, you have "fluff" players who build their armies to reflect the setting's lore and emphasize the quirks of their specific army, and the "power gamers" out to use whatever combination of units gives them the greatest chance of victory.
- There's a sliding scale between "shooty" and "fighty" armies based on whether they emphasize the Shooting or Assault Phase more, with the Tau on one end favoring massed energy weapons fire at long range and the Orks on the other charging screaming into close combat. Many armies can adjust where they stand on this scale too: maybe your Imperial Guard army takes a handful of Ogryns or assault-focused teams for guarding the big guns or contesting objectives; or maybe your Ork army prefers cobbled-together Mekboy technology to blast giant holes in the enemy lines; or maybe you prefer to Take a Third Option and go with a more esoteric playstyle - psychic powers, flying units, mechanized infantry, etc.
- Within the Imperium, the Imperial Guard are the "Emperor's Hammer," and generally speaking throw men at a problem until it ceases to be a problem. The Space Marine chapters are by comparison a scalpel, a highly-mobile Elite Army that removes priority targets to secure strategic victories, and will often leave conventional Imperial forces to mop up what remains. The Officio Assassinorum are then a blackened knife, using subterfuge and whatever tactics are necessary to land a killing blow against a single target.
- The Primarchs Rouboute Guilliman and Alpharius clashed over their respective legions' approaches to waging war. The Ultramarines favoured a sophisticated centralised command and control structure, with lots of discipline and professionalism, adoption of carefully considered battle plans, and an aversion to civilian casualties. The Alpha Legion couldn't be more different: a decentralised command which made them immune to the Decapitated Army trope, a fondness for Xanatos Speed Chess, propaganda, deception, double agents, assassinations, everything meant for messing with the opponent's mind and keeping them constantly guessing. In other words, the Ultramarines operated like the Roman Legions, and were able to rapidly consolidate control over the worlds they conquered and integrate them into the Imperium, while the Alpha Legion were like the Vietcong meets the CIA, and left ruin, distrust and confusion in their wake. When the Horus Heresy erupted, Alpharius sought out Ultramarines to fight as much as possible, to try and prove the superiority of his doctrine, and allegedly was only defeated when Guilliman abandoned his own protocols to make a risky assault against the Alpha Legion command structure in an unstated admission of defeat. Though the Ultramarines insist that the supposed battle between Guilliman and Alpharius is nothing but Alpha Legion propaganda.
- The Space Marines and Eldar are both Elite Armies, but in different ways. A basic Space Marine is a Jack of All Stats equally adept at attack and defense, ranged and close combat. The Eldar in contrast have their professional soldiers specialize as an Aspect Warrior that excels in one facet of warfare, and only that facet of warfare. The saying goes that if you pit five Space Marines against five different Eldar Aspect Warriors, four of the Eldar will die while the survivor single-handedly kills the Space Marines, because that what she trained for.
- The Tau have two main combat philosophies, the
*Kauyon* or "Patient Hunter" that favors guerilla tactics and ambushes to slowly wear down the foe, and the *Mont'ka* or "Killing Blow" that shatters the enemy with overwhelming force directed against their leadership or other critical targets in a single strike. Both approaches are meant to complement the other, but individual Tau commanders tend to specialize in one over the other.
- A third one is referred to as Monat ("Lone Warrior"), which is known to be practiced by O'Kais, the Tau commander in
*Dawn of War*. Going by the depiction in the game, it involves giving a single Tau soldier weapons against every type of enemy (flamer for melee, burst cannon/plasma rifle for mid-range, and missile pods for long-range, and it's possible to use all three against the same target by careful positioning), a jetpack, and mines that slow enemy units. The campaign adds stealth detection, a gun drone, a shield drone and invisibility for good measure.
- This trope is part of the reason the Gods of Chaos are so prone to infighting. Khorne is obsessed with spilling blood and taking skulls, and his daemons and worshippers are berserkers who live to charge into close combat. Tzeentch is a patient schemer and Manipulative Bastard who prefers to use sorcerous might to win battles, if he has to fight at all. Nurgle prefers a Victory by Endurance, withstanding the enemy's attacks while wearing them down with disease. And Slaanesh is a Combat Sadomasochist that favors grace and style over brute force, fighting for personal pleasure rather than for its own sake. This means a force of Chaos Undivided will have access to an array of warriors that actually complement each other nicely, with the caveat that those warriors will absolutely
*despise* each other since each specialty clashes with all the others due to their ideology and faith.
- The Orks are similarly rife with infighting for this reason. Their two gods are Gork and Mork, one of them "cunning but brutal" (he hits you hard when you're not looking), the other "brutal but cunning" (he hits you even harder when you
*are* looking), and the Orks are happy to engage in a round of religious warfare over which is which. Then there are the six great clans that have their own ideas about what it means to be Orky: the Goffs are no-nonsense about getting stuck into close combat, the Bad Moons are flashy gits who prefer More Dakka, the Evil Sunz prefer to race to the front line with Trukks or Warbikes, the Snakebites are traditionalists who prefer to ride a Beast of Battle instead of something with a motor, the Deathskulls like to loot and utilize enemy equipment, while the Blood Axes like to turn the enemy's tactics against them. If the Orks can't find a better enemy to fight, they'll war with each other over these clan rivalries to pass the time.
- Due to differing ban lists and card release schedules in the
*Yu-Gi-Oh!* Trading Card Game's OCG and TCG regions, the two regions have developed different playstyles:
- The OCG tends to favor control decks, decks which aim to progressively limit the opponent's options until they're backed into a corner and unable to do anything to respond. This leads to longer games and favors thicker decks with more control options.
- The TCG tends to favor combo decks, decks which are built to synergize cards and thus maximize interactions per turn, with the goal being to render your opponent impotent in one turn and then kill them on your next turn. This leads to shorter games - at the top level TCG games rarely last more than three turns - and favors thinner decks to maximize odds of drawing key combo pieces.
- Real-Time Strategy games with a clear avoidance of cosmetically identical sides (and possibly, Separate, but Identical) have a general tendency to pit two or more sides with radically different methods of winning (and losing) against each other, owing much to a theoretically ideal Faction Calculus. Of course, this mentality is used in the name of the Rule of Fun with plenty of variation to spare.
-
*Command & Conquer* games makes it obvious that differing war doctrines is its bread and butter for rich gameplay.
- In the
*Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series*, GDI favors increasingly-expensive and powerful land units that can easily win a one-on-one fight with anything else on the tech tier, backed by strong air power. The Brotherhood of Nod in contrast runs with cheap, light and fast basic units, supplemented by a handful of extremely high-tech elite units with special abilities like stealth or indirect fire to bolster the Cannon Fodder. The Scrin are somewhere in between on land, with a well-rounded unit roster and a superior economy, but the air game is where they truly shine, with flying artillery and Airborne Aircraft Carriers that have no equivalent in either other faction.
- In the
*Command & Conquer: Red Alert* series, the Allies favor economy and mobility over raw force, have a strong navy, and also access to subterfuge like radar jammers, spies and teleporters. The Soviets prefer overwhelming firepower no matter the cost, have a strong air force, and their superweapons tend to be unsophisticated things like an invincibility inducer, or nukes. Yuri's faction in *Red Alert 2* is a strange mix of both, where nearly every unit has its own gimmick, and can mind control enemy units to give themsevles an unmatched edge.
- In
*Command & Conquer: Generals*, the USA is an Elite Army that favors overwhelming, highly-accurate firepower delivered by land, air or superweapon, and is built around damage mitigation, so that nearly very vehicle has access to repair drones, some of their support units come with point-defense systems to neutralize incoming missiles, and even their aircraft have ejection seats that mean a pilot can survive a crash and pass on their experience to another unit. China prefers masses of cheap units, so that their basic infantry and tanks get "horde" combat bonuses when in groups of five of more, supported by devastating incendiary and nuclear special weapons. The GLA use guerilla tactics with expendable units that can skirmish from long range, attack from stealth, or become more powerful from looting dead enemy and friendly units. The *Zero Hour* expansion added optional generals with tactical preferences that further specialize their faction:
- General Townes of the USA makes extensive use of devastating laser weapons, but they struggle to deal with multiple targets at once, and require a lot of power plants. General Granger has the best air power in the game, but has next to no ground units on his roster, and can be hard-countered with anti-air spam. General Alexander has some of the best defenses in the game and the most efficient superweapons, but little in the way of conventional offensive options.
- Chinese General Fai loves hordes of infantry that can rip apart enemy aircraft or armor, but is frighteningly vulnerable to area-of-effect attacks. General Tao is obsessed with nukes, to the extent that even his basic tanks have nuclear reactors and uranium shells, but all that radiation is as dangerous to his own forces as it is to the enemy. General Kwai has the best tanks in the game and is great at rolling out tons of them, but has little access to support units, so he'll have to batter through enemy defenses the hard way.
- GLA leader Dr. Thrax has an array of toxins to liquify enemy infantry and poison the ground, but they're of little use against tank rushes or aircraft. Prince Kassad is a Stealth Expert that specializes in ambushes, but there are dedicated stealth-revealing units in every army's roster, and he lacks what little heavy weapons the standard GLA has. And General Juhziz loves Stuff Blowing Up and excels at boody traps and raw explosive power, with the big caveat that most of his units tend to die while delivering this Suicide Attack.
-
*Dawn of War*: The Tau can choose between the Kau'yon and Mont'ka (see above) strategies. The former gives them upgrades that increase the range and health of their already long-ranged basic infantry and tanky Kroot units, the latter gives them their horrifying Hammerhead tanks and Crisis jumpsuits. Of course when you fight their strongholds they get both.
- The four main factions in
*EVE Online* all focus on different styles of fighting. Caldari use shields for defence and a mix of missiles and long-range railguns in offence. Gallente use mainly armour, along with a mix of drones and short-range blasters. Amarr focus on armour and lasers. Minmattar use mainly shields and a mix of long and short-range projectile guns (although are somewhat less specialised and also use missiles, drones, and armour). They also each focus on different kinds of electronic warfare. There are also a variety of minor "pirate" factions that mostly mix up aspects of two of the main factions, but also including some that focus on unusual attacks such as draining energy.
- In
*Final Fantasy XIII*, there is something of an unspoken difference in combat styles between the two warring factions. Fighters originating from Cocoon, such as Sazh, Hope, and the female PSICOM operatives, focus on buffing allies first, then going into battle. On the other hand, ||fighters from Gran Pulse, namely Fang and Vanille, have natural Saboteur capabilities for weakening enemies before applying the killing blow. The reasons why you would need to weaken opponents first become apparent once you visit the lowerworld and have to deal with brutally powerful behemoths, wyverns, and city-sized Adamantoises.||
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*FreeSpace* and its sequel exemplify this. Terran ships have strong hulls, average shields, and a strong secondary (missile) loadout, with relatively low maneuverability, speed, and an average primary (energy-based) loadout. Vasudan ships are very fast and agile, but have weak hulls, weaker shields, and relatively weak but fast-to-fire weapons. Shivan ships are fast, agile, and have strong primary weapons, but relatively weak missiles and paper-thin hulls. To compensate, the Shivans have the strongest shields in the game. Terran and Vasudan capital ships tend have their weapons spread around so they have coverage from any angle; Shivan's put almost all the guns in the front to better capitalize on their favored super-aggressive tactics and the odd Hyperspeed Ambush.
- In
*Ghost of Tsushima*, this comes up as the game brutally skewers the Honor Before Reason part of the Samurai ethos. Jin Sakai is a samurai warrior who witnesses first-hand the shortcomings of the traditional samurai art of war against the brutally pragmatic Mongol invaders and is forced to reconsider his approach. Fighting as an honourable Samurai has Jin issuing personal challenges to Mongol commanders to duel them, and employing highly precise and skillful swordplay to deal with multiple enemies. The dishonourable but effective Ghost playstyle has Jin adopt a Ninja mentality, swapping his katana for a tanto knife and using fear, deception and special tools to even the odds - kunai, smoke bombs, poison, etc. Both options are equally valid from a gameplay and narrative perspective, but Jin's various allies will support or condemn both approaches; ||eventually however, the stubborn failures of the Samurai philosophy will force Jin to embrace the Ghost, either wholeheartedly or reluctantly||.
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*Ground Control* features the highly-advanced Order of the New Dawn squaring off against the Crayven Corporation. The Order is utilizing brand-new tech, uncluding Energy Weapons and Hover Tanks, while Crayven utilizes tried-and-true treaded tanks and ballistic weapons. The Order's hoverdynes are good for outmaneuvering the enemy to bring their better firepower to bear on the lightly-armored sides and rear, while Crayven's terradynes have much thicker armor that can take a punch and primarily prefer static defense. Both sides also have different specialized infantry. Crayven has the SWAT-like Jaeger squads armed with long-range rifles deadly against enemy infantry but virtually useless against enemy armor. However, their good eyesight allows them to act as spotters for Crayven artillery if they climb a hill, and their low profile means the enemy is hard-pressed to find and kill them. The Order, instead, uses an Amazon Brigade of Templars that fire anti-tank weapons. The Order also has an unarmed hover-platform that launches Attack Drones that hone in on enemy armor and explode on impact. For obvious reasons, they are useless against hoverdynes.
- The
*Dark Crusade* stand-alone Expansion Pack introduces the Phoenix Mercenaries that use modified Crayven tech and rely primarily on guerilla warfare.
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*Ground Control II: Operation Exodus* goes with the same model. The Northern Star Alliance mostly uses the same Crayven tech, although each unit now has a secondary feature (e.g. their most powerful tank can become a literal fortress by extending its side armor forward to protect other units near it). The Terran Empire uses the advanced Order-derived tech coupled with Walking Tanks. Then come the Virons whose vehicles (called centruroids) are their version of Imperial hoverdynes, but nearly all their units are capable of merging to become a different type of unit. Imperial tactics are mostly of the We Have Reserves variety, as NSA forces are usually outnumbered but still manages to overcome the Imperials with better training and tactics.
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*Homeworld* and its sequels use opposing combat philosophies to varying degrees.
-
*Homeworld* would certainly be this way, assuming that you put Kushan (or Taiidan) on one side, the Turanic Raiders on a another and the Kadeshi on yet another. The first is a complete military fleet whose composition resembles that of a modern navy, the second is a bandit race that is reminiscent of today's guerillas and the third is what a religious, isolationist cult of fully-armed but fragile men would look like. On a player faction scale, the Kushan and Taiidan only vary through special units: the Kushan choose offensive invisibility cloaks and attack drones while the Taiidan choose defensive antibullet deflector shields and defense lasers.
- In
*Homeworld 2* the Hiigaran race tends to field smaller numbers of individually more capable, flexible and expensive spaceships, and almost all of their ships have some sort of weapon mounted, even on auxiliary ships that really are not meant for direct combat. Their larger ships are even capable of handling almost every combat role by themselves, at least in small engagements. Their opponents the Vagyr, on the other hand, have larger groups of cheap ships which are each specifically meant for one narrow task, relying on outnumbering the enemy and using combinations of different ship and squadron types to meet specific tactical needs.
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*Homeworld: Cataclysm* has the most variety between the two playable factions. On one hand, the Hiigaran Kiith Somtaaw use generous firepower, Suicide Attack holographic projectors and small Attack Drones while the Beast resort to Invisibility Cloaks and much, much low-quality Power Copying from its sources (which in multiplayer, is only the Somtaaw). The unplayable factions largely takes their doctrines from the original *Homeworld*'s.
- In
*MechWarrior Living Legends*, the two sides reflect different combat philosophies; the Inner Sphere uses tough, affordable, high endurance battlemechs built with (generally) outdated equipment, where as the Clans use fragile, expensive, with poor endurance but extreme firepower. Inner Sphere forces are well suited to capturing a base and then sitting on their ass in it, as they have the best defensive units in the game. Clans are well suited for open field combat, as their weapons have boosted range and they can quickly close the gap with their high-output fusion reactors. It should be noted that by default, players on either team have access to both Clan and Inner Sphere units, as team tech restrictions ("Puretech") are an optional server mutator.
- In the game's Tournament Play, the major units had a general combat philosophy; Knights of the Inner Sphere used combined arms tactics to dominate the skies and assault enemies from afar, Russian Death Legion and Eridani Light Horse made heavy use of kiting tactics while sniping, Clan Smoke Jaguar generally used Zerg Rush tactics with Close-Range Combatant mechs, 12th Vegan Rangers generally ended up nuking themselves after valiant charges, and Cloud Cobra was a generalist; making use of primarily battlemech forces at mixed ranges. Knowing the enemy's philosophy was a key part of the Meta Game.
- Played for Laughs in
*MediEvil*, between two legendary knights who were Vitroilic Best Buds in life: Dirk Steadfast, who fights with the Magic Sword and thinks defense is for girls; and Karl Sturnguard, who uses the Magic Shield and favours a strong defensive fighting style. It turns out Karl survived all his battles without taking a scratch but later died at a feast when Dirk mocked his shield and he promptly choked on a sausage.
- In
*Shadowrun: Hong Kong*, several of the characters' tracks are opposed to each other.
- Duncan's tracks focus on either AP damage and other nonlethals, or direct damage.
- Is0bel's focuses on either Matrix or meatspace combat.
- Racter's configures Koschei either towards Close-Range Combatant or Long-Range Fighter.
- Gobbet's either improves her control over spirit or improves her own spells.
- Gaichu's either improves his ghoul abilities or his swordplay.
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*Starcraft*:
- In general, the Protoss field extremely expensive, but extremely capable units; the Zerg Swarm named a trope because of their ability to flood the enemy with cheaper, easily replaceable units, and the Terrans rely on well-rounded units and have the majority of the guns.
- There's another, more subtle difference between the Terrans and both the Protoss and the Zerg: despite the differences between the two alien races explained above, they are built for the same final purpose: steamroll the enemy either through power or numbers. Terrans, on the other hand, tend to favor a more defensive play: aside from having a much wider (and generally better) option for defenses, such as bunkers, turrets, spider mines and Siege-mode Tanks, they also have units such as Medics and Medivacs that can heal infantry to help with survivavbility, while their Worker Unit can repair both buildings and mechanical units.
- In
*Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty*, you get to choose between several mutually-exclusive upgrades that are set for the rest of the campaign. Problem is that in most cases one upgrade blows the other out of the water (Science Vessel vs Raven, Orbital Command vs Planetary Fortress, bunker that can fight back vs bunker with extra life...). Basically, if the Terrans have it in *Heart of the Swarm*, it's the one you should have taken in *Wings of Liberty* (though they sometimes have both).
- In
*Heart of the Swarm*, zerg evolutions can be divided into those that focus on brute force (ultralisks that do continuous area damage, tougher jumping zerglings, roaches that Spawn Broodlings, banelings that make little banelings on death, mutalisks that turn into flying artillery) and those with a more subtle but equally powerful approach (resurrecting Ultralisks, instaspawning triple Zerglings, Roaches that slow down the enemy, jumping Banelings, Mutalisks that turn into flying casters that can prevent enemies from attacking).
- And again in
*Legacy of the Void* with the four Protoss factions: The Daelaam are the more rounded faction; the Nerazim favor tricky units take some skill to use either because they're fragile but can deal awesome damage, like the Dark Templar or the Void Rays, or depend on the use of an ability, like teleporting Stalkers; the Tal'darim value intense firepower over everything else, as seen with the Destroyer or the Wrathwalker; lastly, the Purifiers prefer heavy units that can attack from a long range, such as the Colossus or the Tempest.
- The
*Sword of the Stars* games are unique in that every race has a different means of Faster-Than-Light Travel that tends to affect its strategy and tactics. Ships also have different designs based on the race's combat philosophy. For example, human ships are focused on forward firepower, which tends to leave their rear poorly defended. Zuul ships are a mishmash of pieces salvaged from starship graveyards, resulting in weaker hulls, but their Attack! Attack! Attack! mentality means they typically mount more guns. Also, most Zuul dreadnoughts are able to launch Boarding Pods. The Morrigi tend to travel in large fleets thanks to their FTL drive being more efficient in large numbers. They also tend to rely more on Attack Drones than other races. Their ships tend to stretch more vertically than lengthwise, allowing more guns to aim forward. Hivers use tough, fast ships that are well-covered in the rear due to the fact that their ships are STL (they use Portal Networks for fast interstellar travel with all the disadvantages this implies). The Liir tactics mainly rely on swarming a single enemy and pounding him until he's dead before moving on. They also tend to have the best tech. The Tarka tend to be middle-of-the-road in all respects, although their ships tend to be the most maneuverable. The Loa utilize on-demand ships built from blocks. This gives them amazing versatility against the "carbonites".
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*XCOM 2*:
- The skill trees for Sharpshooters emphasises two different ways of fighting: Sniper is your classic long range shooter, using a rifle to pick off single hard targets at extreme range (and preferably from an elevated position); Gunslinger focuses on using the secondary pistol to deal out a lot of weaker shots at close range. Gunslingers struggle against armoured targets without AP rounds, but their ability to potentially attack a single enemy
*five times in a turn* makes up for it.
- With
*War of the Chosen*,you get new classes in the vein of Fighter, Mage, Thief. Skirmishers, with their bullpup rifles and ripjacks, are Lightning Bruiser close combat specialists who can move around with a Grappling Hook and possibly attack multiple times a turn. Reapers are stealth specialists who can uniquely attack from concealment with their Vektor sniper rifles, or engage in some bomb throwing. Finally, Templars can use a variety of offensive and defensive psionic abilities to support your other troops, but their dual energy wristblades and machine pistol mean they can contribute to the battle themselves.
-
*Unsounded*: Cresce and Alderode have been at war to some degree since Cresce was properly united as a country, and have a number of differences in military philosophy and strategy. Cresce has access to more First Materials, and thus their military has the most numerous and best constructs in the known world, while Alderode has a fair portion of the military dedicated to maintaining their air superiority through their use of Dragon Riders. Alderode is an expansionist patriarchy that has their soldiers rape women in conquered areas to spread their unnatural castes, uses child soldiers and has essentially three separate armies, while Cresce uses both men and women in their unified military and punishes rapists in war by cutting off their external genitalia.
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*RWBY*: Huntsmen are professional monster slayers who possess unique weapons and combat outfits that complement their personalities and fighting styles. They are encouraged to put the protection of the people first and so remain independent from kingdom politics and hierarchies. However, the Kingdom of Atlas pressurises its Huntsmen students to enrol in the military as super-soldier Specialists that obey the military chain-of-command without question; most wear the same military uniform and use military-issue weapons, although the most elite will customise their uniforms and retain their unique weapons. The difference between true Huntsmen and Atlesian "super-soldiers" becomes a major plot point of the Atlas Arc, where the free-thinking and idealistic Beacon-trained heroes clash with the obedient, militaristic Atlesian-trained General Ironwood, Winter Schnee and Ace-Ops over how best to defend the kingdom from the Big Bad.
- In
*Xyber 9: New Dawn*, Renard focuses more on ground based combat, Tatania's forces attack from the air. Also, he's more likely to just dump infantry on an area than she is.
- The Various Bending Styles on
*Avatar: The Last Airbender*, each have their own philosophies; first, the Airbending style is all about "being the leaf" relying on circular movements, lots of dodging, and using non-lethal techniques in general. In Contrast Earthbending is all about "Being the Rock", standing your ground, hitting hard and using the terrain (literally) to your advantage. Then there is Firebending, which is all about overwhelming opponents with raw power. While the waterbending style focuses on flow of movement and redirecting the attacks of the enemy, with bonus healing abilities. The Avatar being the Kung-Fu Jesus Master of All has to master them all, but they have the most trouble learning the element that is most opposite their personality (which is generally aligned to the element of the nation they were born into, the first element they learn to control).
- The Final Agni Kai shows a great deal of difference between Zuko and Azula. Azula is a firebending prodigy and master; and thus has taken her firebending higher than most others ever do (as referenced by her blue fire, something Avatars haven't even been seen to make). Zuko doesn't have her skills; but he has learned lightning redirection from waterbenders by his uncle, his stance and strokes are reminiscent of the patience of Earthbenders, and he even remembers the fundamentals of firebending (even using one of his sister's own defensive tactics against her during the match). In a way (and the comics show it more later); Zuko and Azula fight as if they were Roku vs. Sozin; their predecessors; which make them interesting foils of each other.
- Traditionally, the more agile United States Marine Corps were sent in as shock troops to annihilate enemy forces, while the more powerful but sluggish United States Army would then hold the captured territory. However, recent operations have blurred this division of labor.
- Particularly special forces in the U.S. Army have blurred the line. However, this is a result of a changing tactical environment (think World War 2 compared to Iraq War 2). The Marines are still the premiere "hit hard, cripple the enemy" forces, but the Army is catching up, though they generally use "hit hard, destroy the enemy" tactics instead. The Marines are also backed up by the Navy, which has both fighter-bombers and medium range tactical missiles, which is a rather large advantage. The Army, on the other hand, has much more artillery.
- Those philosophies have been discarded as the U.S. military has opted for integrated "joint-force" operations in almost every engagement, utilizing the strengths of all branches, together. This, of course, was due to the resulting Interservice Rivalry getting to such a point that it was jeopardizing major operations.
- Recent doctrinal changes seem to be bringing back this trope between the Army and Marines. Whereas the Army has re-emphasized large-scale mechanized formations, bringing back the division structure and fighting to get the mechanized infantry and armored units out of the National Guard and back into the active Army, the Marines are discarding their armor and gun artillery in favor of more rocket artillery to support small-scale landings to form essentially mobile firebases for use against land and sea targets.
- There was a real and well documented case of Opposing Combat Philosophies within the U.S. Air Force during the late '40s and early '50s between Gen Curtis LeMay, who wanted manned nuclear bombers and lots of them, and his detractors who included President Kennedy, Secretary of Defense McNamara, U.S. Army Gen. Maxwell Taylor and many, many others.
- This mirrored an earlier case of OCP between WWI and WWII where Billy Mitchell, desperate to secure money for his nascent Army Air Force, basically went to war with the U.S. Navy, intending to cannibalize their funding. He put on many highly-publicized tests to try and demonstrate that bombers made the Navy's battleships obsolete. He would eventually be
*partially* Vindicated by History; battleships themselves were rendered obsolete by better military aircraft... mostly aircraft flying off carriers (which Mitchell opposed bitterly as a waste of money that he insisted should be diverted to land-based bombers). No battleship has ever been sunk by land-based heavy bombers whilst underway and in combat readiness.
- The opposing ground forces during the Cold War in Germany. NATO's doctrine, AirLand Battle was built around rapid response, superior technology, individual capable forces and using as fast a command loop as possible to redirect forces towards new developments in the battlefield, while acknowledging that their relative number of forces in Germany would likely be forced to fight a fighting retreat. The Warsaw Pact, on the other hand, was built around Deep Operations Doctrine relied upon achieving a local superiority of forces and forcing their way through the enemy positions, with a rigid, inflexible command structure to minimize the effect of the Soviet's atrophied NCO corps and general reliance on under-trained conscripts.
- Similarly, there is a distinct difference between the United States and Soviet Union's respective naval doctrines, especially on their main focus, that of a hot war. American forces were built around a core of Carrier Battle Groups, consisting of a single massive "Supercarrier" screened by an escorting flotilla of smaller craft, capable of safely projecting power at any point on the globe. The Soviets fleet, being a lightyears behind the Americans in insitutional knowledge on carrier operations, was instead built around cruise missiles, mounted on as many different hulls as possible to strike at enemy fleets from a distance. This however, suffers due to the fact that long-range missiles, at their best were only capable of a fraction of the range of fighter craft, and were incapable of the all-important feat of
*finding* an opposing navy in the vast expanse of sea, meaning soviet blue-water forces were dead in the water in a long-range open-ocean engagement with their American counterparts, their answer to this being to throw up their hands and decide they didn't need to fight the navy or ever attack America itself, focusing on Europe and hoping their larger land-based cruise missiles were enough to deter the US Navy.
- In terms of aerial tactics, NATO forces were built around long range missiles, highly manuveurable fighters with advanced countermeasures to "jink" enemy missiles and achieve local air superiority, allowing for direct air support. The Soviet doctrine on the other hand, was focused on fast, short-legged, one-off interceptors, which would scramble at the first sign of American aircraft, fly directly towards them, and perform a fly-by attack with missiles. On bombers, both sides started out with an emphasis on high-and-fast bombers, with the USAF deviating towards low-flying stealthy and highly effective designs like the B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit, while the Soviet Union retained the large, highly vulnerable high-flying supersonic bombers like the Tu-160, which relied on using cruise missiles instead of bombs to offset it's extreme vulnerability.
- The contrasting characteristics of fighter jets designed by Western nations and those designed by Russians: Western designs put emphasis on preserving energy in air combat, following Boyd's energy-maneuverability theory, to keep their options open. Russian fighter design, on the other hand, emphasized making loss of energy matter less to them, hence supermaneuverability which runs contrary to Boyd's theory (as many of the maneuvers that are characteristic of this supermaneuverability are only executable in low energy states).
- The German Army's mastery of maneuver warfare (swift, coordinated,
*simultaneous* assault with infantry, artillery, and air power) was its greatest advantage at the start of World War II. The European Allied forces, prepared only for the attrition warfare tactics of World War I, were left beaten, bloody, and desperate to catch up during the opening years of the war.
- The Crusades has examples of this. The Europeans prefer heavily armored knights, while the Arabs and Turks prefer lightly armored but still heavily armed horsemen. In a single battle, the European Crusaders proved indisputably superior, thanks to their armor, but were not suited to the hot, dry Arabian terrain, which severely hampered the Knights, and would only grow worse over time.
- Another medieval example was England vs. France in the Hundred Years War. In France, as was the case in much of the continent, war was a thing conducted by armoured nobility and men-at-arms on horseback, owing to the feudal model of their society and the terrain of much of France being wide-open fields - the crossbow was the favoured French missile weapon, and an afterthought held largely in disdain, a cumbersome and complex weapon reserved for (highly-paid) mercenaries from Germany and Italy. By contrast, England was utterly archery-crazy; the powerful Welsh longbow, crafted from yew and a fixture of Welsh warfare for centuries, could fire ten to twelve steel-tipped bodkin arrows per minute (to a crossbow's two or three) with potential to pierce a knight's armour at 60 yards. It was a requirement under English law for all able-bodied men of age to train regularly with the longbow, giving them a vast population of skilled archers. In some battles, things went well for the French, like at the Battle of Patay, where French knights charged the English before they had time to set up and the English were quickly routed. Then you have the battles of Crécy and Agincourt, where bad weather and terrain (the French cavalry charged uphill through thick mud and also had to navigate defensive pits) favoured the English and the flower of French chivalry died under hail of English arrows.
- And then there's the seemingly-unstoppable yet ultimately defeated Mongolian Horde. The Horde was a well-disciplined and massive fighting force of horseback archers, with some auxillary lancers and siege engineers taken from the conquered Chinese, and bested the Europeans in open battle in the plains of far eastern Europe, but their Chinese engineers were not up to the task of actually besting a European Castle, and the Mongolians themselves were foiled by the less monolithically plained land further into Europe, which exacerbated the issue of their light composite bows difficulty in piercing the heavy armor of the European knights (contrast the massive yew longbows of the English, which had far less difficulty in performing this feat), and had their ability to outmaneuver their foes limited, which would lead to Mongolian lancers with lamellar armor on small steppe horses being forced into head-to-head confrontations with the European Knights in full maille atop the larger, more aggressive Destriers with longer lances, and no time to wear them down from afar with arrow after arrow, and worse yet, the death of Genghis Khan gave the Europeans time to unite themselves and raise more and greater keeps, boxing the Mongols in strategically.
- Until quite recently there was a remarkable variability in this due to terrain, economics, ideology and what not. This may have gotten less so in modern times; most countries seem to try to imitate European style. Except for guerrillas which are the other main combat philosophy of the modern world.
- The strategies each side of the American Civil War employed during most of the war. The Confederate strategy relied on a series of decisive victories in pitched battle that would quickly force the Union to the negotiating table once they lost their stomach for war. The Union strategy (mostly) involved attrition and the control of key locations, knowing it would be able to outlast the Confederacy in any prolonged conflict due to their industrial superiority and population advantage. The dual Union victories at Gettsyburg and Vicksburg in the first week of July 1863 illustrate the success of one strategy (the Union gained complete control of the Mississippi River, further tightening the noose around the Confederacy) and the failure of another (Lee banking on a decisive victory on Union soil and being utterly foiled, resulting in a decisive tactical and strategic defeat the Confederacy could not recover from.)
- This appeared on the Union side for much of the war, represented in the persons of General George McClellan and General Ulysses S. Grant. McClellan, Father to His Men through and through, was always cautious, losing several battles and even more opportunities because he had overestimated the strength of the Confederate forces. Grant, on the other hand, was willing to press the North's advantages for all they were worth, including the advantage of manpower, in order to bring a faster victory. The result was the sacking of McClellan and (eventually) the appointment of Grant in his place as commanding general of the Army. Grant wasn't callous to his losses—in fact, it often horrified him—but understood strategically that this was the only viable way to win, whereas McClellan was too timid for his own good, unable to seize the initiative for fear of losses, thereby making "mistakes of kindness" of the exact sort warned against by Clausewitz.
- This came to the fore during the Second Punic War on the Roman side. With Hannibal smashing one Roman army after another in Italy, Quintus Fabius Maximus came to lead a new Roman army to oppose the Carthaginians. Fabius used his army to shadow and harrass Hannibal, refusing the open battle Hannibal desired and all the while reducing Carthaginian morale, numbers, and supplies. However, this strategy was time consuming and the Romans wanted to smash Hannibal once and for all, so the Senate instead placed the aggressive Gaius Terentius Varro in charge. He gave Hannibal an open battle, outnumbering him nearly 2-1.... And had his army annihilated at the Battle of Cannae. In the end, Fabius was proven correct, since he knew that Hannibal would never have the manpower or resources to ever try and capture Rome, and knew Hannibal grossly underestimated Roman resolve.
- On the strategic level, Rome's ultimate success against Carthage (and its rise to power in general) was due to the fact that they approached warfare on an all-or-nothing basis rather than merely as "a continuation of politics by other means," which was the default for conflicts between settled societies of the time. Where the Carthaginians were convinced that destroying Roman armies in the field would bring them humbly to the peace table (which is part of why Hannibal never actually marched on Rome itself), the Romans instead believed that they were involved in a do-or-die struggle for survival. When they gained the upper hand, the Romans took the initiative to dismantle Carthage's empire almost entirely (and ultimately destroy the city itself).
- When the Romans and the Greeks came to blows with each other, they both used different methods in warfare. The Greeks mostly fought in phalanx formation which they would place all their infantry in a long wall of spears and shields, while the Romans would fight in maniples where their infantry are organized in several loose box formations. The phalanx was strong and sturdy, but it was inflexible and is weak on being outflanked from the sides and rear. The Roman maniple was far more flexible, and the army could change to a new formation if they could get a better advantage... As they had learned on their own skin back when they too used the phalanx and suffered a devastating defeat against the Samnites, who used proto-manipular tactics.
- The Romans were also big on combined arms: while their best forces were always in the heavy infantry of the legion, they would also use light infantry for skirmish and rain arrows on the enemy and cavalry for recon and shock. Most of their enemies, on the other hand, tended to concentrate only on one kind of troop, resulting in the Samnite infantry-only armies and the Greek unsupported phalanxes being outflanked by cavalry, Parthian cavalry-based armies being unable to fully take on the Roman combined infantry-cavalry formations once the Romans adopted Parthian-style cavalry, and so on, with Rome's greatest opponents giving them trouble because they too had a similar approach (Hannibal's army included a heavy infantry phalanx, skirmishers, and a formidable cavalry).
- Rome's main military advantage was also it's defining social trait: an unapologetic willingness to copy other cultures' ideas wholesale and make them their own. Most cultures at the time put entirely too much importance on fighting the same way they had for centuries, or just ripping off Alexander the Great without actually understanding his tactics (like the Romans he also used combined arms, and showed willingness to include Persian tactics and formations in his army).
- Martial Arts is often divided into "Hard" and "Soft" categories; usually accepted as using force directly or redirecting an opponent's force.
- In World War II Germany relied on its virtuousity in maneuver warfare to clock off a string of victories in local campaigns. Britain relied on its Navy, the resources of The British Empire, and hundreds of years of experience in global wars; as well as deception and their patronage of La Résistance to buy time until allies arrived and wear down German strength. America relied on industrial capacity. Its most notable tactical strength was its massive and superbly-manned air power. The Soviets relied on numbers and furious counter-attacks in the first period of war (1941-2) sophisticated deception operations to muster overwhelming concentrations of artillery in unexpected sectors in the second (1942-3), and rapid exploitation by cavalry and mechanised units (with air-support) of the holes their artillery could punch in the enemy lines in the third (1943-5). Japan relied on the individual skill of its personnel as well as their " warrior spirit". Finland, with nothing else to rely on, depended on the roughness of their country and its people.
- Sir Arthur Harris, head of RAF Bomber Command during WW II opposed
**anyone** who didn't hew to his strategy of bombing German cities. He believed the quickest way to end the war was to specifically target cities and civilian populations, over an invasion of Europe. Despite the fact that the German Luftwaffe had attempted to defeat Britain in *the exact same manner*, which failed utterly.
- The US also banked on its massive logistical capacity, combined with that industrial capacity. Per capita, the US had a much smaller front line fighting force than any other nation, but a much larger support structure for that force, able to supply troops fighting on four continents even while dealing with the German and Japanese efforts to interrupt their seaborne supply lines (German submarine warfare and Japanese island warfare being the main threats to Allied lines of communication and supply during the war)
- Differing doctrines and philosophies also lead to different approaches to warship design. One oft-cited example is the difference between American and British carrier design and operation. The Royal Navy assumed that their carriers would often operate relatively close to land, due to much of their traditional area of operations being around the English Channel and Mediterranean, and so their carriers featured heavy Anti-Air armament, with their aircraft stored inside an armored hangar (with the flight deck itself being armored and part of the ship's primary structure). The Americans assumed that their carriers would primarily operate in the open seas (the US being flanked by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, with colonies strung across the Pacific as far away as the Philippine Islands), and placed their armor protection beneath the hangar decks, leaving the open hangars and flight deck as part of the ship's superstructure instead, far more vulnerable, but with a much smaller weight penalty. In addition, the American doctrine included keeping planes parked on the flight deck (seeing as it provided no additional protection from attack than the hangar did). Overall, the American carriers were able to field much larger air wings than their British counterparts, making it less likely for them to be successfully attacked. Later in the war, the Americans did add additional Anti-Air protection, and the Brits began parking additional planes on their flight decks, having adapted their strategies based on wartime experience.
- The Soviets didn't field any carriers during WWII, but in the Cold War, they viewed their carriers as defensive weapons, rather than force projection weapons like the Americans and British did. Many Soviet carriers, described as Aviation Cruisers, were built as surface warfare ships which also happened to carry a flight deck sufficient to put up a light aerial screen to protect the fleet from attack.
- German vs. English longsword fencing. The German masters teach to control the battle by attacking, and keeping your opponent on his back foot by forcing him to respond to your attacks and not giving him time to launch any of his own. The English, however, teach to control the battle by drawing your opponent to attack by offering him conspicuous openings, and thereby controlling your opponents attacks and luring your opponent to expose himself.
- Purpose-built Tank Destroyers during WWII.
- Most nations (Primarily Germany and the Soviet Union) made turretless designs with a low profile, heavy armour, and a large gun, with the idea being that they'd lay in wait at a defensive position, and since they knew which way the enemy would approach from they didn't need a turret, so removing it reduced weight and freed up some space in the body, allowing for heavier armour and more room for ammunition.
- The US assumed that Germany would use concentration of power to break through at a point of their choosing, with tanks. Therefore, a rapid reaction capable of taking on a force of enemy tanks was deemed necessary. This became the Tank Destroyer branch. It is a common misconception that the tank destroyers destroyed tanks and nobody else did. The key difference is in the role. The Tank Destroyers were intended as a defensive measure, countering attacking enemy tanks. While the regular tanks were to be kept for offensive purposes, which includes fighting against defending and counterattacking enemy tanks. Many designs were tried, but the Tank Destroyer requirements were difficult to meet. They wanted speed, firepower and survivability while also trying to keep cost and manpower low so more men and material is available for the frontline. Another problem was that for the Tank Destroyers to work as intended was that they had to be kept in reserve, in case of an enemy breakthrough. Usually, commanders didn't like having them twiddling their thumbs and sent them in to help the frontline. This strengthened the front, but made them unable to mass quickly enough to counter an enemy breakthrough. All in all, it was concluded that the best approach was to just use tanks for both countering a breakthrough and doing the attacks. Tank Destroyer doctrine ate up more resources and manpower than was worth it and it was overspecialized for a specific defensive situation. That being said, there is at least one instance of it working exactly as intended, cost-effectively stopping a German armoured spearhead in Africa.
- The British also used some of the designs created for the Tank Destroyer doctrine, though it was mainly due to the fact that they needed more armoured vehicles than they could produce, and the US was the only people giving them any.
- At the Battle of Lepanto, the Ottoman fleet focused mostly on traditional boarding tactic, used mostly archers as their light ranged options, and relied on enslaved Christians to row their galleys, while the Holy League focused on the new artillery, used mostly musketeers as their light ranged options even to the detriment of melee fighters, and relied on either convicts or volunteers to row their galleys. The Ottoman fleet was decimated by the brand-new Venetian galleasses at the start of the battle and continued to suffer losses in ships and manpower to the Holy League's heavier artillery and longer-ranged musketeers while unable to retaliate much as many Christian soldiers wore heavy armor that could take the Ottoman arrows, and when the Ottoman flagship and its escorts were about to overwhelm and capture the League's flagship the crews were reinforced by their convicts who had been promised pardons upon victory and knew would remain at the row for life if they were defeated, decisively turning the tide against the last Ottoman chance at winning (the Ottoman admiral's attempt at pulling the same failed miserably, as his rowers didn't trust him to keep his word and knew that the Holy League would free them on the spot).
- During the wars of independence in Spanish South America, there was Simón Bolívar vs. everyone else. Bolívar's takeaway from the failure of the First Venezuelan Republic was that defensive warfare was for suckers, and he therefore embraced aggressive-to-the-point-of-reckless offensives as a cornerstone of his tactics and strategy. Meanwhile, many if not most of his fellow Patriots were wary of Bolívar's inclination to attack; given that the Spanish were on the opposite side of the world, a defensive posture
*should* work to win independence (after all, grinding defense was how George Washington & Co. had managed to win the American War of Independence). This difference had mixed results: while Bolívar's approach had its successes (at one point, he went from "penniless exile in Curaçāo" to "dictator of Venezuela in all but name" in seven months) and ultimately worked (there's a reason he's still remembered as *El Libertador*), it also had its massive failures. The most prominent of these failures is the time he attacked the Llanero "Legions of Hell" at 2nd La Puerta and doomed the Second Venezuelan Republic by the crushing defeat he suffered thereby, even though Santiago Mariño had staked out a very strong defensive position that could have destroyed the Legions or at least kept them at bay had Bolívar's forces been available. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpposingCombatPhilosophies |
Opposite-Sex Clone - TV Tropes
*"I'M TOO YOUNG AND TOO MALE TO BE THE MOTHER OF A SEVENTEEN YEAR-OLD FEMALE ME!"*
While clones and most other sorts of sci-fi duplicates are identical to the original character and, by definition, the same sex, exceptions do exist. The idea dates at least from
*Nine Lives* by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969), where recognized geniuses are routinely cloned in large mixed-sex groups and *Time Enough for Love* by Robert Heinlein (1973), where the opposite sex clones become sexual partners of the original. Nowadays the trope is more often used as a quick way of producing a Distaff Counterpart rather than for titillation. Merely being of the opposite sex of his or her original greatly increases the chance of the clone surviving the denouement and showing up in a future story. This way writers can invoke the First Law of Gender Bending without sacrificing an original-sex character they've grown fond of.
Biologically, this is somewhat plausible for male-to-female cloning, because a male has an X-chromosome that can be doubled to produce a female clone, as in Garrett's poem and Heinlein's novel.
note : Strictly speaking, you don't even need the second X chromosome, though omitting it is a good way to kill 99% of your fetuses and give the surviving 1% Turner syndrome. Alternatively, the SRY gene, which causes maleness, can be removed from the Y chromosome. For female-to-male cloning, the Y chromosome would have to come from another subject, preferably a paternal relative and most ideally the father, as if the original subject were a male, she would have had a Y chromosome virtually identical to her father's. Nevertheless, this would technically not be a pure clone. A Y chromosome could be formed from one of the X-chromosomes, which would require absurd amounts of genetic engineering and amount to simple fiat anyway. Alternatively, the SRY gene can be implanted in one of the X chromosomes to create a sterile clone that appears male. Somewhat fittingly when given the above, the majority of these characters are female.
If the Opposite-Sex Clone retains the memories and personality of the original this is effectively a Gender Bender, at least from the perspective of the clone.
See Cloning Blues. Subtrope of Modified Clone. Compare Distaff Counterpart, Half-Identical Twins and Screw Yourself. See also Trans Audience Interpretation, as that is a common fan explanation as to why this trope occurs.
## Examples:
- In
*Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS*, Uno of the Numbers Cyborgs was revealed in the Sound Stages to have been created by Jail through cloning, using his own genetic material.
-
*Ranma ½*:
- After accidentally looking into an enchanted mirror, Ranma creates a copy of his female self. She is, of course, infatuated with him. In the end, he accidentally copies his male self and the two copies fall for each other.
- In an anime episode, Happosai attempts to split Ranma into male and female forms for his own selfish reasons. However, he misses the fact that, A: Ranma despises him and would never obey him no matter the form, and B: the incense he uses is called Personality Splitter. The result is an Enemy Without situation, as the Clone is a vampiric ghost-like entity that is the living embodiment of Ranma's evil.
- The title character of
*Battle Angel Alita: Last Order* and several others are cyborg clones of the same woman. Sechs was original female, but decides to alter their body to be male.
- The female Nemu is the clone of the male Mayuri Kurotsuchi in
*Bleach*. It's more apparent when Mayuri doesn't have his make-up on.
- In the
*Starship Girl Yamamoto Yohko* TV series, Yohko's male clone, Yousuke appears. ||He turns out to be female and in disguise, but then actually becomes male later.||
-
*Getter Robo Armaggedon*: ||the pilot Go|| is a male Artificial Human made from the DNA of ||Dr. Saotome's deceased daughter Michiru||.
- In the hentai manga
*Alice's Adventures in Sexland*, obviously an erotic retelling of Lewis Carroll's book, there is a furniture maker whose furniture is special because it will spring to life and play with the user. Her "masterpiece" is a mirror, which sprung a magical clone of Alice, because, as the creator says, *Who knows best what you like and what you need, if not yourself*. Only it wasn't an exact clone. She does state, however, that the mirror would have given a perfect clone if that was what Alice had wanted.
- The former trope picture is from the artist Pisipisi and is of a series of drawings where a perverted Mad Scientist college student clones the girl he's stalking — but puts his own mind in the clone instead of her's. Of course, then "she" wakes up, realizes that "she" now has a horny pervert expecting "her" to be a personal sex toy for him and his friends, and is less than enthused about the idea. Then she discovers that his male mind has no defense against female erogenous zones... Unfortunately, Pisipisi banned all American visitors to his website years ago due to harassment, and (possibly due to rumors of "Pisipisi" being the pen name of professional artist Saiwase Okiba) frequently goes months or years without updates.
- Keith Violet of
*Project ARMS*, the one female amongst the many clones of Keith.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh!*, it isn't a clone exactly, but the digital copy of Mokuba Kaiba that Seto Kaiba creates in a video game is *Princess* Adina. It makes a bit more sense in the Japanese version, where the Big 5 programmed the female Mokuba rather than Kaiba.
- The Innovators in
*Mobile Suit Gundam 00*. They are all technically genderless but come in pairs; out of the four pairs only one has both members having adopted a persona of the same gender (both male), so each of the other six Innovators has their own opposite sex clone of sorts.
- One of Naruto's techniques involves either transforming into and occasionally summoning several more, scantily clad female versions of himself. And by "scantily clad", we mean "clothed in convenient smoke".
-
*Darker than Black* Gemini of the Meteor reveals that ||Suou is an opposite-sex clone that Shion created of himself to pass as his twin sister complete with Fake Memories. The real Suou died during an unrelated assassination attempt||.
-
*Knights of Sidonia*: Norio Kunato's "sister" Mozuku is in fact a clone of himself, but altered to be female. She takes care of all of Norio's responsibilities as head of the Kunato family while he devotes his time to piloting, and is mostly just seen as an extension of Norio himself.
-
*Ayakashi Triangle*: About half a year after Matsuri was turned from a boy into a girl, exposure to The Corruption somehow resulted in both a male and female Matsuri, each with all of Matsuri's previous memories and personality. Because only the girl has the mark of the initial transformation, it's judged most likely the spell was turned into an ayakashi with a copy of Matsuri's mind, turning the original back into a boy. However, it's entirely possible the boy is a clone, and thus an inversion.
- After Fantomex of the Uncanny X-force died, he was going to get a cloned body to come back with. However, he has three different brains and each brain received its own cloned body. The nicest brain got a female body called Cluster.
- Spider-Woman (who later went by Black Widow), in
*Ultimate Spider-Man*. Ultimate Spider-Woman is a clone of Peter Parker, with all of his memories and personality traits - except she's considerably more abrasive, especially to Miles. (They were going to blank her memory and give her an entirely new made-up personality and set of memories, but didn't get around to it before wackiness ensued.)
- X-23 is an Opposite-Sex Clone of Wolverine, developed by Dr. Sarah Kinney as a solution to not being able to recreate a Y chromosome from a sample of Wolverine's DNA. So instead, she doubled the X chromosome.
- Also in Marvel, The Collector (whose hobby with species is exactly what his name suggests) captured both Howard the Duck and Rocket Raccoon, and proceeded to create female clones of both, named Linda and Shocket, respectively...for a breeding program. Both managed to survive and become their own individuals. (Incidentally, this suggests the Collector isn't as good at his job as he seems, since while there are only one of Howard's species in their universe, there
*is* a female Halfworlder raccoon out there named Captain Sale.)
- Used in a
*classic* *Supergirl* comic where a criminal tries to clone Supergirl in order to use her twin to commit crimes. The (male) twin ends up committing suicide due to an Ethical Conflict between what his criminal creator has told him to do and what his twin wants him to do.
- In
*Spider-Gwen*, The Falcon is the teenage, male clone of Captain America, who is a black woman named Samantha Wilson in this continuity.
- One
*Judge Dredd* story set during a flashback to Chaos Day portrayed a group of cadets trying to survive. One of them is stated to be a Dredd clone. Falcone is the obvious, but wrong, candidate. Turns out the clone is female. ||And pregnant.||
- In
*DC Comics Bombshells*, ||Superman|| is an opposite-sex clone of ||Supergirl||, created by ||Hugo Strange||. He also created a same-sex clone, who is that continuity's ||Power Girl||.
-
*Wonder Woman (1987)*: Kreel biology means that attempting to clone a man may result in a female infant, as is the case for ||the Emperor||.
-
*X-Cellent* introduces Phatty, a female clone of Phat, one of the dead members of *X-Statix*.
-
*Legion of X*: ||Mother Righteous is revealed to be the Sinister of the hearts suit, making her a female clone of the original (male) Nathaniel Essex. Given her expertise in magic, stark white hair, and red skin that her concept art describes as metallic (plus the original Esssex's chauvinism), it's probable she was created male and mystically transformed to be female.||
-
*Naruto* fanfictions happen to do this a lot to the main character, due to his Opposite Sex Clone actually being real. This is strengthened in the fact that it's not really a clone, but a disguise that quite literally changes Naruto into a girl. He can do this to his clones making literal Opposite Sex Clones.
-
*Kid Icarus Uprising 2: Hades Revenge* has the main character, Cloud Angle, create one, named Azul. Her first scene involves her and Cloud as a plan to avoid becoming virgin sacrifices.
-
*The Bridge*: As a visual gag. Changelings can only mimic ponies of the same sex, so when a female one tries to mimic the transformed kaiju-to-unicorn Godzilla Junior the result is a female version of Junior.
-
*Hero: The Guardian Smurf*: Wonder Smurfette is one of the series' main protagonist Hero Smurf, who was created with the magical Mirror of Opposition when lightning struck it, thus creating a second adult female Smurf in the village besides Smurfette.
-
*Sunsplit Saga*: Basically the core idea of the saga, and a First-Episode Twist, ||Sunset Shimmer|| is ||Sunburst||'s magical construct clone, whom he made to take on a date.
-
*Logan*: Laura was created from samples of Wolverine's blood, doubling the X-chromosome.
-
*BattleTech* Expanded Universe: The Clans are a race of supermen and women that are mass-produced in batches from the DNA of their greatest warriors. During their childhood, all the clones engage in casual sex with each other to build bonds. This sometimes continues into adulthood, such as the Pryde siblings from the novel *Legend of the Jade Phoenix* and the Hazen siblings from the *Mechwarrior: The Dark Age* novels; both from Clan Jade Falcon. Maeve Wolf, of the Wolf's Dragoons, is secretly a sex-swapped clone of Jaime Wolf.
-
*Biting the Sun*: The heroine goes male so as to be able to produce sperm which s/he stores, then uses (once she switches back to female) to impregnate herself. It doesn't end up that well...
- In "A Clone At Last", a short story by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg, a man commissions a female clone of himself because he has no luck with women.
-
*Dune*:
-
*God-Emperor of Dune*: Leto is introduced to Hwi Noree, the new Ixian Ambassador, who turns out to be ||an Opposite Sex Clone of the previous ambassador, genetically tweaked to be irresistible to the inhuman Leto||.
-
*Dune Encyclopedia* provides a history of all of Leto II's Duncan Idaho gholas, it includes that the Tleilaxu once provided a female Duncan Idaho ghola in a similar ploy to what the Ixians attempted with Hwi.
-
*Forges of Mars*: The scientist Linya Tychon is a female clone of her father Vitali Tychon. Hed intended her to be male like himself, but an error in the creation process altered her sex.
-
*Genome*: In *Dances on the Snow*, a genius geneticist named Edward Garlitski manages to create a female clone of himself named Ada Snezhinskaya. She shares his ambition and a vision of a world where genetic engineering is the norm. However, they have different ideas on how to achieve this goal. He chooses to work within the system by perfecting genetic engineering (in another book he is hailed as the father of genetic engineering). She decides that the entire society needs to be remade through political means. She creates hundreds of clones of herself and Edward and sends them out throughout The Empire to be adopted by unsuspecting parents. She then plots a rebellion, which would result in her ruling with her clones. Her plan fails but Garlitski's succeeds.
- In
*House of Suns*, by Alastair Reynolds, the various posthuman clone houses, such as Gentian Line, consist of male and female clones of a single individual.
-
*InterWorld*: Joseph Harker, after accidentally traveling between dimensions for the first time, realizes that he has been replaced in this dimension by Josephine Harker, an almost-exact female copy of himself.
-
*Nine Lives* by Ursula K. Le Guin: From 1968, it's possibly the oldest example in modern SF. Earth is in a sorry state, most people suffer from inborn defects. To remedy the situation, the best people are cloned. Usually, the donors are male, since it allows to easily clone both sexes, and mixed-sex groups of clones are proven to function better. note : Women are sterile, which means even the second X chromosome wasn't added. No other symptoms of Turner syndrome are mentioned. Or maybe they are present, but don't stand out against the background of other sick people. The story explores the reaction of normal humans who have to work with a "ten-clone" created from a genius who died young. ||And then how the sole survivor reacts to the death of his 9 siblings.|| Among other things it's mentioned that clones routinely share sleeping bags and sex seems just as natural for them as breathing. ||An observer wonders if it's sex or masturbation.||
-
*Otherland*: The Corrupt Corporate Executive Felix Jongleur's daughter is a clone of himself. ||She's actually a byproduct one of his early attempts to make himself immortal. The idea was to have a clone of himself implanted in a surrogate mother. Of course, the child would need a similar upbringing to his own to produce an effective copy. To this end, Jongleur wanted the surrogate mother to be like his own mother. Unfortunately, he couldn't bring himself to unearth her body... so instead, he made an Opposite-Sex Clone of himself. That's right: he intended to impregnate an opposite-sex version of himself... with himself. Very Squick. Fortunately, the project never went beyond the initial stages because a far more appealing (yet no less unethical) option presented itself, so Jongleur adopted the Opposite Sex Clone for his daughter.||
- After being murdered several times, the protagonist of
*The Phantom Of Kansas* eventually ||hooks up with her murderer (an illegal clone of herself that has undergone a sex-change) and buys a spaceship to head out for the most remote settlement in the solar system||.
- In James Patrick Kelly's story "Solstice," one of the main characters has himself cloned as a woman. ||Later he turns it into Screw Yourself. He eventually has a moral epiphany and is filled with guilt, both about the incest and his selfishness in cloning himself.||
- The
*Stardoc* series has for a main character Cherijo Grey Veil, who is introduced as the daughter of renowned geneticist Dr. Joseph Grey Veil. ||Later in the series, we discover not only is she a female clone of the good doctor, she was created as a wife for him. Basically, he was such an egomaniac that he felt only his Distaff Counterpart would be a worthy mate. And he was willing to get laws passed declaring her a non-person in order to make sure *she* had no say in the matter.||
- The character of Lazarus Long in Robert A. Heinlein's book
*Time Enough for Love* is the world's oldest living human. At the beginning of the book, he is trying to kill himself by avoiding "rejuvenation therapy", and a squad of his descendants rescues him. He makes a deal with them: he will go through rejuvenation therapy if they can unearth one experience he could do that he hadn't done already. Two of his female descendants arrange for Opposite Sex Clones of him to be implanted in them; both are born, and he finds himself raising twin female versions of himself.
- Lois McMaster Bujold's
*Vorkosigan Saga*:
- Not quite the same, but it's stated in various novels that opposite-sex clones are possible, and that the corrupt rich people who choose to have their brains transferred into a younger clone sometimes pick this option (with optional plastic surgery beforehand, to make sure it's a
*pretty* clone).
- It's implied in
*Mirror Dance* that some people order clones of themselves chiefly for the purposes of sexual experimentation, although the opposite-sex option isn't brought up at that point. It's also stated outright that the mass-produced Durona Group are of both sexes, although there seem to be more females than males. (The original is a woman.)
- In
*A Civil Campaign*, Lady Donna Vorrutyer becomes Lord Dono thanks to a cloned set of male anatomy. The missing Y chromosome was supplied by her dead brother. ||Ivan gets really squicked by all this because he had previously had an affair with Lady Donna.||
-
*Doctor Who*: In "The Doctor's Daughter", a female Truly Single Parent-offspring is made of the Tenth Doctor. She's a genetic duplicate made of a tissue sample, entirely against his will. The relationship between them is presented as father/daughter throughout, as she was created from splitting his chromosomes then randomly recombining them like sexual reproduction, but him being both parents. The Doctor calls her a "generated anomaly". Donna shortens that to "Jenny". note : The actress that played Jenny is the daughter of the actor who played the Fifth Doctor, and later married the actor who played the Tenth Doctor. So she's now a Doctor's daughter who played the Doctor's daughter and then had the Doctor's daughter. Gallifreyan DNA is weird.
-
*Orphan Black* focuses on several clone characters played by Tatiana Maslany. One of them, introduced in Episode 8 of Season 2, is a trans man named Tony (formerly Antoinette). ||In Season 3, the focus is on Project CASTOR, which involves a series of male clones that are genetic siblings to the female clones. In fact, both lines come from a single donor, who happens to be a genetic chimera, having absorbed her male twin brother in the womb and thus has two sets of DNA.||
-
*Red Dwarf*:
- "Parallel Universe" has opposite-sex versions of the whole crew, where Rimmer's female double (Alternate Universe rather than cloned) comes on to him in a spectacularly unsubtle way, and where Lister proceeds to
*sleep with and get pregnant by his female counterpart*. This episode also features an obvious joke:
**Arlene Rimmer:** *[to Lister]* What could possibly have made you contemplate... making love to yourself? **Arnold Rimmer:** Well, why break a habit of a lifetime?
- "Rimmerworld" has Rimmer try to go the pervy route with this when he winds up stranded on an unoccupied planet. He screws up the cloning, though... several times. Even when he gets it "right", the clone still has his (male) face, but by that time, he's a prisoner of his own male clones and thus has bigger problems...
**Rimmer:** Technically, she would be my sister, and therefore unable to take me as her lover. After much soul searching, I reluctantly decided, "What the hell", I just wouldn't tell her.
-
*Sliders*:
- An episode has Quinn meet Logan, his Distaff Counterpart. Turns she actually
*is* him—in this universe Quinn was born a girl. ||She's also an Evil Twin.||
- In another episode Quinn is on a talk show and mentions meeting Logan, and of course the host immediately asks if he slept with her. They did kiss, though for his part Quinn was unaware of the connection at the time.
- It's interesting that Logan found out that Quinn is her double via a "thermal scan", basically, an advanced biometric system that maps each person's unique "heat signature". The Fridge Logic comes from a man and a woman having the same heat signature, even if they do share the same parents.
-
*Star Trek: The Next Generation*: When a non-corporeal entity impregnates Troi in "The Child", the baby is half-Betazoid and half-human, just like its mother in every way, except male.
- In many Mesoamerican and Southwestern Native American cultures, the gods often come in male-female pairs. Whether they're intended to be different aspects of the same god, brother and sister, husband and wife, or this trope is not always clear.
- In The Bible, it is said that Eve was created out of Adam's rib, making her for all intents and purposes one of these.
-
*BattleTech* General Maeve Wolf of Wolf's Dragoons is a female clone of founder Jaime Wolf. Rumors had it she was his illegitimate daughter even though public records claimed her as one of the war orphans the company took in while their own records had her as one of their Trueborn warrior of such mixed heritage that she refused a proper Bloodname.
-
*Traveller*: Archduke Norris Aella Aledon never married, but needed an heir, so he had a daughter (Seldrian Aledon) created. Cloning to have children happens so often, there is a term specifically for clone offspring (especially ones created to provide an heir for nobles): "true-son" or "true-daughter".
- In
*BioShock Infinite*, ||it turns out that Robert Lutece is not Rosalind's twin brother, but rather an opposite-sex version of her from an alternate universe||.
- The
*Crusader Kings II* mod *Crisis of the Confederation*, being a space opera mod, includes cloning as a possibility. Males cloning themselves can choose whether the clone will be male or female (females can only make female clones, though).
- The female version of Alex in
*Deus Ex: Invisible War* is a clone of Paul Denton.
- In
*Drakengard 3*, each of the Intoners has their own Disciple to serve them as a companion, bodyguard, and to sate their ramped-up sexual needs. Instead of a normal Disciple, One somehow spontaneously created a male clone of herself, who she keeps hidden from the other Intoners as a secret weapon against Zero. He only appears in the main story at the very end of Branch A, as a Diabolus ex Machina who backstabs Zero out of nowhere, but he co-stars in One's DLC missions, turns out to be the founder of the Cult of the Watchers that features so prominently in *Drakengard*, and is the main character of the *Drakengard 3* spinoff manga. And yes, One used her brother to meet her sexual needs as well - she at least felt guilty and conflicted about it, he didn't see what the problem was. And no, he isn't given a name beyond One's Brother, and in Route A's epilogue is able to pass himself off as One to take her place.
- In
*The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind*, Divayth Fyr (a very powerful, very old wizard), made four female clones of himself: Alfe, Beyte, Delte, and Uupse. They're variously described as wives or daughters. Surprisingly this isn't particularly played for Squick... at least within his tower.
-
*Endless Space* has the Horatio faction, an array of clones of ultra-rich Horatio the First. Some of them are female, because Horatio got bored with just his male clones.
-
*The King of Fighters* series has Kula Diamond, one of the many clones of Kyo Kusanagi. In addition to the sex flip, Kyo's powers over fire became Kula's powers over *ice*.
- The series can be inconsistent about "clones," sometimes using the term to describe unrelated people who have just been altered to be like someone else, and not clones in the normal sense. This makes Kula's status as a clone unclear.
- Kula did say in her storyline in
*KOF 2001* that she was "grown from a petri dish" (at least in the English version, anyway), which would make her fall squarely into this trope.
- However, Kula's bio in
*Maximum Impact 2* hints that she's a clone in the "genetic manipulation" sense (i.e. a normal girl surgically implanted with Kusanagi DNA, much like K' and Nameless). While the *MI* series *is* an Alternate Continuity, most of the characters' backstories seem to be unchanged, so...
- In
*Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days*, ||Xion is a clone of Sora literally made out of memories.|| It's played with a bit, as what you see while looking at them varies from person to person (such as Xigbar seeing her as Ventus), but the Shapeshifter Default Form is ||Kairi with black hair.||
- In
*Mass Effect 2*, Miranda Lawson is genetically engineered using her biological "father's" modified genome to be perfect. Unsurprisingly she has some pretty severe daddy issues resulting from what she perceives as her father's egotistical arrogance. Ultimately by the end of *2* and in *3*, they turn out to be two *VERY* different people, with Henry Lawson turning out to be even worse than Miranda described and Miranda showing herself to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, with the Jerk part eventually being shed.
- By the time of
*Mega Man Zero*, the four Guardians were created from Mega Man X's DNA. One of these Guardians is the obviously female Fairy Leviathan.
-
*Nintendo Wars*: Caulder/Stolos from *Advance Wars: Days of Ruin* has his 'daughters', Opposite Sex Clones of himself. They don't look that much like each other, so he appears to have fussed about with their genetics a little (which could explain their different eye colors). He does have a male clone as well, Cyrus, but he plays little part in the story.
- In
*The Sims 2*, a cheat can be used to impregnate a Sim by him/herself. Doing this will produce offspring that is a clone of the parent, but it will always be of the opposite sex. Notably, the child Brandi Broke is pregnant with when first played is such a clone, and isn't genetically related to his supposed father at all.
- In the
*Street Fighter* series, Cammy is a female clone of M. Bison (Vega in Japan, or simply "Dictator" in international discussions), meant to serve as one of numerous backup vessels for him due to the inevitable Psycho Power-induced burnout of his body. Also a case of mix and match girl, given how she's basically an identical clone of the kidnapped Russian girl named Decapre, with some Bison thrown in for maximum Psycho Power containing capability.
-
*Super Robot Wars*:
- Ingram Prisken and Viletta Vadim were the male and female options for the protagonist of
*Super Hero Sakusen*. The *Alpha* and *Original Generation* games re-envision them as this trope, with Viletta being a female clone of Ingram who wouldn't be subjected to the same mind control that he was under.
- Kazuma Ardygun has a female clone named Aria Advance. Unlike most examples, she's not a
*genetic* clone, but rather a digital being based off Kazuma's data.
- In
*Xenosaga* URTV #668, named Citrine is the opposite sex clone of Dimitri Yuriev, as were all of the female variant URTVs.
-
*Fate Series*: A weird one. In real life Arthurian legend, Mordred is the illegitimate son of King Arthur, made through the intervention of Morgan le Fey (exactly what she did varies depending on the legend). In *Fate/stay night*, one of the first major reveals is that ||King Arthur is actually female||. Many fans assumed that Mordred would therefore be an Opposite-Sex Clone. In *Fate/Apocrypha*, we find out that Mordred is indeed an Opposite-Sex Clone... except ||she's still female. Specifically, Artoria was temporarily transformed into a pseudo-male by Merlin, and Artoria's sister Morgan le Fey used the opportunity to get a DNA sample. She then used that to grow a homunculus of the opposite gender, meaning Mordred came out female||. Word of God explained some of this before *Apocrypha* came out.
- Arcueid of
*Tsukihime* is more or less a female clone of Crimson Moon Brunestud, the Ultimate Life Form of the Moon and the original template of all Nasuverse vampires. She wasn't intentionally created as such, but as the most powerful True Ancestor to have ever existed, she is, per Nasuverse logic (that copies are always inferior to their originals), the closest it gets to a being a carbon copy of the original vampire, Crimson Moon (who was a guy).
-
*Majikoi! Love Me Seriously!* has Yoshitsune and Benkei, as per their namesakes, are the female clones of the famous historical figures. Seiso is likely this as well, though it's not yet revealed who she's a clone of.
-
*El Goonish Shive* had protagonist Elliot using an ancient magical artifact to try to undo a Magitek Gender Bender, inadvertently creating Ellen in the process. She was "born" with a perfect copy of Elliot's memories and personality (though she says the memories feel more like stuff she learned, rather than experiences), but her initial Cloning Blues and subsequent (successful) attempts to establish her own identity led to Divergent Character Evolution, so she isn't a simple Distaff Counterpart. People calling her a clone (before getting to know her) is a *huge* Berserk Button. More than a few scenes make it clear that the classic sex partner idea seriously squicks both of them, since they *genuinely* care about each other like any two siblings would. Elliot in particular has gone on record saying that his *first thought* when he saw Ellen mid-freakout was "She's family, help her.". Furthermore, since Ellen was split off by the Dewitchery Diamond, Elliot can be considered Ellen's father and (since this is *El Goonish Shive* and a Gender Bender was inevitably involved) her *mother* as well. Unfortunately, all of this (plus Elliot's Chronic Hero Syndrome and Ellen's initial Cloning Blues) causes him to treat her like a *little* sister, which tends to annoy her no end.
- This potentially may get even more complicated, now that ||Magus (a Alternate Universe version of Ellen who had used Gender Bender magic in his home world
note : while he excuses this on some rather sketchy logic about physical strength, the evidence seems to point to this Ellen being Transgender, hence the switch before getting trapped in the EGS universe in a ghost-like state) is now walking around in a a *male* Dewitchery Diamond duplicate of Elliot's body. For now, Magus is avoiding the other two, but it is likely that he will re-appear eventually.||
- The community-driven interactive fiction
*MS Paint Adventures*: *Problem Sleuth* introduces a trio of detectives: Problem Sleuth, Ace Dick, and Pickle Inspector ("pickle" in this context is meant to connote "problem"), who, through spirit quests, are psychically linked with female counterparts of themselves, whom they eventually meet in person and are instantly attracted to. Problem Sleuth gets Hysterical Dame, Pickle Inspector gets Nervous Broad, and Ace Dick, lacking the imagination to think of a female counterpart, simply becomes linked to another male version of himself (albeit one who owns a blonde wig).
- In
*Dragon Tails*, when Norman the squirrel orders a clone of himself, he marked the sex box with an F (for "Fine the way it is") and got a female clone. The clone is also a child, since this was done with genetics.
- They were also really drunk while designing her genetic pattern, so they made her glow-in-the-dark as well.
-
*The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!:* While trying to manipulate Galatea, Riboflavin shapeshifts into his idea of what a male of her species would look like. Unfortunately, she doesn't actually *have* a species, and her reaction is, "Oh my G...! A sex-swapped version of my own *face?* I'll have nightmares for a week!" He then disguises himself as a handsome human male, and gets a much more favorable reaction from her.
- Not an example, but in
*Dumbing of Age,* Sarah refers to Joyce's nearly-identical older brother ||actually sister|| Joshua as this.
- In
*I Don't Want This Kind of Hero*, Tracy is this to Baek Morae, created by a group of scientists in an attempt to duplicate the latter's power of purification. Baek Morae, on his part, considers her existence disgraceful and so tries to kill her when they meet in the present.
-
*Holy Bibble* portrays Eve as this to Adam, since she is created from his rib. Due to the comic's simplistic art style, this is primarily shown by her having a similar curly forelock to him, as well as the same skin and hair colors.
- Subverted in
*Skin Horse*- when the characters travel to an alternate dimension, Tip discovers that this universe's version of him is a woman- but eventually they realize that although they were born at the same time from the same parents, they're no more genetically related than a different brother and sister.
- In
*The Guild* Bladezz' little sister looks even more like him than you'd expect (the androgynous clothes probably help). This isn't to put her down, if anything it makes Bladezz retro-actively prettier.
- As a corollary to Rule 34, Rule 63 (it would have been Rule 36, but it's reversed, get it?) says for every male character, someone has made a female version of that character, and vice versa.
- Quoth many an anonymous users: "It's not sex; it's masturbation!"
- The web-toon series
*Bonus Stage* featured a female clone of main character Phil Argus as a gag character, once as a "perfect girlfriend", the next as a "cheap ploy for additional viewership" (applified by bunny ears and fox ears (presumably to appeal to a wider spectrum of viewers).
- A variant from the Whateley Universe: In "The Second Book of Jobe", kleptomaniac devisor Belphegor ends up downloading a copy of his own personality into a cloned female drow body based on Jobe's "drow formula" and DNA. Hilarity quite naturally ensues, though the overall awkwardness of the situation (and not just because campus security shows up right the next moment) isn't neglected — for one, both Belphegor and Jobe find themselves promptly declared "Belphoebe"'s
*parents* of record, and there's every reason to believe that she's here to stay because there's in-universe evidence that she's managed to dodge the Clone Degeneration bullet...
-
*Bionic Six*: Dr. Scarab's attempt to create a female companion resulted in this. Later, his female clone created opposite sex clones of his henchmen.
- Danielle "Dani" Phantom in
*Danny Phantom*. She and Danny continue to call each other "cousins" even after she reveals the truth about what she is.
-
*DuckTales (2017)*: The finale shows ||Webby|| is some kind of artificial daughter to ||Scrooge McDuck||, which Bradford made because retrieving an Artifact of Doom required a direct descendant of the latter. She's not quite called a "clone", or identical-looking, but no mention is made of adding any other person's DNA. ||May and June are also genetically Scrooge's daughters, although they were actually made by cloning Webby via magic. Scrooge, for his part, after his initial shock at being called Webby's dad, is elated to find out they're biologically related.||
- In a Valentines episode of
*House of Mouse*, Ludwig Von Drake deduces that the perfect partner for someone would be an Opposite Sex Clone. The two can't stand each other, and she breaks up with himself.
- In
*Infinity Train*, it's revealed that ||Hazel, a six-year-old girl|| is a failed clone of ||Alrick, Amelia's deceased husband||.
-
*Johnny Test* has at least three female doppelgangers of Johnny. Princess Maribel is by far the most exact and doesn't get an upgrade in hairstyle or even a clothing change aside from a little lipstick. Sissy is the second and Joni West is the last.
-
*The Powerpuff Girls (1998)*: The Rowdyruff Boys, in a twisted-Evil Counterpart way. They aren't so much clones as bargain-basement knockoffs, made when Mojo Jojo imitated the Powerpuffs' creation using more "manly" ingredients. Despite the resemblance to their counterparts, no one treats them as genetically related. The girls defeat the boys by exploiting their disgust for romantic interest without any sort of incestuous implications.
-
*Star Wars: The Bad Batch* has introduced a single female clone of the very masculine Jango Fett: ||Omega||, who is not under the control of Order 66 and has joined the Bad Batch. The season two finale introduced another female clone in ||Dr. Emerie Karr|| who works for the Empire.
-
*Transformers: Animated*:
- Each of Starscream's clones represents some facet of his personality, which includes a female one (retroactively named Slipstream)—who refuses to explain what part of his personality she represents. Fan theories range from his ambition, to his feminine side, to his opportunism, to his treachery, to his... ah,
*feelings* for Megatron. Word of God has deemed it a Riddle for the Ages, and won't even say if Slipstream herself knows.
- ||Sari Sumdac|| seems to be a partial example: She is an organic Cybertroninan, but looks like the daughter of ||her human "father" Isaac Sumdac||. Even besides sexual characteristics, the resemblance is far from identical. ||They share skintone, but not hair or eye color||. It's not clear if this was because her protoform was designated to be female, or it just randomly became such.
- X-23, a female clone of Wolverine, and an eventual Canon Immigrant from
*X-Men: Evolution* to the comics. See the entry under Comic Books for more detail. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppositeGenderClone |
Operation: Jealousy - TV Tropes
**Hermione:**
I've just escaped — I mean, I've just left Cormac under the mistletoe.
**Harry:**
Serves you right for coming with him!
**Hermione:**
I thought he'd annoy Ron most.
A specific type of Zany Scheme: Two characters, Alice and Bob, are an Official Couple... or they would be, if Bob wasn't so mired in the river of denial that he insists that the water flowing all around him is solid ground. Alice, who is not in denial and
*very* aware of Bob's feelings, gets fed up with his refusal to spit them out and takes matters into her own hands. Confronting him directly with the evidence might cause him to run for the hills, so Alice decides to invoke Green-Eyed Epiphany: She gets into a faked or temporary relationship with Convenient Charlie, to make Bob insanely jealous enough to come clean first.
Hopefully, the operation succeeds. Hopefully, Charlie isn't
*too* insufferable or bland and doesn't drive Alice insane first. Hopefully, he won't be heartbroken and furious when he finds out Alice was just using him. Hopefully, Bob doesn't take this as a sign that he doesn't have a chance with Alice. Hopefully, Bob doesn't just want his beloved to be happy. Hopefully, Bob doesn't fail to notice because he has the awareness of a brick. Hopefully, Bob and Charlie don't turn out to get along really well — and possibly even better with each other than with Alice herself. Hopefully, Bob doesn't fall for it so thoroughly that he pulls a Counter Zany that Alice thoroughly falls for! And hopefully, Alice doesn't actually fall for Charlie...
Yeah, right...
Subtrope to Fake Relationship. Compare with The Schlub Pub Seduction Deduction, Intentional Heartbreaker, Be a Whore to Get Your Man, and Revenge Romance.
## Examples:
-
*Aishiteruze Baby*: This is the plot of a oneshot side story. Kokoro's friend Aki has lived next to classmate Shin for her whole life and doesn't even see him as a man, and thus continues to trust him after a flasher convinces her men are all perverts. Then a new girl joins the class and Shin deliberately gets close to her because he's tired of Aki not realizing just how much she cares about him (and because he finds the face she makes when jealous to be adorable).
-
*Case Closed*: In one case, the culprit turned out to be a woman trying to murder her friend for getting engaged to her previous boyfriend but saying she really never loved him in the first place. After ||the murder attempted turned out to fail and Conan prevents the attacker from killing herself||, it turns out the engagement was just one huge Operation: Jealousy for the boyfriend Gone Horribly Right. ||The friend, however, forgave her and gave deliberately wrong eye witness report so her friend wouldn't be arrested.||
- Inverted in
*FAKE*, where Diana and Berkeley tag team to separate Dee and Ryo this way instead of bringing them together. This backfires, however, as it only serves to strengthen their bond as Ryo realizes that he really doesn't like Dee smooching on anyone else but him.
- In
*Goddess Creation System*, seeing that Mingyi isn't as simply as his brother Mingluan, Xiaxi instead takes the opposite approach and raves about how wonderful Mingluan is. Since Mingluan himself is clearly in love with her, it succeeds in wounding Mingyi's ego that this servant girl could completely overlook him for his seemingly inferior brother.
-
*Itazura Na Kiss*:
- In the manga, Mrs. Irie pushes Kotoko to date Nice Guy Taketo to make Naoki jealous. Naoki, being Naoki, doesn't look bothered at all.
- Though one could wonder why Naoki shows up with Matsumoto in the very same place where Kotoko is, perfectly knowing that she would be there. And then shows up again to stop a Cock Fight between Taketo and Kinnosuke claiming that since they all know Kotoko loves him there's no sense in their fighting.
- Another
*very subtle* manga example is from Naoki. When there's the (very unfounded) rumour that Kotoko is dating Sudou, he suspiciously goes on date with Matsumoto and then dumps her to go for a walk with Kotoko, sarcastically saying that for a while he believed she and Sudou were going out together, but that's impossible since she they were actually respectively following *him and Matsumoto*.
-
*Marmalade Boy*: Ginta and Arimi attempted to pull this on Yuu and Miki. Considering the series that they're in, the results were inevitable.
-
*Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun*: In order to get Kashima to understand the role of a prince suffering from unrequited love, Nozaki invokes this in chapter 60 by asking her to imagine that he and Hori (her beloved senpai) are dating. It works on *Sakura*, much to her crush Nozaki's confusion. This is repeated in a similar fashion later on when Nozaki says he and Hori are going to eat lunch together — and again Sakura is affected instead of Kashima.
-
*Otaku no Musume-san*: It is revealed later that Nozomi Yukimura only hung around Kouta Morisaki in an attempt to get her long time crush and childhood friend Chihiro Nitta jealous, even going as far as to have sex with Kouta as Chihiro watched. This only ended in failure as Chihiro was a hardcore paedophile and couldn't find her attractive. She later reveals, a bit quite coldly, to Kouta that she never loved him.
-
*Ranma ½*: During her more manipulative moments in the manga, Akane has used Ryoga in order to make her fiancée jealous. Be it accepting a date or clinging to Ryoga's side, if it will ignite a fire in Ranma's eyes, she's probably done it. Ironic, since a lot of people consider Akane to be the more Tsundere of the two when it comes to accepting their feelings for each other.
-
*Special A*: Akira tries this with Kei, and it backfires in the worst way. Not only can Tadashi see all the little clues (like Kei doing all he can to avoid physical contact with Akira) that show that the two are barely tolerating the other, he and Hikari end up ignoring their feeble attempts and just have a good time, making Akira and Kei the ones growing jealous.
-
*Tokyo Revengers*: Attempted by Emma. Takemichi's past self attempts to sleep with her (despite having a girlfriend), only for present-day Takemichi to panic and run off after mentally time-traveling back to that moment. When they meet up again later, she laughs it off and admits that she didn't actually like him and just wanted to grow up faster and make her crush Draken jealous. He then quietly admits that he "doesn't understand girls at all".
-
*Tomo-chan Is a Girl!*: Carol's response to learning that Misaki admires Tomo was to force Jun to spend the day with her (up to forcing herself into his bedroom), and telling Misaki all about it the following day.
- In one
*Jucika* strip ("Jucika Reconciles"), Jucika comes upon an arguing couple and starts flirting with the guy. Though it earns her an off-screen beating from the girl, it has the intended effect of getting the two to make amends and walk off together.
- Employed by Johnson in
*PreTeena* when he gets tired of Jeri Keene brushing him off. He holds out his platonic friend Candy as Schmuck Bait to get Jeri interested in fighting a rival for him. It works.
- In Chapter 1 of
*Back For Good*, Professor Professor plans on needing a fake date for Professor Bichitaru's funeral in order to make Doctor Doctor envious. Chapter 2 reveals Doctor Doctor had the same idea.
-
*Bridge to Terabithia 2: The Last Time*: Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke are now dating each other, but Jess suddenly develops feelings for Amelia Edmunds, niece of his old music teacher and former crush Julia Edmunds who happens to be in the same class with him. When Jess ends up kissing Amelia after a bet gone wrong, a rather jealous Leslie convinces Amelia (whom she is also friends with, but is oblivious that Jess and Leslie are romantically involved) to go on a date with Jess. It ends up with Amelia pressuring Jess to have sex with her, causing him to suffer a mental breakdown and decide to go back to Leslie.
-
*Brilliance Tarnished*: After L decisively rejects his Stalker with a Crush, Light turns around and starts hitting on Matsuda, attempting to make L jealous.
-
*Captive (AbyssCronica)*: At one point, Eustass Kid pretends that he plans to use their upcoming shore leave to visit some hookers. Birdie becomes so jealous that she initiates and leads a sexual encounter between them for the first time.
-
*Change of Plans* begins with an Alternate Universe take on "The Ex-Files" where Courtney tries this trope with Cody instead of Tyler. Ultimately this results in Cody and Courtney actually getting together.
- In
*The Legend of Korra* fanfic *Chaos Theories*, Ghazan and P'li try to do this to make Zaheer jealous. It works, eventually, but Zaheer is convinced that Ghazan is doing it to make Ming-Hua jealous.
-
*Children of an Elder God*: In chapter 4 Asuka sees her crush Kaji flirting with Misato and clung to Shinji to make Kaji jealous. Kaji did not even notice her antics, goading her to try harder. Her ploy failed and anyway she eventually fell for Shinji.
-
*Danny Phantom: Stranded*: In *Swapped*, Kitty plants a Forceful Kiss on Danny in hopes of making her ex-boyfriend Johnny jealous enough to take her back.
-
*Dauntless (Allora Gale)*: Implied; after Lelouch ||consummates his marriage||, C.C. makes clear advances on Carson, Abigail's brother. This doesn't work out the way she intended; while Lelouch notices what she's doing, he mistakes it as her looking for a new *contractor* instead.
- In
*Fallout: Equestria*, after having a fight with Calamity, Velvet Remedy flirted with Littlepip to get back at him. However, Littlepip was wise to her plan and put a stop to it.
-
*Fates Collide*: Achilles flirts with Blake in order to upset Atalanta. Later, he reveals to Ren and Robin Hood that he does this *all the time*, constantly flirting with other girls in hopes that it will either make Atalanta so jealous that she'll want him back, or that he'll actually "click" with one of the new girls and find a new relationship.
- Yahiko in
*A Growing Affection* tries to do this for Nagato and Konan. He fails because Nagato is willing to step out of the way for Yahiko, and Konan is too afraid of breaking up the group to reject Yahiko.
-
*Guys Being Dudes*: Arlo initially plans this in his relationship with Spark, under the principle that Candela seeing him with someone else will drive her to win him back, combined with him dating her coworker making it impossible to avoid and Spark being a man leading Candela to fear that she was his Last Het Romance and try even harder to win him back upon fear that she "turned him gay". None of this goes as planned.
-
*Ignited Spark*: In an effort to force Itsuka to admit her feelings for Izuku, Setsuna and Yui discuss with her various ways that *they* could claim him as their boyfriend. Itsuka insists that she's intent on helping him hook up with *Ochako*; however, she privately finds herself struggling to stop thinking about him.
-
*Juleka vs. the Forces of the Universe*: After Luka asks Marinette out, Alya refuses to accept that Marinette might actually be *happy* with him, complaining about how Adrien now *thinks* that Marinette has a date to the upcoming dance. She then reminds the rest of the Girl Posse of a previously discarded Zany Scheme that revolved around making Adrien jealous by having Marinette *pretend* to be dating somebody else. Juleka is sickened to realize that Alya is such a Control Freak that she is willing to sabotage her "bestie" just so she can keep trying to hook her up with Adrien.
- In
*Kissing Starfire*, Starfire and Beast Boy attempt one involving Robin walking on them kissing for allegedly language assimilation purposes. The attempt fails, after which Raven decides to help Star instead, and also make Beast Boy jealous as well. The result is the boys seeing "a sight that left two with nosebleeds on the floor, and one stuck in a software freeze".
- In
*Letters From Tomorrow*, Juliet mentions the same "cunning plan" she had in the game: Flirt with Logan to make her boyfriend Zach jealous after he sexted someone else. Unlike the game, she tells this plan to Chloe, who expresses doubt that it will work. Juliet just says "I know my man." After Chloe convinces Juliet that Logan is too much a sleaze for this operation and just helps her herself, Juliet is proven right; she's back together with Zach less than ten minutes later.
- In
*Love is a Battlefield* Snape and Sirius have a pretend relationship to make Harry jealous. Harry, deciding that he isn't going to stand in the way of their apparent happiness, leaves Hogwarts when his teaching contract is up for renewal.
-
*Lucky Charm*: After Sasuke and Sakura have a messy breakup, Sakura ends up dating Naruto. Sasuke then accuses her of trying to make him jealous, but he's dead wrong; Sakura *does* have ulterior motives, but she's fake-dating Naruto in an effort to help him hide his impressive powers as a living Good Luck Charm.
- In
*Mai's Ramblings*, Mai posits that Aang and On Ji could potentially get together by starting out in this fashion, trying to make others jealous of their relationship before developing sincere feelings for each other.
- Played With in the
*Firefly*/ *Doctor Who* crossover *The Man with No Name*. Kaylee pretends to like the Doctor in order to make Simon jealous, but it's only to screw with his head. Well, that and she's quite happy to stare at his butt on general principles.
-
*Maybe the Last Archie Story*: Double Subversion. Jason Blossom tries to persuade Betty Cooper to date with him, arguing that maybe Archie will get jealous and dump Veronica for Betty if he sees them together. Betty replies she does not do that kind of schemes anymore... but she is free tonight, so he can take her out for dinner.
-
*Nice Guy Adrien*: Adrien attempts this in *Bewitched*, briefly dating Lila in an attempt to get Marinette's attention. It doesn't work, and the relationship swiftly falls apart.
-
*A Night to Remember* has Starfire attempting to make Robin jealous by dating someone she met during a social event. The problem is, the other guy is Richard Grayson.
-
*The One to Make It Stay*:
- Alya accuses Marinette of attempting this, claiming that she only started dating Luka in order to make Adrien jealous. She's completely wrong; she just wants to believe otherwise because she's been pushing really hard to hook Marinette up with Adrien, and refuses to accept that her "bestie" has moved on. The accusation upsets Marinette enough that she decides they need to take a break from being friends for a while.
- Later, Alya attempts to invoke this herself. Convinced that Marinette only dislikes Lila because she's secretly envious, Alya tries to arrange for Adrien and Lila to go out, believing this will make Marinette dump Luka and start chasing after Adrien again. Notably, she doesn't clear this idea with Lila first, assuming that such a Nice Girl will be more than happy to help, and only has second thoughts when she misreads Adrien's hesitance and reluctance as a sign that he's got a crush on
*Lila*. Lila later learns of the plot and takes it as evidence that Alya is just as selfish and self-serving as her.
-
*Ponies of Olympus*: In *Atlas Strongest Tournament*, Ran Biao seduces Spike just to hurt Rarity, ||whom she used to, and still-sorta-does, have feelings for||.
-
*Professor Arc II: Headmaster Arc*: Part of Jaune's plan for dealing with Adam involves pretending to be in a relationship with Blake, to the point of having Blake act as though ||she's carrying his child||, all for the sake of enraging Adam so much that he's blinded by it.
- We get a double dose in
*Pyrrha(c) Victory* in the aptly titled chapters "Jealousy I and II". At this point in the story, Pyrrha knows that Jaune likes her, but Jaune won't do anything because he believes that she can do better than him, so she decides to ask ||Sun||, who is in on the plan, to the Beacon Dance to make Jaune jealous. ||Blake||, angry that the guy she was going to ask is being used like this, decides to ask Jaune to the dance to both make ||Sun|| jealous and give Pyrrha A Taste Of Her Own Medicine.
-
*Romance and the Fate of Equestria*: Spike and Scootaloo fake a relationship in hopes that this will cause Sweetie Belle to have a Green-Eyed Epiphany about the dragon.
- In
*A Scheming Severus,* Snape gets Harry to admit his feelings by having Draco pretend-flirt with Snape.
-
*Seigikan*: Despite wanting to hook up with L, Light continues freely dating various girls in an effort to nettle him.
- Seen in
*Skyhold Academy Yearbook*, when original characters Jim and Rory write fanfic about their teachers and submit it for a grade. Nothing of the sort ever actually happens in the series proper; but in their Story Within a Story, Dorian persuades his friend Evvy to go on a date with another man in an effort to make Cullen jealous. The teachers read it out loud in the staff lounge and are basically in hysterics the entire time.
-
*The Smeet Series*: Played for Laughs in *Vindictive*, when Zim and Masouri execute a *very* poorly conceived one of these on Echo to try and invoke a Green-Eyed Epiphany in her, with Zim dressing up as a girl and badly flirting with Masouri. Needless to say, it doesn't work.
-
*Sora and the Princess of Power*: After seeing how much fun Bow and Perfuma are having together while at the Princess Prom, Glimmer forcibly takes Sora as her date and tries to make the both of them the Life of the Party to make Bow jealous.
-
*White Sheep*: Salem really wants Cinder to marry her son Jaune; at Watts' suggestion, she sends Cinder pictures of Jaune on a date with Yang in an effort to get her jealous and inflame her competitive spirit (note that Salem would prefer Jaune marry both of them; she *really* wants grandkids). Watts, of course, doesn't particularly care if this plan works, he just thinks it's fun to needle Cinder.
-
*Beach Party*: Dolores won't put out, so Frankie gets revenge by dating Ava. Dolores gets revenge on *him* by dating Sutwell. They both spend most of the movie trying to make each other jealous.
- The main characters of
*Drive Me Crazy* form a fake relationship to make the people who dumped them jealous. Predictably, by the end of the film they can both have their respective love interest, but they no longer want them and have fallen for each other.
"So who are we making jealous this time?"
"Everyone."
- In
*The Empire Strikes Back*, Leia kisses Luke on the mouth to invoke jealousy on Han's part. Squick ensues with The Reveal in *Return of the Jedi*.
- In
*Gone with the Wind,* Scarlett marries a random man to make Ashley jealous, but it doesn't work—primarily because Ashley was never into Scarlett in the first place and was actually already in love with someone else.
- The film version of
*Grease*:
- Sandy begins seeing Tom to provoke Danny, and dumps him as soon as Danny asks her to the big dance.
- Kenickie brings Cha-Cha to the dance after a fight with Rizzo, while Rizzo brings the leader of the rival street gang in a counter-effort to provoke Kenickie.
- Cha-Cha, for her part, cuts into Danny and Sandy's dance, which causes Sandy to storm out—after Rizzo has already done so due to seeing Kenickie with Cha-Cha.
- The protagonists of
*Love And Sex* (played by Jon Favreau and Famke Janssen) do this at one point. They even have a weird competition while kissing their new partner, watching each other at the same time and each trying to be the 'wildest' couple.
-
*Love Before Breakfast* 's two main characters, Kay and Scott, both do this to each other.
- In
*Our Miss Brooks*, the cinematic finale to the series of the same name, one of these finally prompts Phillip Boynton to propose to Connie Brooks.
- In
*Scott Pilgrim vs. The World*, after Scott dumps Knives for Ramona, Knives puts blue highlights into her hair, starts dressing more like Ramona, and begins to date Young Neil, all to be close to Scott and make him jealous. It doesn't work, although Scott does freak out when Todd punches Knives so hard her highlights fall off. In the end, though, she pulls an I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy, so that Scott can be with Ramona (in an alternate scene, he stays with Knives).
- In
*Sgt Bilko*, After Bilko ditches his fiancee at the altar for the second time, she gives him one chance to marry her within a month, after which she's done with him. Deciding to mess with Bilko in every way, Major Thorne starts hitting on her and takes her out a few times. Discovering this, Bilko has one of his soldiers dress as a woman and go to the same restaurant where Thorne and his fiancee are at. Naturally, she isn't stupid and recognizes it for what it is (not to mention only a blind man would think that the soldier was really a woman) and reveals that she was doing the exact same thing to Thorne.
- In
*Sky High (2005)*, Layla starts a fake relationship with Jerk with a Heart of Gold Warren Peace in order to annoy Will. Warren, who thinks Will is a prick, is happy to oblige, but ends up getting sick of Layla clinging to him and talking Will into asking her out.
**Warren:** Dude, you are so stupid. She's totally into you. **Will:** Not after tonight. I wouldn't be surprised if Layla or any of the other guys never talked to me again. **Warren:** You must've been a real jerk, because no matter what I do, I can't get them to stop talking to me.
- In
*Submarine*, Oliver and Jordana's relationship starts with her kissing him and distributing photos of the act to the whole school in order to make her ex-boyfriend jealous. It doesn't really work, and Jordana ends up sticking with Oliver instead.
- In
*The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)*, Thomas the Gentleman Thief likes Catherine the Hot Detective, but he doesn't know if he can trust her. So, he lets photos leak of him dating a supermodel to see if he gets a rise out of Catherine. It does. They hook up.
- In
*To All the Boys I've Loved Before*, Peter proposes fake dating Lara Jean because he wants to make Genevieve, who has just broken up with him, jealous.
- The female protagonist of
*Two Can Play That Game* institutes her "Ten Day Plan" involving this trope to bring her man "back in line". Meanwhile, her man's best friend urges him to do the same. Naturally, both plans backfire, and they have to have an honest conversation in order to get back together.
- In
*Wayne's World*, Wayne's ex-girlfriend Stacy at first doesn't seem to understand that they have broken up, and once she does, she drags a random guy up to the roof of a club to make out where Wayne can see them. Wayne, however, is up there with his new love interest Cassandra, and honestly couldn't care less. He and Cassandra discuss the situation (in Chinese).
## By Author:
- L. M. Montgomery loved to use this trope.
-
*Anne of Green Gables* has the idea of hurrying along a couple by having the woman pretend to be dating somebody else. This forces the guy to propose. This is made all the better by the fact that the patsy brought in to pretend to court the woman hints that he fell in love with her, too.
- She then attempts this strategy with another couple. It backfires because she didn't know that the guy was trapped by a promise not to marry anybody.
- She even used it herself. She has rejected Gilbert, who is now seeing Christine Stuart. She's not really in the mood to go to a party, and acts rather distant on the walk there, but the very minute she enters the room she starts pretending to be the most fascinating and wonderful girl present, drawing all attention (including Gilbert's) to herself.
-
*Jane Eyre*:
- Mr. Rochester pretends to be in love with Rich Bitch Miss Ingram because he knows that Jane is emotionless and placid on the outside but fiery on the inside, and that jealousy will be the best way to bring her feelings for him to the surface.
- Jane later snaps Rochester out of his melancholy self-pity by arousing his jealousy of St John Rivers. It enables him to finally spit out that he still loves her and wants to marry her.
## By Title:
- Tom and Becky try to overdo each other in
*The Adventures of Tom Sawyer*. They got engaged, but Becky breaks it over when Tom blabbled about having been engaged before. When he returns from the island as *the* hero, Becky refuses to reconcile. Tom flirts with Amy and Becky suffers, but strikes back and flirts with Tom's mortal enemy Alfred Temple.
*Tom fled home at noon. His conscience could not endure any more of Amy's grateful happiness, and his jealousy could bear no more of the other distress. Becky resumed her picture inspections with Alfred, but as the minutes dragged along and no Tom came to suffer, her triumph began to cloud and she lost interest; gravity and absentmindedness followed, and then melancholy; two or three times she pricked up her ear at a footstep, but it was a false hope; no Tom came.*
- In
*The Berenstain Bears Gotta Dance!*, Bonnie Brown spreads a rumor that she invited Too-Tall Grizzly to the upcoming school dance in the hopes that this would make Brother Bear jealous enough that he would learn how to dance so she could invite him instead.
- Thoroughly deconstructed in
*Chronicles of the Kencyrath*. Timmon likes Jame, and Jame kind of likes Timmon too. But she likes someone else more, and Timmon can be a dick sometimes, so she's not really interested in getting together with him. So Timmon launches Operation Jealousy and gets with Narsa. It actually *does* work—Jame, much to her annoyance, *is* a little jealous. But she's not jealous enough to actually *do* anything about it, and she's annoyed at Timmon for pulling this. Meanwhile, it turns out Narsa is a Clingy Jealous Girl, and furious and heartbroken over her role in all of this. She tries to kill Jame, and later, ||after Timmon gets her pregnant, kills herself.||
- In
*Confessions of Georgia Nicolson*, Dave serves as Georgia's "red-herring" in an effort to make Robbie jealous in the book "It's OK, I'm Wearing Really Big Knickers".
- Kitty tries this on Jack in Georgette Heyer's
*Cotillion*. A subversion, in fact, since ||it works, to a point, but by that point Kitty's in love with Freddy.||
-
*Daisy Miller*: An Alternate Character Interpretation that Daisy was using Giovanelli all along to make Winterbourne jealous after she felt he let her down in Vevey, or that she decided to mess with Winterbourne's head when she saw how much her flirting with Giovanelli annoyed him, started such a heated FanWar that Henry James had to write his friend and assure her that Daisy was never planning anything of the sort; she was too clueless in the politics of romance to plan such a thing. Not that it matters, anyway.
- In
*Diary of a Wimpy Kid*, it's implied that ||Abigail Brown only got together with Rowley|| to make her ex jealous. It works.
- In
*Gone with the Wind*, Scarlett attempts to use other men's interest in her (Charles's, specifically) to get Ashley to break off his engagement to Melanie and propose to her instead. It doesn't work.
-
*Harry Potter*:
- Hermione dates Cormac McLaggen in
*Half-Blood Prince* solely to make Ron jealous, and immediately regrets it — Cormac spends their entire time talking about himself. She later tells Harry that she purposely chose the person who would annoy Ron the most (it certainly worked) and even considered a Slytherin.
- Also in
*Half-Blood Prince*, Ron dates Lavender Brown for the same reason as Hermione, *towards* Hermione. He doesn't actually like Lavender much, but she drives Hermione up the wall, which he greatly appreciates after finding out that Hermione snogged Krum during their brief relationship. He also grows to regret this.
- In
*Pottermore*, Tonks made some casual remarks to Lupin about Sirius — who is her cousin — being not-so-bad-looking. Lupin got annoyed that she seemingly fancied Sirius, and she replied that he knew perfectly well that it wasn't Sirius whom she actually fancied.
- In P. G. Wodehouse'
*Jeeves and Wooster* books, Bertie Wooster would often use this technique to speed up marriages, although they were never meant to be his own. He himself would play The Beard, usually without asking anyone's permission first.
- In
*Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined*, Beau gets tired of Taylor hitting on him, to the moment where she told everyone they're going to prom together despite him never saying yes. He solves this by accusing Taylor of flirting with him to try to get the attention of another boy, Logan.
- In
*The Mortal Instruments*, Simon hangs around Isabelle to make Clary jealous when it seems like she's not interested in him. However, he eventually accepts that a relationship between him and Clary will never work and he starts to develop genuine feelings for Isabelle.
- In volume 7 of
*Oreimo* (or episode 6 of the anime adaptation's second season), Kirino does this to her brother Kyousuke by bringing home a boy she claims to be dating. ||It turns out that he's not actually dating her, and was just going along with her plan.|| She wanted to make her brother experience what she feels whenever he's hanging out with his female friends, such as Manami, and later Kuroneko.
- The Agatha Christie character Mr. Parker Pyne, of
*Parker Pyne Investigates*, who runs a business which advertises with the simple question "Are you happy?" and aims to solve any problem this might bring to him, has a male and female employee on staff who are experts at this. However, the trope never gets played quite straight in the published stories; the closest is "The Case of the Discontented Husband", where it goes horribly wrong (the husband falls for the "girlfriend" for real, she wants nothing to do with him).
- In the YA Thriller
*People Like Us* by Dana Mele, the main character Kay has a crush on her roommate, Brie, and tries to pull this by flirting with a boy at a party. Brie doesn't seem to notice at all, and she ends up dating the boy for real. ||Except, she later finds out, Brie *was* interested, and definitely noticed, but seeing Kay flirting with a boy combined with an off-the-cuff homophobic insult Kay flung to fit in convinced Brie she had no chance and should look elsewhere.||
- In
*The Pet Girl of Sakurasou*, while Sorata and Mashiro aren't really lovers, it's heavy implied that this was why Jin and Mashiro had a pretend date. Mashiro claimed it was research for her manga, but it's very likely that it was to promote jealousy in Sorata in order to show him why he should stay at Sakura Hall.
- In
*The Squires Tale,* Gawain tries to invoke this in a roundabout way. Since Ettarde's main problem with Pelleas is that he's "weak," he lets Pelleas catch the two of them kissing, hoping that it was piss him off so much that he'll act more assertive. It works...except that now he's decided that she's a shameless hussy unworthy of his devotion, creating an Unrequited Love Switcheroo. Eventually, with Nimue's help, they get the two restore their happily(?) dysfunctional relationship.
- In
*The Sword of Truth*, Richard's former girlfriend didn't like their relationship developing too slowly. So, she let him catch her screwing his brother and **invited him to join**. Got a blank stare, and that was it.
- In
*The Three Musketeers*, Porthos pretends to know a rich noblewoman (Milady de Winter) in a church where his lover, Madame Coquenard, attends mass. This is just because Madame Coquenard has been distant with him recently and because he wants to make her jealous to extort money from her. It works.
- "Judy's Turn to Cry", the Sequel Song to "It's My Party", by Lesley Gore. The motivation to get Johnny back from Judy is as follows:
Oh, one night I saw them kissing at a party
So I kissed some other guy
Johnny jumped up and he hit him
'Cause he still loves me, that's why
- "Hot Dog, That Made Him Mad" by Wanda Jackson:
I've got a guy, I like him fine
But he takes me granted all of the time
To teach him a lesson and make him mad
I went out on a date with the best friend he had
That made him mad, boy
Hot dog, that made him mad
And he hugged me and he kissed me
And he asked me not to do it again
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's "My Baby's in Love With Eddie Vedder":
Well, I don't wear Doc Martens and I don't wear flannel
And I don't boycott the music video channel
And I just can't compete with all that money and fame
But I know two can play at this kinda game
So let's just see how jealous she'll get
When I start stalking Alanis Morissette
!
- In
*A Little Night Music*, Charlotte decides to throw herself at Fredrik at Mme. Armfeldt's dinner, with the intention of making her own husband Carl-Magnus jealous enough to give up Desirée as his mistress. She lets Fredrik's young wife, Anne, in on the plan since Fredrik is also pursuing Desirée. The plan seems to fail at first, as Carl-Magnus can see that Desirée remains the actual object of Fredrik's desires. However, Carl-Magnus's jealousy is abruptly aroused when he later spies Fredrik and Charlotte sitting on a garden bench together. A round of Russian Roulette ensues.
- In
*Me and My Dick*, popular girl Vanessa decides to sleep with the dorky Joey, who's long harbored a crush on her, in order to make her ex-boyfriend Rick jealous.
- In the song "Don't Lose Ur Head" in
*Six*, Anne Boleyn claims that her alleged infidelities were a ploy to make Henry VIII jealous that Went Horribly Right.
- In
*Planescape: Torment*, you can meet an attractive young woman who's upset with the *lack* of drama in her relationship with her boyfriend, so she wants the Nameless One to pretend to be a jealous suitor and challenge her boyfriend to a fight. Said boyfriend takes one look at the Nameless One (who's six feet tall and so heavily scarred that his normal skin tone is impossible to see) and says he is *not* willing to fight him. The Nameless One can then reveal that he was only hired to try and stir up drama and suggest that the boyfriend try turning the tables on his fiance and give her a taste of her own medicine, thus providing the girl with the drama she thought she wanted.
- Part of BioWare's trimming of Amy's flanderized desire for Sonic involves this. In
*Sonic Chronicles*, Dexter is an imaginary boyfriend she invented to inspire jealousy in Sonic, but deep down she still cares about the Blue Blur - if Sonic is nice to her throughout the game, she tells all before the Nocturne invasion. If you're paying a fair amount of attention (and selecting the right conversation options), you can see this coming from fairly early on.
- In
*Star Fox Command*, this is the main reason why Krystal joined with Star Wolf and began a relationship with Panther, after Fox kicked her off Star Fox (out of concern for her safety). Judging from his reactions to her in the story... it worked.
- In
*Yoake Mae Yori Ruriiro Na*, this is what the ||Natsuki|| Bonus Scenario "||Mary's Love||" turned out to be about: ||Tatsuya and Natsuki are now in a love relationship, but haven't told it to their classmates yet, due to Natsuki being locked into Cannot Spit It Out mode. So Tatsuya and Midori played along to trigger Natsuki's jealousy to the point she would inadvertantly blurt out her feelings in front of the whole class. It works.||
-
*Amnesia: Memories*: In Diamond World, the heroine wanted to get noticed romantically by her childhoodfriend Toma because she's been crushing on him for years. She talks with Ikki about how to achieve this, and he suggests that she not contact Toma for a few months, with the intent that not seeing her for a while will result in him seeing her in a completely different light when they meet up again. ||Unfortunately, Toma misunderstood the entire thing and thought she had started dating Ikki, she was getting harassed by his fangirls, and his own feelings that he thought would never be requited led to his yandere side being triggered.||
-
*Canvas 2* has a Downplayed version: rather than dating Yanagi, Kiri simply praises and compliments him in front of Hiroki in an effort to make him jealous. Later on, however, she plays this straight by ||agreeing to *marry* Yanagi'' if Hiroki doesn't come in first at the Concours||.
-
*Coμ - Black Dragon in a Gentle Kingdom*: After realizing that their "super otaku plan" to win Akihito over lacks this element, Ayaya decides to fake it by recruiting her *uncle*. This actually works out.
- In
*Double Homework*, when Tamara catches the protagonist and Johanna fooling around, she dates Dennis to make the protagonist jealous. It works.
-
*Heileen 3: New Horizons*:
- Jonathan tries to make Juliet jealous by recruiting Heileen as a model, only for it to backfire when he's sincerely struck by Heileen's beauty.
- John also employs this. In fact, during his ending, he confesses to her that he flirts with other girls
*specifically* to make her jealous. And it works, though she refuses to admit it.
-
*Higurashi: When They Cry*: Shion openly and shamelessly flirts with Keiichi in front of Mion, to try and goad the latter into admitting her feelings for Keiichi (to the boy himself). ||In some arcs, however, it's implied she uses this tactic to *hurt* Mion's feelings, rather than help her along with admitting them||.
- In
*Gunnerkrigg Court* Chapter 86, Jerrick (|| actually Loup||) announces to Antimony that Lana is his girlfriend, then straight-out says "I hope you're not too jealous". Annie rather bemusedly, and completely honestly, says she isn't at all jealous and is very happy for them. Jerrick does not take this well, and takes it out on Lana. (Ironically, *Lana* had been jealous of the time he was spending with Annie, which is what gave him the idea.)
- In
*Insecticomics*, Thrust tries to talk Dreadmoon into dating someone else to make Starscream jealous. When Thrust suggests he be the Convenient Clancey, it becomes rather obvious that the Zany Scheme is at least half a plot to hook up with Dreadmoon himself.
- In this strip from
*Loserz*, Carla *thinks* this is what's going on.
- In
*Ménage à 3*, Peggy executes one of these schemes on behalf of Sonya, with a degree of skill and judgement that's unusual for both the trope and this comic, under the name *Operation "Hey, Jealous Zii."* Unfortunately, she's running on flawed prior intelligence, ||but her plan works incredibly well even so, especially from her point of view||. Funnily enough, she mostly just wants to improve Sonya's love life enough that Sonya stops having loud soap-operatic dreams, because they're currently platonically sharing a bed, and Sonya is keeping Peggy awake. Switching Sonya's bass guitar for a snow shovel, pulling off a Naked Apron show, and baking high-quality cupcakes, are all far less zany elements of the scheme than they sound. The story starts here; note that some of the strips are somewhat NSFW. Phase 1 culminates ||here.||
-
*Misfile*:
- In
*Sandra on the Rocks*, Sandra tries to use Aaina as her fake lesbian lover as a way to regain Cammis interest after Cammi has taken up with Ingrid. This is rather petty of her, as she can only act on her lesbian attraction to Cammi when she's drunk, and she has a boyfriend to whom she's supposedly faithful, while Aaina has a genuine crush on Sandra and is likely to end up hurt by this.
- Deeply subverted in
*Shortpacked!* by Ken's attempt to get Malaya jealous at him by asking out the drop-dead gorgeous Conquest. Not only does Malaya have no positive feelings for her Dogged Nice Guy, but Conquest accepts and intends to take the date all the way. In the end, Ken starts looking at other girls, and while she doesn't develop feelings for him, Malaya does get a little bummed at the lack of ego-reinforcing attention.
-
*Sluggy Freelance*: In "The Isle of Dr. Steve — A Spooky Kind of Love", Gwynn contemplates dating Torg to get Riff interested in her again. She talks about it out loud, and Zoë sardonically points out "the jealousy ploy is just plain evil," and Gwynn isn't too keen on having to go out on a date with Torg either, until he drives into the yard with a Corvette (which she stole to escape after the Mad Scientist who owned it blew up). Torg agrees to go out with Gwynn because he doesn't think it's a date at first, and the date kind of establishes the Belligerent Sexual Tension between Torg and Gwynn. Riff does become jealous... but it fizzles out because when he goes to confront Torg, it turns out Torg just bought a Dreamcast. After playing video games frantically, Torg and Riff both agree they don't want to date Gwynn.
- In
*Sticky Dilly Buns*, Angel attempts to provoke Jerzy to jealousy here. Jerzy demonstrates how an Only Sane Man counters the move. Incidentally, this takes place during a crossover with *Ménage à 3*, during which the Operation Jealousy plotline from that comic (see above) is also still running; so the trope is active twice, simultaneously, in the same club.
- In
*Treading Ground*, Wrong Genre Savvy Rose attempts this sort of thing before her friend can explain why it was a mistake. It sinks her wrecked relationship even deeper.
-
*Resident Evil Abridged*: Chris shifts between pretending not to notice Wesker's obvious man-crush on him, or simply ignoring it altogether. So, as a last resort, Wesker tries to make Chris jealous by revealing the Tyrant to be his girlfriend. Chris finds it funny, but still doesn't care.
- It was done in
*Sailor Moon Abridged*:
**Serena:** Hey, Melvin. If I go on a date with you, Darian will get jealous... well, maybe not "jealous...
- Mate-choice copying is the principle that females of certain species, including humans, are more inclined to find a potential mate desirable if they see that others do. There are multitudes of anecdotes about men who typically struggle to receive female attention finding plenty after having already obtained a partner, and as a result of this, some men will deliberately attempt to invoke this by wearing fake wedding rings to bars or other social settings.
- A pair of Golden Lion tamarins (a very endangered species of primate from South America) at a zoo had ceased mating. The Zookeepers felt it was because the male of the pair had ceased making mating calls to the female. The zookeepers rigged a stereo near their enclosure to play pre-recorded mating calls of other male tamarins. The male of the pair, upon hearing other males, started making mating calls himself to warn them off and the two tamarins started mating again.
- This twitter thread (saved here) explains how a fictional character helped start a romance and then showed up at the couple's wedding.
- 17th-century French courtesan and author Ninon de l'Enclos allegedly masterminded an instance of this trope with the Marquis de Sévigné. After admonishing him for being a Dogged Nice Guy towards a countess he was interested in, she instructed him to create distance and act nonchalant with her before showing up to gatherings with a beautiful young woman in his arms. It worked brilliantly until the marquis went right back to his old ways, shattering the illusion. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OperationJealousy |
Optional Boss - TV Tropes
Bosses are big, scary, and typically await you at the end of each level. Gameplay wise, they serve as the ultimate challenge of skills the player has learned so far. In the story they are typically villains or other opponents that antagonize The Hero is a specific story segment.
But not all bosses are like this; some you just don't get to fight normally. Sometimes the developers want the player to have something else to do and challenge themselves with extra fights. It can be a good opportunity to add some worldbuilding with side-quests and problems irrelevant to the Myth Arc. The player
*doesn't have* to solve every trouble the townsfolk have, but it's often encouraged. The reward can be just extra loot to help yourself (especially in Forced Level-Grinding), a Disc-One Nuke, or an unlockable secret.
## Subtropes:
<!—index—>
<!—/index—>
## Examples:
-
*Aquaria* has a number of optional bosses, but many consider Simon Says to be the most interesting. He's well-hidden, and you don't actually fight him — instead you play, well, Simon Says, with a very useful third cooking slot as your reward for playing well.
-
*Castlevania* series:
-
*Castlevania 64* has the demon Renon, who's been running the Dungeon Shop throughout the game. If you haven't used his services too much, he appears near the end of the game to say he's leaving for better business opportunities elsewhere. But if you've spent more than 30,000 gold at his shop, instead he invokes the fine print in the "contract" on the scrolls you've been summoning him with to try to claim the player character's soul, at which point he turns into his true form and attacks.
-
*Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia* gave you the option to fight the Chinese vampire, Jiang Shi, in the Large Cavern bonus dungeon. He's not very hard, though, seeing as how proper use of Melio Scutum and any slashing Glyph would easily reduce his 6000+ HP down to nothing. Though this boss is interesting in the fact that when he dies, a seal is placed on his face, but if you break it off with an attack, he comes back to life, allowing you to fight him again as many times as you want. Not worth the attribute points though (30, 60, or 120).
- The Whip's Memory, an image of Richter Belmont in
*Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin*, is part of a ritual to unlock the true power of a weakened Vampire Killer whip. Unlike the rest of the game, you can only battle this boss with Jonathan. Thankfully, "dying" in this battle just boots you out of the battle with full HP and MP instead of yielding a Game Over.
-
*Illusion of Gaia* has Solid Arm, a boss originally from the first game in the series, *SoulBlazer*, who's only fightable if you collect all fifty Red Jewels.
-
*Ittle Dew* has one at the end of the Master Cave. Oddly, it's the one boss you beat through brute force rather than some kind of puzzle.
-
*The Legend of Zelda*:
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening*: The Updated Re-release of the game for Game Boy Color featured a Bonus Dungeon based on color, designed entirely to show off the capabilities of the Game Boy Color. The boss of the dungeon isn't more difficult than the other bosses, but even once you find the entrance to the dungeon you can only actually enter it if you know the color of the stalfos' clothes at the entrance. There are also a number of color-based puzzles that would be frustratingly difficult if you managed to get in anyway while playing on an original Game Boy.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*: Technically speaking, all the bosses, with the exception of Calamity Ganon and the four Blight Ganons, are optional to beat the game (this is because, if you skip freeing the Divine Beasts, the game forces you to fight the Blights you didn't encounter regardless in Hyrule Castle in a Boss Bonanza before the Final Boss).
-
*Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice*:
- ||The Demon of Hatred does not need to be fought to complete the game, and the player has to go out of their way to even find it. Though beating it does net the player 2 Lapis Lazuli, which are needed to upgrade to the final tier of prosthetic upgrades||.
- The Gauntlets of Strength adds 3 extra boss fights against powered-up versions of 3 of the games bosses, known as Inner ||Isshin||, Inner Genichiro, and Inner ||Father||. None of these are required to be fought to beat the game, since, well, the player can't even access the Gauntlets of Strength until after they've already beaten the game.
-
*Super Gear Quest*: As Starter makes his way up Mt. Mokula, he repeatedly hears voices from a random assortment of characters telling him to follow them. Eventually, the voices will attempt to lead him away from where he's supposed to be going. If he decides to continue following them, despite being warned not to do so, he will end up finding himself face to face with ||a Khraosis Entity known as Dimula.|| Considering that ||the only other Khraosis Entity he fights in the game is the True Final Boss||, he's in for a difficult fight.
-
*Tribal Hunter* has four optional bosses spread out over the latter half of the game: Laura, who you find at the end of a passage way in the Jungle filled with ko'd pirates, Wave, who you meet in the Hive in a not so hidden passage that ends in a room with him and a bunch of boxes and chests, The Queen Bee, whose arena is to the right of the exit to the mountain top, and The Alpha, whose arena is in the mountain top area, its entrance in the same room as where you first find the wolf enemies.
-
*Cuphead*:
- Performing specific actions against certain bosses heavily alters the fight, usually skipping or cutting short a phase of the fight - at the cost of adding additional enemies in later phases.
- The DLC adds a secret boss, found by interacting with specific tombstones, and then examining the strange light while having the Broken Relic charm. Defeating the boss "upgrades" the charm into the Cursed Relic, which turns you into a One-Hit-Point Wonder and forces you to use random weapons. Defeating enough bosses (a maximum of 8 and minimum of 4) with the Cursed Relic equipped turns it into the Divine Relic, which gives you the positive effects of every charm you own at the same time and lets you switch freely between all of your weapons.
-
*Shrek 2*: The Prison Break level features a boss fight against a troll. The troll can be skipped by rolling a metal ball into a nearby gate, which opens up an alternate route that takes you past the troll's arena.
- Via
*Asura's Wrath* DLC, two optional bosses that have nothing to do with the main game story are Ryu and Akuma, who become Evil Ryu and Oni respectively.
- The Red Dragon features as an optional boss in both of the
*Dungeons & Dragons* Beat Em Ups.
-
*No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle* has Kimmy, a school girl with an unhealthy obsession over Travis. You only fight her if you don't go back to the Motel between fights with Charlie and Matt, making her the only assassin in the series who's optional.
- In
*River City Ransom*, Benny and Clyde are the only bosses that you don't have to defeat in order to access River City High School. Once inside, you can also skip Tex as well, since only Otis has to be defeated in order to fight the Dragon Twins, and then Slick, ||who is actually Simon||.
-
*Yakuza*: Virtually every main game in the series has a coliseum where you can fight various enemies that you can't fight otherwise, including members of the aformentioned Amon clan, other protagonists, the masters who trained you, bears and tigers, and real-life professional wrestlers.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction*:
- At the start of the game, before you board the Duel Express, you can visit KaibaCorp to find Rebecca trying to get back at Kaiba for tearing up her grandfather's copy of Blue-Eyes. Kaiba has no patience for this but lets you challenge her instead. However, because you've just started and your deck flat-out sucks, you'll be struggling due to lack of resources.
- A sidequest, briefly available after restoring Obelisk, leads you to dueling the Big Five as part of a stage performance.
- If you visit Italy after Canada's been made available to you, you'll get to rematch Jean-Claude Magnum, who has a better deck than the first time. In this same time frame, you can also find Tea worrying about fortune-telling, and have to fend off Johnny Steps and Crump back-to-back.
- In
*Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Duel Academy* there is an event where you can challenge and duel Pharaoh, Dr. Banner's cat. To do so, you must be a member of the Slifer dorm, and have defeated Jaden, Syrus, Chumley and Banner three times each. If you then talk to Banner on a Saturday, you can duel Pharaoh, and get a card afterwards. (Panther Warrior for winning, Bone Mouse for losing, and Outstanding Dog Marron for drawing).
- If you manage to beat
*The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact Regulation A* without using any continues and with enough Super Finishes, you'll get to fight Makoto Mizoguchi of *Fighter's History* fame.
-
*Tekken 2* has Roger the kangaroo, who appears in the fourth stage if you beat the third stage with low enough health to get a "Great!" from the announcer. Beating him and the rest of Arcade Mode will unlock him and his Moveset Clone Alex, who is a dinosaur.
- In
*Tekken 6*, there's Nancy. She's one of several giant robots developed by the Mishima Zaibatsu, perhaps to combat Azazel, who is finally free after 10,000 years. Her appearance is sort of a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment in that you get rewards for beating her but if you don't, it has absolutely no bearing on your progress and you don't get the option of fighting her again without restarting. ||She is playable, but only in one level of Scenario Campaign.||
- The
*Virtual-ON*:
- In the first game, if you win all your battles by Time Over, you'll get a Warning message and then enter a special battle with Jaguarandi, a mutated version of Raiden that varies each time you fight it. When you first fight it, it's about the size of a Raiden or a Belgdor, and its color is the opposite color of your mech. If you continue against it, it changes to a miniature toy-sized version that is colored purple, and its armor weakens severely (so much so that a close range attack from Apharmd will kill it instantly), and if you continue again, it can be killed in 3 hits by Temjin's Beam Rifle! In the Japan-only PS2 version, if you beat all 8 virtuaroids in under 30 seconds, you will hear a special chime and fight the original Fei-Yen instead of Z-Gradt. This version of Fei-Yen is always in Hyper Mode, but its armor is not weakened and its attacks are more powerful than the regular Fei-Yen.
-
*Waku Waku 7* and *Galaxy Fight*, the two fighting games made by Sunsoft for the Neo Geo, shared a common bonus boss named "Bonus-Kun", a punching bag (from "the Punching Bag Planet") with a limited moveset who parodies Ryu. In *Galaxy Fight*, after you defeat Felden, you get to fight a final Bonus Boss in the form of Rouwe, an old man dressed in a karate gi.
-
*Diablo II* has some in its later updates. Versions 1.00-1.09 had the Cow King as a sort of optional boss, though he was substantially weaker than the actual final bosses.
-
*World of Warcraft*:
-
*Wrath of the Lich King* introduced optional bosses in some of the regular dungeons that are only accessible on Heroic difficulty. However, the WotLK optional bosses tend to be much easier than the Final Boss of their respective dungeons.
- The Bug trio, Viscidus, and Ouro were all optional bosses in Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. Most, if not all guilds, did the Bug trio because the fight wasn't very difficult and it rewarded good loot. Viscidus is a fight that many guilds skipped because, even at level 80, it's still a pain in the ass. To defeat Viscidus, he must be frozen; naturally, he can only be frozen by Frost-based attacks, such as Mages' Frostbolt or Shamans' Frost Shock. Once Viscidus is frozen, then everyone in the raid must melee him (yes, even the healers need to). If melee'd enough times, he will shatter. All while attempting to freeze and shatter Viscidus, the raid must survive near-constant AoE Poison damage. Ouro is a fight that most Alliance guilds would skip in favor of C'Thun because A) he offered better loot and B) killing C'Thun at 60 was a significant achievement for raiding guilds. (Horde guilds would run him over due to Poison Cleansing Totem.)
-
*Sonic the Hedgehog 2* contains an optional boss only found in an updated re-release on iPhone/Android. It's still Robotnik/Eggman, this time dropping spiked balls which need to be under him when they fire back up in order to get him into range. ||To find it, you need to fall down a bottomless pit in Mystic Cave, a pit which in every other version of the game is a very deep spike pit.||
- The mainstream
*Super Mario Bros..*
-
*New Super Mario Bros..*: World 4 and 7 are entirely skippable if you want to complete the game without using the Mini-Mushroom, making their respective bosses (World 4's Mega Goomba, World 7's Lakithunder) fit the trope.
-
*New Super Mario Bros. 2*: The non-numbered worlds (World Mushroom, World Flower, World Star) are entirely optional, making their respective bosses (Mushroom's Larry Koopa, Flower's Lemmy Koopa, Star's Dry Bowser) this. As a matter of fact, World Star can only be revealed after you defeat Bowser in World 6.
-
*New Super Mario Bros. U*: Depending on which path you choose after defeating Morton Koopa in Layer-Cake Desert, you can complete the main game without either taking on Larry Koopa in Sparkling Waters or Wendy Koopa in Frosted Glacier, as both victories result in Soda Lake being unlocked, starting with the game's first airship level and boss fight with Bowser Jr.
-
*Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3*: Hinyari is located in Sherbet Land. Amusingly, you can just walk right out of the battlefield through a conveniently placed door.
-
*Dr. Mario 64* has two optional bosses with similar conditions; if you get through Story Mode on Normal difficulty or higher without losing or restarting a match, then upon defeating Rudy, whichever character you're not playing as will challenge you one last time for the rights to the Megavitamin bottle. If you're playing as Mario, then Wario will power up into Vampire Wario; conversely, Wario will have to contend with Metal Mario. Defeating them first try will unlock them in Versus Mode, where they're not only playable but also have the hardest AI.
- Collecting all 24 tickets in
*Pony Island* ||changes the ending to Hopeless Soul telling you that he now understands that you want a satisfying reward for getting full completion and fighting you in a three-stage boss battle using different gameplay segments to supply that reward||.
-
*Puyo Puyo*: Carbuncle has played the role of optional boss twice in the series. To wit:
- In
*Puyo Puyo Sun*, he can be fought in Schezo's story without using a continue.
- In the first
*Puyo Puyo Fever*, he can be fought either by reaching Accord on the Hara Hara route without continuing (while ensuring that Fever mode is used either less than four times or more than twelve) and defeating her or by continuing with a multiple of 7 when defeating her.
-
*Puzzle Quest 2* has five optional bosses: Kurak the polar bear, the Yeti, the Cave Ogre, the Arch Lich, and the Green Dragon. They're unlocked automatically as you level up, so you can tackle them at your leisure or not at all. Since the rewards they yield aren't any better than most high-end enemies in the game, they aren't worth the effort to beat, unless you're a completionist, an achievement hunter (which you don't even get, depending on the platform) or for the bragging rights.
-
*Sutte Hakkun* has the Purple Makkun, an odd-colored Makkun that hides within specific crevices in certain stages in every world, serving as the replacement for the Bonus Stages of the Satellaview versions. He's the only character in the entire game that attacks you in any form: upon finding him, he'll scoop you up and challege you to a race in one of his ten Battle stages (which have the same level of difficulty as the regular stages). Beat him, and you'll ||get a segment of the Solution code to write down.||
-
*Pikmin 3 Deluxe* features a new boss at the end of the "Olimar's Comeback" sidestory: ||a golden mix between a Shaggy Long Legs and the otherwise-absent Raging Long Legs from *Pikmin 2*||. Since it's not part of the main game, it lacks a Piklopedia entry and thus goes unnamed.
-
*Everhood* has the Spirit of Light, who, when beaten, gives you one of the three gems needed for one of the Multiple Endings.
-
*Frederic: Resurrection of Music* has three optional songs/opponents that can be fought in Arena Mode. You need to beat the game three times (once for each difficulty except Too Easy) to unlock them all.
-
*Abomi Nation*: After collecting 5 of the 6 artifacts, you can fight an optional boss Abomi who gains stat boosts at the start of the fight and is scaled to always be above your level. You are rewarded with Macrogame currency if you win.
- In
*Alpha Protocol*, the Blood Knight Action Girl SIE will offer to team up with you during the mission where you first encounter her. You can agree to the alliance, or you can attack her (or you can agree, complete the mission, then attack her when you encounter her again at the end of the mission). Not only will she not die when you win, but your rep with her will increase.
- The
*Baldur's Gate* series:
- Most of the dragons in the game are also optional fights, though they give some good rewards after being slain.
- There's also an optional (and completely story-irrelevant) fight against some demon knights in the Underdark.
- The Twisted Rune is an order of evil spellcasters who, when you enter their lair, assume that you've come to foil their plans and attack you. They're sensibly skeptical if you claim to have found them by accident, because the only way that would happen is if you were wandering around a bad part of town while carrying an incredibly rare and valuable type of gemstone and opening doors at random. (This is in likely exactly what happened, unless you looked at a guide. The clues that would lead you to them were never put into the game.)
-
*Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden*:
- The spirit of Dikembe Mutombo is the boss of a bonus dungeon and gives Barkley the Holy Dunk attack.
- A duergar ||(actually Balthios, who is a Wereduergar)|| can be fought if you take the ferry to Liberty Island instead of the Underground Railroad.
- The Ghastly Darklord is encountered by checking a seemingly empty corner in Proto Neo New York.
- Kevin Garnett is the final opponent in the Arena in the optional B-Ball Dimension.
-
*Baten Kaitos Origins*: ||Nasca, Valara, Heughes, and Wiseman|| are optional bosses fought to tie up loose ends; one of them allows access to the game's True Final Boss. There's also Arma Prototype M, a.k.a. The Wicked Gawd, who is the final boss of the Coliseum and is *absurdly* hard.
- The Xbox 360 game
*Blue Dragon* has several Dragons that don't *need* to be beaten, but give the player a useful accessory if they are.
-
*Corruption of Laetitia*: When fighting the Predatory Birds in the map north of Gruhnwald, there's a chance that ||Hawkzombie|| will show up in the second turn to fight the party.
-
*Bloodborne*:
- Henryk the Old Hunter can only be encountered if the player decides to progress Eileen the Crow's quest line, as he will never appear otherwise.
- The Afflicted Beggar Mini-Boss can be encountered at either the Forbidden Woods or the Cathedral Ward, but does not actually have to be fought in order to progress. Beating him does net the player a powerful
*Beast Rune*, however.
- The Witches of Hemwick do not need to be fought in order to progress the story, though beating them does grant the player access to Caryll Runes.
- Martyr Logarius is found in a very secluded area in the Forsaken Cainhurst Castle, which in of itself is an optional area that requires a special item to access.
- The Celestial Emissary is an optional encounter that only needs to be beaten to encounter Ebrietas, who herself is also optional.
- Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos doesn't need to be fought to progress the story, only being required to unlock more Chalice Dungeons.
- Darkbeast Paarl is a boss encountered in Yahar'gul at any point after reaching the area, but does not actually need to fought to progress.
- Amygdala does not need to be fought to progress the story, and the only reason the player would ever need to fight them is to unlock the Ailing Loran Chalice Dungeon.
- Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen is only encountered within the deepest of the game's optional Pthumerian Chalice Dungeons.
-
*Bug Fables*: There are multiple criminals and hostile bugs fought as mini-bosses in sidequests or by exploring, the Mother Chomper, encountered in an optional dungeon, the Broodmother in the power plant sidequest, and the five Bounty Bosses you can take from Underground Tavern's side quests that are a major step up in difficulty compared to the storyline bosses.
-
*Dark Souls*:
-
*Dark Souls*:
- The Stray Demon can only be encountered by returning to the Undead Asylum, and going back there is not only a completely optional challenge, but even finding out
*how* to get back there is not an easy thing to do. Fighting it is worthwhile, however, as it is the only enemy guaranteed to drop a rare Titanite Slab, an item needed to reach the final upgrade of any standard or lightning weapon.
- Both Hydra Mini-Bosses are this. The one encountered in Darkroot Basin can be easily ignored, especially given how much of pain it can be to fight if the player doesn't have the Rusted Iron Ring, and the only reason the player would ever need to confront it is that ||killing it grants access to the
*Artorias of the Abyss* DLC, which is also optional||. The one encountered in Ash Lake is also this by virtue of the fact that Ash Lake itself is a completely optional area.
- The Moonlight Butterfly is found in an area of the Darkroot Garden that's very out of the way in terms of exploration. Beating it earns the player the Divine Ember, which is needed to create divine weapons, and the Watchtower Basement Key, though this item is rendered moot if the player has the Master Key.
- The Great Felines Mini-Boss can be found on one of the paths to the Darkroot Garden, but because players are more likely to enter the forest through the seal gate, and there's a much faster path than either one of these anyway, it's entirely possible to never encounter them. The fact that they don't drop nor guard any loot also discourages the idea of fighting them.
- Dark Sun Gwyndolin is an entirely skippable encounter that many players can easily miss, due to ||him hiding behind an illusionary wall that can only be passed by either wearing the Darkmoon Seance Ring or by killing the illusionary Gwynevere||.
- Crossbreed Priscilla can only be found in the optional Painted World of Ariamis, and even then does not need to be fought in order to complete the level due to only turning hostile if the player attacks her first.
- Because the
*Artorias of the Abyss* DLC does not need to be completed to finish the game, all 4 of the boss fights found in it are completely optional. Among them, however, Black Dragon Kalameet is this even in the context of the DLC. He's the only boss the player doesn't have to fight in order to complete the DLC's main story, encountering him requires the player go out of their way to do so, and it's impossible to properly fight him ||until the player talks to Gough, who himself can be hard to reach||.
-
*Dark Souls II*:
- The Belfry Gargoyles don't need to be fought, appearing in the optional Belfry Luna area. However, beating them does make the fight against the Lost Sinner easier, as beating them earns the player the key needed to unlock a room with a torch that can be used to light up the Lost Sinner's boss room.
- While ||Vendrick must be encountered in order to progress the game's story, actually fighting him is completely optional. Not helping matters is that it's next to impossible to damage him without first gathering the Souls of a Giant, which are scattered around the world, with one of them being guarded by another optional boss||.
- The Ancient Dragon does not need to be fought to progress the game, and it will only attack if the player provokes it anyway. Beating it nets the player a Soul of a Giant, which does make the fight against ||Vendrick|| easier, though that fight is optional as well anyway.
- The Darklurker is one of the most easily missed bosses in the series. Not only is fighting it not required to beat the game, but actually getting to it is a challenge, as it can only be found in an area that can only be accessed by joining the obscure Pilgrims of Dark covenant. Beating it will complete the player's progression in said covenant.
- Because
*The Lost Crowns* DLC trilogy does not need to be completed to finish the game, all 9 of the boss fights found in them are completely optional. Among them, *Crown of the Sunken King*'s Afflicted Graverobber, Ancient Soldier Varg, and Cerah the Old Explorer, *Crown of the Old Iron King*'s Sir Alonne and the DLC's version of the Smelter Demon, and *Crown of the Burnt Ivory King*'s Lud and Zallen, the King's Pets are this even in the context of their respective DLCs. All of them are encountered in secret areas of their respective DLCs, and none of them need to be beaten to complete the DLCs' stories.
-
*Dark Souls III*:
- The Curse-rotted Greatwood does not need to be beaten to travel to the next area, and the Giant Archer's greatarrows can end up discouraging the player from trying to reach the Curse-rotted Greatwood anyway. However, beating it earns the player the Transposing Kiln, which is needed to turn boss souls into weapons, equipment, and spells.
- The Stray Demon Mini-Boss does not need to be fought to progress through Faron Keep, as it is only found in a very out of the way location in the area.
- The Old Demon King is very easy to miss, as reaching the area he's found in requires cutting down the bridge in the Catacombs of Carthus. And since the game encourages the player to steer clear of the bridge and find another route, it's entirely possible to go through the game without even knowing of the area's existence.
- Oceiros, the Consumed King can only be encountered by taking a detour before reaching Lothric Castle, and killing him is not required to progress the main plot. However, beating him does grant the player access to Archdragon Peak and the Untended Graves.
- Champion Gundyr is found in the optional Untended Graves area, which itself can only be accessed by beating the optional boss fight against Oceiros. However, ||beating him is necessary to getting the "End of Fire" ending, as an item needed to achieve that ending, the Fire Keeper's Eyes, can only be found in an area blocked off by him||.
- Because the game's DLCs do not need to be completed to finish the game, all 6 of the boss fights found in them are completely optional. Among them,
*Ashes of Ariandel*'s Champion's Gravetender and Gravetender Greatwolf and *The Ringed City*'s Darkeater Midir are this even in the context of their respective DLCs. The Champion's Gravetender and Gravetender Greatwolf can only be encountered if the player cuts down the bridge to Ariandel Chapel, and the two don't have any relevance to the DLC's main plot, only existing as a wall between the player and the Arena added in the DLC. Darkeater Midir, meanwhile, can only be reached by the player going far out of the way of the main areas, and even then, fighting him requires they first beat him when he attacks them in the path to Filianore's Church.
-
*Deltarune*:
- In Chapter 1, you get to find and ultimately fight the locked-away ||Jevil||, whose fight makes the Final Boss look tame through sheer Bullet Hell, with his attacks being fast-paced and leaving little wiggle room to avoid. Depending on how you defeat him, you'll either end up with ||the best armor in the chapter|| or ||Susie's best weapon||.
- Chapter 2 features another, similarly out-of-the-way secret boss: ||Spamton NEO, an upgraded form of a boss fought earlier in the chapter||. The spoils for beating him are determined the same as with Chapter 1's Super Boss: ||a piece of equipment for sparing him, or a weapon for Ralsei for defeating him||.
-
*Demon's Souls* has Old King Doran, who the player can be easily go without seeing and still complete the game. However, fighting him to the point of impressing him will earn the player the Demonbrandt, and killing him outright will get them his armor and the very useful Eternal Warrior's Ring.
-
*The Denpa Men*:
- The first game has two optional bosses. One mid-game dungeon appears to have two bosses—a Water-type Golem and an Ice-type Golem. The Ice-type Golem is more difficult to get to, and is the true boss of the dungeon. The Water-type Golem, however, gives you a few extra goodies if you beat it. At the very end of the game, you can also choose to fight ||The True King, the final form of the King of Evil. He has his own Rare Random Drop, and each time you defeat him, he drops an emblem that can be sold for a tidy sum of money.||
- The sequel has
*even more* optional bosses than the first, most of whom are based around chess pieces. Each of the four Caves of Darkness contains a different variation on the Knight, and each one is progressively more difficult—especially because the Caves are timed, and even though you can keep battling if you run out of time, if you do, you'll be kicked out of the dungeon before you can collect your rewards for completing it. There's also a Pawn who you have one required fight against early on—but he keeps getting stronger and stronger throughout the game, and you can return to challenge him after different story events. ||The last two sets are linked—the "big" Bonus Dungeon ends with a fight against the Demon Queen, who serves as a combination of this and a True Final Boss. *This* unlocks the Bishop, King, and Queen, who fight you back to back in a Call-Back to the original game's final boss.||
-
*Elden Ring*: Most bosses are actually optional, for whatever reason.
- The Shardbearers are the main storyline bosses, but there are six of them and you only need two of the Great Runes they hold. So if you want a quick game, you could just fight Godrick the Grafted and Renalla before heading off to Leyendell, but it's totally possible to go for Mohg instead if you're feeling masochistic.
- In fact, out of all the Elden Ring bosses, the only absolutely necessary ones are whichever Shardbearers you choose, Godfrey's golden shade, Morgott, the Fire Giant, the Godskin Duo, Maliketh, Godfrey (the real one this time), and then the final boss. All others can be skipped, though their rewards are generally useful.
- All field bosses can be avoided simply by never entering their aggro range. Some also won't spawn outside of certain conditions (the Bell-Bearing Hunter only spawns at night, for example).
- Any enemy past a fog gate, aside from the mandatory ones mentioned above, can be skipped if the player doesn't want to enter their arena.
- All Evergaol enemies are locked away in extradimensional prisons and can't do anything to you unless you seek them out.
- All of the dragon bosses are avoidable simply by avoiding their territories. Dragonlord Placidusax won't even attack you in his
*boss arena* until you get too close, and Fortissax is a Route Boss for Fia's sidequest.
- Both the Ancestor Spirits are bosses of optional areas.
- The Astel fights won't even appear unless you defeat Radahn, who can
*also* be skipped.
- The
*Earth Bound* ROM Hack EquestriaBound has a few optional bosses, who always drop the parties Infinity Plus One Swords. According to the hack creator, this was to prevent Sword of Kings situations.
-
*Final Fantasy*:
-
*Final Fantasy IV*: There are four optional bosses that become Eidolons once you beat them: Asura, Leviathan, Odin, and Bahamut. Only one of these was particularly difficult. The others required very specific strategies rather than a high-leveled party to defeat, making them closer to Puzzle Bosses than anything else. This was fitting, as the battles were intended to be tests of your skill.
-
*Final Fantasy VIII*: The Brothers are optional bosses, as are the Jumbo Cactaur, Odin, Tonberry King and Bahamut.
-
*Final Fantasy X-2*:
- The Experiment, a Machina the Machine Faction in Djose Temple are working on throughout the game, which can be upgraded with parts the player obtains from digging in the Bikanel Desert. It is completely optional, and you only have to fight it for two points in the 100% Completion: the Djose Temple Episode Complete, and the Annihilator Blue Bullet.
- Angra Mainyu, a
*gigantic* snake-like Fiend slumbering in the Bikanel Desert. It can be encountered as early as Chapter 1 during digging sessions if the player is unlucky, but to actually fight it in a proper battle, the player must complete a long sidequest first, one that begins in Chapter 3 and can only be concluded in Chapter 5.
-
*Final Fantasy XII* has *lots* of these, as part of an assortment of sidequests which many argue form 75% of the game's content. For instance, there are thirteen Espers, but only five are necessary to proceed with the story, which means you have to seek the other eight on your own volition. Non-Esper optional bosses include Earth Tyrant, King Bomb, Gilgamesh, Phoenix, Shadowseer, Hell Wyrm, Yiazmat, and Omega Mark XII. While you face Ba'Gamnan early in the story, he can be fought again much later in a sidequest, where he is much stronger.
-
*Fossil Fighters*: There is a *huge* slew of optional bosses bosses, one of which opens up before the final boss, and the rest of which appear afterwards, in the Playable Epilogue.
-
*The Legend of Dragoon*: In the dungeon before the Point of No Return, you are given the opportunity to fight the spirits of the three dragons you defeated. They drop some useful attack items, and they're also guarding chests containing powerful equipment.
-
*Liar Jeannie In Crucifix Kingdom* has the two elite Pleiades Knights, Celaeno and Alcyone, as optional bosses ||who guard the exit of the kingdom and must be defeated to get the secret ending.||
-
*Lost Odyssey* has seven optional bosses: Persona, King Kelolon, the Cave Worm, the Blue Dragon, the Holy Beast, Legendary Spirit Sorcerer Fu, and The Immortal One in the Backyard. Players with access to XBox Live can get a new downloadable dungeon with an extra boss ||Professor K, aka The Killalon||.
-
*Luminous Plume*: Returning to older areas like the Mystic Forest, Arctic Lake, Tempest's Heart, and Mt. Arzen allows Raven to fight optional berserker bosses.
-
*Lunarosse* has two post-game bosses. One is implied to be a Greater-Scope Villain for the creator's future projects and the other tied into the Sequel Hook.
-
*Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story*: Returning to Bowser's castle as Mario and Luigi and solving the cold-storage vault puzzle using hints scattered along the path to said vault let's the bros fight three Shroobs. They do a lot of damage but have relatively small health and simple attack patterns. Defeating them rewards the bros with the powerful Magic Window attack.
-
*Marvel: Avengers Alliance* has the Epic Bosses in certain missions, which only show up if you fight every battle and complete every deploy (which often require spending rare Command Points to recruit specific heroes) in that mission. The bosses offer stronger weapons and gadgets and higher chances of winning more Command Points as prizes for defeating them, compared to normal bosses.
-
*Mega Man X: Command Mission* has two Bonus Bosses plus another set of nine. Rafflesian and Duckbill Mole gave X, Zero, and Axl new abilities that were useful in what remained of the game by that point. Ninetails and the preceding eight Tails Clan members could only be fought *after* beating the final boss, making the rewards for beating *them* worthless.
-
*Mother 3* has the Ghost Knight (encountered in Osohe Castle) and Li'l Miss Marshmallow (encountered at the top of Thunder Tower), both of whom will ignore you if you choose not to engage them; Li'l Miss Marshmallow, in particular, will only attack you if you try to examine the yo-yo in the playroom at the top of Thunder Tower (you get to keep the yo-yo and use it as a weapon if you defeat her). The Ghost Knight is an animated suit of armor with a sword and a shield, and Li'l Miss Marshmallow is ||Porky Minch||'s robot maid.
- The Gundam RPG
*MS Saga: A New Dawn* has Ultima Gundam and Omega Gundam, made from a mix of parts from *Mobile Fighter G Gundam* and *Mobile Suit Gundam Wing* mecha respectively. Their names are obvious homages to *Final Fantasy*'s perennial Bonus Boss pair, Ultima Weapon and Omega Weapon.
-
*Paper Mario*:
-
*Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door*:
- Atomic Boo, fought in Creepy Steeple if you enter the main hall and take the Spin Hammer attack to the swarms of Boos enough times. He isn't particularly hard, but knowing he even exists is a bit of a Guide Dang It!.
- Bonetail, the oldest and strongest of the Shadow Queen's three dragons, is the boss of the optional Pit of 100 Trials.
-
*Super Paper Mario*:
- You can rematch Francis, Chapter 3's boss, in the final chapter's second episode if you tell Mimi (disguised as Merlon) that you fear him most.
- Both Flipside and Flopside Pit of 100 Trails are optional dungeons just like its predecessor, so you can expect their respective bosses, Wracktail (a stronger version of Fracktail) and Shadoo (taking on darker forms of the heroes: Luigi, Bowser, Peach, and Mario respectively), to be optional bosses as well. Shadoo takes it up a notch where you have to do the
*entire dungeon again* to fight it.
- After you beat the game, Sammer's Kingdom is restored, which means you get to finally have a chance to do the entire Duel of 100 culminating in End Boss as the last Sammer Guy you get to defeat to win the ultimate prize.
-
*Parasite Eve* had a few optional bosses in the Chrysler Building. While most of the bosses are color swaps of the storyline bosses, the giant cockroach and giant bee were exclusive to the building. ||The original Eve is at the very top of the building, and defeating her gets you a different ending.||
-
*Pillars of Dust*: In the final chapter, the party can find a key that unlocks a secret room underneath a tomb. ||This contains a portal to the world in *Shadows of Adam*, resulting in a fight against Kellan, Asrael, Curtis, and Talon.||
-
*Resonance of Fate* pits you up against ||Sullivan and Rebecca|| at the end of Neverland. They are generally pushovers, especially compared to what you fought to get to them.
-
*Robopon*: In the original, you can rematch the first six Legends in Zero Tower post-credits. The second game has several, including Rena's restored-to-youth mother, the younger version of Nick D., the Robopon in Delica Castle's basement, and the W-King.
- In the
*SaGa* series, most of the **game** is optional, including many of the bosses.
-
*Sailor Moon: Another Story* has ||Esmeraude|| as an optional boss in the fourth chapter. Beating said boss gets you ||a second Red Pupil||.
-
*Soma Union*: The game lets the player save after they beat the game once, allowing them to fight ||the Sunset Squad, the Cooler Crusader, and the library's copy machine||.
-
*The Spirit Engine 2* has a variant: the bonus boss, Urtat Underval, is fought roughly halfway through the game rather than at the end. Another variant is that you fight him twice; ||once as a human, and once as a hulking zombie||.
- In Act IV of
*Super Lesbian Animal RPG*, the four sons of Javis each set up lairs in different parts of the world. Their fights each have a different, unique challenge to them, and defeating them will grant the party powerful equipment.
-
*Super Mario RPG* has three:
- Tiny martial arts master Jinx, who you can fight three times after defeating his apprentice, Jagger, each fight harder than the last. The boss lives in Monstro Town.
- Mokura, a green cloud miniboss that may appear in Land's End or Belome's Temple, dodges the player unless they track the boss down, and has two forms.
- The game's Superboss: the
*Final Fantasy* Shout-Out Culex, a powerful magic-using entity from another dimension who attacks using four elemental crystals and is harder than the game's Final Boss. It too lives in Monstro Town.
-
*Uncommon Time* has an optional boss at the end of each Bonus Dungeon: ||Altair|| at the end of Aubrey's Uncommon Time, and ||Arietta|| at the end of Arietta's.
- Ragu o Ragula is an optional boss in all of the
*Wild ARMs* games for PlayStation, PS2, and PSP. Angolmois also appears in some of them. In fact, the Wild ARMs games have many bonus bosses, often found sealed in crystals found throughout the game. Ragu o Ragula is neatly incorporated into all of these titles as the sleeping demon who is fated to destroy Filgaia, centuries after the conflict-of-the-day is finished off. Big extra credit for overachieving heroes. The other bonus bosses can range from Call-Back characters, characters who are no longer a part of the main plot and have been more-or-less forgotten by the main cast, and nudie mags
-
*A Witch's Tale* has a bonus fight with friendly vampire Loue, who suddenly turns not-so-friendly for the fight. If you win, you get a game-breaking doll.
-
*The World Is Your Weapon*: Defeating the Demon Lord is not necessary to get the first ending, but beating him is necessary for the third and fourth endings. He and the Final Boss can also be fought in rematches so that the player can capture them. In version 2.40+, Weaco will have to fight ||a third version of the Demon Lord to get the secret ending||.
-
*Xenosaga*:
- Episode 1 has four: two mechas, Din Gareth and Jin Gareth, the sharpshooter Great Joe, and Mintia, an evil version of MOMO.
- Episode 2 has a metric-buttload of optional bosses encountered in the game's many sidequests.
- Episode 3 has two mechas: Omega Universitas ||AKA Id Weltall|| and Erde Kaiser Sigma. The latter is the only mecha in the game who's fought without the use of E.S.s.
-
*Xenoblade Chronicles 1*: One long sidequest chain with its own story that covers almost half of the game leads to a bonus boss. Though this one is not overleved, it stands out because the quests that lead to it can be lost forever, the battle is under a tune only reserved for a few select Hopeless Boss Fights, and ||the boss is one of the NPCs involved in the sidequest chain: Bana, the Nopon Kingpin.||
-
*Xenoblade Chronicles X*: Neilnail Albus and Neilnail Furvus, a pair of Skells fought in the 'Twin Dolls of Mystery' Time Attack mission, were originally supposed to be a story boss, but that plot thread was scrapped. They're still present in the game to be fought optionally, because defeating them yields unique items necessary to craft Level 60 Skells, among them the powerful Ares 90.
- In the
*JoJo's Bizarre Adventure* Fan Game *Your Bizarre Adventure*, there are several bosses in the main game that do not need to be fought in order to clear the storyline. Several of them simply stand in the main map and can be challenged at any time (though doing so until the player has leveled up enough is not advised).
- DEO waits in the mountains, using The World against players who try to beat him and complete Dopey's
note : a renamed Doppio side quest in the process.
- Joe
note : a young Jotaro Kujo from *Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders* can be found outside the Naples train station. Fighting him is necessary to finish a side quest from DEO (who stands nearby).
- Joe Kujoe
note : an older Jotaro Kujo from *Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Stone Ocean* stands in the ocean near the Colosseum in the main map. He puts up a particularly strong fight, boasting an evolved form of his original Stand and having a hefty amount of HP, but he sometimes drops an item necessary to get one of the game's most powerful Stands.
- ||Heaven Ascension DEO|| is the climax of Joe's own side quest, only achievable after gathering every part of the Saint's Corpse. Defeating the boss and his extraordinarily powerful Stand will rarely reward you with an item crucial to upgrading one of two Stands available to the player—either turning ||The Universe into The Universe Over Heaven (a copy of the boss's Stand)|| or ||G-Moon into The Way to Heaven (along with Joe's Disc)||.
-
*JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The 7th Stand User* has quite a few optional bosses, many of them only available on repeat playthroughs or depending on which ending you get. Diavolo also appears on repeat playthroughs, and if you choose to fight him, he has a chance of running away, so you don't get the money and EXP for beating him.
-
*Werewolf: The Apocalypse Earthblood*: At the end of the game, the player is given a choice between ||turning back to help Ava and the activists and pressing on to avenge himself on Richard Wadkins||. The second option leads to a boss battle against Wadkins and his hordes of fomori.
-
*Armed Police Batrider* has a crapton of optional bosses, all of which appeared in the *Mahou Daisakusen* series and *Battle Garegga*. Said bosses include Bashinet, the Stage 1 boss of *Mahou*, and Black Heart, the Stage 5 boss of *Garegga* that, thanks to the stage edit feature, you can fight as early as Stage 2.
-
*DoDonPachi Dai-Fukkatsu* has the six normal bosses of *DoDonPachi* (Suzaku, Senkou, Kakou, Raikou, Rankou and Ryuukou) as bonus mid-bosses, triggered by fulfilling certain conditions.
- In the PS2 remake of
*Space Harrier*, continuing to fire at the end of Stage 19 results in the game continuing for four more stages, with twin fire dragons Haya-Oh awaiting at the end of #22.
- Lots of missions in the
*Ace Combat* games feature enemy aces whose defeat is not necessary for mission completion. They're not really harder than the compulsory aces. On the other hand, there is a more traditional one in *Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War*: ||Mobius One and his Raptor|| are encountered in an Ace difficulty run of The Gauntlet if you do well enough. Similarly are ||Scarface One and ZOE Commander|| in a certain mission in *Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception*.
- Two optional bosses are available in the combat sequences-filled Dating Sim
*Mitsumete Knight* : ||Zeelbis the Bloody|| and ||Salishuan the Spy|| of the Eight Generals of Valpha-Valaharian, the main enemy squad of the game. While not a storyline-related boss unlike the other two, Sparkster of the *Rocket Knight Adventures* series is also an optional boss.
-
*Final Fantasy Tactics* features an optional battle with Elidibs and the Zodiac summon.
-
*Fire Emblem*:
- In
*Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War*, in the Final Chapter, Arion is flying around with a squad of Wyvern Knights. However, the chapter can be cleared without ever fighting him, and he'll even become an NPC ally if Altena talks to him.
-
*Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance* has General Bryce of Daein. Appearing in the last level of the game, Bryce stands in the centre of the map, astride the easiest path to the Final Boss, Mad King Ashnard. If you take him on and take him out, you can loot the most powerful lance in the game, the Wishblade. It is, however, entirely possible to avoid fighting Bryce by taking another route.
-
*Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn* has Levail, General Zelgius's apprentice and Bryce's successor as the wielder of the Wishblade. While Ike fights a Duel Boss battle with Zelgius, the rest of your team takes on Levail and his army. Defeating Zelgius is all that you have to do to beat the level, and the rest of your troops don't even have to move, let alone fight Levail (who, as a top-level Sentinel equipped with the Wishblade, is one of the few genuine threats you'll meet in the last quarter of the game). Many choose to engage him though, out of the desire to kill a few more opponents and maybe get their hands on the Wishblade.
- In the postgame of
*Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule GB*, you can duel Joey, Tea, Tristan, Ryou, Grandpa, Pegasus, Bandit Keith, Shadi, Yami Bakura, and a freed Seto Kaiba. The latter two have the toughest monsters in the game.
-
*Lux-Pain* zigzags between regular optional boss and Skippable Boss. Most bosses have to be fought as part of the game, but some can only be encountered by following the right events (or even sequences of events) that only become available at certain points and lock again afterwards (hence the zigzag—there is no 'default' way through most of these sections, so whether you encounter them or not is just down to where you looked when you had the chance). This includes battles with the SILENT in the minds of Honoka, Sakai, and even Mint the ghost cat. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OptionalBoss |
Opposites Attract Revenge - TV Tropes
A type of Love Triangle — heavy on the triangle, light on the love. When a girlfriend leaves her boyfriend, and ends up in a relationship with the boyfriend's ideological rival, resulting in a vendetta between the two men. It works with the genders switched around, too.
Compare Murder the Hypotenuse. See also Cock Fight and Emasculated Cuckold.
## Examples:
- This is one
*part* of the relationship between Spike and Vicious from *Cowboy Bebop*. On the surface, they had one of these over Julia, resulting in the disintegration of their friendship and a lifetime of hatred toward each other. But this trope also applies to Vicious and *Julia* due to his feelings for Spike, which is why he hates them *both* so passionately but (initially) spares their lives after they betrayed him.
- Turkey and Greece from
*Hetalia: Axis Powers* were *already* on bad terms long beforehand, but them both liking Japan does not help one bit. According to France in the Christmas 2007 strips, it's bad enough that Japan spends most of his time with the two trying (vainly) to get them to be at least civil to each other.
- Brutal example in the
*School Days* anime. Makoto starts out interested in Kotonoha, gets help from Sekai, and later falls for her, then goes back to Kotonoha at the end after he suspects everyone ditched him due to his lecherous ways by sleeping around with all the girls in the series, and Sekai's declaration that she's pregnant. ||He gets knifed to death by a jealous Sekai, who in turn gets killed by Kotonoha at the end||. When you're in a Psychotic Love Triangle, it's not going to end well.
- In
*The Matrix Reloaded*, Niobe used to be with the mystical Morpheus, now she is with the secular Locke. How much of the tension between the two men is a result of this and how much is due to their very different personalities and leadership styles is unclear since it all happened in the backstory. That Niobe keeps supporting Morpheus over Locke doesn't help matters much.
- Played brilliantly in
*Spider-Man*, where Mary Jane is constantly the center of the tug-of-war between Spider-Man and the Goblin Jr. AND their alter egos Peter Parker and Harry Osborn.
- Alexandre Dumas'
*The Count of Monte Cristo*. This is particularly pronounced in the latest Film of the Book, in which Mercedes is one of the key reasons behind ||Fernand's plot to put Edmond in prison||.
-
*Harry Potter*: ||Harry's mother used to be close friends with Severus Snape when they were children; he had an obvious crush on her (although no one but Dumbledore seemed to know), and a deep and abiding hatred for his then-rival, James Potter. Since Harry reminds Snape of his father, you've got some serious hostility there.||
- Also completely played straight since ||Lily initially didn't like James for being arrogant. However, her friendship with Severus was gradually breaking apart before it finally broke when Severus whipped out the Fantastic Racism card on her after she tried to interfere with him and James. She ended up dating the now less hot-headed James, whom she eventually married and had Harry with.||
- There is, of course, a
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer* example. Tension over Drusilla's affections is the main source of the feud between Angel and Spike for much of the second season, even leading to Spike helping Buffy at the end of the season in the hope he'll get Drusilla back.
- Ironically, Spike himself ends up romantically entangled with Angel's love interest, Buffy, in later seasons. These guys have VERY similar tastes in women.
-
*Greek*. Cappie's carelessness and jealousy lead him to beat up his best friend and roommate Evan for taking Casey to a formal when he failed to show. This leads to the pairing of Casey and Evan at the beginning of the series and the bitter rivalry between Evan and Cappie's respective fraternities ever since.
-
*Smallville*: Lex and Lana are an item for a time, resulting in upped tensions between Clark and Lex.
- Missi and Emily in
*Misfile* to the point where Ash tells both of them to bug off until they can be decent to each other.
- LaBarbara Conrad from
*Futurama* has been married to both Hermes Conrad and his limboing opponent, Barbados Slim. In this case, they are opposites mostly in terms of Conrad being a short, chubby bureaucrat and Slim being an "ebony adonis" professional athlete (though Hermes *is* usually the more talented one in their common sport of limbo).
-
*El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera*: Word of God states that in their teenage years, Manny would date Zoe Aves, and Frida would date Django of the Dead. Both relationships would fail, leaving Manny and Frida together and Zoe and Django getting into a relationship to spite them both. The latter two would eventually develop genuine feelings for each other.
- Happens in
*Total Drama World Tour* with Duncan leaving Courtney for Gwen, made worse by the fact that Courtney and Gwen had become friends by that point in the series. Courtney gets pretty heavily into the vendetta part, while Gwen feels guilty but likes the thrill of being with Duncan more. Courtney and Gwen eventually bury the hatchet; Duncan meanwhile destroys his relationships with both girls thanks to his fragile ego. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppositesAttractRevenge |
Opposites Attract - TV Tropes
*"Strange extremes meet in love's pathway."*
Strong relationships, in both TV and real life, thrive on how each member compensates for the other's weaknesses with their own strengths, and vice versa.
A Motor Mouth just isn't as funny if he doesn't have the Straight Man to torment. Similarly, only when a sweet, shy person is paired up with an equally jerkish one is their kindness and shyness made all the more noticeable.
It is all but guaranteed that the characters' differences will cause more friction than harmony between them. That's what gives the Odd Couple its fuel for Slap-Slap-Kiss, Will They or Won't They?, and Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other situations. Bickering and mushiness in one package. What's not to like?
The Odd Friendship also has elements of this, but tends to focus on how the differences make them see each other, and maybe the world, through new eyes. Perhaps the serious one is Not So Above It All, or the Shrinking Violet has an inner strength they never knew they had. A Moe Couplet also does something similar to this, focusing on how each half of the couplet brings out the other's endearing or nurturing traits.
Opposites attract has become so widespread in buddy cop shows, in the form of Serious White Guy meets Loud Black Guy, that it branched off into its own subtrope.
About the biggest challenge in creating a day-and-night dynamic is to keep the
*attract* and *repel* cases relatively balanced. When the pendulum swings too far toward the *repel* side and the characters seem more interested in torturing each other than helping out, it's no longer cute to watch; it's just masochistic. The key (both in fiction and in Real Life) is to watch the pair's goals. If they want the same thing but use completely different methods to achieve it, it's this trope. If they want *different* things entirely, it's a divorce waiting to happen.
If you add a third-party mediator for balance, you get a Power Trio.
Contrast Birds of a Feather. Compare Too Much Alike.
## Popular Opposites Attract dynamic tropes:
## Examples:
**IMPORTANT**: Please, no ships, just Canon portrayal of attraction. If you see an example that hasn't been portrayed in canon as this type of attraction (or hasn't been portrayed in canon *at all*), please delete it. This also means examples will tend to be spoilery, so read on at your own risk.
-
*7 Seeds* has tough-as-nails and super-stubborn Hana dating the sweet, good-natured Arashi.
- Early in
*Ah! My Goddess* run, Keiichi was a Chivalrous Pervert wondering what anyone would see in him, and Belldandy was something of an Ingenue. Characterization Marched On, and the two began developing some of the other's persona, so that after the "Lord of Terror" arc, and in the OVA, K1 became a Covert Pervert, and Bell began pouring on the affection nice and thick, frequently expressing her love for Keiichi. About two years after The Movie, sadly, the two were Flanderized to the point where he was afraid to make a move, and she rarely acknowledged their love.
- A beautifully tragic and deeply layered version with Guts and Casca from
*Berserk*, Guts grew up subject to cruelty and abuse, living life without any purpose other than warfare. Casca as a girl was saved from abuse and in doing so committed her body and soul to another person. Guts has the willpower to live through all manner of trauma, Casca suffers greatly from every tragedy in her life and cannot resist the pain. That being said, Guts and Casca also subvert this trope, being actually quite similar in many ways: both victims of sexual violence, both look similar (pre-Eclipse), both have scared bodies and both have survived the unimaginable... though at the cost of their mental health.
- Revy and Rock of
*Black Lagoon*. She's an Axe-Crazy Broken Bird and Trigger-Happy Nietzsche Wannabe, among other things. He's a Non-Action Guy, a Wide-Eyed Idealist (he *never* gets completely disillusioned, and he has every right to), and he's the closest thing a series this cynical will allow to an All-Loving Hero. The sparks flying could power a medium-sized country.
- In
*Blue Seed*, military-minded heavy weapons expert Koume Sawaguchi falls for computer expert and nerd extraordinaire Yoshiki Yaegashi after his character growth throughout the series culminates in him privately demonstrating a great strength that she herself always lacked - internal strength in self. They get engaged two years later in the OAV.
- Several of the main couples in Cool-Kyou Shinsha's manga are like this:
- David and Lucy from
*Cyberpunk: Edgerunners*. Lucy starts the series as a brooding and cynical edgerunner ||who ran away from Arasaka after being exploited as a child||. David starts as a kind-hearted Arasaka Academy student raised by a single mother who works overtime to pay for his tuition. The two become an Official Couple and their relationship becomes integral to the series' plot.
-
*The Dangers in My Heart*: Kyōtarō Ichikawa is a relatively short middle school boy, while Anna Yamada has been incredibly tall for her age since elementary school. Kyōtarō doesn't smile or talk all that much, is pessimistic, sarcastic (mostly in inner monologue), and very observant. Anna is cheerful, outgoing, ditzy, prone to teasing, and may tend to take longer to read the room than him. He spends his time isolated (Aside from when he's hanging out with Anna) and his interests lay in rather macabre subjects, while she regularly chats with her friends, eats snacks in private, or makes up games on the spot.
-
*Dragon Ball*:
- Goku and Chi-Chi: he's the Idiot Hero son of a low-class mercenary, she's a Tsundere daughter of a Warlord King. Goku and Chi-Chi become more opposite as they grow older, Chi-Chi is a Control Freak who stresses over everything; Goku is a laidback Mellow Fellow who treats home life problems with an "oh well." Despite her anger at Goku's antics, Chi-Chi deeply loves her husband and any threat towards her puts Goku on a Unstoppable Rage.
- Yamcha and Bulma were originally this: he was shy around beautiful women and easy-going, she was horny around handsome men and possessed a short temper. This gets subverted later as Bulma moves on to Vegeta who's Hot-Blooded like her.
- Krillin and Android 18 is a gloriously played straight example. He's a 5'0" inch bald Comic Relief fighter, she's a 5'6 inch beautiful haired killer cybernetic Femme Fatale... it works out. Love freak Ribrianne from
*Super* is mystified that someone like 18 could end up with someone like Krillin.
- When they first met, Gohan and Videl also invoked this along with shades of Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy. The latter was a rash tomboy who gets in way over her head in a desire to prove herself, the former is a shy bookworm who hides his own colossal strength. Unlike Goku and Chi-Chi they get time to develop their relationship before they get married.
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*Eyeshield 21*: Energetic and outgoing Suzuna with Shrinking Violet Sena. More obviously, foul-mouthed Sociopathic Hero Hiruma with Mamori the Proper Lady.
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*Fairy Tail*: Gajeel and Levy are complete opposites of each other but they are the closest thing to being a couple among the main cast, since Erza and Jellal's situation is complicated.
- The BL series
*FAKE* is a Buddy Cop Show about Odd Couple Detectives Ryo and Dee.
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*Fruits Basket*: Kyo, a hot-headed, tough, no manners, always-wants-to-fight boy, and Tohru, a girl who's very sweet and kind.
- We can assume this happened in the backstory of
*Galilei Donna*: The Ferrari parents are the stern, orderly Sylvia and the kind hippie-like Geshio. Of course, they're seperated by the time the story starts...
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*given* between Uenoyama, brash and a bit cocky, and Mafuyu, who's quiet and somewhat spacey.
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*Hetalia: Axis Powers*:
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*High Score Girl* chronicles the budding romance between rich, attractive, athletic, incredibly talented and highly reserved Akira Oono, and lazy, bumbling, plain-looking, uncultured and gaming-addicted Haruo Yaguchi.
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*His Favorite*: Yoshio Yoshida and Takahiko Satou who, in spite of the latter's female admirers trying to sabotage/harassed them every step of the way and the problems caused by their conflicting personalities, are the main couple in the series.
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*Kaguya-sama: Love Is War*:
- At first glance, Kaguya and Shirogane appear to be Birds of a Feather, but as the series goes on it becomes apparent that they're Not So Similar. Their contrast is even a major plot point, since the entire reason they fell in love was they admired virtues in the other that they themselves lacked.
- Osaragi is quiet and keeps to herself, the exact opposite of her boyfriend ||Kazeno. Of course, it's likely that she never had any interest in him to begin with and was only dating him so he wouldn't be a threat to Ishigami asking out Tsubame. Once that goal has been achieved, she promptly dumps him.||
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*Kamisama Kiss* has Tomoe and Nanami. Their relationship includes Red Oni, Blue Oni (Nanami is red and Tomoe is blue), Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl, and Nanami is an Ordinary High-School Student while Tomoe is a Little Bit Beastly Kitsune.
- In
*Kanamemo*, no chance is spared to show the loving bond between sparkly Yume and quiet Yuuki.
- In
*Kimagure Orange Road*, the relationship between Kyousuke and Madoka hits several notes for this trope. He is from the middle class while Madoka is a Yamanote Girl. Madoka is incredibly talented in many respects; artistic, scholastic and athletic while Kyosuke is a Ridiculously Average Guy. Their relationship inverts the gender dynamic in the Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl with Madoka having the dark moods. Also they gender invert the Magical Girlfriend trope; its Kyosuke who has supernatural powers but keeps Madoka in the dark about them.
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*Kyouran Kazoku Nikki* has this in its love triangle. The serious and stoic Ouka is made to marry the lively and energetic Kyouka. This is contrasted with his other love interest, Shinigami, who is a Blood Knight compared to Ouka's Consummate Professional.
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*Lyrical Nanoha* has The Stoic officer Chrono and his Victorious Childhood Friend, the bubbly Bridge Bunny Amy.
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*Medaka Box*: Zenkichi, a Ordinary High-School Student with some determination but with a realistic perspective, and Medaka, The Ace who takes every action to ridiculous levels but mainly For Happiness.
- Boisterous Bruiser Colonel Kilgore Ramba Ral and quiet Lady of War Crowley Hamon in
*Mobile Suit Gundam*. They're effectively a boyfriend/girlfriend varient on Brains and Brawn.
- The Official Couple of
*Monkey High!* — Haruna is The Ojou and used to dealing with high-class folks (her father is a now-disgraced politician), while Macharu is The Fool and very much from working-class roots (his parents run a grocery store).
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*My Dress-Up Darling*: The lively, cheerful and outgoing Gyaru Girl Marin Kitagawa falls in love with the shy, meek and introverted Gentle Giant Wakana Gojo who, while too timid and insecure to openly admit it, is very much attracted to her as well.
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*Naruto*: Most of the Official Couples, past and future, in the series fit this mold.
- Hinata is attracted to Naruto, even though she's an overly polite Shrinking Violet with nil self-confidence and whose fighting style is precise and accurate, and he's a complete rude, loud, overly-optimistic Idiot Hero whose fighting style is unorthodox and full of surprises. Naruto eventually falls for her too. Interestingly, only in personality and fighting style do they embody this trope; overall, they more accurately fit Birds of a Feather.
- Minato and Kushina, the former being a very nice and polite man and the latter being a Hot-Blooded Tomboy.
- Shikamaru and Temari; he's lazy, calm and prone to doubting himself, while she's an aggressive Action Girl.
- Sakura, the loud, brash healer from an ordinary family who starts the series quite weak loves the calm, broody Uchiha prodigy Sasuke.
- The Social Expert Ino with No Social Skills Sai.
- Dog-lover Kiba starts dating cat-lover Tamaki.
- The entire point of
*Negative-kun to Positive-kun*: Jun is pessimistic and somewhat cold, Shin is optimistic and cheerful, yet the two are a very happy couple.
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*Neon Genesis Evangelion* subverts this trope with Asuka and Shinji's relationship. Superficially they seem to be complete opposites; he's a severe Shrinking Violet and she's a extreme Tsundere. But in the later episodes of the series it's revealed that they're ultimately two sides of the same coin; their behaviors both stem from severe abandonment issues and their fears of being hurt by other people, although they deal with it in completely different ways. While he runs away from others, she actively pushes them away. Ultimately, these differences in dealing with the same problem are what prevents them from bonding with each other, when they logically should've easily been able to connect with each other over their shared issues. This conflict is what leads to much of the drama in both the series and especially The Movie.
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*Ouran High School Host Club*'s canon couple Haruhi and Tamaki. Haruhi is a Deadpan Snarker, and generally calm and collected when it comes to most things. Tamaki on the other hand is a Keet, exaggerated, and easily excitable.
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*Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt*: In "Ghost: The Phantom of Daten City", Stocking has a romance with a very gross and ugly ghost.
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*The Quintessential Quintuplets*: Male lead Fuutarou Uesugi ends up falling for Yotsuba Nakano, the quintuplet who is the most opposite to him in almost everything. Fuutarou is a Straight-A student who is quite reserved, socially awkward and physically weak, while Yotsuba is good at sports but not so intelligent, as well as cheerful and extroverted.
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*Sailor Moon*:
- Parodied in
*Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei*. The first episode plays romantic music when Nozomu first meets Kafuka, and text scrawls across the screen, "A man who is negative about everything; a girl who is positive about everything; a meeting that never should have happened." This gets further parody in a later episode showing Nami's first meeting with Kiri, playing the same music and displaying the message "A girl who refuses to come to school; a girl who refuses to leave school; a meeting that never should have happened." The series end with ||Nozomu and Kafuka pairing becomes canon because of this particular reason, even though Kafuka is six feet under before the series even started.||
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*Sensei wa Koi o Oshierarenai*: Main couple Rinko and Arase are pretty much complete opposites. She's a Stern Teacher and nerd. He's her lazy, laid-back, Book Dumb student. Despite this they deeply love each other and have been dating since before the start of the series.
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*Shaman King*: Yoh is a laid-back, lazy, kind and optimistic Wide-Eyed Idealist, while Anna is a cold, business-minded, violent and demanding Ice Queen. Despite the cruel treatments she reserves towards him and the two being together mostly because of an Arranged Marriage, they actually do love each other and ||they are shown to be Happily Married in the extended ending.||
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*Soul Eater*: Stein and Marie definitely fit this trope. Stein is an eccentric, sadistic and twisted Mad Scientist, while Marie is a sweet, calm and gentle teacher. ||In the final chapter, it's revealed Marie is pregnant with Stein's child, but she's worried because Stein is already planning to turn their child into his new guinea pig.||
- In
*Stellvia of the Universe*, the aloof and stoic Akira eventually starts dating the laid-back Plucky Comic Relief Joey.
- Considering they form a manzai duo this is inherent to the eventual romantic relationship between Koganei and Amasawa of
*The Weatherman Is My Lover*.
- The cynical, reserved Kousei and the optimist, energetic wild Kaori are Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl example from
*Your Lie in April*.
- In
*36 Questions*, Jase is completely honest even when it's inconvenient for him, whereas Judith spent two years in a Snowball Lie and still tried to lie when she finally got caught.
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*The Authority* has gruff, brooding, cynical Midnighter Happily Married to kind, cheerful, optimistic Apollo. Even their costumes emphasize this trope: Apollo's is white with a gold sun emblem, while Midnighter's is black with a silver crescent moon.
- Batman and Catwoman: One is a stolid, no-nonsense upholder of the law, the other is a mischievous (but never malicious) lawbreaker. They fight crime (sometimes, when she's not causing it herself).
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*ElfQuest*: Discussed by Tyldak and Kahvi in regards to her past relationship with Rayek. He thinks their differences in background (she's "ice", he's "fire") were the problem. Kahvi disagrees though, saying that differences make good sparks. It was his arrogance which she hated.
- Two members of the
*Legion of Super-Heroes*: Supergirl and Brainiac-5. She's a warm, nice and friendly Flying Brick. He's a super-intelligent, rude jerkass with non-existent social skills. Plus she's a believer and he's an atheist.
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*Persepolis*: Subverted. When Marjane returns to Iran in her late teens, she starts a relationship with Reza, who's her polar opposite in terms of personality, Marjane being outspoken and extroverted and Reza collected and introverted. Marjane initially thinks that this is why they complement each other so well, but after they get married their personalities increasingly clash until they decide to avoid each other.
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*Robin Series*: Callie Evans an active and very vocally open about her life basketball player tomboy who is more than willing to get into fights dated nerdy Sebastian Ives who freezes up at confrontation and will go far out of his way to avoid it and keep secrets. They remained friends afterwards but were unable to make a lasting romantic relationship work.
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*Runaways*:
- It paired quirky nerd Gert with dumb jock Chase, All-Loving Hero Karolina with Blood Knight Xavin, and fearless Molly with shy Klara.
- In the reboot, troublemaker Jubilee grudgingly admits that she's attracted to rule-abiding Sanna. ||It later turns out that the attraction is mutual, and they end up as a couple.||
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*Spider-Man*:
- Would you ever believe the shy nerdy wallflower Peter Parker to end up married to the outgoing party girl Mary Jane Watson? Well it happened. Actually when MJ first saw Mr. Parker, she was going though her troubled home life and empathized with the lonely looking Peter. So they're similar after all.
- Morbius and his fiancée Martine are this, both in appearance and personality. Morbius himself even wonders out loud how "an out and about society girl" could fall in love with "a morose scientist who can't stand the sun", saying even he doesn't have a hypothesis for that one.
- Superman has Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter and Lois Lane, determined and outgoing reporter.
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*Teen Titans*:
- When their relationship began, Starfire and Robin (later Nightwing) were this: Robin was reserved and methodical to Starfire's passionate impulsiveness. As the trope often works in real life, they began to influence each other so that each acquired a level of the other's personality, to the point that their breakup ultimately had Nightwing making an impassioned plea for Starfire to stay and Starfire making the reasoned, logical choice to leave.
- Raven and Beast Boy. One is an emotionally-unstable daughter of a demon who has a tendency to sometimes turn evil and attack her friends quite frequently, one is a fun-loving, optimistic Manchild who can turn into just about any animal on the planet. Due to Raven's emotional issues and her desire not to harm people she cares about, the two are frequently on/off but always come back to one another due to Beast Boy refusing to take a hint. Prior to the New 52 reboot, Raven had recently made the decision not to ignore or suppress her feelings any longer and to embrace the future with Beast Boy. How they fared may never be known...
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*X-Men*:
- Cyclops and Phoenix. He's an emotionally withdrawn introvert control freak and she's
~~fire and life incarnate~~ an outgoing redhead who reads minds. He draws the attentions of at least two other hot and extrovert telepaths, which suggests there's something interesting going on behind that facade...
- Cyclops' second major love interest, Emma Frost, also qualifies. One's a stoic born leader who grew up in an orphanage, the other's a wealthy, snarky seductress trying to atone for her past villainous deeds.
- Gambit and Rogue: he's a dashing kinda powerful ex-theif who blows things up by touching them, she's an introvert extremely powerful ex-villain who absorbs people's powers by touching them. They're currently the only X-Men to be Happily Married. Though when you think about it, Rogue and Gambit are kinda similar. Both have brown hair, both worked for Super Villains (Mystique and Mr Sinister respectively) before defecting to the X-Men and both their powers relate to touching things. Their personalities are distinct enough for this trope to work, but the couple are more alike than they know.
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*Peanuts* features Peppermint Patty and Marcy. Peppermint Patty is extroverted and athletic but Book Dumb. Marcie is introverted and intellectual and not at all into sports. They develop a symbiotic relationship, with Peppermint Patty protecting Marcie from bullies and Marcie helping Peppermint Patty with her studies.
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*The Dragon and the Butterfly*: While Bruno is characterized as a meek, superstitious, soft-spoken men with No Social Skills, his girlfriend-turned-fiance Valentina is a well-traveled party girl with a tough exterior and a twisted sense of humor. While Alma disapproves of their relationship under the belief that Bruno should be with a Proper Lady, Valentina has lived her whole life around Dumb Jocks and finds Bruno's attentive and sensitive personality a breath of fresh air.
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*Hetalia: Axis Powers* fanfic *Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità*: Like in canon, Italy is the opposite of Japan. However, despite their opposite personalities, they have a lot in common too.
*"You're so kind and warm inside that cold and calculating exterior of yours. Although it may not seem like it, we have quite a bit in common. It's nice how we can bond over literature, anime, manga, fencing, food, cats, art...and so much more. Despite not seeming like it, my heart beats fast around you." He gave a fond smile. "I can't help but love that about you Kiku."*
- In
*The Dragon That Will Pierce the Heavens*, the main trio of Luffy, Hikari and Zoro are this in every configuration you split them into. Luffy is very cheerful and tactile, while Zoro is reserved and standoffish; Hikari is mature and selflessly maternal, wanting to save everyone, while Luffy is childish and can be very selfish except when it comes to saving friends; Zoro is calm and laidback for the most part, while Hikari is more driven and snappy when their crew does stupid things.
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*Guardian* portrays Lulu's romance with Posthumous Character Chappu as this—while she is a serious and somewhat cynical teen, he's fun and goofy and acts more his age.
- Near the end of
*How I Learned to Love the Wild Horse*, Tomboy Badass Biker Donna hooks up with nerdy Arnold after the two bond over a love of anime.
- In
*My Huntsman Academia*, Yang and Izuku are opposites in almost every way imaginable. Izuku is shy and lacking in confidence due to his Broken background, growing up an only child with only his ordinary mother for company because he father is always working overseas. He's extremely driven to achieve his goal of becoming an amazing Huntsman who saves others, but is inexperienced and lagging behind his peers when he comes into Beacon. Yang is proud of both her abilities and her appearance, growing up with her father, a prestigious Huntsman, and her half-sister Ruby because Raven Branwen and Summer Rose both mysteriously vanished when they were young. Yang is much more relaxed and happy to party but lacks a driving goal or dream in her life, being content to simply help her loved ones achieves theirs. They end up becoming close friends ||and later start dating||.
- Ryuko and Mako in
*Natural Selection*. Ryuko is a foul-mouthed, crude, moody, bloodthirsty tyrant who descends from the wealthiest, most powerful family on the planet, while Mako is a loving, cheerful, passive girl who lived in the slums most of her life. Needless to say, they are as opposite as you can get, but they're clearly shown to love each other all the same.
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*Naru-Hina Chronicles*: Aside from having the same canon *Naruto* couples from above (with the exceptions of Ino/Sai and Kiba/Tamaki), there's also Gaara and Matsuri. The former has a serious personality and almost always speaks while showing little to no emotion. By contrast, the latter is more cheerful and able to show more emotions.
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*The Night Unfurls* has Sanakan and Hugh. She's a Hot-Blooded cynic while he's a mute idealist. This is reinforced in the Four-Temperament Ensemble, with Sanakan as the choleric and Hugh as the phlegmatic respectively. The result? Puppy Love!
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*Rainbow Brite and the War of Darkness*: Lord Dark (better known as ||the King of Shadows||) and Lady Brite are mates despite being polar opposites. One is the embodiment of darkness and the other is the embodiment of light, yet they explicitly can't exist without one another.
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*Son of the Sannin* has, aside from the canon *Naruto* couples above, Fu the Nanabi jinchuriki and Shino Aburame. The former is an excitable Genki Girl with a penchant for playing dumb to get a kick out of people, while the latter is The Stoic and has a rational and analytical mind.
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*Total Drama*:
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*Total Drama Legends*: Sanders, a respectful By-the-Book Cop, develops feelings for Duncan, a troublemaking delinquent who just recently got out of jail. Duncan begins to feel the same way for her, but tries to deny it partially because of their different statuses of cadet and felon. Eventually, the two get together after ||Gwen gets herself eliminated convincing Duncan to stop denying his own feelings||.
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*Unbreakable Red Silken Thread*: Cody and Heather. Though it takes years for the attraction to form, it does eventually occur. Jasmine and Sammy also fit this as well to a lesser extent.
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*Twice Upon an Age*: *All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird* has Mahanon and Cassandra, who are arguably as different as they could be. He's an elf hunter who grew up in the woods, reveres the Dalish pantheon, and usually has a snarky comeback. She's a human noblewoman who devotedly serves the Maker and is often extremely serious. They are nevertheless very well suited for each other.
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*The Many Dates of Danny Fenton*:
- Two of Danny's dates are the polar opposite of him in different ways, but are potential girlfriends.
- Diana Lombard is a 16 year old girl who is mature and an intellectual, while Danny is a 14 year old who is more laidback and easy going.
- Phantasma is a full-ghost who is energetic, wild and expressive, while Danny is a more reserved and down to Earth half-ghost.
- Outside of this, Ami Mizuno, aka Sailor Mercury, is shown to have feelings towards Ben Tennyson after their blind date. Ami is a reserved, smart and mature girl while Ben is an emotional, impulsive and immature boy.
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*A Hero's Wrath*: There is a sense of irony in the idea that Izuku Midorya — who has a hereditary affinity to Wrath Mantra —eventually starts dating ||Nejire Hado, a girl who is later revealed to be attuned to Lust Mantra.||
- Shen Yuan and Luo Binghe from
*The Untold Tale*. Luo Binghe is a passionate half-demon wearing dark and red, Shen Yuan is a composed celestial albino dressed in white and blue. Word of God explicitely wants to explore the trope.
- A lot of the primary ships in
*Incorrect Smash Bros Quotes* are this.
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*Always You*: Strange Aeons is a self proclaimed "creature" who makes meme videos and has an eccentric, alternative taste in fashion and pop-culture, while Abby Classic is a "classic woman" who dresses in and preaches about conservative fashion and holds panels featuring other Christian content creators. This is a fic about the two of them falling in love, with Strange in particular being drawn to Abby for reasons even she can't explain.
- Milo Thatch and Princess Kida from
*Atlantis: The Lost Empire*. She's a Tomboy Princess, he's a cute nerd.
- La Muerte and Xibalba from
*The Book of Life*. She's a kind, loving Goddess made of sweet candy and he's a cheating, gambling God who's made out of everything icky.
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*Brave*: King Fergus and Queen Elinor. Fergus is your typical boisterous Fiery Redhead while Elinor is the graceful, proper queen. Their dynamic is one reason why the kingdom stays together: he's the man-of-action and natural leader in wartime, she's the natural diplomat who can calm feuding factions in peacetime.
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*The Curse of the Were-Rabbit*: Victor Quartermaine is courting Lady Tottington even though he is an avid hunter and she is an animal lover. Subverted when it's revealed he's only interested in her wealth.
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*Frozen* has the laidback and introverted Kristoff with the energetic and sociable Anna.
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*How to Train Your Dragon* plays with this with Hiccup and Astrid. Astrid is The Ace who takes her job very seriously, while Hiccup's skill and physique borders on a physical disability ||(and he eventually gets an actual one, as well)|| and he constantly shirks his duties to fellow Deadpan Snarker Gobber. However it becomes clear that they are both passionate, driven individuals who desperately want to groom themselves to fulfill a greater purpose and help people.
- Mulan and Shang in
*Mulan II*. She's a rebellious, free-spirited warrior and he's a stern, no-nonsense captian. Throughout the sequel, their differences (coupled with Mushu trying to break them up) nearly ruin their engagement, but they manage to find the balance necessary to make it work.
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*The Princess and the Frog* has Tiana and Naveen. She's a Workaholic, no-nonsense waitress and he's a fun-loving, lazy prince.
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*Tangled* gives us the jaded, worldly-wise thief Flynn Rider and the spirited, innocent princess Rapunzel.
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*Treasure Planet* has Captain Amelia and Dr. Doppler. She's a tough-as-nails Action Girl, he's a bookish scientist, not to mention they're basically an anthropomorphic cat and dog, respectively. The two grow closer throughout the movie, and by the end they even have several kids.
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*WALLE* has The Woobie WALLE and Action Girl EVE. They provide the page image.
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*Who Framed Roger Rabbit*: Roger and Jessica Rabbit. He's an energetic and goofy rabbit, she's a sexy and glamorous woman. They are married and couldn't be happier. Why?
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*Wreck-It Ralph*: Felix and Calhoun. She's a Statuesque Stunner, he's half her height at best. She's a hardcore badass, he's an "aww shucks" kind of guy.
- Odd Couple Steed and Mrs. Peel in
*The Avengers*: he follows the rules, she doesn't. He admits that she's "just my type".
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*Charly (2002)*: Charly Riley is a carefree art student from New York City who falls in love with Sam Roberts, an uptight computer science major from Utah.
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*Clara*: Isaac and Clara are very much opposites in their outlook on life. He's bitter, she's optimistic. He's an atheist who doesn't believe there's meaning to the universe, she's spiritual and does. Nonetheless, they fall for each other working together and get into a relationship.
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*Corky Romano*: Corky, an extremely quirky but nice man who's often smiling ends up married to Kate Russo, a very staid, serious FBI agent who initially doesn't express much emotion (he grows on her).
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*Crazy/Beautiful*: Carlos is an ambitious student and football star from East L.A. Nicole is a free-spirited, rebellious white girl from Malibu.
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*Deadpool 2* reveals that Negasonic Teenage Warhead, an Emo Teen with a boyish buzz cut, is dating Yukio, who is so cute it practically hurts.
- Rough and tough, working-class, Mike Hagen, and high-society, prim, Mirella Brown in the film,
*Designing Woman*.
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*Enchanted*: Giselle the cheery optimist, and Robert the sarcastic pessimist.
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*The Great Race*. The Great Leslie — charming male chauvinist. Maggie DuBois — militant women's libber. How can they **not** fall in love?
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*IQ*: Zig-Zagged. Catherine is a mathematician and doctoral student at Princeton while Ed is a mechanic who barely passed high school. However, while Ed may be Book Dumb he is intelligent and quick witted.
- Claire and Owen in
*Jurassic World*. Before the events of the film, they didn't go on a second date because they were too different (he showed up in board shorts, she showed up with an itinerary).
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*On Chesil Beach*: Edward is from a rural, working-class background. He is also a fan of rock & roll music, which classical violinist Florence is not as enthusiastic about. Though both of them are university graduates, Florence comes from a more well-off background, with her father owning a business and her mother teaching at Oxford.
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*Performance Anxiety*: Peter - the neat freak accountant — and his boyfriend, Jeff, who is a messy, hippy musician.
- No-nonsense Captain von Trapp and cheerful Maria in
*The Sound of Music*.
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*The Sun Is Also a Star*: Daniel and Natasha have this in many ways. He is more likely to go with his feelings, and also believes in things like fate. She is more intellectual, disbelieving in that idea because there isn't scientific evidence of it. Even so, she's charmed by him and his bet that he can make her fall for him within an hour actually works.
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*Sweet, Sweet Lonely Girl*: Sweet, shy pale-skinned blonde Adele is attracted to bold, confident Beth who's a brunette with olive skin, reciprocating her attraction.
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*Upgrade* (2018): Grey Trace - a techno-phobic vintage automechanic - is happily married to High-Powered Career Woman Asha, a cybernetics exec. As the film is set in the near-future, playful clashes over automation and AI tech are a running part of their day-to-day; Grey even suggests making a pizza from scratch for fun over Asha's casual notion of ordering/3D-printing one.
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*Woman of the Year* (1942) is about the marriage between brainy, patrician political analyst Tess and salt-of-the-earth sportswriter Sam. The trope is deconstructed by showing the realistic challenges of a marriage between two people with such great differences.
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*The 39 Clues*. Ian is a mega-rich, an Evil Brit, and a Momma's Boy. Amy is a Shrinking Violet, pretty smart, poor, and an orphan. She apparently always found him attractive, but when he actually started flirting with her, it was, of course, a trick. And then came a whole new set of complications.
- One of the major themes of
*The Accidental Tourist*, and the trope is invoked In-Universe by Sarah in the book, who says that Macon and Muriel will be one of those couples at a party whom no one can figure out why they're together. Macon is briefly distracted by this thought, having had those thoughts about others and now was a living example.
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*Ai no Kusabi* has this as a plot point of why the highest of the high would want to be with the lowest of the low.
- Kenneth Oppel's
*Airborn* series has Matt Cruse, poor cabin boy, and Kate de Vries, rich wanna-be scientist... cue angsting about how they can never be together...
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*The Baby-Sitters Club*:
- Mary Anne's father and Dawn's mother are a textbook example.
- Shy and quiet Mary Anne paired with jockish and outgoing Logan.
- Alan E. Nourse's
*The Compleat Consummators* took this to a horrifying conclusion with a couple whose differing interests and personalities meshed so well that they ended up as a sort of composite creature:
*"After It had jelled for awhile, It got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee."*
- Ignatius J. Reilly and Myrna Minkoff of
*A Confederacy of Dunces*. Him: fat, stentorian (if hypocritical) in his morality, obsessed with chastity, an archconservative—nay, reactionary!—who believes Western civilization took a wrong turn at the Renaissance and longs for an authoritarian king and authoritarian Catholic Church. Her: thin, stentorian in her love of sex, believing that the world in general and Ignatius in particular is perfectible through sex, an archliberal—nay, radical!—who believes in revolutionary socialism and racial (and gender) equality, and who long ago abandoned her ancestral Judaism for—something. It isn't clear what (other than sex). They engage in a fevered exchange of letters that has all readers firmly convinced that they are in fact almost exactly the same despite appearances and perfect for each other. ||By the end of the novel, Ignatius has agreed to go to New York with Myrna.||
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*Discworld*:
- Captains Carrot Ironfounderson and Angua von Uberwald are on opposite ends of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism. He inspires her to fight injustice, she reminds him not to set his expectations too high.
- Similarly, in
*Interesting Times*, it's strongly suggested that Wide-Eyed Idealist Twoflower's daughter Pretty Butterfly inherited her Rincewindian view of the world from her late mother.
- Parodied with Nobby (grotesque and cynical petty thief watchman) and Tawnee (stunningly beautiful and jawdroppingly naive exotic dancer) in
*Thud!*. When Nobby says Tawnee thinks they're "two halves of the same soul", Sergeant Colon thinks about this for a moment and concludes "Yeah. Not the same stuff in each half, obviously. Sort of... sieved." ||They split up when Tawnee realises she has options and Nobby realises she can't cook.||
- Razz and Sally in
*Don't Call Me Ishmael!*. They do have some common interests (for example football), but she is down-to-earth, very studious, intelligent and calm. Razz... is not.
- In
*Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi*, Wei Wuxian is a Motor Mouth smartass and troublemaker, while Lan Wangji is The Quiet One, stoic, proper, and unfailingly adhering to the rules. They wind up Happily Married.
- Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker in
*The Great Gatsby*. He Will Not Tell a Lie; she's a Consummate Liar.
-
*Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating*: Hani and Ishu are very much opposites in many ways. Hani is a Muslim, Ishu an atheist. Hani has long hair, Ishu short hair. Hani likes feminine things, Ishu doesn't. Hani is social, Ishu happily keeps to herself. Hani suffers from self-doubt, Ishu is confident of herself. Despite this, they fall for each other over time.
- Ron and Hermione of
*Harry Potter*'s Power Trio: she's uptight, smart, logical and Crazy-Prepared, while he's more laid back, driven by emotion and acts on instinct. This one is particularly notorious for the fierce Ship-to-Ship Combat that surrounded it, and for the author's somber look back on it years after the fact.
**Rowling:** I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment. That's how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione with Ron. [...] I know, I'm sorry, I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I'm absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people's hearts by saying this? I hope not. [...] It was a young relationship. I think the attraction itself is plausible but the combative side of it... I'm not sure you could have got over that in an adult relationship, there was too much fundamental incompatibility. I can't believe we are saying all of this — this is Potter heresy! [..] Oh, maybe she and Ron will be all right with a bit of counseling, you know. I wonder what happens at wizard marriage counseling? They'll probably be fine. He needs to work on his self-esteem issues and she needs to work on being a little less critical.
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*The Hunger Games*: ||Katniss and Peeta||, at least by the end of *Mockingjay*.
-
*In Death*: Eve has pointed out that Roarke and her have this between them, like in *Divided In Death*. She is a cop who is crude, rude, not interested in money, believes in the law, and has morals that are basically black and white. He is a former thief who is suave, charming, has more money than you can imagine, believe more in his conscience than in the law, and his morals are very much grey. Fortunately, one thing they do have in common is that they both were raised by bad parents and had lousy childhoods.
- Brainy ambitious women regularly find P. G. Wodehouse's Upper-Class Twit Bertie Wooster from
*Jeeves and Wooster* romantically irresistible.
-
*A Master of Djinn*: Fatma is fairly reserved and more reticent with her emotions, while having a very masculine clothing style (she likes wearing fine Western men's suits). Siti, her girlfriend, loves to wear beautiful dresses, with a playful much more emotive personality (often teasing Fatma about things). The pair are both skilled fighters, but Fatma does this only when necessary whereas Siti is eager for fighting. Fatma is a Muslim, while Siti worships the ancient Egyptian god Hathor/Sekhmet.
- The main couples of Minoru Kawakami's light novels are usually like this, due to Author Appeal:
- Mikoto Sayama and Sadagiri Shinjou from
*The Ending Chronicle*. He's an arrogant, eccentric self-proclaimed villain who thinks he's the center of the universe and she's a sensitive, insecure and modest Nice Girl. It gets lampshaded constantly with both outright calling themselves opposites and loving each other for it.
-
*Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere* has the overly energetic and carefree Tori and the emotionless and analytical Robot Girl Horizon Ariadust.
- Victor Hugo discusses this trope in
*Les Misérables*, in reference to Grantaire's devotion to Enjolras.
A sceptic who adheres to a believer is as simple as the law of complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves the light like the blind man. The dwarf adores the drum-major. The toad always has his eyes fixed on heaven. Why? In order to watch the bird in its flight. Grantaire, in whom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith soar in Enjolras. He had need of Enjolras.
-
*Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!* has the introverted, somewhat cynical Mahiro and the bubbly, energetic, outgoing Nyarko, fitting just about perfectly with the standard Manic Pixie Dream Girl and/or Uptight Loves Wild plots.
-
*Of Fire and Stars*: Girly Girl Dennaleia and Tomboy Mare become attracted to each other.
- Ben and Lacey in
*Paper Towns*. Excitable geek who is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, dating a Spoiled Sweet Lovable Alpha Bitch? Believe it or not, they're not just dating, but incredibly happy together.
- Percy and Annabeth in
*Percy Jackson and the Olympians*. While Percy isn't dumb, his academic success isn't all that great. Annabeth is a child of Athena, and very intelligent. Percy is a powerhouse in battle, while Annabeth uses her intellect and magical relics. And while Percy is quite sassy, most of it is in the narration. Annabeth has no such reservations.
-
*Reaper (Ivan Navi)* has a rather extreme example: Life and Death are a married couple despite being as opposite as anyone could be. They do have some disagreements but are a loving and caring couple who truly care about one another.
- This seems to be the driving force behind Zavahl's and Ailie's relationship in the
*Shadowleague* books- he has the personality of a bad rainstorm, whereas she is never seen to frown.
- Ship Tease aside, it may as well be Zelgadis the cynical, weary, brooding chimera paired with Amelia the optimistic, innocent, and plucky princess from
*Slayers*, with hints of Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl peppered in there. In the novels, there is also the hot-headed, driven Luke with the snarky, calm Millina (in this case, this is All Love Is Unrequited).
- In
*The Southern Reach Trilogy*, the biologist and her husband became a couple because she thought he was energetic and alive while he thought she was mysterious. As they got to know each other after marriage, their relationship hit the rocks... Turns out he's overbearing and she's withdrawn.
-
*Tell Me How You Really Feel*: Sana and Rachel are opposites in a lot of ways. The former is easygoing, friendly, has a very feminine style, comes from a wealthy family and the most religious Muslim of her relatives. Rachel is a terror to all the people working with her, keeps people at a distance, a tomboy, has a poorer lifestyle along with her father and only attends synagogue on the High Holy Days. Nonetheless, they fall for each other.
- Courtney Milan's
*Unclaimed* is a Victorian-set historical romance between a courtesan and a Christian moralist who has written a treatise on chastity. It *sounds* like a case of Uptight Loves Wild, but the moralist has much more of a quirky and mischievous sense of humor than one would expect and the courtesan is rather emotionally repressed.
- From
*The Wheel of Time*, Mat is a Farmboy turned Four-Star Badass raised in an Arcadia, Tuon is an Empress and Chessmaster who was raised in a Decadent Court. They're married.
- Discussed Trope in the novel
*Youth in Sexual Ecstasy*, the sexual therapist actually says that for a couple to succeed in the long term, they must have opposite temperaments alongside with similar lifestyles and independent realization. The protagonist and his fiancee agree on this being the case for them.
- The show
*Dharma & Greg* revolves around this trope. Dharma is a free-spirited, tolerant, and ditzy flower child. While Greg is an upright, conservative, somewhat uptight lawyer. Despite the fact that they have virtually nothing in common they got married on their first date.
-
*Doc Martin*: Martin and Louisa basically cover every trope in this section at some point.
- The eponymous stepbrothers of
*Drake & Josh*: Drake is a Book Dumb KidAnova with a penchant for Zany Schemes, and Josh is a socially awkward science nerd, yet they're inseparable. This is most strongly illustrated in the episode "Drew and Jerry," where they decide to make new friends. You'd expect each boy to find someone with similar interests as himself, but each one picks someone like his brother, meaning his own polar opposite. While Drew and Jerry eventually leave to make a tv show together, at no point is anyone interested in befriending his own doppelganger.
- Ultra-conservative Alex P. Keaton from
*Family Ties* finds himself attracted to women who are the ideological opposite of him - while his best friend, Skippy, is the intellectual opposite of him.
- Action Girl Aeryn Sun of
*Farscape*, for some reason, finds herself falling for Plucky Comic Relief who alternates between The Kirk and The McCoy in the form of John Crichton. Though he's pretty well helpless in a real battle, she does end up training him up almost to Badass Bookworm levels. And while she does thaw a bit from her Ice Queen demeanor, he just gets more and more extroverted as he slowly goes crazier.
-
*Firefly*:
-
*For the People*:
- Kate and Anya. They're almost complete opposites in both their looks and personality. Kate is a very uptight attorney who always dresses in business attire but also has short hair. Anya's a more loose ATF agent who is usually in casual wear and has long hair.
- It ends up happening for ||Roger and Jill|| despite their opposite political views (not to mention being on opposite sides of the prosecutor/defender divide).
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*Game of Thrones*: The Starks and Baratheons have almost nothing in common. Robert Baratheon (oldest son, groomed for command, irresponsible leader) is best buds with Ned Stark (younger son, groomed as a soldier, responsible leader). Both get arranged marriages. Ned's works, Rob's... doesn't. The Baratheons hate each other, but the Starks love each other. They're still almost allies until Renly dies. This dynamic even carries over to Arya and Gendry. They'd both rather have the opposite life of what they have at the start, and end up backing each other up. And while Arya is uncompromising in pursuing her dream, Gendry is willing to take what breaks he can get.
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*Glee* has the ditzy, goofy but sweet Brittany paired with the bitchy, sarcastic Santana.
- In
*The Good Wife* the law firm's co-owner Diane Lockhart, who would probably consider the term "liberal wacko" a compliment, is in a relationship with weapons expert Kurt McVeigh, who would likely feel the same about the phrase "right-wing nutjob". They even get engaged as of "The Wheels of Justice".
- Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham are harsh polar opposites that complement each other well. Hannibal is stylish, charismatic and severely lacking in empathy, where Will is twitchy, unsociable and overflowing with too much empathy. ||In the series finale, after years of fighting against and for each other, their relationship evolves into something romantic and they run away together.||
- Ted and Robin in
*How I Met Your Mother*. Ted is the Dogged Nice Guy who is a romantic, wants to settle down and have kids and Robin is The Lad-ette who is a gun nut, hates commitment and kids, focuses on her career. The show deconstructs their relationship where they did get together but by the time they talked about their goals, they want different things which resulted to their break-up and remained friends. After a few years, Ted is still in love with Robin which one of his ex-girlfriends pointed out that he's unable to move on due to his unrequited feelings for her while Robin herself did move on. In the series finale, ||it's implied that now-widower and single dad Ted and the divorced and single Robin got together||.
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*iCarly*: Deconstructed with the Sam/Freddie arc. They are complete and total opposites that become physically attracted to each other, but eventually break up when the actual relationship fails. They are unable to find any common ground in their interests and actually end up sabotaging them for each other when they try being involved in each other's activities. It ends up being one of the main causes of their break up.
- Played for laughs in the
*Legends of the Superheroes* special "The Roast", where shrinking superhero The Atom is shown to fall in love with the villain Giganta.
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*Little Lunch*: Discussed in "The Relationship", when Rory's been asked out by a girl in grade 6. Atticus, who's watched a lot of romantic comedies with his sister, claims that if he and the girl are complete opposites that means the relationship is likely to work out. ||He's proven right at the end, as it turns out Debra Jo and Rory both have crushes on each other.||
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*The L Word*: Alice and Tasha are very different people, yet become a couple nonetheless. On the one hand, Alice is a bubbly girly effusive woman who's staunchly opposed to the Iraq War. Tasha is a butch, taciturn soldier (starting out), who's very defensive of it given her service there.
- Laid-back, jovial "Hawkeye" Pierce and hard-nosed Margaret Houlihan in
*M*A*S*H*. They're *not* a couple, but the attraction is definitely there and definitely mutual; in a couple of episodes it's implied (read: as close as you can get on prime time network TV without actually saying it) that they have sex, and the main reason they aren't usually a couple is that they both realize that their personalities and life goals are fundamentally incompatible over the long haul.
**heavily**
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold Arthur and Shrinking Violet (except when she's sufficiently ticked-off) Guinevere from
*Merlin*. Also noteworthy was their difference in class status, with him being a prince and she being a servant.
-
*Microsoap* used and deconstructed it. As the kids describe it, "It was a case of opposites attract. Then it was a case of opposites drive each other crazy".
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*Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries* has the titular Phryne Fisher, a freewheeling, rule-breaking Lady Detective whose chief interests include solving murders and sleeping with virile young men — in that order. She ends up falling head over fashionable heels in love with her (initially reluctant) partner Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, a stoic, quietly snarky By-the-Book Cop with Hidden Depths galore who is absolutely crazy about her despite — or perhaps because of — the way she exasperates him on a regular basis.
-
*Moonlighting*, starring Cybill Shepherd and Bruce Willis. Maddie (Shepherd) is a chic, smart, former supermodel who's dead serious about running the business; David (Willis) is a glib, lighthearted, and pragmatic Private Investigator.
- Subverted in an episode of
*Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide*. Ned tries find morose Mark Downer a friend and, inspired by his science teacher's advice that "opposites attract", tries to pair him with Martin Querly, only for Martin to fall victim to his contagious depression. Ned then gets an idea from his math teacher's advice that "a negative times a negative equals a positive" and pairs Mark with a just-as-morose girl, which works.
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*No Tomorrow*: Evie and Kareema are friends despite being almost totally opposite personalities. Evie's always bright, chipper, and wants a steady, monogamous relationship. Kareema's cynical, snarky and seems to only have casual sex (before meeting Sofia anyway).
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*The Other Kingdom*: Despite having a rough first meeting, Devon Quince and Brendoni start to become close companions and rather fond of each others ways', even though Devon's obsessed with organization and tidiness, and Brendoni's a total slob.
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*Our Miss Brooks* has three examples of opposites attracting:
- Snarky Connie Brooks and shy Phillip Boynton. Connie is more perceptive than Mr. Boynton, but several scenes show that they are both kind, generous and intelligent individuals. ||Connie and Phillip marry at the end of The Movie Grand Finale||
- High-School Hustler and Book Dumb Walter Denton and principal's daughter Book Smart Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Harriet Conklin.
- Osgood Conklin, the blustery, pompous school principal. Martha Conklin, his kindly wife . . . who is known to put her foot down on occasion (i.e. "Trying to Pick a Fight").
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*Parks and Recreation*: April Ludgate and Andy Dwyer, to the point that they've been described as what a cat and a dog would look like if they got married. April is snarky and claims to hate everything, while Andy is upbeat and full of energy. Despite getting hitched after only a month of dating, they end up Happily Married for the rest of the series.
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*Schitt's Creek*: Nearly all the romances on the show work on this dynamic. Johnny and Moira, Roland and Jocelyn, David and Stevie, Alexis and Mutt, Alexis and Ted, and David and Patrick all contain various permutations of opposites attracting. The only exception is Stevie and Emir, who seem drawn to each other because of what they have in common.
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*Star Trek: The Next Generation*: In the seventh season the very Betazoid Deanna Troi began pairing up with the very Klingon Worf, son of Mogh. This is first explored in the episode *Paralles*, where Worf travels to a number of alternate realities, the last two of which show Worf and Troi as husband and wife. Upon his return to his home universe Worf becomes closer to Troi. A Worf/Troi romance is further explored in the episode *Eye of the Beholder*, and by the series finale *All Good Things* the pair are actually dating. However, sometime before Worf's joining *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* the couple have broken off their romantic relationship and are just friends again. Worf meanwhile marries Jadzia Dax while Riker and Troi resume their previous romantic relationship, and later themselves get married.
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*That '70s Show* has the geeky Eric with tomboy Donna, the rich girl Jackie with rebel Hyde, and the short-tempered Red with bubbly Kitty.
-
*Twenties*: Hattie, a working class Butch Lesbian who is deep in debt constantly losing jobs, often semi-homeless and has a plain-spoken manner, gets involved with Ida B, a wealthy executive who's got a very femme style with very refined taste. She's also Hattie's former boss, starting to date her right after she had fired Hattie to boot.
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*The Vampire Diaries*.
- Damon and Elena. They have vastly different personalities, values, outlooks and beliefs.
- Stefan and Katherine too, when Stefan's not hating her.
- Fox Mulder and Dana Scully from
*The X-Files*: Skeptical, scientifically oriented redheaded Catholic meets agnostic UFO/supernatural enthusiast. And it works.
-
*You Me Her*: Nina, an uptight Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Control Freak, falls in mutual love with easygoing Nice Guy Shaun.
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*Zoey 101*: Quinn Pensky and Logan Reese had to hide their relationship, because they don't want people to know about nerdy Quinn dating sporty, girl crazy Logan, so they hid their relationship until Stacey unconstitutionally kisses Logan. Then, Logan confessed that he loved Quinn, and Quinn reciprocates her feelings publicly. Finally, they kissed in front of everyone.
- The Paula Abdul song "Opposites Attract" is basically all about this trope. And the music video involves her singing it as a duet with an animated rapping cat...
- Daniel Amos's "She's All Heart" (from
*Vox Humana*) is about a couple who are "one heart" in spite of their different perspectives and disagreements.
*She says I complicate things *
I say she over simplifies everything
But either way, I still believe we need each other.
- "Little War" by Axxis describes a couple that are exact opposites of each other personality-wise, yet still love each other greatly.
*"We belong together like summer and cold ice."*
- Brazilian song "Água Perrier" (Perrier Water), recorded by Adriana Calcanhotto, lyrics by poet/songwriter Antônio Cícero, has one of Red Oni, Blue Oni type: an intense and creative person who deeply admires a more rational, low-profile, blasé person (kind of an inversion of Uptight Loves Wild). The latter, in turn, lets himself/herself
note : The song is written by a gay man and sang by a lesbian woman, but the genders of both the lyric self and the object of affection weren't mentioned, so any listener can potentially self-identify with it, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation. be admired by the other one. The different personalities are represented by their drinks of choice: the Red Oni prefers hard liquor, while the Blue Oni prefers Perrier water.
- "She Likes the Beatles," by Alternative Country singer William Clark Green, lists a plethora of ways the narrator and his lady love don't see eye to eye... before explaining how, at the end of the day, those differences don't matter.
*She's determined and honest, she's stubborn and strong* *And I always know where she stands* *So it never bugs me that she's always wrong...* *As long as she's wrong with her hand in my hand*
- The song also called "Opposites Attract" by Juris.
- Another Brazilian song, "Eduardo e Mônica", written by Renato Russo and recorded by his band Legião Urbana, brings the titular couple: they have different ages (she's a few years older than him) and tastes (her tastes are more sophisticated, while his are much simpler). Regardless of all differences between them, they build a solid relationship, living together and having twin children. The song originated a stage play, a TV ad and a film, starring Alice Braga as Mônica.
- "You Lost My Memory" by Skyclad. This romance doesn't end well, but is described as sort of awesome anyway.
*The Brownian-Motion within this love potion, *
ensures our opinions are always dividing.
- "Good for Me" by Amy Grant.
note : The song could double as either a Silly Love Song or an ode to a Heterosexual Life Partner. The original music video emphasized the latter, with Grant having fun with a female friend, but Grant decided the clip made the two women look more like lovers than friends and had a new video shot emphasizing the love-song angle, with a male actor (the same one featured in the music video for "Baby Baby") playing her boyfriend.
*You like to dance and listen to the music *
I like to sing with the band
You like your hands splashin' in the ocean
While I like my feet on the sand...
You get brave when I get shy
Just another reason why
I think you could be so good for me
- The driving force behind the central love story of
*The Misanthrope*. Alceste despises anyone who is polite instead of honest, but is in love with Célimène, who by the end of the play is revealed to be about as two-faced as they come. It's Lampshaded several times.
**Alceste:** I see her faults, despite my ardent love
And all I see I fervently reprove
And yet I'm weak; for all her falsity,
That woman knows the art of pleasing me
And though I never cease complaining of her
I swear I cannot manage not to love her.
- Monster High has Heath Burns and Abbey Bominable, a fire elemental and a yeti, respectively. Despite their contrasting powers and personalities, they truly do like each other and are an official couple in the series.
- BioWare has a tendency to create somewhat psychotic mad people (usually women) who can be most successfully romanced by a nicer player character.
- Jack in
*Mass Effect 2* is impulsive, impatient, anger-driven, and generally insane; the Paragon romance arc involves calmly and patiently listening to her issues and generally being nice.
- Morrigan in
*Dragon Age: Origins* is a survivalist in the extreme who believes love is a weakness; she does, however, approve of some of the Warden's behavior that is rather contrary to her stated doctrine.
- Garrus in
*Mass Effect 2* has trouble with the rules, but is just as likely to fall for Female!Shepard if she calls him out on it and points out that the rules are there for good reasons as if she goes along with his ends justify the means ideas.
- Bastila in
*Knights of the Old Republic* is attracted to the male player character no matter what, so if you are a silly rule-bending sort or an Ax-Crazy maniac your very straight-laced and overly serious companion will still fall for you.
- Viconia DeVir in
*Baldur's Gate 2* is a neutral evil drow priestess who believes that the strong are meant to dominate the weak, but that doesn't stop her from being romancable by good-aligned male player characters.
- Fenris in
*Dragon Age II* has a real bone to pick with mages and is brooding as all hell. It still doesn't stop him from falling for a snarky mage Hawke. The irony of this is not lost on him and is noted at a few points.
- In
*Dragon Age: Inquisition*, the Iron Bull is a hulking, snarky Qunari warrior who really Does Not Like Magic. Doesn't stop him from entering a romance with an elf or human mage, or with a dwarf (who only comes up to his knees). His people have been at war for ages with Tevinter, the homeland of mustachioed mage Dorian, who can be romanced by a male Inquisitor of any race, including Qunari. ||If the Inquisitor doesn't romance either of them, they can end up together.||
- A somewhat downplayed example in
*Borderlands 3* has Wainwright Jakobs (the heir to the Jakobs corporation and a homebody) and Sir Hammerlock (a Great White Hunter and an adventure-seeker). This is a major source of drama and in the *Guns, Love and Tentacles* DLC they both express doubts over not being brave/caring enough for the other. Thankfully they ||get engaged in the main game credits and the afrorementioned DLC is about their wedding.||
-
*Deltarune*: It quickly becomes obvious that the shy, awkward, bookish Noelle has a crush on the tough Jerk with a Heart of Gold delinquent Susie (obvious to everyone but Susie, at least). This is especially true in Chapter 2, where Noelle gets pulled into Kris and Susie's adventures in the Dark World and the pair get some serious Ship Tease.
-
*Fire Emblem*:
-
*Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade*:
- We have Fiora (serious, motherly Pegasus Knight) and Sain (Chivalrous Pervert who mouths off to authority). And if you max out their supports, they get married.
- Also Fiora's Tsundere and Hot-Blooded middle sister Farina and Sain's Knight in Shining Armor partner Kent. Yup, they can get hitched at A support level too. They even hang a huge lampshade on this:
**Farina:** This is probably someone else's doing... Like Marcus, or Oswin... You know, Merlinus might try something like this, too... **Kent:** I don't think it is a conspiracy... I mean, what would anyone have to gain from making us fight together?
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*Fire Emblem: Awakening* gives us Henry, a Blood Knight and Perpetual Smiler with some VERY loose screws, and two of his potential love interests: Sumia and Olivia. The first one is a klutzy submissive badass, the second is a cute Shrinking Violet. Also Team Dad Frederick and Tomboy Princess Lissa, if paired up.
-
*GTA Radio* has a married couple host a political talk show. One's a Democrat, the other's a Republican, both are strawmen.
- Achilles's codex in
*Hades* notes that stoic, prickly, duitiful Thanatos is pretty obviously in love with his defiant, reckless foster brother, Zagreus despite their diametrically opposed dispositions. His theory is that they're inherently drawn to each other as Anthropomorphic Personifications of the Life/Death Juxtaposition.
*Whence came the bond they share? My thought is that the Master's son must be the god of blood; of life. Thus, they are inexorably drawn.*
- The Forerunners Didact and Librarian from
*Halo*. The Librarian is a Friend to All Living Things whose favorite species was humanity. The Didact is a Four-Star Badass in a society of pacifists, who was responsible for destroying humanity's empire and sending us back to earth as cavemen. Everyone lampshades how odd this match is; however, they both love each other fiercely.
**Bornstellar:** Your relationship with the Lifeshaper does not seem ideal. **Didact:** You don't know the half of it.
-
*Night in the Woods* has Gregg (an energetic and somewhat reckless fox who enjoys committing petty crimes) in a serious romantic relationship with Angus (a nerdy, polite and quiet bear who acts much more responsibly).
-
*Psychonauts* has the cold and logical Sasha with the upbeat and fun-loving Milla.
-
*Super Robot Wars Alpha* allows the player to customize their character, having a choice of four personality options; your Love Interest will automatically be assigned the opposite personality, meaning a Shrinking Violet will always be paired with a Hot-Blooded character and The Stoic will always be paired with a Cloud Cuckoolander.
- In
*The Sims 3*, the Pok household (from the *Supernatural* expansion pack) consists in husband and wife David and Janet, who are respectively a burglar and a policewoman.
- The ending of
*Troublemaker*. While the PC, Budi, gets the girl of his dreams Sophia, his Dumb Muscle friend Zaenal somehow gets the genius Hackette girl Rani.
- A non-romantic version is described in
*Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume* between court magicians Lieselotte and Rosea. Both were orphans adopted by court mage Lord Cennair and could not be any more different, but that was why they got along. Lieselotte greatly admired Rosea's grace and dignity, whereas Rosea loved Lieselotte's energy and lust for life. When Cennair is killed, each woman believes the other is the guilty culprit, and both were punished for it. The fact that they liked each other so much made the betrayal even more hurtful. ||And it will end up killing one of them. Or even both.||
- While the protagonist of
*Daughter for Dessert* is grounded and responsible, Lily is the quintessential free spirit.
-
*Chikn Nuggit*: Iscream is a demonic bunny who likes to do evil, scary things while Fwench Fwy is a divine dragon who likes to help people. They initially opposed each other, but they later started dating and became a couple, although there are occasions where they argue with each other.
-
*RWBY*: The Aloof Dark-Haired Girl Blake is attracted to Sun and Yang, both of which are bright and energetic.
-
*Avialae*: Gannet is a snarky, short-tempered Emo Teen who's slept around with numerous men and hates that he's suddenly growing bird-like wings. Bailey is his kind, patient neighbor who's never been in a relationship or had sex before and geeks out over everything bird-related. Each of them end up being exactly what the other needs.
- Invoked in one
*Catana Comics* strip where Catana and her boyfriend state outright that their differences are what attracts each to the other.
- In
*Doki Doki Literature Girls*, Yuri ends up becoming enamored with Natsuki despite of their writing styles and personalities.
- In
*Dubious Company*, Walter is an Educated, Goofy, Sky Pirate Bird Man. Tiren is a Hardened, Straight-laced, Ninja Cat Girl. Clearly, the crew knows they were made for each other. Except Mary, who insists that Tiren has eyes for Elator.
- In
*El Goonish Shive*, Catalina who is a Fiery Redhead pairs up with Rhoda who is a Shrinking Violet.
- In
*Freefall*, Florence the anthromorphic wolf is dating Winston, who has spacer genes and so no hair. Niomi thinks it's a very odd case of opposites attracting.
-
*Homestuck*: This is the point of moirallegiance; two moirails are supposed to balance each other's negative traits, thus allowing their other relationships to be more successful and facilitating self-improvement.
- Vriska and John have some Ship Tease early on, but the ship sinks when John finally realizes how cruel and dangerous Vriska actually is.
- Deconstructed with Vriska and Tavros Nitram. Vriska is so revolted by her attraction to him that she ends up bullying/stalking him—unable to really love him, but too fixated on her feelings to stay away from him. ||They do end up together at one point, but soon break up||.
- Deconstructed with Eridan and Feferi's moirallegiance ||which is similarly ill-fated||. They're both high-blooded, given an incredible amount of power over other trolls—but that's where their similarities end. Feferi's a Hot-Blooded optimist who wants to even out Alternia's caste system; Eridan's a spoiled, pessimistic racist with genocidal ambitions. Their relationship is dysfunctional
*because* they can't reconcile their different ideologies.
- Dirk and Jake are polar opposites in personality, and their differences ultimately lead to a messy breakup.
-
*Imaginatives* has Skylar and Excalibur, when they eventually get together. Skylar is cheerful, friendly, and extroverted while Excalibur is more reserved, introverted, and not as bubbly.
- Parodied in
*I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space!!!* when Dr. Wendy and Alice decide to try a Pair the Spares situation. They go out on a date, have a wonderful time...and Wendy decides they're *too* opposite of each other, and declines a second date.
-
*Long Exposure* has the romance between The Bully Lean and Mean Mitch and his favorite victim/long time crush, the Lovable Nerd and band geek Jonas.
-
*L's Empire* has Carnation and Pix who are pure evil and pure good respectively.
- In
*The Order of the Stick*, Hayley is The Cynic and has has a bit of a selfish streak. Elan is a Wide-Eyed Idealist who loves being in a team and automatically puts the needs of others before himself. As a result of their relationship, Hayley becomes more open to others (but is still cynical) and Elan becomes less of a Quirky Bard (but is still idealistic). The opposites attract trope is Lampshaded by V, who compares them with Roy and Miko, who, despite their similarities and Roy's initial attraction to Miko, can't *stand* each other.
- Mille and Iriana of
*Ilivais X*. Iriana is a Broken Bird Creepy Child who acts like an Emotionless Girl to avoid her Drive Core pushing her towards being a hyper Love Freak, and is highly logical and cynical, yet becomes surprisingly impassioned and devoted when those she cares about are in danger. Mille is ||essentially a blank slate Phonos Weapon in the form of|| a cheerful, lively, and outgoing Ethical Slut who's a little on the ditzy side and erratically emotional, but take Iriana from her and she becomes dark and sullen. They couldn't be more opposite, and they couldn't be crazier about each other.
-
*The Amazing World of Gumball*: While most couples in the show are so matched that they're the same in both personality and species (such as the Keanes being kindly balloons, the Robinsons being misanthropic muppets, and the Bananas being goofy bananas), the Watterson couples all stand in stark contrast.
-
*Arcane*: Vi and Caitlyn have almost nothing in common and could not be more different from each other if you tried. Vi grew up in the slums, the oldest of her pack of fellow orphan siblings, and is someone who absolutely despises the Enforcers for killing her parents. Caitlyn is the only scion of the powerful and wealthy House Kiramman who choose to become an Enforcer against her parents wishes. Vi's a Boxing Battler while Caitlyn is an excellent shot with a rifle. Even their respective pink and blue hair colors reflect their Red Oni, Blue Oni nature. The initial reasons the two have for working together are wildly divergent, as Caitlyn seeks to bring a criminal conspiracy to justice and recruits Vi from prison who agrees just to get out of there so she can fulfill a deeply personal desire to find her younger sister and get revenge. About the only things they have in common are that they're both ultimately good people and are attractive young women who have an interest in other young women. From the moment they lay eyes on each other there is a very strong mutual attraction between them that only gets stronger as the show goes on.
- Exaggerated in
*Codename: Kids Next Door* with Kuki Sanban (Numbuh Three) and Wallabee Beatles (Numbuh Four); he's an abrasive hard-boiled proto-badass with an extreme aversion to everything cutesy and sugary, while she's an upbeat Japanese girl with a kind heart and an obsession for stuffed animals. In the series Distant Finale ||they get married||.
- To a lesser extent, Numbuhs 2 and 5. Numbuh 2 is the dorky, bad pun spouting, team mechanic and Numbuh 5 is the smooth, laid back Only Sane Man spy. ||And like the previous example, they too are hitched during the future set finale.||
-
*Final Space* has Gary and Quinn. One is an immature, dense, and slightly insane Jerk with a Heart of Gold, and the other is an emotionally distant genius whose pragmatism borders on ruthless.
- Laid-back slacker Fry and responsible, reliable Leela on
*Futurama*.
-
*G.I. Joe* has a lot of these, most notably the silent Snake Eyes is teamed up with the loudmouthed Shipwreck. Also the stoic and by-the-books Duke teams up with the Fiery Redhead Scarlet.
- Miss Information and Mr. Smartypants on
*Histeria!*: The Dumb Blonde and The Smart Guy.
- Warm, passionate, generally friendly, closer to Earth Wonder Woman and cold, stoic, anti-social, sometimes arrogant Batman on
*Justice League*. The interesting part is that their oppositions also extend to where they break from their archetype. Batman is still an antisocial antihero, and Wonder Woman plays the role of an idealistic paragon, but out of the two Batman abides a moral compass much more than Wonder Woman, as he's never considered killing anyone and there have been times that she's come dangerously close to punching a hole in at least a few of the villains.
-
*Kaeloo*: Kind, friendly, cheerful Kaeloo and cruel, violent, Mr. Cat who is almost always in a bad mood.
- Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable. Kim's always been a popular overachiever while Ron was an unpopular underachiever (at least until the final season, when he joined the football team as the new star running back).
-
*The Legend of Korra*:
- Hotheaded, headstrong waterbender Korra and serious, collected firebender Mako, who fit several of the dynamics listed: Red Oni, Blue Oni (Korra's red, Mako's blue, despite their Chromatic Arrangement), The Hero + The Lancer, Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl, and possibly Uptight Loves Wild.
- Same goes for Mako's brother, Bolin, for one of Korra's cousins, Eska. Bolin is a happy, funny guy who took a serious interest in Eska while Eska herself is a bit of an emotionless Deadpan Snarker and a Royal Brat who sees Bolin as a means to an end. They're more like Plucky Comic Relief + The Quiet One. Same as Korra and Mako, they don't work out.
- As of the finale ||tomboyish, technologically-stunted, Boisterous Bruiser Master-Of-All-Four-Elements Korra, and The Ojou, feminine, Wrench Wench non-bender Asami.||
-
*The Looney Tunes Show*: The two main couples on the show, Bugs/Lola and Daffy/Tina, can both be boiled down to a level-headed Straight Man (Bugs and Tina) dating a Ditzy Cloudcuckoolander (Daffy and Lola).
-
*The Loud House*: Lori Loud is a mature-minded, if somewhat cynical Only Sane Woman, and she is dating Bobby Santiago, an idealistic Kindhearted Simpleton.
-
*Milo Murphy's Law*:
-
*Monster High*: Iris Clops and Manny Taur. The former is a demure, clumsy and effectionate aesthete and the latter is a loud, boisterous and excitable Lovable Jock.
-
*OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes* gives us Professor Venomous and Boxman. The two villains are night and day, with Venomous being calm, collected, slim, specializing in more biological science and is a well respected villain. While Boxman is chunky, short, very loud, specializes in robotics and is seen as a joke by most serious villains. Despite a rough start, the two form a Villainous Friendship that is all but stated to eventually become a romance, as they're both seen wearing wedding rings during the Grand Finale.
-
*The Owl House*
- Luz and Amity. Luz being an extremely perky human who wants to make friends with almost everybody and has no natural magical power, while Amity is the extremely gifted but snarky and taciturn ace student. Amity is crushing on Luz before season 1 is even over, and Luz is likewise crushing by the 3rd episode of season 2.
- There's also Eda and Raine. Eda an extroverted wild woman, who rails against authority and despises the Coven system and what it stands for. While Raine is much more reserved, hates attention, and eventually became a full-on Coven head.
-
*She-Ra and the Princesses of Power*:
- It's been more or less confirmed that Sea Hawk, a boisterous, over-the-top man whose emotions are very close to the surface, and Mermista, a Deadpan Snarker who regularly groans bitterly, are an item, despite Mermista's best efforts to pretend otherwise. Word of God has stated that they're "kind of a garbage couple", but Sea Hawk's over-the-top nonsense helps bring her out of her shell, while her snark keeps him grounded.
- While they have not become romantically involved just yet, Hordak and Entrapta have demonstrated attraction for each other, with Hordak pining for Entrapta throughout season 4. The cheerful, optimistic, loud Entrapta and the sinister, moody, introverted Hordak have a surprising amount of chemistry and common ground.
-
*South Park*: Nervous Wreck Tweek begins dating the permanently chill and stoic Craig.
-
*Steven Universe*: Ruby and Sapphire could not be more different and could not be more devoted to each other. ||Their love makes up the strongest character on their team, Garnet.||
- Robin and Starfire on
*Teen Titans (2003)*. Robin is the serious and determined leader, and Starfire is the sensitive, sunny one.
-
*Total Drama*:
- Deconstructed with Academic Alpha Bitch Courtney and delinquent punk Duncan. The bitter arguments start up almost as quickly as the sparks fly, with her ultra-preppyness directly contrasting his criminal nature. Their relationship is unstable from the beginning, and they break up and come back together several times. Eventually, the constant arguing becomes too much; Duncan tires of her by season 3 and cheats on her with Goth girl Gwen, leading to his and Courtney's final breakup.
- Courtney seems to attract these a lot, because later, in
*Total Drama All-Stars*, she enters a relationship with the dirt-poor farmboy Scott. Unlike Duncan however, the two get along much more swimmingly from the get-go (due to Scott finding Courtney's bossiness attractive), ||but it ultimately proves brief.||
- Silverbolt and Blackarachnia of
*Transformers Beast Wars* fit this trope without Question: Femme Fatale and Knight in Shining Armor.
-
*X-Men: Evolution*:
-
*Young Justice (2010)*
- Goofy, happy go lucky Wally West/Kid Flash and focused, rough and tumble Artemis Crock. Ironically, the writers paired them up because of their
*similarities* — namely, they're both intelligent, yet insecure teenage heroes who resort to sarcasm and bravado to hide how much they care about each other, and are somewhat amused by the fandom latching on to them as part of this trope.
- From the same series, moody, emotionally stunted Superboy and perky, outgoing Miss Martian.
- Actual science tends to show that the best predictor of compatibility is in fact similar background, interests, and attitudes. A likely reason is that we tend to only
*notice* the ways a couple are different (since it's not that surprising when two partners are alike), at which point we feel the need to form a theory to explain why all the couples we see are so different (when they are, in fact, similar). The grain of truth in it is that a partner who's exactly like you *in every way* would probably cause all sorts of problems, so we do seek our opposites, after a fashion—just not our *total* opposites.
- There is also the fact that, up to the past 100-150 years, a person's social circle was limited to their immediate community; people in the same age group, social class, and locality would (theoretically) have common experiences and, ergo, background. This similarity was overlooked because it was so ubiquitous; it wasn't until the modern era with its quick communication between communities that similar backgrounds became a qualifiable factor. Since this factor was discounted (or, rather, not known to exist), it was not accounted for; ergo, the importance of differences becoming Common Knowledge.
- Literally true (in terms of forces) for charged particles and magnetic poles. Sometimes described as a pun on this trope.
- SPC Kate Norley, an activist representing Vets For Freedom, a group whose "mission is to educate the American public about the importance of achieving success in [Iraq and Afghanistan]," and
*still* an occasional guest commentator on Fox News, while attending the 2008 RNC convention to *show her support for John McCain*, as part of a campaign that earned her praise from right-wing bloggers up to and including Michelle Malkin, apparently fell in love with one of the correspondents there. They married in 2011. His name? *John Oliver*.
- Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel.
- For example, Roger Ebert
*hated* *Mars Attacks!* because Tim Burton "seemed to like the aliens more than the humans" (paraphrasing); Gene Siskel loved it for the exact same reason. Even in watching old *At the Movies* episodes, you can tell that Siskel is more carefree and cheery, while Roger Ebert is ever-sarcastic and snarky.
- The biggest case of this is perhaps their disparate views on
*Blue Velvet*. Ebert notoriously hated it and found the scene with Isabella Rosselini standing naked on Kyle MacLachlan's lawn to be misogynstic, while Gene Siskel loved it and compared it to *Psycho*.
- "Gene Siskel and I were like tuning forks. Strike one, and the other would pick up the same frequency."
- The DVD commentary of
*WarGames* also mentioned that Siskel and Ebert argued about the film. Siskel thought the character Dr. Stephen Falken was Anvilicious and unnecessary to the story, while Ebert thought Falken and his messages were essential.
- The two band members of Tears for Fears are Heterosexual Life-Partners who have been best friends since they were 13 years old. It's Roland Orzabal's opinion that his and Curt Smith's contrasting personalities — the former is an introvert, the latter is an extrovert — are what drew them together, and although their differences can lead to numerous clashes (which includes a 9-year-long break-up), they can also complement and balance each other's strengths and weaknesses. Since Orzabal cares a lot about the Western Zodiac, it's worth noting that astrology confirms that Cancerians (Smith's sign) and Leos (Orzabal's sign) have opposite temperaments.
**Smith**: [Roland] was kind of a nerd. He was more studious. Both his parents were very educated. Mine were definitely under-educated. So I guess, even though we grew up along the same lines, he was from a very different background. **Orzabal**: I remember the first time I met Curt, he wasn't allowed out because he'd been in a fight. He'd dumped someone down the stairs. Yeah, he was a lot more rebellious. It's the attraction of opposites, isn't it? I never looked up to him, but I've ended up in my life with people who are more fiery than me, and bring out the fire, like my wife. I didn't marry someone timid and conservative. I guess it's one of those psychic — relating to the mind, you know? — sort of things you bring into your life, things that hopefully bring the best out in you.
- James "The Ragin' Cajun" Carville and Mary Matalin. He's a rather liberal Democrat; she's a quite conservative Republican. They were both prominent campaign managers/political operatives in their respective parties from the late 1970s through the early 1990s, facing each other occasionally in races across the country and seeing each other as rivals, being the top operatives of their day. It came to a head in the early 90s, when he was chief strategist for Bill Clinton and she was deputy manager for George H. W. Bush, in preparation for the 1992 presidential campaign. Then...they started
*dating*. Mind you, *while* they were thinking of ways to beat each other (making this a case of Dating Catwoman, as well). They married in 1993, and now have two daughters. They understandably do not talk politics at home.
- Legendarily taciturn and introverted Calvin Coolidge and his lively, socially-adept wife, Grace. The most common reaction people had to meeting the two of them was "Why did she marry
*him*?" Interestingly, however, they were most definitely Happily Married.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners Burt Reynolds and Dom De Luise, particularly during the height of their fame in the '70s and '80s. Reynolds was a brawny, macho ladies man, while DeLuise was an overweight, campy goofball.
- Jorge Luis Borges was a highly literate intellectual and a vocal anticommunist. Estela Canto was a "dancer for hire" and a committed socialist who was twenty years younger than him. They bonded over, among other things, a mutual love of George Bernard Shaw, who ticked both their boxes by being both a great writer and a socialist.
- RuPaul's longtime husband Georges LeBar is a Wyoming cattle rancher of all things. Fridge Brilliance kicks in once you look past surface differences; Ru is very private and introverted in his personal life, so it makes sense that he would choose a partner with no connection to show business for when he wants to get away from it all. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppositesAttract |
Optional Character Scene - TV Tropes
"Prepare to have your life ruined, Troper. Have at you!"
A video game trope in which a scene or dialogue only plays out if a certain character or characters was brought along with the main characters (though usually it depends on being in the party). Mostly used for Character Development but may also be used for humor or to make an otherwise flat location more important.
Often ties in with other "Optional" tropes. Compare/contrast Companion-Specific Sidequest, where the game includes an entire optional mission centered on a particular companion NPC.
## Examples
- Telltale Games have alternate/optional scenes for most of their titles depending on how the selected outcomes affected the characters.
-
*Super Smash Bros. Brawl*: The Subspace Emissary mode features variants of alternative scenes with different characters, such as if Kirby decides to free Peach or Zelda in the opening level. Unlocking the other scenes would require a second playthrough.
- In
*BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm*, a few sidequests will play out ever-so-slightly differently depending on who you have in the party. For example, if Tyalie is present during the Christmas sale quest, then shell end the scene by wishing the player a Happy Easter. Also, you cant trigger the Beach Episode in the epilogue (or gain access to the Sky Abyss) unless *everyone* is with you.
- In
*Chrono Trigger*, most characters get variations on the same line, but there's quite a bit of this as well.
- Most notably, after ||Crono's death is reversed||, Marle or Lucca will hug Crono and relay how much they missed him; if you have both Marle and Lucca, Marle is given top priority and you miss out on Lucca's scene; and if neither character is in the active party, Frog or Robo will simply welcome him back.
- The next most notable incident is during the Final Boss battle, where each character you bring gets their own "No More Holding Back" Speech (except Crono).
- Also done with the enemy- one room in Magus' Keep has a shapeshifter enemy who turns into a trusted figure of whoever's in front (Queen Leene for Frog, Lucca's father for Lucca, etc.) and gives a different line for each. They don't attack you... at first.
-
*Dark Cloud* has an example. When doing the georama in Queens, You will meet a Gangster named "King" complete his house and he'll "Reward" you with a lamp that contains a very spirited genie named Ruby. She will be added to your party. If you go to Jack's house without having Ruby in your party, you won't get anything from Jack for completing his house. If she is with you he'll explain that he does not give out items but his expression will change to a fearful one when Ruby approaches. He will be very generous given that Ruby is King's Wife.
-
*Dragon Age*:
- There's a wide variety of character interactions in
*Dragon Age: Origins* (and *Awakening*) between different companions in different locations. When entering the Fade to rescue Connor's soul, you can pick from a number of companions or supporting characters to give A Day in the Limelight to.
-
*Dragon Age II* takes this trope to a slightly different conclusion, where the characters in your party can sometimes join in on a conversation and effect its outcome. E.g. Varric can outright lie and charm to get out of trouble, Merrill and Anders will offer magey advice, Fenris punches through people's chests. The Player Character has similar options depending on what class they are, or what personality (Diplomatic, Charming, Aggressive) they establish.
- The "Legacy" DLC is based around a mysterious link between Hawke's father and the Grey Wardens, so your surviving sibling and ex-Warden Anders have the most to say. In "Mark of the Assassin", Isabela and Aveline get the most detailed sidequests. Isabela gets to save (or not) some pirates turned to stone by a curse, while Aveline stumbles upon a mystery to do with her family's roots in Orlais.
-
*Dragon Age: Inquisition* naturally has a few moments like this as well, although they don't usually alter the outcome of whole quests.
- Plentiful in
*Fallout: New Vegas*, as these are usually lead ins or events as part of that companion's particular loyalty quest. These can range from the game's usual Black Comedy to absolute Tear Jerker in terms of content. Your canine companion also has a unique non-quest Timmy in a Well event that only triggers if you elected to flip the Silliness Switch at the start of the game.
-
*Final Fantasy*:
-
*Final Fantasy VI* - Multiple for example Bringing Cyan to the ||Dinner in Vector|| will make General Leo address him specifically and ||apologize for Doma.|| There's another rather odd one; the optional scene where Gau confronts his father has to be triggered by Sabin for some reason, though Gau must be there too. The dialogue changes depending on the other characters in the active party, but some only get lines if they're *not* active.
- Also throughout the game in certain cutscenes a certain character will be given certain lines. If that character is not present, then it will simply be a generic line in quotation marks. For example, when the party meets Ramuh, if Locke is present he'll remark that his grandmother told him about Espers. If Locke isn't there, the line will be said but attributed to no one.
- If Edgar and Sabin are in the party during the opera sequence, a significant twist is revealed about the coin used for Setzer's coin flip... which was used once before.
- The first time the game let you form a team, if you have Sabin in your party, he is going to leave you as soon as you set a foot on Figaro's Castle, rejoining you when you leave. However, if you have both, Sabin and Edgar, a cutscene will be triggered if you sleep in the castle, and after this Sabin will not leave you party anymore when you wander Figaro. Also, for this same trip, if Locke is with you, when you go to Kohlingen you get to see some scenes of Rachel. Now, if Celes is with you here, and she saw Locke reminiscing about Rachel, she (Celes) will linger a little bit more after the party leaves, staring at Rachel's corpse and wondering about Locke's pain.
- Before the fight with Kefka, most party members will make a speech. Depending on how many and which characters you brought along, the result can range from moving, to narmy, to surreal.
-
*Final Fantasy VII*: Upon entering Nibelheim in the present day for the first time, the scene is slightly extended if you have brought Tifa, the other Nibelheim native, along with you.
- ||Aeris' death|| has whoever came with Cloud showing their own reaction.
- If you don't have both Tifa and (especially) Aeris in your party the first time you talk to Zack's parents in Gongaga, you'll miss out on finding out that Zack was Aeris's boyfriend, an important detail merely implied elsewhere. It doesn't help that there's nothing suggesting you should have those party members, or that it's entirely possible to accidentally skip Gongaga altogether until after Aeris has run away at the end of Disc 1. There are two later scenes which hint at Zack and Aeris's involvement, but both of those are also easy to miss.
- Costa Del Sol is full of funny character development scenes of the party members causing chaos in a holiday resort, but only if you
*don't* have them in your party (and the last time you could change party members was before a boss battle). This is obviously unappealing if the reason you had those characters in your party is because they were your favorites.
- The scene in ||Lucrecia's cave|| only takes place if you bring Vincent with you.
- Of special note is a single line of dialogue delivered exclusively by Aeris if you hack her back into the party after the Forgotten City. This is a combination of the Square preparing for any technical problems with characters who shouldn't be in a given scene, and scaling back Aeris's death from the Northern Cave Crater.
- Yuffie also has a single line of dialogue written for her before it's possible to have her join the party.
-
*Final Fantasy VIII*: During the Galbadian occupation of Zell's hometown, the party gets a chance to rest up in his room. Depending on which optional party member you bring along, the scene changes drastically. Selphie messes up Zell's bed, Quistis tells an embarrassing anecdote, Irvine tests out Zell's antique gun collection, and Rinoa asks about Zell's grandfather.
- At the Deep Sea Research Facility, if Zell is in your party prior to entering the ruins, he'll solve a puzzle for you, and allow you to reach Ultima Weapon more easily.
-
*Final Fantasy IX* - Quan's Dwelling in has an extra scene if you return there with Vivi and Quina in your party at a certain point of the game. In fact, the game's main conceit is the ability to view scenes with characters you don't have with you. All of these are optional, but can sometimes net the player a nice item or piece of equipment via the offscreen characters actions.
- In the
*Shadowbringers* expansion of *Final Fantasy XIV*, a new Trust system is introduced which allows the player to bring along NPC party members into dungeons. You have to choose three to bring along, which usually leaves one or two behind, and depending on who you bring you can see them interact differently to each other or react to things happening in the dungeon.
- Since the
*Fire Emblem* series has Permadeath for all its many characters, oftentimes dialogue will change according to which characters are present and which characters aren't.
-
*Path of Radiance* goes to particular lengths with this trope, with many scenes having a *huge* amount of variations depending on character survival. Even some Support Conversations change to reflect specific character deaths! But by far the biggest example in the game, and possibly the entire series, is Chapter 20. Previously, it was possible to recruit Jill, a Wyvern Rider from the country you're fighting. The enemy commander in this chapter is her father. Dialogue here changes depending on:
- If Jill is deployed. This is also affected by whether or not you viewed an optional conversation with her last chapter, or if she's formed a friendship with Mist.
- If she is, having Jill fight the generic enemy Mooks results in dialogue, where they yell at her for being a traitor.
- Shiharam's speech to his second-in-command changes depending on if Jill was recruited or not.
- And by far the biggest and most shocking: it's possible for Jill to speak to her father. If you didn't develop her Relationship Values just right, it's actually possible for her to
*switch sides and join the enemy*. If this happens, there's no going back: you'll have to kill her.
- The support/base conversations of the later
*Fire Emblem* games fill this role quite nicely, and are a large part of the series's appeal.
- Throughout the series, several bosses have different dialogue if fought with certain characters. Even rarer are the bosses that have different
*death quotes* if defeated with a specific character, such as defeating Bryce with Ike in Path of Radiance, or defeating Yen'fay with Say'ri in *Fire Emblem: Awakening*.
-
*Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords* - Bringing certain party members to the tomb of Freedon Nadd will bring up a scene where they are tempted by the dark energy there.
-
*The Legend of Heroes - Trails* franchise gives *every* playable character a unique optional scene dependent on whether they are currently in the party. This also extends to conversations; for example in *Trails in the Sky - Second Chapter* after the group escape the Lotus-Eater Machine, the player can ask whoever was in the party to learn what they experienced during that time.
-
*Live A Live* will only show a scene (continuing a Running Gag) in the Martial Arts chapter if you picked Hong as the martial arts inheritor.
- In
*Marvel Ultimate Alliance*, various player characters have dialogues with different NPCs, usually ones they have some connection to.
-
*Mass Effect* is positively *STUFFED* with these, where bringing along a certain squad mate will give dialogue and sometimes even whole scenes just for them, especially if you're Romancing them. Many of these also take into account actions you've performed earlier in the story, or even in preceding games. Notable examples include:
-
*Mass Effect*: Bringing Liara along to Noveria or Ilos, taking Ashley to Homecoming or Our Own Worst Enemy. Many elevator conversations will also happen with specific squad mate combinations, such as Garrus and Tali chastising each other's races. A *very* easily-missed scene on the Citadel only occurs on your first visit there with Kaidan and Ashley, before you recruit Garrus and/or Wrex, meaning there's only a tiny window to see it.
-
*Mass Effect 2*: Bringing Legion to Tali's Missions or the Overlord DLC, taking Garrus and/or Grunt into Mordin's recruitment mission and Tali to his Loyalty Mission, bringing Jacob or Miranda to Jack's Loyalty Mission. There are also points where specific characters voice their opinions in the hub worlds that are expanded by having another squad mate, such as Thane and Garrus in the C-Sec hallway on the Citadel. Of note is this a conversation between Garrus and Tali on a specific staircase in the Citadel, in a Call-Back to the Scrappy Mechanic:
**Garrus**: You ever miss those talks we had on the elevators? **Tali**: No. **Garrus**: Come on, remember how we'd all ask you about life on the flotilla? It was an opportunity to share! **Tali**: This conversation is *over*. **Garrus**: Tell me again about your immune system! **Tali**: *I have a shotgun.* **Garrus**: ...Maybe we'll talk later.
-
*Mass Effect 3*: Bringing your Virmire Survivor to Tuchanka: Bomb, Garrus or Liara to Sur'Kesh, EDI to the Geth Dreadnought, and practically anybody to any Mission in the Citadel DLC. Javik will also tend to give a lot of information about his cycle in the Dreadnought and Thessia Missions, which was notable at the time because he was a Download-only character and a pre-order bonus.
-
*Octopath Traveler*:
- Starting from a character's second chapter, the player may be able to activate one-on-one events depending on their party's composition during key events. For example, during Tressa's second chapter, Cyrus can tell her how actually seeing rare stones is different from merely reading about them, Primrose gives Tressa a pep talk when a rival merchant takes her customers, and Therion can suggest ||just leaving Ali to die when Mr. Morlock captures him||.
- There are additional scenes between up to four characters at a time available in taverns after finishing any of the characters' quests. These tend to be more light hearted, including drinking contests and the like.
- Extensively used in
*Ogre Battle*, where you not only get additional dialogue for having optional characters in party (often ones who were optional themselves to even recruit), but for having them be the specific character to lead certain attacks - and to top it off, recruiting certain characters or getting certain items (including ending-affecting items) can be dependent on who you have in your army and who you send to fight key enemies.
- In the first three
*Paper Mario* games, every party member has a set of dialogue for any event they're taking place in. This format was dropped in all subsequent titles since *Sticker Star*.
-
*Pokémon Diamond and Pearl* require you to have Registeel, Regice and Regirock in order to awaken (and fight) Regigigas in Snowpoint Temple.
- Platinum reverts this: with a Regigigas that you can receive in a Nintendo event, you can fight the other three Regis. Naturally, as Platinum is an Updated Re-release of Diamond and Pearl, you can use the three Regis that you've caught in this way to awaken the Regigigas in Snowpoint Temple. Moreover, you can receive a Gracidea Flower from a girl in Floaroma Town if you show her a Shaymin (that can equally be received only through a Nintendo Event). The Gracidea changes Shaymin between its Land and Sky Forme.
-
*Pokemon Heartgold And Soulsilver* have even more of these. You can again receive the Gracidea, this time by showing a Shaymin to a girl in the Goldenrod Flower Shop. Then you can receive a peculiar Pichu (one with a fluff of fur over its right ear, properly called the Spiky-Eared Pichu) by examining the shrine in Ilex Forest while having a Nintendo event shiny Pichu in the first slot of the party. You can unlock a new place, the Sinjoh Ruins, by having an Arceus (itself obtainable only through a Nintendo event, again) in the first slot of the party and talking to a person in the Ruins of Alph. This way, you can watch one weird ritual of summoning and receive either a Dialga, Palkia or Giratina at level 1, each holding its signature Orb. Finally, you can unlock a rather important story cutscene (and battle) if you bring a Nintendo event Celebi to the Ilex Shrine.
- In
*Pokémon Black and White*, you can transfer four Nintendo event Pokémon - the three shiny beasts Entei, Suicune and Raikou, and Celebi - from a Generation IV game through the Transfer Machine (they're the only 4 Pokémon that can be ported in this way). Transferring one of the shiny beasts unlocks the Illusion Forest where Zoroark can be caught, while if you show the Celebi to a girl in one of the Castelia City gates you'll receive a Zorua.
- In
*Romancing SaGa*, there are a few of these, often linked to various Sidequests.
- During a certain period of time around the mid-game, resting at an Inn with Claudia in your party leads to her having a strange dream asking her to return to Mazewood. Agreeing to go with her leads to a special Sidequest that reveals her Secret Legacy. On a wider scale, simply having her in the party can trigger various extra dialogue and mini-scenes during various quests in Melvir, as well as ||getting attacked without any explanation by the assassins patrolling the capital's streets||.
- While her presence isn't required for completing the related Sidequest, taking Aisha back to the Taralian Camp after a certain point leads to her temporarily leaving the party to ||search the deserted village||, followed by your leader giving her a short pep-talk. She also has an extended scene if you take her along to ||Merholm||, in which she copes with ||learning about her heritage and deciding not to remain in the Hidden Elf Village with her grandfather and people||.
- Near the end of Jamil's prologue, a short scene triggers with Dowd where he asks to stay behind in South Estamir rather than be dragged along. Agreeing to this sets up a chain of events necessary for making Dowd recruitable in other scenarios, entailing meeting him again later on ||as a Brainwashed and Crazy masked assassin whom Jamil fatally wounds before learning the truth||, making the related Sidequest more personal.
- Triggering these with Darque is key to his Sidequest, as all of his scenes involve him regaining different memories until he finally discovers who he was. (Which is harder than it sounds, considering ||he actually has
*two* sets of memories due to being possessed by another's soul, who can completely takeover if you favor her over him||.)
- Late in
*Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse*, the route split for the true endings essentially determines the party composition for the rest of the game; specifically, the party stays full on Bonds, but is almost empty on Anarchy because ||Nanashi murdered them all||. One sidequest that takes place on the same day as the route split has two different scripts; if the party is full or mostly full (pre-route split or Bonds), the party will be unusually chatty, and comment every time they search a room. If the party is mostly empty, the narration takes over instead.
- Optional Private Actions are the only way to build Relationship Values in
*Star Ocean: The Second Story* besides special items and fighting a ridiculous number of battles together.
-
*Steven Universe: Save The Light* gives each character in the party a comment on whichever area they are at during the main story.
- The
*Tales of...* series has featured these since the second game in the form of skits.
- There are various scenes in
*Trials of Mana* that have different lines of dialogue depending not only on who your party members are, but when they joined your party. In addition to scenes where certain party members gain priority depending on if they're relevant to the other characters present and the scene itself, there are scenes that play a generic piece of dialogue for a party member in a designated slot, with the selection being consistent across each playthrough.
-
*Xenogears* has an optional dungeon near the end where you not only get an extra scene for having Emeralda in group, ||she grows up, or at least takes an adult looking form.|| The main gameplay benefit this has is giving her vastly improved stat gains when she levels up. The developers seem to have expected you to view this scene, because Emeralda ||appears grown-up in the ending||.
- Almost all of the sidequests given out by named NP Cs in
*Xenoblade Chronicles 1* have one specific member of the party chiming in with additional dialogue. There's no benefit to doing so, and it can be a bit of a Guide Dang It! when you can only have three party members active at a time, there's no hint at which party member will give dialogue, and some of the quests can be acquired before getting the party member who chimes in.
- In the
*Borderlands* series, *The Pre-Sequel* and *Borderlands 3* features the selected Vault Hunter with their own given dialogue for all events they are taking part in. The former even had other characters' dialogue change depending on the selected Vault Hunter.
-
*Spirit Hunter: NG*:
- Depending on who he saves in the Kubitarou case, Akira can get a unique scene with either Seiji or Kaoru later in the game. Seiji's scene contains a unique CG and a rendition of an idol song from Seiji's VA, while Kaoru's scene has her and Akira pretend to be a couple to lure out a spirit.
- To a lesser extent, there's a CG in Kubitarou's case that can only be seen if Akira takes Seiji along to the final confrontation with the spirit. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OptionalCharacterScene |
Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping - TV Tropes
**Michael:**
Does... does it slip? (referring to his friend's mutilated, detached face)
**Finn:**
You mean like your accent?
When an actor has a Fake Nationality, they may not always be able to hold their accent in place and may start to lapse into their native accent. This is especially likely when yelling or for emotional scenes. This trope can also occur In-Universe with Bad "Bad Acting" where a character tries to do an accent (perhaps as a part of impersonating someone else) but ends up just sounding like a weird version of their normal accent.
Similar tropes are Accent Slip-Up, which is where a character temporarily goes back to their native way of speaking usually due to being taken by surprise, and Accent Relapse, which is the more permanent version (AKA they quit doing the fake accent).
Also see Not Even Bothering with the Accent, where an American actor is supposed to be say, British royalty but just speaks in General American, and What the Hell Is That Accent?, when someone speaks with a seeming mix of various accents.
Contrast Surprisingly Good Accent, where this is the opposite: an actor is able to pull off the accent flawlessly, or the slip-ups are so small and so few that the average viewer doesn't pick up on them.
## Examples:
<!—index—>
<!—/index—>
-
*Claude the Cat* has an English accent, but sometimes his voice actor's New Zealand accent will pop up. One especially prominent example of this is how he says the word *ventilation* in the one about caravans.
- While The Most Interesting Man in the World is ostensibly a Dashing Hispanic, and at first had the appropriate accent, in later spots his actor's New York Jew twang bleeds through every other word or so.
- A TV advert for PayPal had a long thin blonde girl stepping through a room full of goodies whilst extolling the virtues of the service. But her accent perceptibly wandered around the English-speaking world traveling five thousand miles within the same sentence. Here possibly British; there a hint of Suid-Efrrrrikka; they're New Zealand; here American; there it's Irish; and ooh, now she's back in England again.
- Miss Cleo, the popular Psychic Readers Network spokeswoman, claimed to be a mystical shaman from Jamaica (she was actually born and raised in Los Angeles). She played the part with a notoriously over-the-top and inconsistent Jamaican accent and can occasionally be heard lapsing into an American accent. Despite this, it wasn't common knowledge that she was actually American until her employer was sued by the FTC in 2002.
- Patrick Stewart is currently having fun in adverts for Yorkshire Tea. In this advert he begins in his sonorous Royal Shakespeare Company/Jean-Luc Picard voice as he wishes a colleague a happy retirement. Then he can't hold it in any longer and reverts to his birth-accent, which is very broad Yorkshire.
- Happens occasionally in anime dubs recorded in Canada or Texas.
- With Canada, it's noticeable with words like "about," "house," and "sorry" often being pronounced as "aboht," "hohse," and "soarry." It got really bad in the original dub of
*Sailor Moon* with words like "Sailor Scout" in constant use. *Dragon Ball Z* got it with "Dragon" sometimes being pronounced as "Draygon." In *Sailor Moon*, Canadian terms like "bad marks" (instead of "bad grades") would also sneak into the script. *Ranma ½* got this bad in an episode that revolved around a drama club. Every usage of the word "drama" was pronounced like "drayma" instead of "drauma." This was all more common back in the 90s before the US production outlets could easily keep tabs on the ADR process. Today, very few anime dubs are recorded in Canada, and this is often cited as one reason why. As late as 2008, however, this occasionally popped up in dubs recorded at The Ocean Group's sister studio Blue Water, one example being Kurapika's voice actress in *Hunter × Hunter (1999)* pronouncing "Phantom Troupe" as "Phayntom Troupe".
- Texas anime dubs from ADV Films and Funimation are almost always pretty good about avoiding this, but they ran into it a bit early on. In
*Neon Genesis Evangelion*, Asuka, Misato, and Kaworu all straight-up sounded like they were from Texas, and in *Dirty Pair*, it was obvious with Yuri pronouncing "Kei" closer to "Kai." FUNimation's early years with *Dragon Ball Z* had it with Gohan, Bulma, Chi-Chi, and even Android 18 slipping into mild Texas accents from time-to-time. It's actually kind of amazing how little they run into this now, with several of their voice actors having thick Texas accents away from the microphone.
- Humorously, FUNimation's
*Dragon Ball Z* even ran into the Canadian version of this with Future Gohan saying "Let's forget *aboot* becoming a Super Saiyan for a while." His voice actor was indeed from Canada.
- The English dub of
*Hetalia: Axis Powers* has a few characters with this problem.
- It seems to be the opinion of the voice actors themselves that the most Egregious accents were intentionally chosen.
- In
*Dragon Ball*, Commander Red goes in and out of an Irish accent. It became especially apparent ||just before he got shot by Staff Officer Black.||
- Many early Manga Entertainment dubs had British actors putting on American accents with varying degrees of success, often so bad it's hilarious. These also included colloquialism failures, such as saying "knickers" instead of "panties" (for women's underwear), etc.
- Even AnimEigo's old dubs (
*Ah! My Goddess*, *Bubblegum Crisis*, *You're Under Arrest!*, etc) had this, since they were recorded in North Carolina. Characters ranged from having no accent at all to a thick Southern drawl (Megumi in *Goddess* being an example of the latter). Notably, this wasn't the same as the Texas accents heard in dubs from ADV and Funimation, but more of a Mid-Atlantic way of speaking.
- In
*Himouto Umaruchan*, Nana Ebina shows her Akita accent when she feels comfortable, for example when eating something from Akita, as seen in episode 11. She seems to have a hard time hiding it, though.
- In ADV's dub of
*Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water*, the lead character, Jean, has to speak with a French accent which is noticeably inconsistent in at least the first couple of episodes. Keep in mind, though, that his actor (Nathan Parsons) was only twelve years old when he did the part, and otherwise the accent works in favor of the character. He gradually improves on the accent as the show progresses.
- In the 6th episode of
*Gintama* this happens to Kagura, Gintoki even lampshades it.
- The Chilean Spanish dub of
*Little Witch Academia (2017)* has many instances when the Chilean accents are very notable, especially with Akko, Diana, and the Professor.
- The same goes with the Peruvian Spanish dub of
*Gamba: Gamba to Nakama-tachi* movie since the Peruvian accents are very notable with basically *every single member* of the cast.
- The Latin American dub of
*Smile Pretty Cure!* (aka *Glitter Force*) is a pretty egregious example, as many characters slip into their voice actors' native accents at times, mainly American or Cuban accents. This is justified, as the dub was dubbed in Miami, Florida, a city with a big Cuban community.
- In the Disney dub of
*Castle in the Sky*, Sheeta's accent seems to wander between Canadian, British, and Kiwi. The only thing consistent is that she sounds different from everyone else, who just use American accents.
- The English dub of
*Jojos Bizarre Adventure's* first arc, "Phantom Blood," features British characters while being dubbed with an American cast. Jonathan Joestar noticeably loses his English accent a few times when he begins getting enraged at Dio for kissing Erina near the end of the first episode.
- In
*Mobile Suit Gundam 00*, there's a Scottish police officer who almost apprehends Setsuna. His accent wasn't anywhere near Scottish.
- Lifelong
*Doctor Who* fanboy David Tennant, before being cast as the Tenth Doctor himself, was cast in several *Big Finish Doctor Who* audio plays — at the time, the only new dramatic *Doctor Who* being produced. In one play, "Colditz", he played an evil Nazi. The very Scottish Tennant performed his role with a very German accent, and only slipped once: "I vil do my" (in a massively Deutschland accent) "DOOOO-ty!" (sounding nothing so much like the most stereotypical Scotsman you have ever heard).
- The audiobook of the
*Doctor Who* novel "The Coming of the Terraphiles" is read by Clive Mantle, whose struggles to reproduce Amy Pond's Scottish accent result in him sounding not entirely unlike Mrs. Doubtfire.
- The original radio version of
*The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978)* starts off with Zaphod speaking in a neutral English accent, but he begins speaking in a kind of American-ish trans-Atlantic accent in the Secondary Phase which he slips in and out of semi-randomly. This may be down to Characterisation Marches On as his abuse of slang becomes noticeably more apparent at the same time - or possibly Character Development as this change in accent occurs after Zaphod receives a Call to Adventure and the reason for his having two heads begins to be explored. Of course, the character is neither English nor American, but from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.
- Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham manages to invert this by accidentally giving his characters the wrong accent. These instances tend to be brief and extremely rare due to him slipping up when he's playing two characters back and forth really fast. In one special, Peanut spontaneously takes on José's accent while the two are arguing. In another, the banter between Middle-Eastern Achmed and British-educated A.J. causes Jeff to use a strange accent while he talks
*as himself*.
- Bo Burnham's country accent in
*Pandering* slips a few times: the further he gets from the "standard" country song (to make an aside to the audience or realize he's fucking a scarecrow, for example), the closer it is to Bo's normal voice.
- Deliberately invoked with Hank, American Alfred to the British Batman in
*Knight and Squire*. In the text piece, Paul Cornell says he imagines Hank as being played by an actor from Milton Keynes, with an accent that wanders all over the place, just like American characters on British TV when he was a kid.
- In-universe example in
*The Sandman (1989)*, as a Chinese character switches between speaking perfectly good English and "Solly, no speakee English" by way of Obfuscating Stupidity.
- Many of the characters in
*Preacher* speak turn of phrases decidedly not American/Texan and more Irish (writer Garth Ennis' homeland). These are usually funniest when the main character is written with his typical Texas drawl saying them.
- When Cassidy has to fake a Texan drawl, he slips up, and gets called on it - not by the bad guys, but by Jesse, who figures Cassidy only got away with it for as long as he did because he was talking to a German.
- In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it bit of foreshadowing, Molly Hayes of the Runaways, during a fight with a group of deluded former teen heroes who've been hired to shut the Runaways down, comments that Chamber's British accent sounds fake. ||It's later revealed that he's not Chamber, but a mole from the New Pride.||
- In
*The Encyclopedists*, the foppish Imperial diplomat Lord Dorwin normally has a severe case of Elmuh Fudd Syndwome. But when he views a book-film on archaeology (his pet hobby) during his tour of the Foundation, Salvor Hardin is amused to notice that Dorwin is so honestly excited that he "pronounced his r's".
- In an early
*Nero Wolfe* novel ( *Over My Dead Body*), the suspect Madame Zorka, exotic foreign fashion designer, always used an incredibly thick Pottsylvanian accent. Until, of course, her real identity was discovered - Pansy Bupp of Ottumwa, Iowa - whereupon she collapsed into a Midwestern American accent. (After all, is High Society going to patronize a fashion designer from *Iowa*?)
- In
*Crippen: A Novel of Murder* by John Boyne, an upper-class woman is revealed to be a lower-class social climber when she gets angry and says, "He's still handy with his dukes."
- In
*Night Watch (Series)*, Edgar usually speaks with a perfect Moscow accent, but tends to slip into his native Estonian accent when agitated.
- Doctor Lao has a fluid relationship with his accent in
*The Circus of Doctor Lao* (and in the film based on it).
- Terry Pratchett's
*Discworld* has many characters whose accents slip - the younger Igors occasionally forget to lisp, and Doreen Winkings (aka the Countess Notfaroutoe, a vampire by marriage) has an Uberwaldian accent far thicker than any native Uberwaldian, except when she forgets.
- In the
*Gaunt's Ghosts* novel *Blood Pact*, ||when Baltasar Eyl Damogaur catches up to Gaunt and Mabbon for the last time, he goes back to his natural outworld accent, having difficulty maintaining his civilized veneer||.
- In
*The Queen's Thief* series, ||Eugenides fakes an Attolian accent and no one even thinks to look for his Eddisian one (despite knowing he's Eddisian) until he slips because he's talking in his sleep||.
- This was a key plot point in a
*Nancy Drew Case Files* mystery. A supposedly American man said that someone was "in hospital" instead of "in the hospital", and used other Britishisms, leading Nancy to suspect that he wasn't who he claimed to be. It's capped off during a scene in which he gets into an argument (a classic "highly emotional scene" as mentioned in the page description) when he suddenly begins speaking with his British accent.
- Sally Pyne's "Lady Sarah" accent in
*Aunt Dimity and the Family Tree* "hovered precariously between the Queen's and a fishmonger's." Willis Sr. could only say of it, "I cannot bring myself to discuss her accent except to say that it is strikingly original. I do not believe that it has ever been heard before on this or any other planet."
- In
*Murder Most Unladylike* (titled *Murder Is Bad Manners* in the US), two girls in the 1930s investigate the murder of a teacher at their boarding school. When another teacher mysteriously goes missing one morning, the French mistress "Mamzelle" must take the form register instead, and the narrator notes that Mamzelle has somehow forgotten to roll her Rs. It is later revealed that Mamzelle is not French at all and was posing as a French person in order to get teaching work.
- In
*Going Too Far* by Catherine Alliot, the protagonist Polly meets Amanda, who speaks with a very strong Cockney accent. Polly responds in kind (thinking that Amanda is putting on the accent for a laugh), but realizes too late that this is how Amanda really speaks. Polly feels obliged to keeps speaking in a Cockney accent so that it won't look like she was making fun of Amanda, but she can't keep it up for long, and Amanda finds the whole thing very funny.
- In Georgette Heyer's
*The Unknown Ajax*, only one character notices that Hugh's Oop North accent tends to fail when he's not paying attention, rather than appearing then, and even warns the heroine by way of a (to her) cryptic comment about his reprehensible sense of humor.
- An odd example with Bandera in
*Blood For A Dirty Dollar*. Sometimes he's written with an accent, sometimes not.
- How Wayne in
*Wax and Wayne* spots the impostor kandra. Wayne is a Master of Disguise who specializes in accents, good enough to infiltrate a neighborhood by perfectly mimicking the local accent. While searching for an immortal kandra, he spends a lot of time with another kandra, MeLaan, and picks up on how she says her a's. The impostor says them the same way.
- In a later book, Wayne hitches a free ride from a gondolier by first dressing and speaking like a rich lord, promising to pay a lot of money, before letting his accent slip into something slightly thuggish in the middle of the ride. The gondolier picks up on things being wrong, suspects that Wayne is trying to set him up for a robbery, and immediately drops him off—exactly in the spot he wanted.
- Miles Vorkosigan usually speaks with a Betan accent when in-character as the Dendarii Mercenaries' leader Admiral Naismith, in contrast to his Barrayaran accent as Lord Vorkosigan. It isn't quite a Fake Nationality, since he is half-Betan, so although it isn't the way he would talk at home, he can generally be fairly convincing. However, among close friends in the Dendarii who know his real identity, and in times of stress, he can allow his accent to blur into something between Betan and Barrayaran. The book doesn't actually demonstrate any differences in pronunciation, etc - the nearest we get is his staying in-character by using different phrasing, like addressing a Barrayaran subordinate as 'Mr' rather than 'Sergeant' or 'Armsman'. We just have to imagine what the different accents sound like - but we do know that Beta Colony began as an American settlement, whereas Barrayar was settled by a mixture of Europeans including British, Russian, French and Greek settlers, so the resulting accent almost certainly sounds like nothing on Earth.
- A rare instance of the written equivalent,
*Ooh, me Dialectal Spellings're Slipping*, the medieval German *Lay of Hildebrand* ( *"Hildebrandslied"* in German) appears to have been written by a speaker of Old *High* German trying to imitate Old *Low* German. The result would sound, to a native speaker of the latter, like when English speakers try to write in Scots without knowing much of the language.
*Ik gihorta ðat seggen ðat sih urhettun ænon muotin Hiltibrant enti Haðubrant untar heriun tuem*
[[note: "Ah haird
it said that twa warriors met; Hildebrand an' Hadubrand amang twa airmies" roughly captures the mixed dialects.]]
- In the dialogue sections of the music video for the Genesis song, "Jesus He Knows Me", Phil Collins is playing the part of an American televangelist from the Deep South. At first, Collins, born in the West London district of Hounslow, manages the accent well, but as it begins to slip it almost comes out as Irish-sounding!
- In
*Sequinox*, Cassidy claims Jake's Southern accent for his character Chell is so good that it caused her own Southern accent to start coming out. However, Alan, also from the South, claims it was like "being dragged through hell".
- During the Gemini arc, Sid's Transatlantic accent slips into Irish. She claims it's practice in case they get sent to a sailor dimension.
- In
*The Adventure Zone: Balance*, Griffin occasionally (ok, frequently) has trouble keeping his character voices straight. Especially notable with Kravitz, whose Cockney accent was so inconsistent (lapsing into a more generic British accent or even a slightly fancy-sounding American one), Griffin decided it was just his work accent, and that off-the-clock he spoke basically like Griffin.
- In
*Interstitial: Actual Play*, Wheels mentions in the first episode that they have to go through a small spiel to get into Criss Angel's proper voice. Otherwise, it starts to slip into Donald Trump.
- The Broadway production of the musical
*Spamalot* plays with this — the usually good British accents are sometimes dropped for comedic effects on certain lines, like "you are so gay" after Lancelot's angry outburst in the castle.
- In
*On a Clear Day You Can See Forever*, Daisy's British accent starts to fade when she stops recalling memories of her previous life in 18th-century England.
- When popular West End Elphaba Kerry Ellis transferred to the Broadway production of
*Wicked*, she seemingly could not decide if she was playing an American or a Brit, her accent wavering seemingly every other sentence.
- The Broadway Cast of
*The Secret Garden* seemed to have had a good dialect coach and try very hard, but unfortunately can't really carry the Yorkshire accent. Those attempting RP have more success.
- The 25th anniversary English cast recording of
*Les Misérables* featured factory workers who seemed to wander from Cockney to 'generic northern accent' to Irish in the same phrase. Fortunately it only really happens in *At the End of the Day*.
- In
*Vanities*, Mary and Kathy both drop their Texas drawl for generic accents in the third act. In some productions, Kathy acquires a New York accent. In the HBO version, they kept their accents, although less strong than before. In the added scene of the musical, Joanne may lose her accent as well.
- In a Carnegie Hall performance from 1962, Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett sing a Texan-themed duet called "Big D" (from
*The Most Happy Fella*); Julie's attempt to sing with a Texas draaaaawl is arguably just as embarrassing as the fake-Cockney that Dick Van Dyke would do a year later in *Mary Poppins.*
- Gamila in
*Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World* slips between an American accent and her native Arabic accent. Justified, as she attended an American school in Egypt.
- In the Donmar Warehouse production of
*Cabaret* (as seen in the 1993 TV movie), Adam Godley is a very American Cliff Bradshaw. Until he gets upset. Then he's a very Irish Cliff Bradshaw. Made even stranger by the fact that Adam Godley isn't even Irish to begin with.
- On
*Matilda*'s Broadway cast album, Mrs. Wormwood often sounds more New York-ish than British (the actress, Lesli Margherita, is actually from California). Bruce Bogtrotter loses his accent for the first few lines of "Revolting Children", but regains it afterward.
- In
*King Lear* Edgar adopts a variety of personae to keep an eye on his brothers plotting, and later to protect his blinded father Gloucester. At one point he switches from West-Country Peasant, and Gloucester notices: "Methinks thy voice is altered, and thou speakst/ In better phrase and matter than thou didst."
-
*Captain Planet and the Planeteers*:
- Linka had a tendency for her Slavic accent to slip all over the place.
note : A Slavic accent is often difficult for Americans (including Linka's voice actor, Kath Soucie) to convincingly mimic without exaggerating. Also, Linka was only confirmed to be specifically Russian in Season 4. Until then, her accent could have originated from any of the 15 Soviet Republics, though it was generally assumed that she was either from Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus.
- Gi had a vague Asian accent that slipped on and off for the first few episodes but was then basically abandoned.
note : Gi's voice actor, Janice Kawaye, is Japanese-American and fluent in Japanese. However, Gi's early concept art clearly depicted her as South Korean, and she easily read a Chinese sign in "The Big Clam-Up", so her actual nationality was never specified.
-
*Regular Show*'s future Mordecai and Rigby talk with fake British accents up until they begin panicking; at which point they talk in their normal voices.
-
*King of the Hill*:
- In "Joust Like a Woman" guest star Alan Rickman voices a Renaissance Fair owner who speaks with an exaggerated British accent until he gets sued by his female employees; then he lapses into his native Texas drawl, which is obviously slipping.
- In "A Beer Can Named Desire", when Bill introduces his friends to his extended family in French, he pronounces their names in a French accent, except for the last one: Boomhauer.
-
*G.I. Joe*:
- Character Destro has always been Scottish, but when it comes to
*G.I. Joe: Renegades*, it seems nobody noticed that Clancy Brown was actually doing an *Irish* accent all the way through the first season. Realization seems to have come about for the finale, where Brown suddenly started adding an exaggerated Scottish inflection to some sentences and spent the whole episode oscillating back and forth between the two accents.
- "The Viper" has an accent that ||affects how he pronounces Ws||, yet he can say "||West||" just fine.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*:
- The show has three examples of this without really
*using* accents:
- Andrea Libman voices two characters: energetic Pinkie Pie and soft-spoken Fluttershy. When Fluttershy has a musical number in the episode "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", Libman apparently has trouble keeping the character's voice consistent when she's supposed to be very excited, with the end result that she sings the second half of the song basically as Pinkie Pie (which is
*very* noticeable, since she doesn't do Pinkie Pie's singing voice, only Fluttershy's). This is especially noticeable in "Sonic Rainboom", when Fluttershy tries to learn energetic cheering: she struggles during the whole episode to barely come to 1 decibel above her usual tone, but finally at the end, she succumbs to excitement and screaming her joy; but ends up sounding just like Pinkie Pie (In the scene where Pinkie Pie takes a taste of the rainbow, Libman *inverts* the case; Pinkie Pie's shocked breathy gasp sounds remarkably like Fluttershy's.)
- Tabitha St. Germain voices Rarity and Princess Luna. In "Luna Eclipsed", while Princess Luna normally sounds very royal and high standing, there are a few lines that make Princess Luna sound almost exactly like Rarity. Although, both characters happen to be Large Hams. Even stranger is that Rarity doesn't even appear in the episode at all, as her scene was cut.
- This happens to Ashleigh Ball (the voice of Applejack and Rainbow Dash) during the "At the Gala"-Song in Season 01, Episode 26 ("The Best Night Ever"). She seems to have problems singing in Applejack's heavy southern accent, as well as getting Rainbow Dash's rough voice and her singing together at the same time. Ball's accents also slip in both of her roles during "Winter Wrap-Up", where the two sound nearly identical, and "What My Cutie Mark is Telling Me" and "Generosity" when singing as Rainbow.
- Minor character Pipsqueak, a young colt celebrating Nightmare Night for the first time in "Luna Eclipsed", is introduced with a British accent, but by the end of the episode seems to lose it. When he reappears in later episodes, his new voice actor does a much better job of holding the accent.
- As with many other US/Canada animated co-productions, Canadian voice actors performing for shows and movies mainly intended for viewers in the United States are typically given directions to sound American. While they do so flawlessly most of the time, an "aboat" (as opposed to an "ah-bow-t" someone in the United States normally expects) does occasionally pop up, such as Fluttershy uttering one in "The Crystalling Part 2."
- The Tom and Jerry cartoon "Robin Hoodwinked" has Tuffy speaking with an English accent which slips on and off throughout the short.
- An in-universe example on
*The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy* and Played for Laughs: in the episode, "Wishbones", Billy's wish from Thromnambular is to have some exciting adventures, which results in a parody of *Jonny Quest*, with Billy as Jonny and Irwin as Hadji. This prompts this exchange between them:
**Billy:** (to Irwin) Why're you talkin' funny? **Irwin:** (Indian accent) Because I am from Calcutta, in the mystical east. **Billy:** No, you're not, you live down the block, and what's with that weird thingy on your head? **Irwin:** (drops accent; shouting) IT'S A TURBAN! IT'S WHAT I WEAR! I'M FROM THE MYSTICAL EAST! I'm in character, yo, so WHY DON'T YOU JUST GET OFF ME?!?!
- The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein took umbrage to Paul Frees and Lance Percival voicing the group on their Saturday morning cartoon show (which Al Brodax imposed so the boys could be understood by American audiences) that he ordered the cartoons to never be shown in England (but they were, by ITV. One of the regions to run the series was Granada - which covers Liverpool.) Lance Percival (Paul and Ringo) was an actual Briton, but Paul Frees' attempts (John and George) to sound Liverpudlian were not incredibly successful.
-
*X-Men: The Animated Series*:
- The show was recorded in Canada, so occasionally the actors would slip up, such as pronouncing "about" as "aboot." It's especially noticeable for Jubilee, who usually pronounced "Sorry" like "Soh-ry".
- Despite Storm being from Kenya, she was originally voiced by American voice actress Iona Morris, who was
*not* instructed to put on a Kenyan accent. She instead used a more generic round tone that sometimes sounded British, sometimes American. She was later replaced by Barbadian-Canadian actress Allison Sealy-Smith, who wanted to use a Kenyan accent, but instead settled on an imitation of Morris. She later claimed that the producers had no idea what they were really looking for, other than just a Black actress that didn't sound American.
- In
*Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Movie*, Eric Idle voices Slyly the arctic fox who speaks in a Brooklyn accent, occasionally Idle's natural British accent will slip out.
- Sir David Jason is very British, known as the voice of Danger Mouse. His attempts at American vary. His Count Duckula with an American voice was a mix of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig on
*Danger Mouse*, but on his own show, it's pretty straightforward. He voiced an American cowboy named Texas Jack McGraw in hopelessly stereotype fashion, and his Agent 57 in "The Return Of Count Duckula" was a very thick John Wayne.
- After Angie Harmon replaced Stockard Channing as the voice of adult Barbara Gordon in
*Batman Beyond* and *Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker*, the character suddenly gained traces of Harmon's native Texas accent.
- In
*Kaeloo*, the voice actors are Australians speaking with American accents. Sometimes, Mr. Cat's voice actor slips into a weird half-American half-Australian accent.
- In
*Steven Universe*, Lisa Hannigans Irish accent occasionally slips through when she voices Blue Diamond, who she otherwise tries to give an American accent ("You cae-naught imagine how much ay've mourned!"). She stops trying to hide her natural accent in later episodes.
- In
*Totally Spies!*:
- The American actor who voiced Jerry with a fake English accent (as in "from England") during the first two seasons did an OK job, even though traces of his American accent still seeped through here and there. For example, he would say "can't" in a North American way ("kaent") rather than in a typically British way ("kahnt").
- The evil Simon Tucker's Irish accent occasionally slips and sounds more like a British one.
- The Latin American Spanish dub of
*Paradise PD* pulls a very weird one: Due to the setting of the series, almost all the characters speak with Mexican accents and slang, which wouldn't be so unusual by itself if wasn't for the fact the series was dubbed in *Argentina*. note : For English speakers, that would be the equivalent if the original English voice acting being acted by Australians with Texan accents. Keep in mind for Latin American viewers this is very notable since Argentinian Spanish is notorious in that region for having a very thick accent, albeit sometimes the voice actors slip between Mexican and their native Argentinian accents at few times and sometimes they switch between the use of Mexican slang or Argentinian one.
- The British accents in
*Redwall* will occasionally slip and reveal the actors' native Canadian accents. One example would be Brome, who tends to speak in his actor's Canadian accent, and in "Heroes and Fools" there is a pretty big example: when Keyla says "I'll show you how Keyla digs!" he loses his British accent.
- Not even Matthias was safe from this trope. In "Captain Snow", Tyrone Savage slips back into his Canadian accent whilst Matthias is saying "Matthias, from Redwall Abbey. Who are you?" to Guosim.
- On
*WordGirl*, Tobey always speaks with a British accent during his evil plans, but it dissolves into an American accent when his mother shows up to stop him, causing many fans to assume that it's an in-universe example. However, Word of God has stated that the accent is genuine, meaning it most likely is a coincidental out-of-universe example.
- In the
*Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat* episode "Fur Cut", Dongwa slips back into Oliver Grainger's native accent when he and Sheegwa are confronting Sagwa while she is telling a story. He ends up pronouncing "You gotta!" as "You **gatt**a!"
- In
*Ninjago*, minor character Captain Soto usually speaks in a vaguely-defined Asian accent, but on occasion he randomly speaks a few lines in a more typical "pirate" voice that doesn't match his usual accent at all. None of the other characters ever notice or comment on this. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OohMeAccentsSlipping |
Opening the Sandbox - TV Tropes
*"I have escaped both my execution and a dragon attack at Helgen. I now have my freedom to do as I see fit in Skyrim."*
The point in a video game, especially a metroidvania or (electronic) RPG, where you're finally able to do all the sidequests, go anywhere on the map, and so on. Usually coincides with getting the Global Airship, in games that have that. May still be this even if you technically can't go
*everywhere*; there are many games where the beginning of the Very Definitely Final Dungeon is also the Point of No Return.
Usually a very good time to get the Infinity +1 Sword or go for 100% Completion. If the entire RPG is like this, it could be a Quicksand Box. This point can come shortly before the Point of No Return, or after if the game has certain forms of New Game Plus; alternatively, it might come
*early* in the game instead, setting the player free after clearing the more guided first few segments of the game.
MMORPGs are a special case. Though most do not have a true 'end', they end up becoming more top heavy over time as new content additions target veterans who have seen and done most of the things in the game. This effect is particularly severe if several consecutive updates do not increase the Cap but give already capped players new options, and is the reason that established players tend to perceive more freedom in a game than newbies despite being more aware of its limitations.
These points are sometimes near the ending, so SPOILERS.
## Examples:
- In
*Go Vacation,* once you get twenty Stamps (i.e., once you've played around half of the available minigames), you'll have the entire game open to you: All four Resorts, every minigame, and the Villa.
- In
*Hollow Knight*, for the first handful of hours, the game lightly leads players through the Forgotten Crossroads, Greenpath, and the Fungal Wastes through subtle context clues and following the trail of Hornet. Once you obtain the Mothwing Cloak and Mantis Claw allowing you to dash and climb walls respectively, you're free to go in several directions, though this is less apparent for first-time players. Shortly thereafter you'll meet Hornet at the Hollow Knight memorial in the City of Tears, giving you a goal, and marking the point where the game kicks the crutch from under your feet and opening up almost all of Hallownest to explore. A second instance is obtaining the Dream Nail from your first visit in the Resting Grounds, where you're now free to challenge Dream Bosses, open up new areas, and the location of the three Dreamers get added to your map.
-
*The Legend of Zelda* series tends to do this multiple times each game. In most games, after the introductory village and dungeon, most of the world map opens up, though in the first game the world could be explored right away (though getting a sword, which is in a cave on the first screen, is a good idea). And then, once you've completed about half of the dungeons, a large chunk of the map that was hidden or inaccessible is revealed, usually through some specialized game mechanic like Dual-World Gameplay.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past* lets you explore Hyrule freely once you rescue Princess Zelda from the catacombs. Once you complete four dungeons and defeat Agahnim for the first time, the entrance to Hyrule Castle becomes a gate to the Dark World (which holds eight more dungeons). In fact, if you already know where to go, completing the first dungeon isn't even necessary: once you have the Magic Hammer from it, the sandbox is busted wide open. You can even leave King Helmasaur for until you've gotten everything else in the game short of the Red Mail and a single Heart Container.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time*: After you leave Kokiri Forest (which can only be done after completing the first dungeon), all of Hyrule Field is open to you. When you get the Master Sword, you then gain full access to most of the areas you visited previously, even if you're still missing some key pieces of gear.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask*: When you finally break the Skull Kid's curse in Clock Town. As a human, you finally have a decent melee weapon and can leave town. The town itself also has various activities for Hylian Link.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games*: The games open up three times each, namely when you gain a new method of time travel ( *Ages*), or a new season to summon ( *Seasons*).
-
*The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker*: Your boat won't let you leave a small linear path at first. After you complete the second dungeon, you're free to sail wherever you want and explore the whole map. Most people wait until they get the Ballad of Gales, though, because otherwise you'd have to sail all that distance by yourself.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess* lets you out into Hyrule Field once you've freed Ordon and Faron Province from the Twilight curse and completed the first dungeon. However, true to form, the game doesn't truly open the sandbox until you drive back all the Twilight and later get the Master Sword.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword*: The sandbox is opened after you open all three portals; getting the Clawshot also opens up a couple more opportunities.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds*: The sandbox is opened when you enter Lorule. You need to go through seven dungeons, but you can do each of them in any order you please (with one exception: you can't reach the Desert Palace without going through the Thieves' Hideout first).
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*: While the Great Plateau is a sandbox itself, the rest of Hyrule is opened up when you get the Paraglider, *including the final dungeon and final boss*.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom*: Just like its prequel, all of Hyrule is opened up shortly after you open the giant doors in the Temple of Time, and getting the Paraglider shortly after that makes it practical to fully explore the Sky Islands, and enter the Depths without taking lethal Falling Damage. It's even possible to *skip* the Paraglider and defeat the final boss without it, although you'll need to use some Good Bad Bugs to survive the drop.
-
*Ōkami*: You can go back and get most of the missing collectibles once you've bought the Double Jump and unlocked Kabegami's brush technique, allowing you to climb walls, but it's a lot less traveling to wait until you've gotten the Mist Warp technique (available after completing the fourth dungeon, Imperial Palace) so you can teleport between certain sacred mirrors.
-
*Super Mario Bros.*:
-
*Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins*: In contrast to its extremely linear predecessor, this game is far more open. After finishing the tutorial level, the six zones containing the titular coins have no set order to do them in, and players are free to, for example, complete part of one zone and then work on another, leaving the rest of the previous one for later. The only level locked is the last one, which becomes available after the Golden Coins are retrieved.
-
*Super Mario Sunshine* opens completely after Shadow Mario starts trying to steal FLUDD accesories and a Yoshi egg. When those are retrieved, every Shine Sprite from Delfino Plaza will be ready to be collected and any level yet to be unlocked will be accessible with the help of those powerups. In fact, by that point the only thing needed to unlock the final mission is defeating Shadow Mario in every level at least once each.
-
*Metroid*:
- In most of side-scrolling games, getting the High Jump boots is the point when suddenly you can go (plot allowing) practically anywhere.
-
*Metroid*: You start off with just a meager blaster, and getting the Morph Ball allows you to get past the first few rooms. Getting the missiles and the morph ball bombs basically let you explore anywhere you wantthe rest of the items are needed so you can have a fighting chance of survival while you explore, although the Hi Jump Boots and Ice Beam are needed to access certain areas.
- In
*Metroid II: Return of Samus* and by extension its remake ( *Metroid: Samus Returns*), the big "I'm free!" moment is getting the Spider Ball upgrade which allows you to cling to crawl walls in Morph Ball form. The Space Jump is the point where you can go *literally anywhere in the game*.
-
*Super Metroid*: As shown in this video analysis by Game Maker's Toolkit, the game holds your hand a bit longer, as the game railroads you down a pretty linear path until you get the Ice Beam and Power Bombs and work your way back to your starting ship, essentially making a giant loop. From this point, not only can you revisit every area you've been previously, whole swathes of the map are now open to you to explore freely.
-
*Jak and Daxter*:
-
*Jak II: Renegade* starts off with the linear Prison level and drops Jak in the sprawling Haven City after escaping it. However he only has access to the Slums; periodically through the game he can pick up coloured passes that let him access new parts of the city, including the Port, the Markets, the Stadium and the Palace Grounds, each with their own linear levels connected to them.
-
*Jak 3* starts in the metaphorical sandpit of Spargus before giving you the literal desert of the Wasteland. Eventually you return to Haven City as well, although it is much more linear than in the previous game due to the war.
- Both
*Jak II* and *3* feature this for the linear levels as well; after picking up a new gadget/ability and/or reaching a certain point in the story, you revisit an earlier level and get to explore new areas of it. For example, the second visit to the Strip Mine in II lets you use the JetBoard to explore the upper areas.
-
*Castlevania: Symphony of the Night* follows a linear progression through Dracula's castle. Once you get to ||the Inverted Castle||, you have enough mobility that you can do the bosses and get the Plot Coupons needed to unlock the Final Bosses in any order you want.
-
*Ori and the Will of the Wisps* has a linear story up until the end of the first act, after which you can tackle the middle three dungeons in any order, in addition to performing countless sidequests.
- In
*Psychonauts 2*, the game's first act is railroaded and very linear. But once the casino mission elapses and ||Ford is brought to the Motherlobe||, the areas you can go to completely widen up, unlocking two major areas in the physical world with tons of collectables to get and a few sidequests to do, and allowing for the next set of mental worlds to be done in a non-linear order.
-
*Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!* is the only game in the original trilogy where this trope is in effect. About half of each of the three Homeworlds is available to you from the start, with Spyro needing to buy a skill from Moneybags in order to progress further. Conversely, the first and third games avert this by allowing you to go nearly anywhere in each hub world from the start, even the secret flight stage in Artisans you aren't supposed to know about until a dragon in Magic Crafters tells you about it.
- In
*Kirby & the Amazing Mirror*, you enter the main hub world after completing the tutorial level. Normally, you start off in Rainbow Route and end up in Moonlight Mansion, but once you hit the switch before approaching the first boss, King Golem, a mirror portal opens up in the hub world, allowing you to progress through the worlds in any order you please. This can be done before even fighting King Golem in the first place.
-
*Professor Layton* games typically follow a linear progression, and each area is available only after the story calls for it. However, the following two games do have a more open-ended progression, thus invoking this trope:
-
*Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy*: After Layton and company venture through Froenborg, Kodh and London (in that order) to investigate the mystery of the Azran civilization, while also dodging Targent's clutches more than once (and, in the process, exposing ||Detective Bloom|| as The Mole near the end of Chapter 3), they begin the quest for the Azran eggs across the world to unveil the ultimate secret of the aforementioned civilization. Thus, during Chapter 4, a whopping *five* major locations are unlocked and they can be visited in any order; and as they're cleared, new content is unlocked in the aforementioned three initial areas as well.
-
*Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy*: After Katrielle manages to solve her first four cases, she receives the following four at the same time, allowing her and her friends Ernest and Sherl to tackle them in any order.
-
*Pikmin*: The first two games after you get Blue Pikmin, as that will allow you to explore the aquatic portions of each area (they're not a problem for Olimar or any of the other playable captains, but they are for the Pikmin of the other colors except Pink). To a lesser extent, this also applies to *Pikmin 3* once you get the Yellow Pikmin and rescue Charlie, since the game up to that point has been extremely linear and requires you to visit the first three areas in a specific order.
-
*Chrono Trigger*: After beating down Dalton the second time, the party finally reclaims the Epoch, which Dalton has modified to allow flight. From this point on you have the ability to access any part of the world from any point in time.
-
*Dragon Quest*:
- Most games once you obtain a ship.
-
*Dragon Quest II* is the first game to include sailing. Your party obtain their ship when they reach Rippleport, whereupon you can finally explore the whole world rather than just the central landmass whatever you please.
- Starting with
*Dragon Quest III*, flight is possible and getting the ability to fly opens up the world further.
- However,
*Dragon Quest IX* doesn't give the player the ability to fly until after completing the main story, so the ship is the main mode of travel until then.
-
*EarthBound Beginnings* starts off fairly linear for the first few areas. Once you complete Duncan's Factory, you're given free reign to go anywhere you want provided you can make it through the battles, the only caveat being you can't fight the Final Boss until you sing the Eight Melodies to Queen Mary.
- The
*Final Fantasy* series:
-
*Final Fantasy* unusually has this at the halfway point (or if you're like most players, slightly before), when you get the Global Airship. Not that the sandbox in this game is so crowded...
-
*Final Fantasy VI* notably opens, then closes, then re-opens the sandbox a couple of times as your airship breaks down and is repaired. It finally re-opens for good after you get the second airship in the World of Ruin.
-
*Final Fantasy VII*: Disc 3. Also near the end of Disc 1 when you get the Tiny Bronco.
-
*Final Fantasy VIII*: Once the Missile Base, MD Level, defeating NORG, and the situation on Fisherman's Horizon are said and done with, you are free to pilot the Garden around. You can go everywhere except Esthar and the Bonus Dungeon in the ocean. In disc 3, you are given a proper airship and can truly go anywhere you please.
-
*Final Fantasy IX*: You can explore the ocean when you receive the Blue Narciss (ship) on Disc Two, then the whole world when you gain control of the Hilda Garde II (Global Airship). You upgrade your airship to the Invincible when you return from Terra at the start of Disc Four, but it does nothing that the Hilda Garde didn't.
-
*Final Fantasy X*: The game opens up a bit when you get to the Calm Lands, but really this happens when you get the airship permanently.
-
*Final Fantasy XIII* has No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom up to the point where Lightning's party reaches Pulse... *in chapter 11* (out of 13). There's a living but utterly inaccessible cityscape around the straight path, which is the main reason most people accuse the game of being too linear (though the linearity is justified by the story).
- Inverted in
*Final Fantasy XV*, where the game *starts* as a sandbox and stays that way for 9 out of 15 chapters, but once you begin Chapter 10 the remainder of the game is entirely linear, and the world and characters have changed so irreversibly that the only way to get back to the sandbox part of the game is via *time travel*.
-
*The Legend of Dragoon*: There is a point near the end of the game where the party acquires a strange manta-ray creature called Coolan, who can fly them to any destination (although if you plan to go too far back through the game, have the relevant disc ready).
-
*Octopath Traveler*: After completing the first chapter of your chosen hero, you are free to explore the game's entire world, limited only by your ability to fight enemies.
-
*Pokémon*:
- In most games, the sandbox opens to some extent when you can use Surf and Fly outside of battle. If you can use
*all* the HMs, you've definitely reached this point. The Gen IV games make you see (not catch, thankfully) all of the Pokémon in the Sinnoh Pokédex before opening everything up, though.
-
*Pokémon Gold and Silver* are a notable example. The game is divided into two parts or quests: Johto and Kanto. The first quest is mostly linear, but by the time you reach the second one, you have all HMs, and roadblocks are almost nonexistent, giving you access to almost all of Kanto as soon as you set foot on it. To emphasize this, the Johto gyms are beaten mostly in a set order (at least the first five or so), while the Kanto gyms can be beaten in any order. The remakes emphasized the difference between the two quests even more by making the second half of Johto more linear than before, while keeping Kanto about the same (with the exception that one of its gyms can only be beaten last now).
-
*Pokémon Sword and Shield* is a Zig-Zagged example. The main quest of the game is linear, with the justification that you can't enter certain cities until you have a prerequisite number of badges. This restriction is lifted in the postgame. At the same time, however, players get access to the Wild Zone, a sandbox area, fairly early in the game.
- Being a much more open game than previous entries in the series,
*Legends: Arceus* give you rideable Pokemon to open up the areas for you. Basculegion allows you to swim, Sneasler allows you to climb sheer cliffs, and Hisuian Braviary allow you for full flight.
-
*Pokémon Scarlet and Violet* are a full Wide-Open Sandbox, but traversal is made more difficult by various terrain features. Completing parts of the Path Of The Titans quest, increases the power of Koraidon/Miraidon, allowing for a dash, two levels of jumping, swimming, climbing, and gliding. A smaller version also happens at the beginning, where the player is stuck in the first area of the southern province of Paldea until they reach the school and start up the Treasure Hunt.
-
*Rave Heart*: The player is mostly railroaded into new locations until they clear Kor's Facility, at which point the Atlas can take the party to almost any location in the galaxy to complete sidequests.
- In
*Romancing SaGa*, the world starts opening up once you finish your main character's Prologue; as you visit different places for the first time, they're marked on your map and become more easily accessible.
- In
*Secret of Mana* and *Trials of Mana*, gaining access to Flammie allows the party to travel through the air, providing access to previously unseen locations.
-
*Shin Megami Tensei*:
- After the End, whenever relevant in the mainline games. This also tends to happen pretty early when it does.
- In
*Persona 5*, while your Player Character arrives in Tokyo on 4/9, the game proceeds on a linear path for the first 9 days. On 4/18, you are allowed to explore daytime Tokyo, do Confidants, and go to the Palace. Sojiro allows you to explore nighttime Yongen-Jaya on 4/25 and cuts you loose on nighttime Tokyo on 5/6, and you unlock Mementos the next day.
-
*Shadow Hearts* likes to open all the side quests when the Very Definitely Final Dungeon appears.
- First game: After the Float rises. You can't go back to China, however.
-
*Covenant*: Pretty much anytime, really, but the sandbox truly opens once the Stone Circle activates.
-
*From The New World*: Once you step into the Gate.
-
*Steambot Chronicles* stops railroading you around when you finish the tournament. You could do some sidequests before, but were forced to remain in the same city or surrounding area until this point.
- The point at which everything is available in
*Tales of Symphonia* comes VERY late in the game. Specifically, you need to enter the final room but not use the warp that leads to the final boss. At that point you can leave and do all the quests.
- Most of the Optional Bosses (And your final member) in
*Wild ARMs: Alter Code F* require you to go halfway into the final dungeon, grab a specific item and leave.
-
*Xenoblade Chronicles* and its sequels usually start in a smaller area, where the player gets to get acclimated to the controls and sets up the characters and story. Once the plot truly gets underway, that's usually when the game gives you access to the first major area (Gaur Plains, Primodia, Gormotti, etc...)
- Most
*Ys* games start out linearly, gradually opening up the rest of the world, and usually providing you with a warp item to quick-travel to previous areas. Usually, there's at least one Point of No Return just before or at the beginning of the Final Dungeon.
- In
*Baldur's Gate*, the main opening happened immediately after Gorion was killed, with new maps unlocked as the chapters progress (it takes a fair while until you actually get to the eponymous city, for example). In the sequel, the moment you step out of Irenicus' dungeon (with a second opening after you step out of ||the Underdark||).
-
*Cyberpunk 2077* features the two-tiered variation of this trope: the sandbox is opened to you partially at the end of the (largely on-rails) Prologue, but you can only access about a quarter of Night City due to the police cordoning your native Watson district off from the rest of the city until the end of Act I. The rest of the sandbox is fully opened up at the beginning of Act II.
-
*Diablo III* puts you on a linear path during the Campaign mode, but once you complete it, Adventure mode is unlocked and you can go wherever you want on the game map, with sidequests and Bounties as incentives to explore Sanctuary. Several areas exclusive to Adventure mode open up, as well. This is averted in the console ports, where Adventure is available from the get go.
-
*Dragon Age*:
-
*Dragon Age: Origins*: After you leave Lothering, you're free to go to each of the four armies you need to recruit in any order you wish, as well as visit any other location on the world map.
-
*Dragon Age II*: The world isn't as open as that in *Origins*, but after meeting Varric in the very first cutscene of Act I, you're finally allowed to visit any of the locations within Kirkwall or its outskirts, whereas in the Prologue you were confined to linear progression.
-
*Dragon Age: Inquisition*, for all its trying to be more sandbox-ey than the previous installments, doesn't quite open up until you make yourself at home in Skyhold, about 15 hours in. It does let you out into the Hinterlands—the biggest open area in the entire game—early on (right after the tutorial and Haven), but higher-level locations don't appear on the Point-and-Click Map until Skyhold.
- Throughout
*The Elder Scrolls* series, this happens *very* early on compared to most other series. In most of the games, this happens right after character creation and escaping the Noob Cave tutorial level, which can be mere *minutes* into the game. *Morrowind* takes this to an extreme, releasing you into the world *immediately after character creation*. At that point, Beef Gates are the only thing preventing you from accessing absolutely everything.
-
*Fallout*:
-
*Fallout 3* confines you to an underground vault, which serves as a tutorial level to teach you about combat and using your Pip-Boy, in the early part of the game. You eventually escape after the Vault falls into chaos, gaining access to the rest of the world.
-
*Fallout: New Vegas* employs a downplayed version:
- The game attempts to confine you to find the man who tried to kill you in the early parts of the game with Beef Gates. But the game also leaves options open for more perceptive players to device a way to sneak past the Deathclaws at Quarry Junction or evade the Cazadors and Giant Radscorpions north of Goodsprings to get directly to Vegas. The game even has special dialogue from various NPCs if the player opts for this option.
- The 188 Trading Post north of Novac is the point where the entirety of the map is within reach of the player, where previously Beef Gates and terrain obstacles kept you confined.
-
*Fallout 4* starts you off in the year 2077, mere minutes from when the bombs start dropping, to create your character and assign your SPECIAL points. After awakening from cryostasis, your fight to leave the abandoned Vault serves as a combat tutorial. Once you're out of the Vault, the Commonwealth opens up to you.
- In
*Knights of the Old Republic*, once you get off Dantooine, you can go to whichever planet you want any time you want. ||Except, you know, Taris.||
- In
*Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords*, you are finally permitted free roam of the galaxy once you reclaim the Ebon Hawk for the second time and get yourself off Telos.
-
*Mass Effect*:
-
*Mass Effect* hands you your ship and turns you loose after a couple hours of gameplay. Some people feel slightly intimidated by this. However, you still can't access *all* the star systems until you complete missions that unlock them, and there's no point at which you can freely go to any of the available planets; when you unlock the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, you lose the ability to go back to ||the Citadel||.
-
*Mass Effect 2* lets you loose once you finish Freedom's Progress and ||receive the Normandy SR-2||, but you can't explore *all* of the galaxy until after Horizon, about a third of the way through the game.
-
*Mass Effect 3* opens up the sandbox after escaping from Mars, but more and more the star systems are gradually unlocked after each Priority mission.
-
*Might and Magic VI* to *IX* had a gradual opening of sidequests and (to a somewhat lesser degree) locations over the course of the game, as well as an early moment when you can start crossing maps (VI arguably isn't an example, since that moment is when the game starts, but the other three have at least *some* degree of quest-finishing before that point).
-
*OMORI* railroads you into going to specific areas in the prologue and the first day, blocking you off from areas you don't need to go at the moment by explaining that your Player Character has a phobia of whatever is en route to undiscovered locations you don't need to visit yet, having an NPC Roadblock, or having ||dense, unnavigable fog||. On the third day, after defeating the main bosses of Last Resort, you're able to go back to anywhere in Headspace that you previously visited, thus reopening a lot of sidequests that were temporarily closed off.
-
*The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt* starts out in White Orchard, a relatively small and simple tutorial map to get the player used to the basics. After killing the Royal Griffin and going to Vizima's Royal Palace, the game's main areas of Velen, Novigrad, and the Skellige Isles all open up, along with quests from the *Hearts of Stone* and *Blood and Wine* expansions. While the game encourages going through them in that order, the player can complete the arcs in whatever order they please so long as they can get through the Beef Gates and Cash Gates.
- The "Diplomatic Relations" mission in
*Escape Velocity: Override* is necessary for unlocking most of the non-human, non-Voinian mission strings.
- In
*Galaxy on Fire 3D*, you can travel to other star systems after the end of the (short) main storyline. In the sequel, you get access to most systems shortly after the first few missions, although some systems are only unlocked via the storylines (main plus 2 DLCs) or by purchasing the coordinates from certain people. Most systems are connected to the Portal Network, but some require the use of the Khador Drive (including the system you start in).
-
*Endless Sky* has two related openings: completing a tier 1 storyline note : as of May 2020 only the Free Worlds one is completed and implemented, and acquiring a jump drive. The tier 1 storyline unlocks the tier 2 storylines and many tier 2 missions, and the jump drive (which is most easily acquired towards the end of a tier 1 storyline, but *can* be acquired earlier) allows you to go to systems that aren't connected to human space with hyperlinks|| or wormholes||.
- Unlike other games in the series which unlock the sandbox from the get-go,
*Animal Crossing: New Horizons* locks you to the area around Airport at the beginning as the player has no ability to cross the river that cuts through the island. The player can unlock the vaulting pole DIY recipe after getting Blathers to your island, which requires giving Tom Nook 5 bugs or fish to entice Blathers there. Eventually, Tom Nook will give you the ladder DIY recipe to climb cliff sides with, mainly so you can gather materials to build furniture to entice more villagers to come. Once you upgrade the Resident Services to a permanent building note : which requires the Museum and Nook's Cranny to be built and three additional villagers having moved in Tom Nook will offer to build bridges and inclines (with donations) in order to make island traversal easier without having to use the vaulting pole or ladder as much.
-
*Jet Force Gemini*: Initially, each of the three main playable characters has a predefined route to reach Mizar's Palace, and each planet or space vessel will only be accessible for a specific character. However, after they reach the central destination and Mizar is defeated for the first time, they will be able to explore any planet available up to that point as they initiate The Great Repair, which grants access to locations that were unavailable for their original visitors.
- The 360 game
*Crackdown* is already a GTA-ish sandbox game to start with. But once you've beaten all three gangs and finished the end-game you can roam freely around the city with all your powerups available and the option of re-starting any of your previous missions in a mode that feels much more like opening the sandbox than just having finished the game and being able to run around. There is also an DLC that adds God Mode, which has an option that also effectively gives you an opening the sandbox mode.
-
*Grand Theft Auto* games frequently have a form of this, as access to the full map is typically restricted until progressing to specific points in the story.
-
*Grand Theft Auto III* starts with you restricted to Portland Island, the easternmost island of Liberty City, as the bridge to Staunton Island and the rest of the city gets blown up by a bomb in the introduction and the underground tunnel is still under construction. Once you get to Staunton Island by a boat, the bridge is completed and that portion of the tunnel is opened, but access to Shoreside Vale is still blocked off as its lift bridge is out of commission and that part of the tunnel is sealed off for repairs.
- At the start of
*Grand Theft Auto: Vice City* you have several questlines to choose from and it's not immediately obvious which one is the "main" quest, giving you a good bit of freedom to play on the half of the map you have open. However, pretty soon you usurp the local mobster, the bridges are reopened to the other half of the city, and the full sandbox opens up with the ability to buy properties and doing missions at your choosing.
- Played with in
*San Andreas*. Just like the previous games, the other areas of the map are blocked off from the one you start in by closed off bridges and water. What's different is CJ doesn't have Super Drowning Skills like his predecessors and can cross the water no problem. The problem is as soon as you get on land you will get *an automatic 4-star wanted level* you can only remove after you have gone back to the areas you can explore.
- As for the actual Opening The Sandbox moments, they include San Fierro and the rural counties Whetstone and Flint County to its south after "The Green Sabre" and Las Venturas and the rural areas Tierra Robada and Bone County to its north and west after "Yay Ka-Boom Boom." In addition, optional Safehouses in certain areas are locked from purchase until certain story quests are done even if you had access to them. These include Red County (the rural areas north and west of Los Santos) after "The Green Sabre," San Fierro until after "Are You Going To San Fierro," and Las Venturas after "Learning To Fly."
-
*Grand Theft Auto IV* confines you to Broker, Dukes, and Bohan at first due to an ongoing terrorism alert closing most of the bridges, and you unlock the other areas as you progress. Algonquin is unlocked when you meet Playboy X, and Alderney is unlocked after the bank robbery mission.
-
*Grand Theft Auto V* is an odd example. From the start, after the very first mission, the whole San Andreas map is open to you, but it's only after you unlock all three characters that you can fully explore and interact with the entire world.
-
*Just Cause 2* starts you off raiding a military base and then a casino to teach the player the basics, then opens up the entire nation on Panau for you to explore. Many of the early Faction missions are disguised examples of what you can do in the sandbox.
-
*Spore*: After passing the first four objective-based levels, you are free to explore and colonize the universe as you see fit.
-
*Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep*: Once you advance the plot past an area which has some sort of limitation imposed on you (the freezing seas, the abyssal trench, etc.), you are provided with an item which allows you to explore them at your leisure.
-
*Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon*: The tutorial and prologue mission are entirely linear and confine you to the southwest corner of the map. Only afterwards do you get to explore.
-
*Fuel*: New Zones are unlocked as you accumulate Career Stars.
-
*Starbound*: Once your ship's FTL drive is repaired, you're free to go anywhere.
-
*Saints Row*: Downplayed in the original. While you can go anywhere and take on any open-world activity in Stilwater from the moment you gain control of Playa, there are hardly any incentives to leave the eponymous neighborhood until you've completed the first few missions for the gang and secured its hold on the Row. It's only after that is done that you are given story missions that take you to other 'hoods, giving Playa an in-story motivation to explore the entire sandbox. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpenTheSandbox |
Half-Identical Twins - TV Tropes
*"Amazing! An exact duplicate of your brother. Only with pigtails."*
A set of twins who look and act for all the world like they're identical, except for the
*miiiinor* detail that one's male and the other's female.
It's common — especially in drawn or animated media, where the creator has complete control over the appearance of the characters — to use brother-sister twins as being each other's Distaff Counterpart and Spear Counterpart. They often display identical twin tropes, such as Twin Telepathy or Synchronization —
*especially if they are Creepy Twins.* It's a way to make sure that twins, even if they're not identical, are immediately identifiable as such if it's relevant to their characters, and there are no other visual cues to show that siblings are fraternal twins instead of just regular brothers and sisters. If the two siblings drift apart at any point during the story, a Twin Desynch is likely, and often occurs at puberty when the secondary sexual characteristics start becoming more apparent. In fact, if they *don't* desynch to some degree during puberty, they're likely to come across as a little *too* close.
Also note that due to the androgynous features of this trope, such twins will traditionally be depicted as Ambiguous Gender, playing Dude Looks Like a Lady, Bishōnen and Wholesome Crossdresser for the brother, and Genki Girl, Tomboy-type Tsundere for the sister. For this reason, this trope is also very common in stories with Transgender Fetishization and Otokonoko Genre or Sweet on Polly Oliver, where it serves as a standard explanation for the protagonist's femininity or the reason for his forced dressing up. On a less fetishistic note, one twin being trans can be used as a plausible explanation for this trope. In this case, the twins look the same because they're
*genetically* identical, but their *gender identity* is different, and one twin has transitioned to better reflect that identity.
In Real Life, this would fall under Strong Family Resemblance, as any set of fraternal twins, opposite sex or otherwise, are no more or less likely to resemble each other than normal brothers and sisters, other than being the same age.
Compare to the rare real-life phenomenon of semi-identical twins, where the twins have identical genes from their mother and different genes from their father, and thus can be the same sex or opposite sexes. This could lead to an Uncanny Family Resemblance if the sperm are similar enough.
This trope is perhaps the most glaring example of Always Identical Twins.
Compare Opposite-Sex Clone.
## Examples:
- The
*Official Fanfiction University* of *Redwall* has an excuse for this; in one of the original printings of the book *Redwall*, the character Killconey swapped between male and female pronouns thanks to a typographical error. (According to later printings he's meant to be male, in case you're wondering.) In the OFUR, this has resulted in there now being two of him, one male and one female. The female one is generally referred to as Konnie to avoid confusion. She's technically more of an Opposite-Sex Clone, but they think of each other as twins.
- In the
*Doctor Who* fanfic *Gemini,* the last two surviving Time Lord test subjects of the military research facility are a genetically identical man "TL-13-Alpha" and woman "TL-13-Beta"
- Ash and Caiden from
*VOCALOID Forever*, along with Rin and Len Kagamine listed below.
- Grodyn and Rhejya from
*The Servants of Ungoliant*.
- The
*Animaniacs* fan series *Zany To The Max* has Zak Warner and his sister, Ko. Then they're conjoined.
- The roleplay group
*The Strex Family* has Diego and Divina, who in addition to being half-identical are supremely creepy.
- The Beauvoi twins, Reynard and Hermione, from
*Be Careful* are described as this, with Reynard being referred to by Lord Voldemort in one side-story as looking like a male version of Hermione, which is particularly notable given that their canon counterparts, Hermione Granger and ||Draco Malfoy|| are not related and bear no resemblance to one another at all.
- In a few
*Knights of the Old Republic* fanfics, there would be both the male and female versions of the Player Character, which was both a nod to the Skywalker twins and a way to further obscure the Tomato Surprise by use of Collective Identity. This spread into *Mass Effect* where there'd be a John and Jane Shepherd co-leading the *Normandy* crew. This was probably the reason why *Mass Effect: Andromeda* just shrugged and made a set of twins for the protagonists (though you only play as one of them).
- Justified in
*RWBY: Scars* with Weiss and Whitley. It's not clarified if they're fraternal or identical but they look a lot alike nevertheless. Not only do Schnee's have a Strong Family Resemblance on default, but Whitley is a trans boy.
- In
*Prison Island Break*, Shadow the Hedgehog can tell that E-123 Omega's Living Battery is his sister - or at least, an experiment based on his genes - even though she's also a feline instead of a hedgehog, because she has distinctive red streaks on her body and around her eyes, and chest fur.
- "The Victors Project" has Gloss and Cashmere as this. When they were adolescents, once Cashmere had to cut her hair after some gum got stuck in her hair, and until it grew back none of their friends or relatives could tell her or Gloss apart.
-
*Pack Street* has Anneke and Wolter, who are at least depicted this way in the art, and common fan art has fun with the two of them being confused for each other. In the actual text, however, people seldom have trouble telling them apart, even the generally clueless Remmy.
- In
*South Park* fandom it's pretty common to depict Kevin Stoley and Esther has twins, simply because their designs fit this trope so well. Officially we know little about either of their families.
- In
*Velma Dinkley's Beginning*, we have Jessie, who's the twin sister of Red Herring. She and the other popular girls beat up Velma, because a nerd like her talked to their friend Daphne and crush Fred. She even threatens to have her brother beat up Shaggy if she doesn't stay away from them.
**Jessie:**
Look Dorkley
, I don't know how you talk to Freddie without him ignoring you but that stops now. If you ever go near Freddie again, you're dead.
- With exception to gender, Adam and Adora in
*Yin-Yang* are practically mirror images of each other. When Catra read the newspapers detailing the royal family reuniting, she notes that Adam was "almost [Adora's] exact double." Bow also makes note of this resemblance after meeting Adam.
- In the Sanders Sides fanfic "Kill the Lights" Roman and Remus are revealed to be this: they're identical twins, but Remus is a cis woman while Roman is a trans man.
- Hazeltail and Mousewhisker in the
*Better Bones AU*, due to Hazeltail being transgender. Though they are actually two out of a set of triplets, the third who doesn't look like them at all.
- Widget and Sludge from the 2009 film of
*Astro Boy*.
- Tuffnut and Ruffnut Thorston from the film adaptation of
*How to Train Your Dragon*. It becomes a bit less pronounced in the sequels, as they get older, but the resemblance is still very strong.
- John and Dawn in
*Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation* (as seen in the page image) are indistinguishable apart from Dawn's pigtails.
- The protagonists of
*Les Messagers du Temps*: The Prince and the Princess of Time are twins and are described as looking exactly alike. Despite this, the Princess often gets compliments about her beauty.
- The legendary immortals known only as the Twins in Trudi Canavan's
*Age Of The Five* trilogy appear to be this to begin with — they were originally not only identical, but conjoined. They separated themselves with magic to avoid detection, and some time afterwards, one of the twins changed from female to male using similar magic. It was really confusing how one could be female and the other male given their history, and the reference to 'the change' is really easy to miss...
- Averted in Lev AC Rosens
*All Men of Genius*: Based on William Shakespeares *Twelfth Night*, Violet does disguise herself as her twin brother Ashton, but only to people that don't know them. People have no problem telling Violet/"Ashton" and Ashton/"Ashtons cousin Ashton" apart.
-
*Arly Hanks*: In *Maggody and the Moonbeams*, Dahlia insists that her twins are "identical", because they look a lot alike to *her* and she's convinced it'll get them successful Hollywood careers. The contrary fact they're different sexes is ignored, as she doesn't actually know what "identical" means in this context.
- Hideyoshi and Yuuko Kinoshita in
*Baka and Test: Summon the Beasts*. Hideyoshi is so feminine that without even crossdressing, he's mistaken for his own sister.
- Both sets of
*The Bobbsey Twins* are explicitly stated to bear a close physical resemblance to each other. Nan and Bert are both tall, dark-haired, and slender, while Flossie and Freddie are small, blonde, and chubby.
-
*Chronicles of the Kencyrath* has heroine Jame and her Half-Identical Twin brother Torisen. Jame and Tori look **really** similar: Jame is quite androgynous, and Tori is a tad androgynous too — but they're *ten years apart in age*, thanks to some Year Outside, Hour Inside magic. And *still*, Jame is frequently mistaken for her brother. Once she's better known, *he* is mistaken for *her* too — but only once, because that's when he stops finding it amusing and decides to defy the trope by growing a beard.
- Implied in the Dollanganger Series'' with Cathy's younger twin siblings Cory and Carrie. They're described as looking extremely alike, to the point where if Carrie's hair was cut short it would be almost impossible to tell them apart. ||Their parents are half-uncle and half-niece, and in fact are also half-siblings, which accounts for the Strong Family Resemblance.||
-
*The Empirium Trilogy*: The male Ilmaire and the female Ingrid are a pair of twins, born to the King of Borsvall. They both sport the Borsvallic blond eyes and hair and are similarly pale skinned. In terms of personality, though, they're quite different.
- In
*The Famous Five* book *Five on Finniston Farm*, there are the "two Harries" twins, who look alike and often speak in unison, but one is a boy, and one is a girl. The boy was originally called Henry, and the girl Harriet, and they became known as the "two Harries".
- Poppy Z. Brite's novel
*The Lazarus Heart* features identical twins, one of whom is a transgender woman.
- The Lockhart And Teague series has the Constant twins who look very similar, although Sebastian is slightly prettier.
- In
*Orlando Furioso*, Ricardetto takes advantage of being always mistaken for Brademante to woo a princess who fell in love with his twin sister. He claims to have been turned into a man by a grateful water nymph.
- In
*Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm Queen of the Dead*, Chris and Anne Domingo mention offhand that they are genetically identical other than the difference of an X chromosome. Unlike the usual trope, they look different from each other (except for their shared devilish appearance) with Anne being notably taller than Chris.
-
*Redwall*: The Marlfoxes, a family of *seven* siblings (who may or may not be actual septuplets, given that they're foxes and could be one big litter) described as all looking almost identical.
-
*The Secret History*: Charles and Camilla initially appear to conform to this trope. As the plot unravels, their personality differences become more apparent they lose their united front (Twin Desynch).
*Side by side, they were very much alike, in similarity less of lineament than of manner and bearing, a correspondence of gesture which bounced and echoed between them so that a blink seemed to reverberate, moments later, in a twitch of the other's eyelid.*
- In
*The Shadowspawn* trilogy, at first glance heroine Ellen mistakes her lover Adrian's twin sister Adrienne for him. Justified in that they're offspring of a highly inbred vampire-werewolf-sorcerer species.
- In Sheri S. Tepper's
*Sideshow*, two of the main characters are *conjoined* twins of different genders. This is justified in that they were both born intersex, with ambiguous genitalia. The doctors asked their parents for their opinion on what to do, and while the father was certain that the first one was male (the Virgin Mary had told him so), the mother thought it would be nice to have a little girl. Naturally, the two run into some problems at puberty, since they share a circulatory system, but they each identify as the gender they were assigned and raised as.
- As children, Thom and Alanna, of Tamora Pierce's
*Song of the Lioness* series, were so much alike in face and body shape as to be mistaken for each other if dressed alike, which they exploit when their father sends them away from home for their schooling as teens, thus kicking off the plot. Swapping places allows Alanna to train as a knight and Thom to become a mage. The only distinguishing feature of the twins at that time was the length of their hair. It stops applying once they're grown, as Alanna comments that Thom has grown taller than she when they meet as older teenagers.
- In Kathryn Lasky's
*Starbuck Twins Mystery* series of books for children, fraternal twins Liberty and July Starbuck are described as indistinguishable from one another save for the fact that Liberty's hair is long, and her brother July's is short. They also display Twin Telepathy.
- The
*Star Wars Legends* continuity has Leia and Han's first two children, Jaina and Jacen Solo. Timothy Zahn, who wrote the novels in which they first appear, deliberately modeled them after the Luke/Leia duo. In this case, though, it makes a little bit more sense, since they are raised together.
- In
*A Series of Unfortunate Events*: The Quagmire triplets are "absolutely identical," so how the Baudelaires tell whether they're talking to male Duncan or female Isadora is a mystery although Isadora is illustrated with subtly longer hair. But at least the two brothers Duncan and Quigley never share a scene.
- Ser Jaime and Queen Cersei Lannister of
*A Song of Ice and Fire*. As kids, they looked so much alike that they would sometimes wear each other's clothes and swap places for a day without anyone suspecting. The fact that their parents were cousins might have helped. They're also Twincestuous (with the implication that the narcissistic Cersei sees it as the closest she can get to Screw Yourself). When Jaime starts to grow a beard while spending time as a prisoner in the third book, he thinks to himself that Cersei will hate that it makes them look less alike, and it becomes a very important symbol of their growing distance. It's also noted to Cersei's displeasure that Loras and Margaery Tyrell look even more alike, despite not being twins.
-
*Split Heirs*: Artemisia's triplets look completely identical-two are boys, one a girl raised as a boy.
-
*Survivor Dogs*: Spring and Twitch look a lot alike. The only differences are their sexes and Twitch's lame paw.
- Heinlein's
*Time Enough for Love*:
- A couple of female genetic scientists create a
*pair* of Half-Identical Twins for Lazarus Long: two redheaded women named Lazuli and Lorelei, or Laz-Lor. Lazarus calls them his "identicals" even though they're not exactly, being girls. And then they engage in a threesome that is either Twincest, BrotherSister Incest, or father-daughter incest, depending on how you interpret the relationship. Please keep in mind that Lazarus himself is a pretty blatant Author Avatar.
- Lazarus also bought a pair of slaves to free who had been produced by careful genetic engineering. Said engineering ensured that, while they were brother and sister, they had no genetic relationship (having been created from perfectly complementary gametes, each bearing different halves of each parent's genes). They were sold as a novelty, with complete documentation included in the package. Since they know they're full siblings, they had to be taught why it wouldn't be a good idea for their children to produce children with each other.
- Lawrence Sander's
*The Tomorrow File* references a pair of opposite-sex "identical (and incestuous) twins" named Francis and Frances.
- In
*Wolves of the Calla*, the fifth book of Stephen King's *The Dark Tower* series, almost all births in the village where the story is set are Half-Identical Twins; this is an explicitly unnatural and evil effect, however, with villains periodically kidnapping and Mind Raping one from nearly every set.
- In
*The Beverly Hillbillies*, cast regular Max Baer Jr. would occasionally show up as Jethro Bodine's twin sister Jethrine (voiced by Linda Henning). Dietrich Bader did the same as Jethro and Jethrine in the 1993 movie.
-
*The Big Bang Theory* averts this by giving Sheldon a fraternal twin sister, Missy, who could pass for a sister but is not simply him with a wig. Sheldon explains the scientific errors behind this trope in his typical Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness. Howard replies, "Hallelujah!" as Missy is rather attractive and Sheldon is rather gaunt.
- Also averted on
*The Edison Twins*: Annie is a redhead, while her twin Tom is blonde. (There was even an episode in which they explained the concept of fraternal vs. identical twins.) Meanwhile, their younger brother Paul is a brunette!
- Butch Lesbian "Walter" from German series
*Hinter Gittern Der Frauenknast* (" *Behind Bars - the Women's Prison*") has a twin brother who's apparently indistinguishable from her without his beard. They use this in one episode to change roles, allowing her to escape and him to get closer to several female prisoners.
- Justified in a
*Law & Order: Special Victims Unit* episode, where what appear to be Half-Identical Twins turn out to have been born as identical twin males. One twin's genitals were badly injured by a botched circumcision, and a crackpot doctor convinced the parents he'd grow up happier if given a sex change to female (s/he wasn't).
- Tragically Truth in Television; there was apparently a real rash of this kind of thing back in the 70s, when cutting edge thinkers had decided that gender was just a matter of socialization. Turns out it's a little more complicated than that. See Wikipedia: David Reimer. It happened more than once because the first doctor, John Money, who performed it wrote medical articles stating that the procedure went well without aftereffects, because he didn't like the results he got — they conflicted with his theory.
-
*Little Lunch*: Nobody knows which of Max and Elsa is which, even though they know one is male and one is female. The fact they both use the boys' toilets makes it more confusing, as does their tendency to speak simultaneously.
- The short lived FOX series
*Mental* had the part about a botched circumcision resulting in a sex change. It was all fine, until the "girl" ended up lighting him/herself on fire for no apparent reason and kept seeing him/herself in the mirror without a face. The protagonist (a rebellious psychiatrist) realized what was going on. The "girl's" true identity as a male was trying to push its way to the surface. "She" didn't even have proper female genitalia, just a prosthetic designed to look like one. The crackpot who convinced her father to do this planned to give "her" a vagina when "she" was 18. (Because every girl waits until she's 18 before having sex or masturbating, and wouldn't notice the difference because No Periods, Period is normal.) Naturally, when "her" boyfriend finds out the truth, he runs away in disgust. At the end, "she" gets a boyish haircut and decides to try to explore the male lifestyle, even though, without certain body parts, the experience would be far from complete.
- The Saperstein twins, Jean-Ralphio and Mona Lisa, of
*Parks and Recreation*. Both are similarly spoiled, self-centered, and obnoxious (although Mona Lisa is worse). They're even played by actors who resemble each other, Ben Schwartz and Jenny Slate.
-
*Power Rangers RPM* has the peppy twin geniuses Gem and Gemma. They have several superficial differences if you look close enough, but you have to look *very* closely - not because the differences are minor, because they aren't, but because the twins in question are *just that single-minded*.
- In
* Raven's Home*, Nia mentions that her hairstyle is the only thing that separates her from her twin brother. Of course their actors don't look similar, though Nia could also have been joking.
- Subverted in
*Sykes*, in which Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques played twins (called Eric and Hattie) who insisted that they were identical twins, despite the fact that they looked completely different to each other — Sykes was very thin, while Jacques was a somewhat large lady — in addition to being the opposite sex.
- Vocaloid's Rin and Len Kagamine are sometimes portrayed this way (they're colloquially referred to in the fanbase as "the twins"). Officially, they look similar (same eye color, same hair color), have the same surname, and are opposite genders, but whether they're twins, mirror images, or something else entirely has been intentionally left to anyone's interpretation by Word of God (although it should be noted that Len is canonically taller than Rin by a few centimeters, meaning that if they
*were* twins they wouldn't actually be an example of this trope as far as their official portrayal goes). This ends up functional in that individual creators producing work with them are left free to make them twins, lovers, both, different versions of the same person, complete strangers, or whatever is necessary for the individual work. In fact, most works that *do* portray them as twins don't necessitate in-story that their faces look exactly alike (with one of the famous exceptions being their incarnations as Riliane and Allen in the *Evillious Chronicles* saga).
- In
*The Adventure Zone*, ||Lup|| is revealed to be ||Taako||'s twin sister. Justified in that ||Lup|| is trans, and her and her brother's general ambivalence to gendered fashions make their wardrobes very similar.
- Oliver and Olivia Kennedy from the
*Cool Kids Table* game *Creepy Town*.
- Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer are implied to be twins. They look very similar, to the point where their owners can't tell them apart, but their markings are actually different.
- Siegmund and Sieglinde from
*Die Walküre*.
- Older Than Steam: See Sebastian and Viola from William Shakespeare's
*Twelfth Night*. Viola, assuming her brother is dead, disguises herself as a man — so when the actually-not-dead Sebastian returns, he promptly gets mistaken for his "sister". This could be seen as reflecting Shakespeares life as the father of opposite sex twins, Hamnet and Judith; Hamnet died in childhood.
- Isabelle and Digby from the
*Animal Crossing* series look similar besides fur color and clothing. In *Happy Home Designer*, Digby insists on being called a twin brother, not a little brother.
-
*Assassin's Creed: Odyssey* plays this with its optional protagonists, Alexios and Kassandra, both of whom look pretty much identical save for the former having a squarer jaw and being unshaven. Ironically, they're not even twins; one was a young child when the other was born (the older sibling is whichever one the player chooses to play), but they have such strong family resemblance and are close enough in age anyway one could easily pass for the other's Distaff or Spear Counterpart (which is kind of the point of the choice).
-
*Astral Chain* features the Howard twins. Like certain other examples, you play as one while the one you didn't choose becomes a supporting character. In this case, the chosen twin's name will be player-determined, while the supporting twin will always be named Akira.
- Nox and Matin Catorce are identical brother and sister twins from Blind Justice ~Torn souls, Hurt Faiths~ by Zektbach in the
*beatmania* series. Both twins also have special swords that are identical, although one represents Hope and the other Despair.
- Subverted in
*BioShock Infinite*. Robert and Rosalind Lutece seem to be this at first, though this is the *least* abnormal trait they display. They actually turn out to be ||different versions of the same person from parallel universes||.
- In the
*Bleach* video game *The Third Phantom*, we have the main protagonists Matsuri and Fujimaru Kudo, both have similar hair and eye colors and both are noted to have similarly enormous talent and spiritual pressure.
- Reynold and Wren from
*Costume Quest*. The player chooses which one they want to play, the only real difference between the two being gender, and saves the one that they didn't choose.
- Prince Alaric and Princess Alana, in
*Cute Knight Kingdom*. ||They're so identical that for a long time, they're able to get away with pretending to be a single individual called Al. The observant player, however, will note that their eyes are different colors.||
-
*Dance Central*: Jaryn and Kerith are pretty much similar in every aspect, both physical and behavioral except gender, to the point most of the other characters think they're creepy. There's a reason these two are always introduced together both in-game and in media; they're basically the same person, split into two only because the game needs two dancers per crew.
-
*Dragalia Lost* Downplays this trope with Euden and Zethia, similar to Dipper and Mabel. Although they have the same face, same blond hair, and are even about the same height, they have distinct features, such as their eye color, with Euden having green eyes and Zethia having blue eyes. ||Although there is a slight subversion: Euden and Zethia are *not* twins, but rather, Euden is a clone of the original twin, Nedrick. When is comes to Nedrick and Zethia, this is completely averted, as Nedrick looks quite different from Zethia (even without his curse). This means that Euden looks just like a male version of his aunt.||
-
*Dragon Quest V*: Parry and Madchen, the hero's blonde children. Parry is mainly a physical attacker whereas Madchen is the magic powerhouse. Also, for whatever reason, Parry is the only who can wield the Zenithian Sword, even though both children are descendant of *Dragon Quest IV*'s legendary hero Solo/Sofia.
- Averted in
*Eagle Eye Mysteries* with the title protagonists, Jake and Jennifer Eagle. Besides the obvious gender differences, he's a redhead and she's brown-haired.
- James and Francine Garrett, twin co-owners of the Atomic Wrangler in
*Fallout: New Vegas*. Fran is... not attractive because of it.
-
*Final Fantasy*:
- Palom and Porom from
*Final Fantasy IV* qualify as this. The original sprites lacked sufficient detail to make it clear whether they were meant to be identical or simply share a number of similar traits and style of dress; but the CG renders in the DS edition depict them as having identical facial features.
- However, instead of being clones of one another, the two are characterized with distinct themes of reversal and mirror imagery. Not only the sexes, but elements of personality (Palom is boastful and rude, Porom reserved and polite), their style of dress (both are pictured wearing red and green outfits with identical patterns, but one's is red where the other's is green, and vice versa), their use of magic (Palom uses the destructive Black Magic, Porom uses the healing/supportive White Magic), and hairstyle (the sprites show a right/left reversal between the two, otherwise being identical; the portraits show Porom's hair looking well-groomed and Palom's hair looking rather messy).
- By the time that
*Final Fantasy IV: The After Years* rolls around, they've developed their own styles and no longer dress in complimentary outfits. They've also dyed their hair different colors (Porom's hair is now a vivid pink, whereas Palom has white-tipped bangs), which makes them look even less alike. However, they still have identical facial features and the CG renders depict them as being the exact same height even as adults, so they never manage to escape this trope completely.
- Alphinaud and Alisaie from
*Final Fantasy XIV* are this in terms of looks, but their personalities are so different that Alphinaud serves as a major character throughout the main plot, whilst Alisaie leaves soon after her introduction and is only important in the plot for the Binding Coil of Bahamut raid. Humorously, Alphinaud (the male twin) is frequently mistaken for Alisaie (the female twin), but not the other way around... at least until the first expansion, where she's shown a few times spying on the Warriors of Darkness and eventually returns to the main plot (with slightly different dialogue depending on whether you did the Coil or not) and becomes instrumental to their defeat. By the time the second expansion rolls around she's just as much part of the main cast as her brother. Patch 5.5 reveals that this is a Berserk Button for Alisaie ||when she rips Estinien a new one when he mistakes her for her brother showering praise to her. It's the hair ruffle that really pisses her off.||
-
*Fire Emblem*:
- Ayra's children Larcei and Scáthach, from
*Genealogy of the Holy War*.
- Also Yumina and Yubello, from
*Mystery of the Emblem*.
- And in
*The Sacred Stones*, the twins Ephraim and Eirika. They also are the main characters.
- The male and female Morgans and the male and female Kanas being twins is a rather popular fanon among
*Fire Emblem: Awakening* and *Fates* fans.
- In a similar vein, the male and female Avatars of
*Awakening*, *Fates*, and *Three Houses* are sometimes made into twins in some works where they both exist at the same time, like *Super Smash Bros.* To prevent confusion, one of them, usually Female Robin, Female Corrin and Female Byleth, is given their Japanese name (Reflet, Kamui, and Beresu/Bereto respectively).
-
*Fire Emblem Engage* has Clanne and Framme. They're twins who bear strong resemblances to each other, even having the similar braids. The main differences between them are That Clanne wears green while Framme wears pink. They also fight differently, as Clanne is a mage while Framme is a healer.
- Aether and Lumine of
*Genshin Impact* are a pair of twin Dimensional Travelers. The twin that the player does not choose as their avatar gets captured by one of the gods of the world they just arrived in, with the other twin having their dimensional powers stripped from them, and going on a journey to rescue their twin.
- Tsukino and Yosuke in
*Judgment*, to the point that Yagami tries to have Yosuke go undercover as his twin in order to catch a groper. Yosuke refuses, but the groper still mistakes him for Tsukino in the end.
- In
*The Last Blade 2*, a woman impersonates her dead twin brother, Kojiroh, a member of the Shinsengumi, in order to bring his killer to justice. She ends up living the rest of her life under the charade, taking on her brother's identity as a tribute to him.
-
*Mass Effect: Andromeda*: The protagonist is established in the character creation screen as one of a set of opposite-sex fraternal twins, and the character model for your twin uses the same settings you have, only gender-inverted.
- Vent and Aile in
*Mega Man ZX* seem to be like this... That, or they're just two versions of the same person. It depends on where you look.
- In
*Odin Sphere*, we have playable protagonist Velvet and her twin brother Ingway. While not exactly alike, both have similar features, share hair and eye colors, and have a tendency to wear rather Stripperiffic clothing.
- Tate and Liza, twin Gym Leaders in
*Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire*. They look so similar that it's a common mistake to think Tate is also a girl, thus making them fully identical.
- Alfred and Alexia in
*Resident Evil Code: Veronica*. In fact, the resemblance is so good that Alfred is able to convincingly pretend to be Alexia for several *years* after she was frozen in order to make people think she was still alive. Kind of explained in that ||they are really clones.||
- It's not normally obvious due to their normally different outfits
note : Rania wears a dress, Rahal wears armor and hairstyles, but Rahal and his sister Rania *Suikoden V* are near-identical. When Rahal is required to disguise himself as a woman, the player is likely to not realize what happened at first, and instead wonder "How did Rania get here, and what happened to her glasses?"
- Likewise, games in the
*Super Robot Wars* series often give you a choice for the Original Generation Player Character, and when those series get adapted to the *Super Robot Wars: Original Generation* sub-series, the different choices often undergo some form of Divergent Character Evolution and become their own characters. But in the case of Raul and Fiona Gureden of *Super Robot Wars Reversal* and Akimi Akatsuki of *Super Robot Wars GC* they were presented as a Male/Female choice of the same person. The OG games made them twins, and in Akimi's case, the sister was renamed "Akemi". Averted however with Ingram Plisken and Viletta Vadim of *Super Hero Sakusen*: they were male and female versions of the same character, but when introduced into *Super Robot Wars Alpha* and *Original Generation*, they became ||Opposite Sex Clones||.
- A rare Justified example through non-supernatural means occurs in
*Tell Me Why*: Alyson and Tyler were both assigned female at birth and are actually genetically identical, but Tyler is a trans man while Alyson is a cisgender woman.
- The protagonists in
*Young Souls* are seemingly identical Fiery Redhead twins, a boy and a girl.
- Averted and discussed in
*Ever17*. You are confused as to why ||Sara and the Kid|| don't have the same abilities or look similar despite being twins, at which point it's explained with some amusement that biology doesn't work like that.
- In the Murder Mystery
*Jisei*, one of the main characters has an identical twin sister who you don't see until the end of the game. It turns out that ||she and her brother were private investigators, and she deliberately sent her brother in as a mole to check out the murder scene. She was the telepathic voice helping the protagonist to solve the crime all along||.
- Played completely straight with the BrotherSister Team of Kaname◊ and Saori◊ Shishido from
*Shall We Date?: Ninja Shadow*. It's even a huge plot point since Kaname is killed off almost at the start of the game and Saori pulls a Sweet Polly Oliver to join a group of vigilante that he was supposed to become a part of, needing just an Important Haircut and putting on male clothes to pass as Kaname.
- Averted to some extent with the demons Zepar and Furfur from
*Umineko: When They Cry*, who are twins despite having differently coloured hair and different overall colour schemes — and then there's the fact that we don't know who's the boy and who's the girl. However, they do have the same eye colour and wear the exact same outfit.
- Played totally straight in
*Ladykiller in a Bind* where the plot revolves around the fact that The Beast can easily impersonate her brother by simply wearing a suit.
-
*DSBT InsaniT*: Killer and Killdra, who are both sarcastic goths who wear orange.
-
*Red vs. Blue* subverts this with North and South's faces — while both have very light blond/white hair, they look quite a bit different — but it's played fairly straight with their armor, which is subtly different colors of purple and green. When only one is on screen, it's hard to tell which it is unless they're standing next to someone (South is shorter than North) or you've gotten really good at picking out the different colors of purple (South is lighter and North is darker).
-
*AntiBunny*: Pluto and Persephone, in spite of being opposite genders, look nearly identical. Persephone tends to repeat anything Pluto says.
- Ember and their sister Ariel in
*Blindsprings*, with the variation that Ember is non-binary in gender identity, but was assigned male at birth. The only real visual difference is Ariel having longer hair.
-
*Catena*: The littermates Bear and Bryony don't act alike, but except for their hair and Bear's chin they're pretty nearly identical. Their other sister Patches, on describing Bryony, even comments to Bear that "She looks like you, only, you know, pretty."
- Sam and April of
*Dragon City* look identical aside from gender and April's glasses; but according to the Fourth-Wall Mail Slot they actually are identical. This is because gender in dragons is influenced by incubation temperature (as in crocodiles) rather than genes. Every other set of twins in the comic are obviously fraternal, even having differently colored scales.
-
*Drowtales*: Kau and Shala, seen briefly as children where the only visual differences between them are different shades of blue for their eyes, Shala (the girl) having more prominent eyelashes and Kau (the boy) having spikier hair tied on the other side. This is averted after the timeskip where there are a number of obvious differences between them, the main one being that following usual drow sexual dimorphism Shala is noticeably taller than her brother, and after chapter 46 Kau gains tainted red eyes, ||but Shala only lives a few minutes after this happens anyway||.
-
*Homestuck*: ||John and Jade||. Even before The Reveal, they are very similar in appearance and behavior (much more so than ||Rose and Dave||). This could be partly because their biological parents looked pretty similar as well.
-
*Hooky* features the twins Daniella and Dorian Whytte. As twelve-year-olds, they look alike except for their hairstyles and different - although matching - clothes, to the point that a major plot point in the first part of the webcomic is the question of which of them is featured in an important prophecy.
- Pince Rayburn and Princess Hoya from
*Im Stanning The Prince* look almost completely identical except for Hoya's longer hair, make-up and dimples.
- Aaron and Sharon in
*Pixie Trix Comix* are certainly very similar, though Aaron is a gawky teen guy (but by no means ugly — and he gets a little more appealing after he starts working out), while Sharon is Ms. Fanservice. The trope is actually implicitly invoked before Sharon meets the rest of the cast when Felix and Tracy learn that Aaron has a twin sister and admit to each other that they're curious what Aaron would look like with boobs. (They really should know better; they themselves are siblings, though not twins, and have no particular resemblance.) Later, Tracy tells Aaron that he shouldn't be so quick to deny that Sharon is hot, as he looks like her (he suffers from a blind spot on the subject due to raging Sibling Rivalry), and he (not entirely illogically) takes this as a sign that Tracy thinks *he* is hot.
- In
*Questionable Content*, people think that Claire and Clinton are this, but she's a couple years older than him. ||It also doesn't work because Claire's actually trans, so she was presumably raised as a male.||
-
*Surviving Romance* has the twins Minwoo and Seonwoo Ha, who despite their gender difference are noted by several characters to look identical.
-
*Tiger, Tiger* is about the noblewoman Ludovica takes the identity of her twin brother Remy in order to seek adventure and pursue her dream of studying sea sponges. Sure enough, the siblings look similar enough for her to pull off the charade, though they are actually drawn in subtly different ways, such as in the shape of their jaw. The most obvious difference is how Remy's beauty mark is by his eye while Ludo's is at the edge of her lip.
- Walky and Sal in
*It's Walky!*, but less so in *Joyce and Walky,* and not at all in *Dumbing of Age*. This is due to Art Evolution, with the fact that they do have differences (in particular, Sal claims Parental Favoritism for Walky because he "came out more white" while she has naturally kinky hair) being a point of contention between them. However, it might be there on *some* level, as Walky has mentioned that he's been mistaken for Sal before.
- In
*Welcome to Room #305*, there was a rumor around his campus that Yoongsung was a crossdresser. They really were seeing his twin sister, Yoona. Yoona's hair color is lighter but otherwise they look very similar.
-
*Critical Role*: Vex and Vax. Their official art depicts them with very similar features. The twins are also separated in Episode 20, and when another character asks Vax what his sister Vex looks like he points at his own face.
-
*Ben 10* episode "Camp Fear" features brother-sister twins named Andy and Mandy, who fit this trope to a T.
-
*Codename: Kids Next Door*: The Interesting Twins from Beneath the Mountain are the same height, have identical hair and eye colors, wear identical uniforms and bowl cuts and finish each other's sentences — and are a boy and a girl.
- Edgar & Ellen look exactly the same, except that Ellen has long hair in pigtails and no bangs. They even dress exactly alike.
- Downplayed in
*Gravity Falls*: Dipper and Mabel, the main characters, are twins with identical bodies and faces with the exception of small skin details (rosy cheeks for Mabel, eyebags and a red nose for Dipper); Mabel also has braces. The resemblance isn't generally brought up, as their clothes and personalities are closer to Polar Opposite Twins. In the defictionalized *Gravity Falls: Journal 3,* Dipper writes that Mabel looks like him but with "girl hair."
-
*Jacob Two-Two*: Noah and Emma are nearly identical, save for their different noses and hair colors, and Emma having pigtails. One episode showed that they have identical laundry piles.
- In
*Justice League Unlimited,* the Ultimen are based on the *Superfriends* team members who were created for the show instead of the comics. Their versions of the Wonder Twins, Downpour and Shifter, are so similar it's very difficult to tell them apart. Shifter doesn't have much in the way of the Most Common Superpower, so even examination of the chest area only works if they're standing side by side to compare. They even share a voice actor. Justified in that ||they are not actually twins, but somewhere between clones and genetically engineered super beings||.
-
*King of the Hill*: Before the Retcon, Peggy and her brother Hoyt were stated to look very much alike, but after the retcon they look nothing like each other.
- In
*Koala Man* Alison and Liam are fraternal twins and look very similar with the same hair color, face shape and general build. The most significant difference is Alison is a bit taller since girls tend to hit puberty first.
-
*The Legend of Korra*: Korra's cousins Desna and Eska are a pair of androgynous Creepy Twins who seem identical at first glance. Played for Laughs when Bolin is smitten with both of them, calling them "lovely ladies," before Korra tells him Desna is a guy. Bolin then has to ask which one Desna is. But once we start seeing them up close, it's clear that Eska, the girl, wears makeup and styles her hair in pigtails.
-
*Muppet Babies (1984)*: Scooter and Skeeter. Of course, appearance is where their similarity ends, as Scooter is a nerd and Skeeter is a total daredevil.
-
*My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip*: The Barrel twins are identical in most respects — they have the same color scheme, and by and large have entirely interchangeable personalities — but are a boy and a girl, requiring them to be fraternal twins who just so happen to look identical to one and another.
-
*The Owl House* has Amity Blight's elder siblings Edric and Emira. Apart from a few minor differences in appearance and personality, they put great effort into looking identical. Subverted in that they study the Illusion magical track at school and use their powers to amplify their resemblance; without them they look much less identical. They also start diverging from their primary track later in the show, reflecting their increasing tendency to drop the act and become their own individual. ||They look even less identical in the Distant Finale, where Edric's jawline is wider.||
-
*Rosie's Rules*: The recurring characters Quinn and Jun Liu are identical twins, except Quinn is a boy and Jun is a girl.
-
*Rugrats*: Phil and Lil. One episode has the twins managing to distract a robber just by removing Lil's bow to make her look exactly like Phil. Although it could be argued that most babies look alike anyway, in the spinoff, where the kids are 10-13, Phil and Lil can still pass for each other with a simple change of clothes and a wig.
-
*Superfriends*: The Wonder Twins Zan and Jayna.
-
*Strawberry Shortcake*: Lem and Ada from the 1980's series. Supposedly only their dog, Sugar Woofer, could tell them apart, despite Ada wearing a bow and Lem wearing a hat at all times.
- In
*3-2-1 Penguins!*, the only differences between Jason and Michelle are their outfits and Michelle's pigtails. As shown on this page's quote, Fidgel lampshades how alike they look.
-
*Woody Woodpecker*: Woody's niece and nephew, Splinter and Knothead, respectively.
-
*The Simpsons*: The twins from Audrey McConnell's 4th grade class at Springfield Elementary. The twins consist of one boy and one girl.
- The official medical terms for these kinds of births are sesquizygotic twins or semi-identical. They are incredibly rare. Of the theoretical 100 billion humans ever born, less than a thousand pairs — 0.00000002% of all humanity — are thought to be born like this. In modern recorded times, depending on how strict one categorizes amniotic genotyping, less than five proposed and only two medically confirmed. For this to occur, an unfertilised egg partially divides by cleaving into two new, albeit still-attached cells. These cells are then fertilised by two separate sperm cells, with the fertilised cells undergoing further division into a blastomere that then splits in half, thus creating twins. What is particularly unusual about this is that as the resultant twins carry chromosomes from both sperm cells in their own cells, they are chimeric, having a mixture of genetic information as a result of the unconventional nature of their formation.
- While extremely rare (only three to five known cases), there are cases in which otherwise identical twins can be of the opposite sex. More info here from The Other Wiki.
- One real-life occurrence that can produce boy-girl twins who are
*genetically* identical (but who do not bear a strong visual resemblance), is when a zygote that is 46,XY (a normal healthy boy), undergoes incomplete mitosis in the womb. One of the resulting zygotes is 46,XY (still a healthy boy), and the other has a missing Y chromosome, and so is 45,X (a girl with Turner Syndrome). Genetically identical apart from the sex chromosomes, although Turner syndrome produces some fairly noticeable differences (physical and otherwise).
- Another case of different-sex identical twins involved twins both of whom had some 47,XXY and 46,XX and showed signs of Klinefelter's Syndrome. That being said, in this example it's possible that a rigorous and expensive combination of surgery, drugs, and therapy
*could* make the "unhealthy" male of a brother-sister twin pairing turn out "normal" if Klinefelter's Syndrome was detected early enough. However two major issues are: #1 such a scenario has not been medically documented, #2 medicalizing intersex people to make them *look* more normal, rather than for health reasons, is morally iffy.
- When two sperm fertilize one egg, which is rare, the resulting embryo almost never survives. However, there is a very rare (as in "only two cases in recorded history" rare) case of "semi-identical twins": a chimerical zygote forms (all cells have the same maternal DNA contribution, but one of two possible paternal contributions) which then splits (like when identical twins form.) Each child is genetically a chimera, but with different fractions of the two paternal DNA contributions. In both known cases, the two sperm were an X and Y. In the 2007 case, this resulted in an assigned-male and an intersex child, in the 2014 case an assigned-male and assigned-female child, although the girl at least is known to be infertile.
- Can happen when one identical twin is transgender and transitions later in life.
- As of 2011 there are now news stories about a pair of teenage identical twins where one is trans. Nicole Maines (the twin who transitioned) is now a well known trans actress who plays Dreamer, the first trans superhero on TV, on Supergirl.
- Another example of this is transgender actress Laverne Cox of
*Orange Is the New Black*, who has an identical twin brother, which was extremely convenient for flashback scenes showing Cox's character Sophia before her transition.
- Yet another notable example of this can be found in the case of Bunny and David Michael Bennett (Rabbit and The Spine) of Steam Powered Giraffe, in which Bunny is a trans woman, and both still have similar singing voices.
- Alastair Casey and his sister are identical twins; he transitioned later in life.
- Enforced in the tragic case of David Reimer, who was reassigned as a girl after a botched circumcision attempt, and eventually transitioned back into a man before killing himself at the age of 38.
- There's also the less rare instance where fraternal twins of opposite sexes simply have such a Strong Family Resemblance that they can pass for each other... at least until puberty, anyway. Even then, there are boys who are a bit Bishōnen, and girls who are a bit Bifauxnen...
- This can also happen if opposite-sex twins are babies with short/no hair. All babies look somewhat alike when they're that young. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppositeSexIdenticalTwins |
Blaming
A character or work perceives oppression/inequality in society. Where does it come from, and who or what is causing it? "The Man" is a label used to describe an ambiguous yet powerful authority figure who controls - or at the very least guides - society in order to maintain a status quo perceived as unfair by those applying the label. Other ambiguous or ill-defined substitutes like "the system", "the establishment", and "the order" may also be used.
What "The Man" is can range from a single person like an Evil Overlord or Corrupt Corporate Executive, to a small cabal of people, to a powerful organization or institutional body like The Government. In other words; whoever or whatever is likely to have the motive and means to enforce their will on society.
Whether or not this oppressive force
*actually* exists is debatable. To some extent, this nebulous authority figure is used as a stand-in or placeholder for VERY real systemic issues that are pervasive in the unfair status quo: Capitalism, sexism, racism, liberalism or "PC culture", conservatism, militarism, and many more. In that sense, "The Man" does exist, albeit more as a concept or ideology than a physical entity, so the term anthropomorphizes real-world injustices and gives them a face for people to rally against.
As this extensive and contradictory list of systemic issues indicates, what's perceived as oppressive can be subjective and is often dependent on a person's own identity, as well as the ideologies/beliefs they (and the creator in question) hold. Often, characters who use this argument are portrayed as paranoia-stricken individuals (Properly Paranoid, Conspiracy Theorist, The Paranoiac, Improperly Paranoid) or as Windmill Crusaders, constantly seeing oppression where it doesnt necessarily exist and equating their ideals' lack of mainstream acceptance with oppression itself. To them, the
*only* reason others aren't in agreement with their perspective is because they are being actively silenced by a higher authority hellbent on preventing any societal change that upends the status quo. Straw Characters like Malcolm Xerox, Straw Feminist, Straw Misogynist, Soapbox Sadie, and Heteronormative Crusader are likely to rely on this framing.
When done well, this trope can be useful for making intangible and difficult-to-solve social issues easier to visualize, thus easier to mobilize against and reform. When done poorly, it can easily come off as fearmongering and scapegoating, even being used by a Straw Hypocrite to deflect from their own hidden agenda.
Compare The Conspiracy, Government Conspiracy, and Corporate Conspiracy, which are about actual oppressive forces that might be called "The Man". See also The Man Is Sticking It to the Man and The Man Is Keeping Us Down, which use a similar understanding of the term, and Inherent in the System, which places the blame specifically on flawed social/political systems. Not to be confused with The Man Behind the Man, which is about a defined villain who is actually the one giving out orders to the person previously introduced as the Big Bad. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppressedByTheMan |
Optional Party Member - TV Tropes
A character that
*can* be recruited into your party, but the method of actually recruiting them may be esoteric. Perhaps they are mentioned directly in the manual, or their weapon of choice is conspicuously for sale before you have a party member who can use it. They aren't required to stay in the party, but may temporarily join you. If you really want them back, some games will let you hunt them down again, often by some non-intuitive and convoluted means.
The biggest problem with these characters that you may only be able to recruit them very late in the game. Although most games are kind enough to have them near the same level as your characters, special skills or weapons that need to be built up are going to take a long time to get. In addition, since they're optional, the majority of the plot can't assume you have them. Thus they'll have less impact. If the game offers more than one of these, they may be Mutually Exclusive Party Members of whom you can only choose a limited number (possibly via some never-explained mechanic or minor choice several hours earlier).
In some cases, the Optional Party Member can potential be a Sixth Ranger Traitor, who hinders you through various means, from purposefully fleeing, to actively backstabbing the other party member.
Similar to the Guest-Star Party Member, the Optional Party Member is commonly either hacked into the party or used as part of a challenge. Sometimes they may be a Joke Character who isn't very useful but other times they may be one of the best characters in the game. They might even be both.
Many Strategy RPGs will use this trope a lot, as in fact the story will often be written with the thought of how the party member may be permanently killed off at any moment in the story. Most of the time it is when they are not mandatory, but there are exceptions.
Compare Guest-Star Party Member.
## Examples:
- In
*Super Smash Bros. Brawl*'s *Subspace Emissary*, every playable character in the game joins throughout the story, except for Wolf, Jigglypuff, and Toon Link, all of whom, like everyone, can be unlocked outside of Emissary by other means. To use them in *Subspace Emissary*, hidden doors must be found in three levels. In fact, by the time you clear the "Entrance to Subspace" stage, *everyone* besides King Dedede, Luigi, Ness, Kirby, Sonic, and Bowser becomes optional party members — you just need to collect their trophies during the subsequent two levels (Ganondorf, however, requires both Link and Zelda to be unlocked). And at the beginning of the game, Kirby has the choice of having either Peach or Zelda accompany him until "The Lake Shore" stage.
- To beat the game, you don't need to collect any party members in
*Drakengard*. To get the fourth or fifth ending, however, you have to have all of them. This causes some problems for the sequel, which is based off the first ending and has a former party member appear in a position of power eighteen years down the line, even though technically you didn't have to get him in the first game.
- In
*Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes* you can recruit characters from others sides to your own by choosing the "Persuade" strategies during the pre-battle menu, wait for the option to activate during the battle, and then defeate the specific character. If you don't do that, you kill them instead. Some characters will also require specific characters to be active to recruit them, such as brother and sister Jeritza and Mercedes.
- Byleth and Jeralt can only be recruited on chapter 10 of Golden Wildfire or chapter 12 of Azure Gleam or Scarlet Blaze by doing a specific strategy which gets Byleth out of the way and doing a Timed Mission to defeat the main boss of that mission before Byleth returns and becomes a required boss again. Recruiting them also unlocks a few more battles that leads to the Golden Ending.
- ||Sothis, Serios, Arven, and the Gatekeeper|| are New Game Plus only recruits. The first two just require a New Game Plus and spending renown, the third requires you recruit Byleth and Jeralt and then spend renown, while the last requires you complete two New Game Plus stories and then you can recuit them after chapter 5.
- Inverted with Tovan Khev in
*Star Trek Online*. He's literally the only bridge officer in the entire game you can't dismiss at will. note : ostensibly because he's important to a long-term sideplot of the Romulan storyline That, coupled with a variety of other factors (can't change his name because other characters voice-act it, plus a confluence of minor but annoying bugs), led to him being considered The Scrappy.
- In
*Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon*, Zangetsu can recruit any of the other playable characters after each level or kill them to absorb their power. The ending will differ depending on the choices.
- In
*Yoshi's Story*, you can collect special eggs to add Black Yoshi and White Yoshi to your lineup. They have cooler abilities than their brethren.
-
*Mega Man X8* allows the player to unlock three extra playable characters, the Bridge Bunnies Alia, Layer and Pallette (Distaff Counterpart to the three established heroes X, Zero and Axl, respectively); for them to be available, you must use an individual Navigator several times more than the other two in one playthrough, then buy her in R&D in a New Game Plus.
- In
*Puzzle Quest: Challenge Of The Warlords*, only three of your potential nine party members are mandatory - Darkhunter, Khalkus, and Sunspear. You'll meet Flicker, Winter, and Elistara along the course of the story and can recruit them via side-missions. Princess Seraphine, Drong, and Patch require side-missions to find at all. If you follow the Plague Lord quest from the iPhone version or the *Plague Lords* expansion, Galnoth the Dark Elf will join you (or rather, you'll force him to join you). You're also not obliged to have anyone actually in your party for the vast majority of the time, and if you make the wrong choices you can get Darkhunter to abandon you forever near the end.
- In fact, ||
*all* of your good-aligned party members will leave if you release the necromancer, then follow the path suggested by Bane.||
- In
*Puyo Puyo Chronicle*'s story mode, in addition to the required plot characters and recruitable enemies, 5 characters (Harpy, Suketoudara, Klug, Ocean Prince, and Serilly) can only be encountered in optional side missions in each of the 5 main areas. *Puyo Puyo Tetris 2* also features a single optional party member in Ally.
-
*Warcraft III*: In the special campaign of "The Frozen Throne" expansion, the RPG-like campaign is centered on half-ogre Rexxar who may be joined by other characters, and one option is to include Chen Stormstout, a humanoid panda, a kind-of Easter Egg character. Since he's optional, he doesn't have a single line of dialogue since his recruitment, nor any action specific to him.
- There's also a panda appearing in the Blood Elf campaign. He'll be with you for one mission if you beat the secret level.
- The
*Ogre Battle* series was excellent in that while most of the party members are optional, most provide interesting dialog and many scenes play out differently with different combinations of NPCs. Even the mandatory party members usually give you the "option" of killing them.
- In
*Trials of Mana*, all six of the main characters are optional. You can only choose three of the six heroes when the game begins (one main character and two secondary characters); you can't recruit the other three you don't choose. While the story intersects with the other heroes at some point so that the player eventually meets all six heroes, a character won't join your party if you have all three party members already recruited.
-
*Beyond the Beyond* has Tont, Lorelei and Percy. Tont is basically thrown into your lap, and Lorelei is easily missed. ||Percy actually joins your party early on in the game, but doesn't return until much later under the guise of the Black Knight. To get him to rejoin, you have to actively avoid attacking him when he fights you.||
-
*Star Ocean* games feature these en masse. Many of them are obscure, but there are also typically more optional party members than you have spaces in your party, requiring players to go through the games multiple times if they want to see everyone.
- In the initial
*Star Ocean*, there are 4 party members who are required. Roddick, Millie, Ronyx and Ilia, giving you a balanced default party. The rest are optional, although while most are hidden very well, a few like Cyuss the player will run into and offer to join during the course of the story, and will have to intentionally turn them away.
- Nobody in
*Star Ocean: The Last Hope* is optional, but in New Game Plus you can choose between Arumat and Faize for who you want to stay in the crew during the midpoint. Faize does not participate in PA past that point, however.
-
*Everybody* except for the two primary protagonists in *Star Ocean: The Second Story* is optional. This had the unfortunate side effects of them having to be absent from all of the animated cutscenes in the remake, and also keeping their dialogue to a minimum outside of sidequests and private actions. Some of them were also mutually exclusive, which makes the fact that all of them show up the direct sequel as mandatory characters a little awkward.
- Though While Celine, Noel and Leon/Dias depending on the main character are optional in the end you will still run into them and have them in the party briefly in story so the player will have deliberately choose not to recruit them.
- In
*Star Ocean: Till the End of Time*, you can pick any two of the following: Albel, Nel, Roger (of these 3 at least 1 has to join you, usually Nel unless you trigger sidequests for the other 2) and Peppita.
- It's not unheard of to go the entire game without ever seeing Roger at all. His introduction and event chain kick off at a certain cabin in the woods which is easy to bypass the first time you visit. Complete the quest in the woods without ever visiting that cabin and his appearance will disappear completely. No outside dialogue will ever point to him, and for the rest of the game you'll wonder in mystery who this entire class of unequipable weapons in all the shops you find is meant for.
-
*Final Fantasy*:
- Mog, Umaro, and Gogo are optional characters in
*Final Fantasy VI*; you also could try to defeat the last half of the game without picking up the majority of the characters you had in the first half. (In fact, it's technically possible with only *three* of them!)
- There's also Mog, who appears more than Umaro or Gogo, since Mog appears and fights with you at the beginning of the game.
- You can optionally recruit Shadow at certain points in the first half of the game, but he'll always leave your party sooner or later, sometimes even randomly after a battle. He does join your party for two plot-related events though. In the second half of the game ||he can only be found again if you wait for him on the Floating Continent. If you do, you can recruit him permanently from that point forward.||
- Yuffie and Vincent in
*Final Fantasy VII* were subject to this trope, and did not appear in the closing FMV of the game. This was eventually explained in the spinoff game *Dirge of Cerberus*.
-
*Final Fantasy IX*: Quina is a permanent party member (s/he officially joins just before Fossil Roo), but is optional before you enter Gizmaluke's Grotto on Disc 1. And also optional, Gizamaluke is easier with Quina helping you, and he's still a pain even then.
- The entire
*SaGa (RPG)* series of games ( *The Final Fantasy Legend* trilogy, *Romancing SaGa*, *Sa Ga Frontier*, *Unlimited Saga*) are filled with optional characters you can recruit, often at almost any time during the plot.
-
*Paper Mario*:
-
*Chrono Trigger*:
- Magus, who starts out as a boss; however, you can choose whether or not to fight him at one point, and if you don't attack, he joins your party. In addition, ||Crono|| at one point dies, and it is entirely optional whether you take the sidequest to bring them back. Obviously, these two won't appear in the ending if they're dead.
- Robo can also be made optional, as you don't have to get him back after leaving him during the Fiona's Forest sidequest. You have to make a conscious effort not to get him back, but it does mean you can finish the game without having Robo, ||Crono||, or Magus.
-
*Chrono Cross* has an impressively long list of optional characters, and each has dialogue parts in his/her own dialect and speaking style, even in the game's ending. With New Game Plus, it is more than possible to have even certain villains as party members. In fact, you need to play the game at least three times to be able to recruit everyone.
- The
*Suikoden* series has 108 characters, only a fraction of whom are required to actually finish the game. About half of these optionals barely differ in appearance to normal townsfolk.
- Virtually every NPC in
*Radiata Stories* can be recruited into the party in some manner. You end with a cast rivaling *Suikoden* in size, filling your party with the entire ranks of every guild, most townsfolk, and a number of monster characters.
- However, unlike Suikoden, the only use for these characters was in battle. Combine this with an inability to change the skills and equipment of anyone but the protagonist, and at least 100 of them are just Joke Characters. Additionally, several party members are mutually exclusive.
- Cream and Omega in
*Sonic Chronicles*, though they're pretty easy to unlock.
- From the first remake of
*Tales of Phantasia* onward, Suzu Fujibayashi can be unlocked as a playable party member ||by completing a sidequest involving her parents|| late in the game.
-
*Dragon Quest*:
-
*Dragon Quest IV* has Laurel and Hardie, a spellcaster and a mercenary who can be hired by just 600 gold coins. Torneko's chapter is entirely beatable without them, but they're useful additions.
-
*Dragon Quest V*:
- Tuppence is easy to obtain, but he's also easy to miss, as he looks almost like a regular NPC soldier and you have to talk to him before he'll join.
- This game introduced recruitable monsters in the franchise, several years before the birth of
*Pokemon*.
- You can recruit Dwight Dwarf in Chapter 3 after making it back to Faerie Lea, but you don't need to.
-
*Dragon Quest VI* has a couple of these. The first one is Amos, who is cursed to become a monster every night; if you can get him a special seed, he can control the transformation and joins you. Additionally, if you have the Beastmaster class, you can actually recruit some of the monsters you come across and make them join you as permanent party members, who all have their own unique ability sets. This is removed in the remake, but in its place, several types of Slimes can be recruited. Finally, in both versions, ||Lizzie the Hackasaurus is available after Terry is recruited, and unlike the other monster units, she has plot significance and in the remake, proper Party Chat dialog.||
-
*Marvel Ultimate Alliance* has several optional party members, but Blade is the oddest by far. He joins the party after you save him from a giant claw vending machine in Murderworld, but the real question is why he's there in the first place. He has no dealings with the park's operator Arcade—an X-Men villain—in the comics, and there's no explanation for his kidnapping in the game (he just blacked out and woke up there). Even when you fight Arcade, he makes no comment on kidnapping Blade at all. Even worse, he is outclassed by Deadpool in the Sword and Gun department.
- Almost every companion in the
*Fallout* games.
- Fawkes is required for part of
*Fallout 3*, but soon leaves.
- He returns ||to assist you during the destruction of (and your escape from) Raven Rock||, though like other companions, he requires a specific karma alignment (Positive).
- Most of the party members in
*Baldur's Gate*, though getting rid of Imoen and Jaheira (aside from having them die) is next to impossible, particularly in the first game. In general, though, it's harder to get specific combinations of characters to 'stay' in your party (Minsc and Edwin, for example, or Keldorn and Viconia)—just having them join is easy enough.
-
*Planescape: Torment* has Ignus and Vhailor, both true Optional Party Members, and a Secret Character, Nordom.
-
*Knights of the Old Republic*. Most of the party members are mandatory and probably few people actually go through without getting them all, but Juhani can be killed on your first encounter, HK-47 does not need to be purchased and in the sequel, you do not have to repair him. Also in the sequel, there are two pairs of characters who are interchangeable, depending on your gender and alignment.
- In the
*.hack* series of games, following plot points in The World's Message board — especially those related to finding rare quest items — will often reward the player with the poster of said messages as recruitable allies. Examples include Natsume, Sanjuro and Gardenia.
-
*Shin Megami Tensei*:
- There are four in
*Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne*; Black Frost, Dante, Raidou Kuzunoha, and Samael. Black Frost can be recruited a while after you defeat him as an Optional Boss, Dante / Raidou automatically joins you in the Fifth Kalpa (which is entirely optional, but unavoidable if you're going for the ||True Demon Ending||), and Samael will only join you if you chose to side with Shijima.
- Your party members selection in
*Devil Survivor* differ before and after the route split. In any case, the only party member you're guaranteed are the main character and Atsuro.
- Before the route split, your party will always consists of the main character, Atsuro and Yuzu. Midori and Keisuke will join your party if you manage to make the correct choices.
- After the route split, your party will consist of whoever mandatorily join in that route. Yuzu, Midori and Keisuke stays in the party if they like the route you've chosen, otherwise they leave. Mari will join you on all routes except the bad end if you've completed her Sidequest in the previous chapters. Black Frost will also join on two routes if you've seen an optional scene concerning Midori and a Jack Frost.
- In
*Devil Survivor 2*, party members availability again differ before and after the route split:
- Before the split, you have 11 potential party members. Only 5 of them are unkillable, including the main character. For the rest, you need to make the correct choices when you're shown their Death Clips, or you won't be able to save them and they'll be lost.
- After the route split, the player characters all split into factions, and you need to choose which faction to join. Your party will then consist of the surviving members of that faction. After you defeat the other factions, you can talk with their members, and if you have enough Fate ranks they will rejoin the party.
-
*Persona*:
- The SEBEC route of
*Persona* only allows you to take one optional party member out of an available four (Brown, Elly, Ayase or Reiji), while the Snow Queen route lets you take two out of three (Brown, Elly and Nanjo). This means you'd have to play the game *fourteen* times to see all the different characters and interactions in every ending.
-
*Wild ARMs 2* lets you recruit Marivel, a odd vampire like girl that helps you out on the sidelines through out the main story. She's found in an optional dungeon called the Crimson Palace that can only be reached after getting the Global Airship.
-
*Dragon Age*:
- Many of the characters in
*Dragon Age: Origins* can be considered optional. Some can simply be avoided or refused entry into your party, and some can turn against you in some cases. The most notable example is ||Loghain|| in that accepting him will actually *cost* you one of your teammates (though not necessarily his death). Perhaps the most easily missable is Sten - who is tucked away in a cage and freely admits he's a murderer.
- In
*Dragon Age: Origins Awakening*, you can wind up without any party members by ||giving Anders to the templars, refusing to let Oghren and Justice join the Wardens, ordering Nathaniel to be hanged, killing Velanna and refusing to let Sigrun accompany you into Kal Hirol.||
- In
*Dragon Age II*, it's possible to miss Isabela simply by not bothering to go back to the Hanged Man. And if you refuse to help a dwarf get his cargo of illegal lyrium back, you'll never discover that that secondary quest was actually a ploy to help (and meet) Fenris. During the last portion of the game, depending on your choices, you may end up losing (and even be forced to fight) about half your team.
- In
*Dragon Age: Inquisition*, you're pretty much forced to stick with your initial squad through the whole game, but the other six party members are completely optional. Interestingly enough, ||Solas|| always leaves you at the end of the game, where you can keep playing to explore most of the side content you've skipped. That makes this the only point in the game after the prologue where you could end up with fewer characters than you need for a full squad.
-
*Mass Effect*:
- In the first game, it's not necessary to recruit both Wrex and Garrus, as the player can proceed with the game after recruiting one and leave the other behind.
- In
*Mass Effect 2*, the player can progress to the endgame after recruiting Tali, Thane or Samara, skipping the other two characters entirely, and it's possible to either sell Legion to Cerberus and/or not wake Grunt from his tank. You can also recruit Morinth, who joins you only if you ||let her kill Samara during her loyalty mission.|| There's also DLC characters Zaeed and Kasumi, who can also be ignored. Of course, it's very likely that people will die during the assault on the Collector Base if you skimp on party members, as some of their skills and ship upgrades may be necessary. Interestingly, Thane appears on the box art despite being the most optional of them, since ||neither him nor his ship upgrade fill any role in the final mission||.
- In the third game, you can turn both Tali and Ashley / Kaidan down when they offer to rejoin. ||Or, alternatively, get them killed.|| Garrus has to join you if he's alive, but you can do something about that in the second game. You can also pass up Javik by not doing his mission, though as with Kasumi and Zaeed, it's unlikely a player would buy a DLC pack and deliberately not use the content.
- The interesting result of all these shenanigans is that there are only three characters who actually can be recruited in all three games, and with careful maneuvering you can actually set it up so that none of them are with you from start to finish. In fact, you can play the series with certain characters simply not appearing at all (Samara, Thane and Wrex are good candidates). And again, this is before DLC kicks in. Furthermore, through a series of careful choices (and rushing through the main quest), it is possible to kill off
*every single permanent and temporary squad mate* from all three games, including DLCs.
- For non-squadmate crew members, Dr. Chakwas becomes optional in
*3* if she survived the suicide mission, as you can actually turn down her offer to the return to the *Normandy* (she becomes a War Asset instead, helping the Crucible project); if you do this, you can hire Dr. Chloe Michel as the ship's medic in her place. Furthermore, Ken and Gabby can be brought aboard by using the Spectre terminal to give them official pardons for the Cerberus employment.
-
*Valkyrie Profile*:
- The original game only has two party members that you must recruit, ||Arngrim and Jelanda||, both of which you get in the prologue. Recruiting anyone past this point is optional. Due to how the game is set up, you need to recruit at least a couple people to send to Valhalla to not get the C-ending, which is effectively a game over for failing your mission. The A-Ending does require you also recruit ||Mystina and Lucian|| because both characters are involved in this ending.
- Einherjar in
*Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria* (not sure about the other games) are entirely optional. Although you do get some stat growth items for leveling them up and releasing them from the party.
-
*Covenant of the Plume* has a choice early on, which determines which group of two or three allies out of seven will join you (not that the game points this out). From then on, one or two character a chapter will join you, depending on which route you're on.
- Bleu/Deis of
*Breath of Fire II*
-
*Trinity Universe* has four, a third of the cast.
- Nearly all the party members of
*Paladin's Quest* and its sequel *Lennus II* are recruitable mercenaries.
-
*The Last Remnant* union system is made of this trope. You have 49 'unique' leaders, each with their own voice acting and backstory (8 of whom are important to the storyline). On top of this are 118 'ordinary' leaders and over 200 common soldiers that can be hired. Every single one has a unique combination of stats, weapons and fighting styles: all this for a game where you can have a maximum of 6 leaders and 12 soldiers in your party. The main character Rush is the only one who has to stay in the party; everyone else eventually becomes optional.
-
*Pirates of the Caribbean*, a game based very loosely on the movies has a field day with this. With the exception of two characters who are mandatory (and also impossible to kill) in the last part of the game, all characters are optional, randomly generated and fully expandable.
- In
*Earthbound Beginnings*, Ana isn't required to finish the game, nor do you ever have to let Teddy into the party. Have fun with that.
- ||Death's Hand|| from
*Jade Empire*. ||After he is defeated, the Spirit Monk has the option to bind his soul, thus gaining him as a party member.||
- Every
*Pokémon*. Except your starter, and even then you're allowed to catch something else and get rid of it if you so choose. And in *Pokémon Black and White*, ||Reshiram/Zekrom||, unless you took the extremely tedious route of filling your entire PC before fighting them.
- In
*Drakensang* some characters (like Rhulana, Gladys, Forgrimm and Traldar) are practically vital to the game and can be found along the main quest. Other characters like Dranor, Nasreddin and Jost can be hired only after completing optional sidequests (or, in Nasreddin's case, pay him enough cash). Alternatively, you can get all the possible party members but keep them unused at home in Ferdok.
- Everyone except for the character you created at the beginning of the game in
*Might and Magic VIII*, with only a few short exceptions during specific quests (there's two note : technically three, but two are mutually exclusive to complete in the main quest, although one is designed so you don't need to go to any dungeons, and with the right timing you don't even need to risk any fighting) — although in practice party members don't really start being optional until you hit Ravenshore (as that is the point when you start having more available characters than you have free slots in the party). Fortunately, any excess characters recruited just end up in the Adventurer's Inn, ready to be switched in if needed.
-
*Neverwinter Nights 2*:
- The original campaign has the Construct, a defunct Illefarnese blade golem that requires you to complete a sidequest to activate.
-
*Mask of the Betrayer*:
- Whether you acquire Okku or One of Many hinges on whether or not you use the Spirit-eater to consume Okku after defeating him. If you restrain your hunger, you will impress Okku and he'll join you. If you eat him, the pelt he leaves behind can be given to a conglomeration of spirits in the Plane of Shadow, which will allow them to assume physical form as One of Many. You can also consume Okku but not use the pelt, missing out on both Okku and One of Many.
- A What Could Have Been example with Ammon Jerro, whom you discover in a hospital ward in Thay with his soul missing. He was originally supposed to rejoin you, but there was apparently trouble with his voice actor and they didn't want to The Other Darrin a major supporting character.
- During the attack on ||the City of the Dead||, you can choose to change sides. Should you do this, Kaelyn the Dove will leave the party in anger, and ||Araman|| will take her place.
- In
*Storm of Zehir*, you can technically play the entire campaign solo. You don't even need to build a base party of four, never mind hiring any cohorts. It's not a *good* idea unless you've minmaxed out the wazoo, but it's mechanically possible.
- Just under half of your possible party members in
*Xenoblade Chronicles X* are completely optional. This makes sense, as they're simply fellow BLADEs, and "recruiting" them just involves doing an assignment together, after which they're impressed enough to offer you backup in the future.
- In
*Xenoblade Chronicles 2*, only a small number of the rare Blades are necessary for the party. Most are received at random from Core Crystals or rewards for side quests. Wulfric ||and Aegaeon|| are noticeable examples, as the party obtains their Core Crystals during the story after defeating the former's Elder Arachno Driver ||and latter is given to Mòrag after Emperor Niall is revived from his Heroic Sacrifice||, but it's entirely optional to awaken them once their Cores regenerate. There's even an example with story Blades, as the final form of Poppi is locked behind a optional sidequest near the end of the game.
- In
*Xenoblade Chronicles 3*, Heroes can be recruited as your seventh party member. Out of the 17 Heroes in the main game, only four are mandatory. The rest require you go out of your way to unlock them. ||There's an additional one that introduces you to the concept, but they leave the party shorty after and requires you to go out of your way to unlock them again.||
- With a cast of 90 possible party members, you aren't going to get everyone in
*Rakenzarn Tales* automatically. Some are determined by your Character Alignment while others are exclusive to one path or another.
- In
*BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm*, you get one for completing the hidden Deep Web dungeon ||a player avatar with the same name and gender you entered for yourself at the beginning of the game||. They can use any weapon and know more skills than anyone else, but suffer the drawback of being unable to equip accessories.
-
*Lunarosse* has two. One is available in a side quest involving one of your party members and the other is in a hidden dungeon that you either need everyone else or a secret code to open. Neither is needed for the best ending, but they can help.
- In
*The Banner Saga*, most characters can die, only a few can be avoided altogether. Hogun and Mogun can be avoided by siding with the their town leader. Nid requires that you let Oddleif train women to be archers. Tryggvi is only available to those who helped kickstart the game. Griss only joins if you confront him then let him join on one of two opportunities. Onef you can let join after leaving Frostvellr, and if you did, Ekkil comes shortly after. Sigbjorn you can bypass completely. In the sequel, *The Banner Saga 2*, you can kill Bak as soon as you meet him and as long as you side against Rugga, you can't have Dagr fight with you.
-
*Exit Fate*, drawing inspiration from the *Suikoden* series, has 75 playable characters, but only about a third are recruited through the main story. Interestingly, not a single one of them is mutually exclusive; it's possible to get all 75 in one playthrough.
- Not counting the early
*Ultima* games where you create your own characters, and *Ultima IV* which requires a full party of 8, every Ultima between *Ultima V* and *Ultima VII Part II* offered you a few optional choices in addition to the mandatory ones.
-
*Ultima V* gives you Iolo and Shamino in your initial party, but you can ditch them at an inn if you wish. More than ten other characters can be chosen from for the remaining two slots, although one obvious traitor will turn on the party and make the game Unwinnable.
-
*Ultima VI* has four mandatory party members and one more who's needed only briefly. There's another ten party members to choose from for your remaining three slots.
-
*Ultima VII* starts you with Iolo, who will leave if asked. Two other characters join you temporarily. The remaining eight characters fill the rest of your slots, though the game is easier without them.
-
*Ultima VII Part II* has three mandatory party members and a few Guest Star Party Members. Only Boydon can really be added, and he can't be resurrected if he dies. You do, however, gain the option to create automaton party members to carry extra gear.
-
*LISA: The Painful* has over thirty party members, but only a handful of them are required to progress through the game. To "make up" for the several potential party members, the game also has a feature where all of them except Brad can be permanently killed off by certain attacks from stronger enemies.
-
*Cadence of Hyrule*:
- Yves the Deku Scrub. Unlocking him requires you to give Tingle a total of 20 Deku Seeds in a single playthrough.
- Cadence herself technically counts as this in the Story Mode. If you don't interact with her on the overworld at all four locations she appears in after finishing the tutorial section, she won't show up again as a playable character until the final dungeon of the game.
-
*Theia - The Crimson Eclipse*: All guest characters that don't fully join can still be recruited in the endgame by acquiring their action figures. They will still have their guest status and all the limitations that come with it, but their skills are all upgraded to level 3 or higher. Gallian, Elvett, and Nimrod have in-story reasons to join , but ||Alison, Demiya, pre-timeskip!Nion, Horus, Var Nell, Sophet, Neval, Grant, and Mishra are all recruitable from the Extremordeal as deliberate story-defying paradoxes.||
-
*Yakuza: Like a Dragon* has Eri Kamataki, the president of Ichiban Confections and your clerk in the business management mini-game. You can get her quite soon after starting the mini-game (in Chapter 5), as long as you break into the Top 100 companies. She serves as the only other female party member in the game, getting access to the jobs only Saeko can get. Even if you get Eri as early as possible, she is completely absent from the story outside of her introductory cutscene and the scene where she joins the party.
-
*Octopath Traveler*:
- By the strictest definition, anyone. While you can recruit the eight playable characters when you first encounter them, nothing forces you to do so. On the PC version, there's even an achievement for going through a character's story with just that character and no one else.
- The initial eight characters are the only ones that can be in the main party. However, after completing a character's story, the most prominent people from their adventure can be encountered as NPCs across the world, now capable of being Guided/Allured.
-
*Bug Fables*: Completing a miniature side-dungeon will lead to the growth of Chompy, a "pet" version of the Man-Eating Plant Chomper enemies that acts as a fourth party member.
-
*Battle for Wesnoth*:
- After winning the second scenario of
*A Tale of Two Brothers* in the Easy difficutly, an Iron Mauler will appear and offer Arvith his service. The player is free to choose whether to bring him along or not as it doesn't affect the story at all.
-
*The Rise of Wesnoth*: Burin the Lost can only be added to Haldric's party if you capture a conspicious village in the third scenario. Similarly, Minister Edren can only join if (1) you choose to go to the swamp for the fourth scenario, *and* (2) enter one of the temples in said scenario.
-
*EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce*: A number of optional party members are available depending on decisions made throughout the game:
- Daitoku Igor can be a powerful ally if Alien Tech has been studied earlier in the game, as they inspire Platinum to repair one of the piloted mechs that Daitoku previously used. Pulse Head especially makes him a phenomenal long-ranged attacker for the late game.
- Ranran and En can join the party if Fei Huang Rong has been generous with them over the spiritual water they have fought over. Take too long though, and the opportunity slips away.
- While King Leo is a member of the party from the start of the game, keeping him is entirely optional from the point where Zophy can choose to embrace becoming a Flame Warrior. If he does, then he and King Leo function as one unit on the battlefield. If he does not, King Leo can be kept as a separate unit for the rest of the game. Although Zophy's full potential will not be unlocked this way, promoting King Leo to permanent party status means keeping one of the most durable tanks in the game.
- Technically, everyone but Ramza is an Optional Party Member in
*Final Fantasy Tactics* as you can kick anyone out of the party at any point and even refuse them when they try to join up. The game has five actual optional characters (Cloud, Beowulf, Reis, Worker 8/Construct 8, and Byblos), and one more (Balthier) in the PSP version.
-
*Super Robot Wars* has tons of these in every game, usually people who normally died in their respective show or some way should leave you. Or villains that fans liked or were especially sympathetic. They also have a habit of adding in Gundam mecha or Mecha Expansion Packs that only exist in model form, such as Hajime Katoki's version of Wing Gundam in Alpha 2, or the Strike Gundam/Strike Rouge's IWSP pack.
- Likewise, in
*Battle Moon Wars*, you can unlock Sacchin in Takumi's route, ||kill her with Shiki two out of three times she appears||, and Mech-Hisui in Haruna's route, ||get a combined total of 50 kills with Hisui and Kohaku.||
- In
*Super Robot Wars Compact*, ||Shin Getter|| is unlockable if you reach Scenario 28 under 250 turns.
-
*Shining Series*:
-
*Shining Force II: The Sword of Hajya* had a small handful of these, one of which was hidden *in the most obscure possible place*: the third bottom pillar on the right of the entrance to the throne room in a specific mission. You attempt to talk to the pillar, and out pops, not a Ninja (that would make too much sense), but a *samurai*. Seriously.
- In
*Shining Force III: Scenario 1* for example they do the same ninja trick, twice in Part 1. If you're Japanese and lucky enough to own all three parts of the game the decisions you make in the other parts affects which characters you gain in all parts, which becomes a massive mess of carefully setting it up in one part just encase you want them in the next. If you're not Japanese you can still go to all the trouble but gain none of the reward.
- In
*Shining the Holy Ark*, Doyle, the kick-ass Werewolf Ninja that helped you out and stalked you at the beginning of the game can be found pretending to be a tree in the first village near the middle of the game.
- Sheena can be found hiding behind a waterfall in
*Shining Force II*.
- A significant portion of the later characters in the original
*Shining Force* game.
- Due to how
*Fire Emblem* games work, all but a handful of the cast have no dialogue after they are introduced. They can die forever without affecting the plot, and one can miss them entirely without noticing.
- Some games have the ability to earn NPCs or villains as party members by doing something post game, such as completeing the game multiple times.
- However, the only time where that character is obviously missing is in
*Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn*: No dark magic users are available until the New Game Plus, despite dark magic tomes being available. ||And that dark magic user? None other than *Pelleas*, who as said above can only be saved from the Blood Pact in a New Game Plus.||
- In
*Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade*, the first of only two recruitable Dark magic users in the game, Canas, joins in one of the Gaiden chapters. The only other recruitable party member capable of using Dark magic is the extremely versatile archsage Athos, but he only joins in the very final chapter, and the players pick up a lot of Dark magic tomes before then.
- Similarly, in the remake of
*Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon*, the only character who is a dark mage by default is available only in a Gaiden chapter more than halfway through the game (said chapter requires the player to kill off most playable characters to access). Of course, in this game, most characters can switch classes, but almost no one else is actually designed to be a dark mage.
- Not that it really matters since magic isn't really specialized in
*Shadow Dragon* beyond the point of "tomes" and "staves". And normal mages are better anyway, as they tend to get much better growths.
- In
*Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance*, it's possible to turn down Heron Prince Reyson's offer to join. The player would have to be a total idiot to do so however, as not only is Reyson *incredibly* useful, but one also misses out on two other characters (his bodyguards), *and* the cast is forced to fight an incredibly tough boss in the next chapter. (Reyson can talk him out of fighting the group) All that the player can get out of refusing him is a Renewal scroll, which is practically useless. (And in the Japanese version, it actually *was* useless, as the only two characters compatible with it already knew the skill.)
-
*Fire Emblem: Awakening* takes this to extremes, with the majority of the cast being technically optional. Donnel and Anna are only found in optional missions, but recruiting them requires more than simply completing their sidequests. Gaius, Tharja and Libra can all be killed off in battle before one can recruit them. Kellam can be missed if Chrom doesn't talk to him in the early chapter where the group first encounters him. Then there's the ||children characters|| who are recruited through side missions one may not even unlock. And *then* there's the ||SpotPass characters|| who only appear in optional missions near the end of the game if the player downloads certain content.
- There are also a number of characters from previous games who can be recruited via SpotPass, though they have no support options (and are completely devoid of any real dialogue at all outside of parley and combat with them), and in order to recruit them, one needs to either spend hard-earned money or defeat them and their squad in combat.
- In
*Fire Emblem Fates* there are plenty of characters that are this trope: Anna is only recruitable through DLC, the amiibo characters can only be gotten if the player, well, uses their amiibo, certain characters can only be recruited if certain buildings or structures are upgraded all the way in My Castle (and often those characters are *only* available on certain paths), Mozu is found in an optional mission, and, like *Awakening*, ||children characters|| are recruited through side missions one might not even unlock. And in *Birthright*, Midori is a particularly special case of this ||as you have to have Kaze up to an A-support with the Avatar *before* chapter 15, or else he will die and Midori becomes lost, regardless of whether he's married or not.|| Two others also are particularly special: ||Kana and possibly Nina will be lost if the female or male Avatars exercise their respective Bi Options, Rhajat and Niles.||
- Not even
*Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia* is free from this. Out of the Ram villagers, only two of them (Gray and Tobin) join Alm no matter what; the other two, Faye and Kliff, can stay put (and if this is done, they will only join in if the player makes Celica go outta her way to recruit them in Ram). The Whitewings and Atlas will not join in if the player has Celica to a certain place rather than another (though they might be re-recruitable later). Also, one cannot recruit Sonya *and* Deen at the same time: it's either one or the other. Last but not least, if Alm and Co. *don't* check Nuibaba's dungeons after defeating her, the player will miss recruiting Tatiana, and if she's not in the group her boyfriend Zeke won't be recruitable either.
- Nearly every student not a part of your chosen class and the staff, teachers, and knights of the monastery in
*Fire Emblem: Three Houses* can be recruited into your class before the timeskip. The students can be recruited starting in chapter 2 by leveling up the player in their preferred skills and gaining their desired stats (which can be reduced by increasing your support level with them) or by getting their support level to B and waiting for them to come to you. Staff, teachers and knights only need a certain level for the player and only after certain chapters. There are some exceptions:
- The lords of other houses and their retainers are Mutually Exclusive Party Members, with the exception of ||Hilda||, who can join other houses other than theirs ||excluding a Black Eagles route where you side with Edelgard|| during chapter 12 and ||Dedue|| who is Killed Offscreen if you didn't do their Paralogue before the timeskip.
- Certain party members are also either automatic, optional, or mutually exclusive depending on the route chosen. They include ||Catherine and Cyril, who automatically join in chapter 12 if you sided with the Church during the Black Eagles route, unavailable if you sided with Edelgard, and optional in other routes.||
- ||Flayn and Seteth|| are mutually exclusive, with the former joining automatically after chapter 7, but the latter only joining (automatically during chapter 12) on ||any route where you side against the Empire, with both of them unavailable for those who side with Edelgard.||
- ||Lorenz, Ashe, and Lysithea|| can be recruited again after the timeskip. ||Lorenz and Ashe|| must have been recruited prior to the timeskip (and only on ||Azure Moon for Lorenz, Verdant Wind for Ashe, or Silver Snow for both||). ||Lysithea|| doesn't, but all three must be defeated by the player character in battle.
- ||Ferdinand and Caspar|| have their B supports locked behind the timeskip, requiring the non-Black Eagle players to focus on their required skills and stats to get them, while ||Sylvain|| can automatically be recruited if the player is female, regardless of supports or stats. Recurring Character Anna is available for all routes starting in chapter 3, but only if the player has bought the third DLC pass.
- In Nippon Ichi games, optional party members tend to be recruitable in the post game, in actions that lead to Non Standard Game Over, or as DLC.
- Slavsky from
*Odium*. To get him, you'll have to fight an optional boss, go through a Scripted Sequence where you ||lose Medusa|| and finally use a stun grenade on the door where he's hiding. Whether he's worth it or not is arguable.
- If you didn't use the stun grenade and keep walking toward his shelter, he'll kill himself: ||you just lose Medusa and won't be able to replace him.||
- Minor villain Cosette Cosmos from
*Sunrider* can be recruitedor rather, captured and pressgangedinto the players crew in *Liberation Day* if you were nice to her during *Mask of Arcadius*. If you werent, she gets killed off at the end of Liberation Days opening mission. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OptionalPartyMember |
Optional Traffic Laws - TV Tropes
In freeworld driving games, being forced to comply to the real-life rules of the road would just be too cumbersome for most gamers. People don't like waiting at red lights in real life, and certainly no one wants to do so in video games (half the time they have to restrain themselves from driving over the pedestrians). Consequently, in many games, players are allowed to speed, run red lights and stop signs, run
*over* red lights and stop signs, or otherwise drive recklessly with impunity.
This can be problematic, as most driving games feature vehicles that can only alternate between "unmoving" and "already too fast". That's usually good, but it becomes a nuisance when having to follow an NPC car that obeys traffic laws and/or will get scared if you get too near.
There are just as many exceptions as there are examples, but there are enough straight uses to make this trope-worthy.
## Examples:
-
*The Getaway*, *The Getaway: Black Monday* and the PSP spinoff *Gangs Of London* enforce strict driving rules — correct side of the road, stopping at red lights, etc. This is useful at the beginning of the game, but as you engage in more and more criminal activity as the plot demands, the police will come after you no matter what you do.
- In the
*Sam And Max Freelance Police* episodic games, the main characters *are* the police (well, police with no official authorization or oversight on any level), and one of them is additionally ||the President of the United States||, so there's no penalty for destroying traffic cones, stoplights, lampposts, or sidewalk cafes during the driving sequences. There's no benefit, either - it's just *fun*.
-
*Police Quest*, a game focused on realistic portrayal of procedure, made you obey traffic laws, though later games in the series streamline things (IE no speed limits, no stops except at turns) to make things easier for the players.
-
*Nancy Drew*. In *Trail of the Twister* Nancy can drive on the wrong side of the road, randomly bash into other cars, and cause ten-car pileups (complete with tractor trailers). She only suffers any consequences when her health bar runs out, making her crash her *own* car.
-
*Secret of the Old Clock* features the first driving aspects in the series, but it's much less fun because there are no other cars on the road. Nancy can still basically do whatever she wants, although running over potholes one time too many gives her a flat tire.
-
*Crazy Taxi*.
-
*The Simpsons: Road Rage*. One Road Rage magazine ad even featured Homer saying "Roads are optional, just like pants."
-
*The Simpsons Hit & Run*. However, if you run too many people or things over the cops will come and chase you, although driving on the wrong side of the road and not stopping at traffic lights are not a problem.
- Another exception: Part of the challenge of the original
*Driver* and it's sequel was that you had to obey things like speed limits or traffic lights when the police were around. You would actually fail certain missions for as much as *neglecting to signal a turn*. Better hope you don't hit your car at night, too - Missing headlight = Immediate police reprisal. In the original, police cruisers will ram and sideswipe your vehicle into scrap for the smallest breach of the traffic laws. Ironically, it's actually impossible to run over any pedestrians in the game, due to their ability to jump and duck away Just in Time (if due to a game glitch, they jump in the wrong direction, they'll just go through your car).
-
*Driver: San Francisco* is much looser about this, though. It's justified two different ways: Tanner's an on-duty cop participating in authorized chases (and therefore expected to speed, weave through traffic, ect.) or other cars are getting away with shenanigans in Tanner's coma dream, where he subconsciously makes the rules note : That might look like a spoiler, but it's not. The player knows this from the start, even if Tanner doesn't..
- And while we're throwing around exceptions,
*Midnight Club Los Angeles* sends cops after you if one spots you exceeding the speed limit, running a red light or otherwise driving irresponsibly. (Thankfully, this is only the case if there's a cop within a short radius of you.)
-
*Burnout* and its sequels. These even include a mode where the intent is to crash as many cars as you can.
-
*Spy Hunter*. Seriously. All these cars with blades, guns, missiles... and no-one around?
- In the original remake for the PS2, there are all kinds of civilian cars around, and killing any of them, even by accident, usually SNAFUs your mission (later missions let you get away with killing some with the ambiguous parameter of "minimize civilian casualties"). That doesn't mean you can't smash through them all you want, just that you can't clear the mission if you do.
-
*APB (1987)* from Atari Games works similarly, although bad enough wrecks will get you demerits. Then again, you're the cop in this one.
- Frustratingly, the game teaches you to pull over minor offenders such as litterbugs by rapidly pressing the siren button until they comply. What the game
*doesn't* teach you is that, when going after major criminals where you have to smash into their car, you need to *hold the siren button down*. If you don't, *you get demerits!*
-
*Midtown Madness* specifically has the pedestrians run out of the way if they're on the street, or flatten themselves against a building, making it impossible to run anyone over. If you do obey traffic laws (speed limit, lanes, lights, etc), you are left alone by the authorities. Breaking any of these laws results in the cops chasing you mercilessly.
- Except in the second game, where most of the time the cops will immediately chase you. Sometimes they'll even spawn in front of your face.
- However, like GTA stopping at a red light will result in cars plowing into you...this causes the cops to come after you.
- Partial exception:
*Test Drive Unlimited*. Traffic cops abound and will come after you for the slightest of crashes (even if it wasn't your fault); however, speeding is always allowed as long as you don't hit anything, and all traffic laws vanish during participatory races.
- An interesting example occurs in some of the
*Need for Speed* games some/most of the tracks have signs with the speed limit on them. If you stay under this limit, the police will leave you alone. Granted it takes about twice as long to finish the race, but still.
- In
*Need for Speed: Most Wanted* and *Carbon*, when you attract police attention, your police scanner will let you know if the police are looking for a reckless driver in general, or your car specifically (the difference between "caller did not get a good look" and "suspect is driving a [color] [make]"). If they don't have your vehicle description, and you follow traffic laws, they won't come after you. But when you're in a car that can go 250 miles an hour, driving under 35 is *difficult*, to say the least (you're still in first gear! Not even pushing 4000 RPMS!).
- In the original
*Road Rash*, police will come after you even if you do follow all the traffic laws.
- Most
*Mario Kart* games from *Mario Kart 64* and onward have at least one racetrack in the form of a public road, with regular motor traffic still traveling through it. The racers, of course, can weave through traffic, collide with them, ignore lane divisions, drive on the wrong side of the road, ignore traffic lights and tollbooths, and attack the non-racing vehicles and not get in any trouble. The Extra version of Toad's Turnpike in *Mario Kart 64* takes it further by having the entire race set in the opposite direction of traffic. Moonview Highway from *Mario Kart Wii*, actually encourages sheer chaos on the roads, as a few vehicles are gigantic bombs (which themselves are barely following traffic rules) that explode if a racer or item touches them in any way.
- Played straight in
*Sonic Riders* with Metal City, which, like the Mario Kart examples, are public roads still in general use as the racers are traveling by. Subverted slightly in Night Chase, however, as police cars are everywhere and are going after someone, though it's unclear whom. Power characters can punch the police cars out of the way though.
-
*Forza Horizon* and its sequels are all set in real countries on public roads. Naturally though, you are free to break the speed limit or drive like an idiot as much as you like, with the only consequence for speeding, driving the wrong way down the road, crashing into NPC "civilian" cars etc being you potentially being stopped dead by crashing into something. While there are speed cameras in the form of "speed traps" these are expressly for you to try and go as fast as possible through them.
- Minor exception in the
*James Bond* game *NightFire*: Driving slowly in a driving mission allows you to bypass a speed trap that would otherwise send law enforcement after you. They still come after you later in the level and you lose the bonus points for non-lethally dispatching the officers.
- The later games in the
*Jak and Daxter* series are an exception, although in this case, it's only if you hit one of the Krimson Guard. You can run over all the civilians you want with no penalties in Haven City. In Spargus, everyone is armed, and will fire if you hit them.
- Averted in
*Steambot Chronicles* where to be certain you don't break any laws, all control of your vehicle/robot is taken away from you while in a town. Usually it's faster to get out and walk than to wait for traffic queues at lights. And if you decide to go down the "evil" story branch... you still follow traffic laws to the letter.
- Driving in
*SimCity 4* will not alert the police in any way, unless the mission says that it should. But then again, you are the mayor.
- In
*Elite Dangerous*, the player is free to ram ships pretty much anywhere - and is a common way of griefing in online play - but god help you if so much as dare to enter a space station without first asking for docking permission.
- In
*EVE Online*, the standard penalty for doing anything wrong is to be blown up, either by allowing the aggrieved party to shoot you or for particularly bad violations having the space police show up and shoot you. However, for once ramming ''doesn't'' always work and in fact causes no damage at all, meaning it doesn't count as an offence. But collisions do have physics, and ships need to take time to perfectly align themselves before entering warp speed. Since large ships tend to turn slowly, it's possible to repeatedly ram them and prevent them from ever warping away, while also knocking them too far from a station to dock. This is frequently used against targets in war or other legitimate targets, by having neutral parties prevent them escaping while giving them no way to fight back since the neutrals haven't actually done anything wrong.
- And the
*GTA* clone where you play as the cop, *True Crime* also features this trope.
- Hilariously, the player character will attempt to follow traffic laws during cutscenes. And in case you're wondering, yes, it's possible to have your car
*explode* during a cutscene because people keep running into you and you can't move to avoid them.
- Exception: In
*Mafia*, police actually *do* come after you for the most minor infractions. One could toggle a speed limiter to keep velocity within the legal limit.
- As the game featured realistic physics for the cars of the time (meaning awful handling) this was not a bad idea either, as running too fast you would easily lose control. The police would also not arrest you for minor infractions, just give you a ticket.
- Mafia's inversion itself can be inverted, seeing as long as the player charater does not speed or hit anything, he can drive however he wants without attracting the police.
- One notable issue with the exception is that the law against running red lights is often inconstantly enforced, usually due to the game not detecting the player did so. Which goes hand-in-hand with the fact you can freely drive the wrong way, ignore road signs, and drive on the sidewalk so long as you don't cause property damage or run anyone over.
- In the
*Transformers* movie video games, the police will generally ignore you in vehicle mode, so long as you don't actually blow anything up. (And sometimes even then.) You'd think that people searching for alien robots that turn into cars would take notice of a car that's behaving like the driver's never been on a planet with traffic laws.
- Both
*Mercenaries*-games. Justified since they both take place in warzones.
-
*Grand Theft Auto*, as mentioned. It's implied that the reason for this is that the local PD is corrupt and too indifferent to respond to minor crimes. (Although if in your careless driving you should scrape a *police* car, watch out...)
- Note that the player isn't the only one who does it. Statistically, at least one car spawned at any given moment is as crazy as you are when it comes to reaching their destination.
- Ambulances are hilarious examples of this - they all drive like their drivers are completely plastered. Want proof? Kill a pedestrian and wait about three minutes. They'll
*kill more people* to reach their patient.
- Lampshaded in
*Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas*; the early missions have characters note that Carl (the player character) Drives Like Crazy. Despite this, everyone insists he drive whenever they get in a car.
- In
*Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars*, the in game GPS gives you the shortest route to your destination... assuming all traffic laws obeyed. All players learn early to drive in the opposite direction of in coming traffic, and to plow through the bus stop. Hilariously is that crashing into the policeman's car earns you an immediate wanted level... which you can then get rid off by slamming into another police car hard enough as the ramming gameplay mechanic exclusive to this game doesn't account for aggression towards law enforcement (which increase the number and strength of law enforcement even further).
-
*Bully* is an exception, although a limited one. If Jimmy rides around on a moped without a helmet, he triggers the game's wanted meter. Then again, anything he does wrong there will, too.
- The
*Saints Row* games. In 2, you even get bonus points for driving on the wrong side of the road or just barely missing a car, similar to *Burnout*.
- Bonus points for burnouts and powerslides too! Also for driving on two out of four wheels. Plus other ridiculous vehicular activities, like carsurfing. But, like in GTA, if you so much as
*scrape* a police car, they'll be livid. They get kinda uppity if you run over lampposts too.
-
*Red Faction: Guerrilla*. You think the EDF would care about civilians driving like madmen, given heavy vehicles that can plow through buildings, but... nope. As long as you don't flatten any goons they don't give a damn. The AI civilians only care if you're in a tank or walker... at which point they panic and scatter, driving around like mad and sometimes making it *harder* to drive to your destination without killing any of them.
-
*L.A. Noire* justifies this: you're a cop and thus not beholden to traffic laws broken in the line of duty. This appears to be true in real life. Of course, if you commandeer a non-cop car, the police seem to magically be aware that Detective Phelps is behind the wheel and don't pursue him.
- The
*Just Cause* series takes this trope and drives off with it at 300 MPH. Driving ridiculously fast, on the wrong side of the road, over other vehicles, etc. won't draw any ire from the military whatsoever as long as you don't kill anyone or crash into a military vehicle, and sometimes not even then, despite you're the One-Man Army acting on the behalf of either The Agency and the La Résistance, and once per game, the game begins with the main character singlehandedly attacking a military stronghold.
- Justified in
*Mercenaries 1 & 2*. You're a heavily armed mercenary in a war-zone, there's nobody enforcing traffic laws at the moment, and even if there were they wouldn't want to mess with someone who's packing enough firepower to flatten a city block.
- Look closely at just about any car commercial on television, and you can see numerous moving violations i.e. driving on the wrong side of the road, speeding, passing dangerously/illegally, failure to signal, fishtailing, and so forth. Then again, almost all of these commercials are strangely devoid of other vehicles, and are often tagged Professional Driver on Closed Course or something to that effect.
- As part of more general issues with Diplomatic Impunity, it's absurdly common for diplomats to act as if traffic laws in their host country don't apply to them at all, since there's no way that they can feasibly be prosecuted for them. The UK government in 2014 published a list of countries whose diplomats owe over £100,000 in parking fines and London congestion charges (topped by the USA with over
*£8million* in unpaid fines, followed by Japan with £5.6million). The possible nadir of this came in 2019 when Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a CIA officer killed 19-year old motorcyclist Harry Dunn while driving on the wrong side of the road, and promptly was removed from the country by the US while claiming diplomatic immunity. The UK authorities intend to prosecute her, however it is unclear as to how much Sacoolas will cooperate with this or be required to do so. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OptionalTrafficLaws |
Opulent Outfits - TV Tropes
They say "Which one?" I say "Nah I want all 'em"
Happiness is the same price as red-bottoms
Fancy, expensive clothing, usually to show off the wealth of either those wearing the clothes or who bought the clothes for them, because looking cool and/or pretty isn't cheap.
Sometimes these outfits are fancy enough to be Costume Porn, which can range between outfits that are elegantly simple, to outfits so overdone they become Impossibly Tacky Clothes (and some fancy clothes of the past can seem that way).
Or they can range from higher quality versions of normal clothes, to an Impractically Fancy Outfit.
Heck, in the past, even certain colors could make clothing opulent due to the rarity of natural dyes.
Note that some of these clothing listed below isn't inherently a sign of wealth — jewelry, for example — but "the really good stuff" is still opulent.
Compare Big Fancy Castle, Big Fancy House, Cool Car.
## Tropes (where at least a majority of the examples are opulent clothes)
<!—index—>
<!—/index—>
- Battle Ballgown
No matter the ratio of armor to frills, it will still cost a pretty penny.
- Billionaire Wristband
A man uses his absurdly expensive watch to tell you about himself.
- Bling of War
For when the military often put the aristocracy in the highest ranks, so they had to make their station clear.
- Cool Crown
Most examples are made of expensive materials.
- Costume Porn
All those details take time, effort, and materials, which add up quickly.
- Enormous Engagement Ring
Ads used to say a suitor should spend two months' salary on one, at least.
- Ermine Cape Effect
Even though the regalia is expensive, it doesn't make it not suitable for everyday wear.
- Everything's Sparkly with Jewelry
In most cases, it has little function than looking pretty, so this is showing wealth for the sake of showing it.
- Fairytale Wedding Dress
Want to be a princess on your wedding day? Then the dress will cost a king's ransom.
- Fashion Magazine
Most will show off designer clothes.
- Fashion Show
To show clothes for high end clientele.
- Fluffy Fashion Feathers
The more plumes, and the more exotic bird, the higher the cost of wearing these clothes.
- Gem-Encrusted
Cost of the jewels + cost of the fabric + cost of inserting the jewels on the fabric = pure sybaritic fashion.
- Going Fur a Swim
Not that one's going to get their fur coat wet, but it's still showing wealth to wear one over your swimsuit.
- Gold Makes Everything Shiny
Gold lame is another sybaritic material.
- Happy Holidays Dress
Christmas-themed frills are still going to cost a lot of milk and cookies to make.
- High-Class Fan
Decorated hand fan, often taught to ladies as a part of their Lessons in Sophistication.
- High-Class Glass
Monocles won't fit one properly unless one puts up a lot of cash.
- High-Class Gloves
You can have the fanciest dress, but it won't be as sophisticated without a pair of stylish gloves.
- Impractically Fancy Outfit
It may not be easy to move in, but it fills the job of making it clear you could afford it.
- It's Fake Fur, It's Fine
Opulence without certain issues.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery
Whatever the fancy outfit, she can fight in it.
- Naked in Mink
Even if it's the only thing you wear, a fur coat still costs a lot.
- Ominous Opera Cape
Even for villains, it's a fancy accessory.
- Pimp Duds
They may have gotten their money for these clothes through shady means, but they still earned it.
- Pimped-Out Cape
All those decorations will just jack up the cost of that cape.
- Pimped-Out Dress
All those decorations will just jack up the cost of that dress.
- Pretty in Mink
Even the low cost furs can still cost a considerable amount.
- Regal Ruff
It wasn't cheap to make all those yards of fabric form that shape.
- Requisite Royal Regalia
The cost of these items are fit for a king.
- Sharp-Dressed Man
A tailored suit takes a lot more time and work than an off-the-rack one.
- Simple, yet Opulent
Since many examples are clothing.
- Stylish Protection Gear
Even if the standard protection gear can cost a lot. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpulentOutfits |
Oppressed Minority Veteran - TV Tropes
*"Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States."*
Bob, a member of a minority group, enlists in the military. He acquits himself well, and may even gain a reputation as a war hero. After returning to civilian life, however, Bob's minority status relegates him to second-class citizenship in his homeland, despite the risks he has taken on his country's behalf.
Unfortunately Truth in Television, as seen in the cases of German-Jewish veterans in Nazi Germany and African-American servicemen in the pre-Civil Rights Movement United States.
Compare No Place for a Warrior, which deals with the general mistreatment of veterans in civilian life, not necessarily tied to their minority status. See also Dude, Where's My Respect?.
## Examples:
- In
*Fullmetal Alchemist*, during the war against the Ishvalans, members of the Amestris military with Ishvalan heritage were rounded up and imprisoned, regardless of their rank or how distinguished their record was. (And in at least some versions, then became subjects of very lethal human experimentation.) Both the manga and the *Brotherhood* version of the anime have the character Major Miles, the right-hand man of General Armstrong at the legendary Briggs fortress. Miles is a quarter Ishvalan and must hide his heritage, as he would still be subject to these orders despite the fact that the war is long over and how small a part of his heritage it is.
-
*Attack on Titan*: A major element of the ||Marley|| arc, which focuses on the ||Warrior|| Unit returning home after being deployed on the front lines of a 4-year war. While hailed as the heroes that brought ||Marley|| victory, they are second-class citizens with none of the rights promised to their families in exchange for their service. ||Marleyan|| soldiers treat their ||Eldian|| comrades with cruelty and disdain, and ||Reiner|| is humiliated and verbally abused by his superiors when consulted about his knowledge of ||Paradis||.
-
*X-Men*: Jakob Eisenhardt is another German-Jewish example, who was a decorated veteran of World War I. His family's persecution by the Nazi regime provides a substantial portion of the Freudian Excuse of Jakob's son, Magneto.
- An Ambiguously Jewish concentration camp prisoner in
*Maus* claims to have fought in World War I and earned "medals from the Kaiser", and his own son is a soldier now. According to Vladek, the guards beat him to death when they got tired of his complaints.
- In
*Young Avengers*, Eli Bradley's grandfather Isaiah was a test subject for Project Rebirth, and the first man to put on the mantle of Captain America. Using his serum-granted abilities, he helped liberate a concentration camp. After the war, the government didn't want to admit that a black man was essential to the success of Project Rebirth, so Isaiah was locked up for stealing the costume and spent years languishing in a military prison. When he was finally released, the serum had destroyed his brain, and his medical needs have impoverished his family.
- The Barber in Charlie Chaplin's
*The Great Dictator* is a Jewish World War I veteran living in a parody of Nazi Germany.
- The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue of
*Flyboys* states that Eugene Skinner, the Lafayette Escadrille's black member (who had been a boxer based out of Paris at the start of World War I) left the French Army to enlist in the U.S. Army when the US joined the war in 1917. Being black, he was not allowed to fly despite his proven ability. He subsequently resigned from the Army and flew for the U.S. Post Office.
- At the end of
*Geronimo: An American Legend*, after the famous Native American warrior Geronimo surrenders to the Americans, all Apache and other Natives serving as scouts or in other offices (including Chato, a major character instrumental in getting Geronimo to surrender) are stripped of their rank and forcibly relocated. The final scene shows the few remaining tribesmen in a train being relocated, and a despondent Chato concludes that Geronimo was right to fight the Americans and that everything they told him were lies.
-
*Flags of Our Fathers*, which follows the men who were believed at the time to have planted the second flag on Mount Suribachi, the surviving men are brought to the United States to promote war bond drive, and during a stop, Ira Hayes, a Native American (who, incidentally, was the only one on the tour who actually *was* in the famous photo), goes missing right before an appearance at a stadium. One of the other men goes to look for him and finds him angrily shouting and swinging a chair at a group of policemen trying to restrain him outside a bar. He points towards the bartender saying "he wouldn't serve me!", the bartender replies "we don't serve Indians." The Navy corpsman who served alongside the 5th Marine Division drags away a furious Ira, and tells him to forget the whole thing.
-
*Dead Presidents* shows the hardships and discrimination African-American veterans of the Vietnam War faced.
-
*King Arthur (2004)*: The knights are all descendants of a people conquered by the Roman Empire and given the choice to serve in the Roman military or be wiped out. After they served their required amount of time, they chose to join Arthur in fighting the Saxons rather than return home and live the rest of their lives as this trope.
-
*Max* is a film about Adolf Hitler right after World War One meeting Jewish veteran Max Rothman, who had lost an arm due to a war wound and is now an art dealer. The film opens with a title card stating (truthfully) how over half a million German Jewish men served in Germany's armed forces. Max sees the danger in Hitler, though he attempts to steer him away from politics and support his art instead. Obviously, in a very foregone conclusion Hitler joins the (then small) Nazi Party, with Max ||being beaten to death by antisemitic thugs||, encapsulating the tragedy of how German Jewish veterans were treated in the end (plus all other Jews from Germany or elsewhere rounded up in the Holocaust).
-
*Reunion* is about a Jewish boy growing up in post-WWI Germany until his parents send him to a relative in America. When the Nazi Party starts seizing power, a goon stands next to his parents' shop to warn people not to buy from Jews. In response, his father wears his entire military uniform and medals won in the war and stands next to the goon, humiliating him into leaving.
- In one episode of
*The Unit*, Jonas's father is very belatedly awarded the Silver Star for destroying a North Korean tank via Insert Grenade Here. The medal was not initially awarded due to the elder Mr. Blane being A) an enlisted man and B) black. Jonas later explains how when they got home to the Jim Crow South later, he and his father were accosted by a pair of probable Klansmen for speaking to a white woman (Mr. Blane had asked her to go into a whites-only store to get Jonas a soda). Jonas initially says Mr. Blane talked them down, ||but later confirms to his daughter privately that the toughs assaulted him, and he killed them both with his KA-BAR knife and stole their truck to get himself and Jonas out of town||.
-
*Star Trek: The Next Generation*: In the episode "Measure Of A Man", it is established that Data has won numerous medals and awards from Starfleet, but he is still put on trial by them to determine if he is merely property for them to disassemble and study strictly on Commander Bruce Maddox's say-so.
-
*Anne Frank: The Whole Story*: Otto Frank's service record from WWI will not prevent him from being deported by the Nazis. He can apply for Theresienstadt, a "model camp" specifically built for Jewish war veterans, but he knows perfectly well that the conditions are still horrible, while the rest of his family would be sent to even worse camps. The SD officer who arrests them does show some mild deference when he sees Otto's old war equipment, addressing Otto by his former rank, ordering the other soldiers to wait outside and telling him he can take his time to gather his family's belongings.
-
*Criminal Minds*: There is a heartbreaking B-plot involving Agent Rossi's former commanding officer from when he was in the Vietnam war, who is black. In the course of a case, Rossi stumbles on him living on the street. It is then revealed that the medal which Rossi believed he earned, should have gone to his commanding officer. Rossi gives the guy the medal in a public ceremony and gets him a place with a charity that works with veterans. Eventually, the man is also reunited with his son and daughter-in-law. This guy wasn't getting respect from society because of his race, and he wasn't getting respect from his children because of his PTSD.
- In
*The Falcon and the Winter Soldier*, Isaiah Bradley was among several African American soldiers that were given an experimental form of the Super Serum to turn them into Super Soldiers, but many died due to complications, with Bradley and two others being the only ones left alive. When the other two men were captured during the Korean War, high command ordered the P.O.W. camp where they were held to be firebombed to keep their existence a secret. Bradley snuck out of his base and rescued them (much like Steve Rogers did during WWII), but it was All for Nothing as the men died from complications soon after. For going off base without permission, Bradley was court-martialed for insubordination and disobeying orders, and was sent to prison where he was experimented on for thirty years, and his wife was told that he had died during his imprisonment to keep anyone from the outside from asking questions about him. He only managed to escape when a sympathetic nurse helped fake his death.
- A sketch on the 90s black British sketch show
*The Real McCoy* had two WWII veterans, one black, one Indian, reflecting on their time in the war, and the abuse they suffered, but it was worth it because they helped put an end to a racist authoritarian state. Now they just need to do something about the other one.
- The opening of
*Watchmen (2019)* depicts the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, including shots of Will's father, a World War I veteran, in his old uniform as they flee the white mob sacking Greenwood. The second episode has a flashback of his father picking up a German Army leaflet urging black troops to switch sides and then being spat on by a white officer.
-
*Hitler: The Rise of Evil*: Hitler's commanding officer during World War I turns out to be a Jewish man. It's suggested that Hitler, who already held strong antisemitic beliefs at the time, earned his Iron Cross by blackmailing the man with this information. note : This is false, as his CO was open about being Jewish and Hitler considered him "one of the good ones" (along with a Jewish physician who'd once treated his mother), letting him leave later before the Holocaust happened.
- Peter LaFaye's "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" (whose
*Johnny Cash* cover is perhaps better known) about the Pima marine veteran Ira Hayes, much of which is dedicated to the hardships and discrimination Hayes suffered after returning to the United States.
- Sabaton:
- This is the plot of
*Deep are the Roots*, a 1945 play by Arnaud d'Usseau and James Gow about a black U.S. Army veteran who returns to the Deep South at the end of World War II.
- In
*Dark Elf Historia*, Freylia came to Orocu during the Great Offscreen War, where she served as a mercenary in Orocu's army. After the war, the government stiffed her because she was a dark elf, and, lacking the money to return home, she became a permanent member of Orocu's immigrant underclass, eking out a living by undertaking dangerous and potentially degrading jobs.
- Lincoln Clay from
*Mafia III* is a black Vietnam veteran who suffers systematic prejudice and discrimination upon returning to his home town New Bordeaux (fictionalized New Orleans).
- On
*Gargoyles*, gargoyles across the world have been mistreated, banished, and massacred despite their dedication to protecting people.
- Sadly all-too-common in the pre-Civil Rights era in the United States, especially in the South, and
*particularly* following World War I, where returning black soldiers were even lynched in their uniforms. Come World War II, the difference between how African-American veterans were treated in Europe versus how they were treated at home, Truman's integration of the US Armed Forces, and the overt race-based policies of Nazi Germany were contributing factors to the Civil Rights Movement. German and Japanese propaganda urging black soldiers not to fight, along with otherwise showcasing other racism in the US, helped this along (grossly hypocritical, of course, with both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan being incredibly racist themselves but it did cause embarrassment which spurred changes).
- To this day, undocumented immigrants are allowed to serve in the US armed forces, but can still be deported. American Samoan people also frequently serve, but still are denied citizenship, rather being designated as "nationals", a lesser legal category, which bars them from ever becoming officers among other things.
- San Francisco became America's Gayborhood because veterans who realized they were homosexual, bisexual, or transgender while serving and later outed knew You Can't Go Home Again as they would not be accepted. San Francisco was a major West Coast port of call for returning vets, so those who couldn't go back home stayed there among others like themselves.
- As cited above in the
*Max*, *Maus*, and Anne Frank examples, the treatment of German-Jewish soldiers who served during World War I falls into this. Many served in spite of virulent antisemitism in the country at the time; they hoped to earn the privilege of being treated as equals to non-Jewish people in German society, or that Germany would be able to stop the pogroms against the Russian-Jewish people. Even though many earned honors, the soldiers and veterans were quickly turned on when the Nazis rose to power. Although there were attempts to protect their veteran status by President Hindenburg, those disappeared after his death in 1935. After the Kristallnacht, the Jewish veterans organization was disbanded, its last act advising its members to flee Germany. Those who remained were treated the same as other Jews who remained: rounded up, imprisoned, and executed. The Nazis even tried to erase evidence that there were any Jewish soldiers who fought on behalf of Germany in World War I, and earlier the Army had suppressed a survey which showed Jews served at *higher* rates than their gentile counterparts since they had wanted to prove the opposite.
- Svetozar Boroević, a Croat general in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, who thanks to his leadership rose to the rank of Field Marshal despite the pro-Austrian bias of the time, found himself after the war being rejected by all of the successor states of the now-dismembered Austro-Hungarian Empire; Yugoslavs despised him for his pro-Habsburg loyalty (and apparent willingness to sacrifice numerous Yugoslavs in the defense of Austria-Hungary), while in the new Republic of Austria he was seen as an embarrassing reminder of their defeat and division. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppressedMinorityVeteran |
Orange - TV Tropes
Orange may refer to:
If a direct wick has led you here, please correct the link so that it points to the corresponding article. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Orange |
Oral Fixation - TV Tropes
She carries it with her everywhere.
*"The only thing she learned was that a pen function was not like a real pen in the most important way there was. You could not chew it."*
Sometimes a character will suck or chew on something as a form of characterization. These can range from toothpicks and blades of straw or grass to pencils, pens, cigarettes, lollipops, hard candy or chewing gum. Smoking Is Cool is an example, and it's possible that some of these are a way to capture the look while the No Smoking rule is in force. An Oral Fixation might also be a sign they are an ex-smoker, having substituted the deadly habit for a less unhealthy one. When food is used, this can overlap with Erotic Eating. Occasionally used in older works to indicate a character is particularly childish, though that usage is something of a Discredited Trope due to modern developments in developmental psychology.
In anime, having a piece of straw in one's mouth is a common depiction of a
*banchou*, or juvenile delinquent gang-leader character. In the West, the closest equivalent is the Dead Horse Trope of the toothpick-chewing thug — a character chewing a piece of straw merely signifies he's a Country Mouse. Toothpicks are still frequently used when a smoking character is transposed to a Lighter and Softer work. However, if a character employs this trope while smoking *is* present, then you've got a Cigar Chomper.
## Examples:
-
*7 Seeds* has Akio from Team Autumn, who is rarely ever seen *without* his pipe.
- Kurome in
*Akame ga Kill!* is often seen snacking, even in the middle of a mission sometimes. Chelsea, one of the protagonists, is also almost always sucking on a lollipop.
-
*Assassination Classroom*:
- Gastro likes to lick
*guns* and to drink ramen broth with the gun barrels.
- Karma has a habit of chewing things (nails, paper, etc.) whenever he's seriously upset.
- In the manga version of
*Battle Royale,* Sho (who has a bad smoking habit) is shown licking a cigarette several times, and *boy* is it detailed. Even referred to in-universe as an "oral fixation."
- In
*Beyond the Boundary*, Mitsuki often has a Chupa Chups in her mouth.
- In
*Black Butler II*, much focus is given to Alois's mouth and tongue, and he's constantly licking things like his mouth, among other things.
- Spoofed in
*Bleach* with Shunsui Kyoraku, who sticks a blade of straw in his mouth because he thought it would look cool, but it turns out to be toxic.
- Amaimon in
*Blue Exorcist* almost always has either a lollipop or one of his fingernails in his mouth.
- Hermann Kaltz from
*Captain Tsubasa* often has a small twig in his mouth. While Brilliant, but Lazy, him spitting it out means he finally gets serious.
-
*Death Note*:
- Mello is perpetually chomping a chocolate bar. In the manga, he also has a habit of
*suggestively* licking the chocolate before biting into it.
- His companion, Matt, is rarely seen without a cigarette in his mouth.
- L chews his thumbnail when he's thinking. Or excited. Or bored. Pretty much constantly, actually. When he's not eating sweets.
- His Evil Twin Beyond Birthday from
*Another Note* does the same. Justified, as he's trying to imitate L.
- Banchou Leomon from
*Digimon Data Squad* chomps on a piece of straw.
- Youichi Hiruma of
*Eyeshield 21* frequently chews and blows bubblegum, and has been seen with a cigarette once or twice. Rival quarterback the Kid is almost always seen with a blade of grass (or wheat, or something) in his mouth, as well.
- In
*Fullmetal Alchemist*, Jean Havoc is only seen without a cigarette in a few hospital scenes.
- In
*Get Backers*, although not licking any other object per se, Psycho for Hire Takuma Fudou loves to constantly lick his lips. This can be seen as a trait that makes him more disturbing, or... something for fetish appeal. Or both.
-
*Hajiotsu* has Otogi generally chewing or sucking on some kind of treat, like a lollipop or chocolate stick.
-
*Hatsukoi Limited* has Misaki Yamamoto and her habit of having a lollipop in her mouth. The guy who first stuck one in her mouth might have been her first crush.
-
*Hellsing*:
- Integra is constantly smoking, to the point where if anyone nearby has a lighter, they're expected to light her next cigar. Yes, even the Catholic Assassins.
- Alucard is often depicted holding a small cross between his fangs on covers.
- Naomasa in
*Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere* keeps an Allen wrench in her mouth.
- Mako in
*Kill la Kill* sports a reed when given the powers of a Two-Star uniform.
- Kio of
*Loveless* is almost always eating a lollipop. And trying to get other people to eat them, too.
- Kaneda of the
*Lychee Light Club* is almost constantly hunched over chewing on his nails.
-
*My Dress-Up Darling*: One of Marin's friends at school, Nowa Sugaya, is often seen with a lollipop in her mouth, even offering Gojo one when they meet.
-
*Naruto*:
- Genma Shiranui, a minor Jonin, constantly chews on what looks like a toothpick. Notably, when faced with the Sound 4, he spits it to deflect a kunai thrown at him, and it becomes apparent that it was actually a senbon.
- Orochimaru has a creepy habit of licking his lips.
- Asuma is always smoking unless it's serious.
- Omoi is often seen with a sucker in his mouth, even when talking.
- Kawayanagi from
*Ojojojo* always has a twig sticking out of his mouth.
-
*One Piece*:
- Sanji is rarely seen without a cigarette. It was changed to a lollipop in the 4Kids Macekre, and removed entirely for the edited Funimation dub.
- One of the Marines, Smoker, is self explanatory—but with cigars (two
*at once*) instead. 4Kids edited out the cigars while leaving the smoke (saying his body was making the smoke as part of the power) which also required the addition gaps in his teeth, while Funimation is planning to do the opposite: leave the cigars, remove the smoke.
- Crocodile can often be seen smoking a cigar.
- Child Emperor from
*One-Punch Man* is frequently depicted licking a lollipop he's holding in his hand. When the situation calls for him to use both hands, he'll hold it in his mouth.
-
*Pokémon: The Series*:
- Ash's Treecko always had a tiny wood branch which makes him the most badass of all of Ash's Pokémon. (As badass as you can get in
*Pokémon* at least.) He continues the habit when he evolves into Grovyle, but loses it temporarily when he evolved into Sceptile, as result of a Heroic BSoD.
- Pancham always has a leaf in its mouth. This is a type trait, and not unique to Serena's Pancham.
- Bunta Marui from
*The Prince of Tennis* loves to chew and blow on gum.
- Kyouko in
*Puella Magi Madoka Magica* is always shown eating snack foods, and even fights with a piece of Pocky in her mouth.
-
*Reborn! (2004)*:
- Spanner is always shown with a lollipop, and in one anime Omake is revealed to make them himself (including
*natto* flavour). Explained and lampshaded that the sugar boost is good for the brain.
- Likewise, Gokudera in the manga always had a cigarette in his mouth.
- Mizore Shirayuki from
*Rosario + Vampire* provides the page image. She very often has a lollipop in her mouth, but this is justified; she's a yuki-onna and the pop is used to keep herself cool. According to an Omake, it's got a super-chilly frost core. Other snow fairies are seen with similar coolant candies when outside of their homeland.
- Sagara Sanosuke from
*Rurouni Kenshin* is almost always seen with a completely stripped fish skeleton in his mouth, or a small plant if he is traveling.
- In
*Samurai 7*, Tessai, Ukyo's Beleaguered Assistant (and Battle Butler), always has an unlit corncob pipe in his mouth.
- Jack, from
*Shanghai Youma Kikai*, is literally never seen without a cigarette.
- In
*Sherlock Hound*, Holmes keeps his pipe in his mouth almost all the time, even when it isn't lit. In one episode, he seals it so he can keep it on a non-smoking train.
- The resident samurai Mifune from
*Soul Eater* always has a reed in his mouth.
- In
*Strawberry Marshmallow*, when Nobue has (temporarily) stopped smoking, one of the things she does is, when asked to write the answer on the chalkboard, stick the piece of chalk in her mouth as if it were a cigarette. She also picks up an amazing Pocky habit — the resulting weight gain is what drives her back to cigarettes.
- Saku from
*Tantei Opera Milky Holmes* always has a lollipop in her mouth.
- Fat kid Fuguo in
*Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku* almost always has an ice cream bar in his mouth.
- Gascogne from
*Vandread*. Interestingly becomes plot-important when ||the weird metal thing turns out to transform into a key.||
- The titular Violet in
*Violet Evergarden* is prone to nibbling on things she is given, like the brooch Gilbert gifted her and the plush dog from Claudia. She also prefers to remove her gloves by holding a finger to her teeth. It makes sense as Violet cannot feel anything with her metal arms so she uses her mouth to actually get some sensation from things.
- Yami Bakura and Yami Marik of
*Yu-Gi-Oh!* sometimes lick their lips.
- In
*Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V*, Sora sucks on lollipops a lot, and given how strong he is can knock someone out by throwing one. When angry or upset, he tends to bite them rather than suck them.
- Koenma's pacifier in
*YuYu Hakusho*: not so out of place in his toddler form, but much more noticeable in his older and more Bishounen guise. Apparently, several centuries of soaking in a junior god's essence also makes it a fairly potent magical object.
- In the anime of
*Medabots* Coach Mountain always has a toothpick in his mouth.
-
*Batman*:
- Detective Harvey Bullock. In the comics he's generally chomping on a cigar; in the animated series, it's a toothpick.
- And then there's Matches Malone.
- Harley Quinn is often seen chewing bubble gum while out of costume.
- The Penguin is never seen without his trademark cigarette holder.
- Herbie and his lollipops from the comic
*Herbie*
-
*Lucky Luke* originally smoked, until he traded his cigarette for a blade of grass.
- Lampshaded in
*Marcel Dalton*: "Cigar? -I stopped. -I forgot. Blade of grass? -No thanks, I'm stopping."
- Dr. Will Magnus, creator of the
*Metal Men*, is hardly ever seen without a pipe in his mouth. During *52*, he admits that he doesn't smoke, and that the pipe is "just to chew on." Another character directly namedrops this as an oral fixation.
-
*Robin (1993)*: Callie Evans is often chewing bubble gum or gnawing on straws or pencils if she's not playing basketball.
-
*The Transformers (IDW)*: Kup is given a cigar-like piece of metal that he chews on.
- Parodied in the comic
*Van Von Hunter*: the title character (a vampire hunter) constantly chews a toothpick. His sidekick finally asks about it, just in time for him to dramatically reveal that it's really a miniature *stake.*
- Kanril Eleya of
*Bait and Switch* has for her Trademark Favorite Food the jumja stick, a Bajoran sweet made from tree sap that resembles a large lollypop. She's even been known to have them in lieu of breakfast.
-
*The Bolt Chronicles*: In "The Walk," Penny plucks a stalk of grass and puts it in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
- Jun Shigeno in the
*Horseshoes and Hand Grenades* side story *Month of Sundays* places lollipops in her mouth when she's depressed or in serious thinking mode.
- In some of the
*Kill la Kill AU* comics, a then 8-year old Ryuuko was seen with a cigarette in her mouth. This played for slight drama in one comic, where she opens her mouth in shock and it falls out, to which she doesn't put it back in.
- The snake conman Benjamin Hares in
*Old West* has a toothpick in his mouth when he first shows up to swindle his estranged wife Grace.
-
*Hornet* of *Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls* has a craving for lollipops, so naturally she's seen enjoying them, even when she's already hurt.
- In the
*One Piece* fanfic *'Til You Feel It All Around You*, Sanji doesn't want to smoke around his deaged nakama. In its place, he unconsciously develops a habit of biting his thumb, something he doesn't realize until Franky points it out to him.
-
*The Simpsons: Team L.A.S.H.*: Reflecting how dependent she was on her pacifier when she was a baby, Maggie chews bubble gum at almost all times, and bites her old pacifier (which she wears on a pendant around her neck) when shes stressed.
- Emeth debuts in
*Warriors of the World* chewing a leaf and it's occasionally lampshaded as the sight of it moving as he chews is distracting to his party members if they focus on it for a bit too long. It's implied that the leaf is some sort of drug that helps him stay relaxed.
- Da Chief Root from
*Artemis Fowl* keeps a cigar in his mouth, but unlit, because actually lighting cigars is against regulations (good thing, too, as it's apparently a "fungus cigar").
- During particularly stressful situations in
*The Eternity Code*, Spiro often sticks a cigar in his mouth, which the narration notes will be chewed to a pulp but not lit. "His doctors had forbidden it. Politely."
- Ce'Nedra in
*The Belgariad* habitually chews on her hair when nervous or thinking.
- In
*Bravelands* it's mentioned that a minor character named Grass Middleleaf is always chewing on a stalk of grass.
- In
*Charlie and the Chocolate Factory*, Violet Beauregarde adores chewing gum and can make a single stick of it last to record-setting levels. She only takes a break at mealtimes and bedtime, but that piece of gum is never far away. This becomes her undoing when she decides to sample a stick of experimental gum in the titular factory...
- Beaver, from Stephen King's
*Dreamcatcher*, is constantly chewing on toothpicks. ||It leads, indirectly, to his death||.
- Mr. Sir from
*Holes* constantly chewed sunflower seeds. He used to smoke, but chewed seeds after he quit.
- The character Mars Bar in the novel
*Maniac Magee* gets his nickname from his love of candy bars. He habitually holds one in his teeth like a fat cigar. Near the end, another character begins calling him Snickers.
-
*Nero Wolfe*: Police Inspector Cramer has a cigar in his mouth almost all the time — he hardly ever smokes it, he just chomps it. And this is *not* a bow to the modern perception of smoking, as the character was doing this in stories published before World War II.
- In
*River of Teeth*, Cal Hotchkiss is never seen without a toothpick in his mouth, occasionally two. The intensity with which he chews on them varies with the emotional intensity of the scene. When Houndstooth, in the burning down of whose ranch Cal was involved, mockingly inquieres whether Cal has quit smoking his tight-lipped answer amounts to having had gotten all the smoke he'd needed on that day.
- Gwen, one of the two Kid Detectives in the
*Something Queer [is going on]* series, taps her braces when she is thinking hard, a habit which tends to annoy the people around her.
- In the novel
*Song of Solomon* by Toni Morrison, the character Pilate is described as always chewing something: orange seeds, pine needles, a rubber band.
-
*That Hideous Strength*, Major Hardcastle always has a cheroot in her mouth; she hardly ever lights it. When she does, watch out!
- More a fixation on the mouth than on eating, but a lot of the imagery around the band DOROTHY has a laser-focus on Dorothy Martin's bright red lips, including the cover art for the EP and first album and the music video for "Get Up."
- In
*Calvin and Hobbes*, Calvin loves chewing gum. He's even *subscribed to a magazine about chewing*!
- Duke in the
*Doonesbury* comic strip always has a lit cigarette in a cigarette holder hanging from his mouth. The character is based on Hunter S. Thompson, who made signature use of cigarette holders.
- One time in
*Peanuts* Charlie Brown found what he thought was the Little Red-Haired Girl's dropped pencil and saw that she had chewed on it. "She's human!"
- The shooter in
*Eight Ball Deluxe* has a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
- Professional wrestler Scott Hall usually chews a toothpick during promos.
- Joey Ryan has a thing for suckers and lollipops. He will suck on one, give it to a fan, and then take it back after they have sucked on it. He will suck on one, wipe his hairy self down with it, and go back to sucking it. He doesn't care if they fall on the floor either,
*few* things will turn him off from one, especially if it is a blow pop.
- The easiest way to get Sara Del Rey to loosen up is to make her think gum is involved. As long as she's not working in the ring she'll
*always* go for it.
- Ann Traxx chews gum for very long periods of time, sticking it on the ring post to chew later when she has a match. She once "accidentally" dropped her gum on the floor, only to pick it up and keep chewing. Another time she jumped Lexie Fyfe, forced her mouth open and took Fyfe's gum to add to her own wad of it. All this lead up to a Humiliating Wager where Ann Thraxx forced XJAM Commissioner Charlie to chew that very same wad of gum.
- Pete Dunne has a habit of posing with title belts by holding them between his teeth.
- The model for Horticulous Slimux from
*Warhammer: Age of Sigmar* and *Warhammer 40,000* is chewing on a human bone in the same manner that a stereotypical country farmer chews on a stalk of wheat or corn. This is intended to strengthen the agricultural theme of Nurgle's head gardener.
-
*Ace Attorney*:
- Juan Corrida, one of the victims in
*Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney* constantly has a piece of straw in his mouth- except in the photo of the crime scene, of course.
- In
*Ace Attorney Investigations*, Detective Badd appears at first to be your standard hardboiled cop, smoking a cigarette, but it's actually a lollipop. (And as he sucks on it... his speech pauses... dramatically...)
- Simon Blackquill keeps one of his pet hawk's feathers in his mouth.
- In
*Bayonetta*, the titular character is frequently seen with a lollipop. Additionally, by pressing the button corresponding to the type of lollipop boost you want and holding it down until the lollipop comes onscreen, you can actually change the color of Bayonetta's lollipop ||and get a (usually) much-needed boost. The best part? This doesn't count as a used item||.
- Kokonoe from
*Blazblue* has custom made silvervine lollipops, and she's almost never seen without one. The gag reels joke they're the source of her intelligence and she's been eating them for so long she can't eat anything else.
-
*Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series*: Texas born General Carville can often be seen chewing on a toothpick. Played for laughs in one scene where he absentmindedly grabs a pick, pulls out the one he already had in his mouth, realizes what he just did, stares at them for a second in confusion, then shrugs and puts the new one in.
- Cid from
*Final Fantasy VII* smokes cigarettes. Every tenth battle, it's a cigar instead. He can even use his cigarettes in battle, by using them to *light dynamite*.
- The Engineer in
*Half-Life: Opposing Force* always had a lit cigarette in his mouth, which he uses to ignite his blowtorch when asked to break a door open.
-
*Halo*: Captain Keyes from *Halo: Combat Evolved* chews his grandfather's tobacco pipe. The novels explain that he's not allowed to smoke it while onboard a spacecraft, because of the contained atmosphere.
- Naturally, Juliet from
*Lollipop Chainsaw* sucks on lollipops a lot, using them as Power-Up Food.
- Cassie Cage, a new character introduced in
*Mortal Kombat X*, is always chewing and blowing bubble gum. She even uses it in one of her Fatalities.
- Munehisa Iwai from
*Persona 5* always has what appears to be a cigarette sticking out of his mouth. Though it's later revealed to be a lollipop.
- The
*Pokémon* Pancham and Pangoro. Pancham is always seen chewing on a leaf, in an effort to look cool. Pangoro keeps a bamboo shoot in its mouth, fitting with its *banchou* motif, and allowing it to deduce enemy movement.
- Johnathan Ingram, lead character of
*Policenauts*, is always depicted with a cigarette in his mouth. And he never lights it. Several characters point out that it is illegal to smoke on a space colony because of air purification issues and/or the threat of the oxygen igniting. Though it's implied Johnathan doesn't smoke anyway.
- You can equip a blade of grass just to invoke this trope in
*Ragnarok Online*.
- Detective Magnotta, Christopher Walken's character in
*Ripper*, can simply **not** keep a cigar out of his mouth for more than five minutes. And he doesn't really even smoke them, just chews them vigorously.
- Red and most other Caninu of
*Solatorobo* tend to like chewing on bones, and even have a variety of bite styles to express different personalities. Apparently, girls are considered delinquents if they walk around chewing on them◊.
- One of Mitsurugi's costumes in
*Soulcalibur 2* gives him a blade of grass/wheat.
- In the first
*Starcraft* game, the image avatar for the Firebat unit was depicted with a cigarette in his mouth.
- Repede from
*Tales of Vesperia* carries his old master's pipe around in his mouth whenever he's not in battle. He was even like this as a puppy, carrying around things like sticks, small bones, and even a spoon.
- In the game
*Wing Commander*, Captain Ian "Hunter" St. John constantly has a cigar in his mouth.
- In
*The World Ends with You*, Koki Kariya's lollipop/bean paste is sort of his personal signature item to the point Beat tends to refer to him has "Lollipop" - subverted, though, as he never actually has it in his mouth when he appears, instead holding it. Rather delicately.
- Arsenic from
*Band vs. Band*, with cigarettes as well as a variety of candy and popsicles and beverages with straws.
- The bounty hunter Sadick from
*Charby the Vampirate* is normally chewing on a toothpick, and when caught without one tends to end up gnawing on his lower lip.
- Carlita and Shanna from
*Elf Blood* are rarely depicted without a cigarette in their mouths. Shanna even chain-smokes when she's stressed or particularly upset.
- Merlu of
*Juathuur* - straw version.
- Brent, from
*Misfile*, chews on toothpicks.
- Dave from
*Narbonic* was almost never seen without a cigarette in his mouth... until he went back in time and changed the past so that he never started smoking. It became a Running Gag that he would mention how he used to smoke and no one else would remember it.
- Da Chief in
*Star Power* is of a species that deals with stress by chewing on things, and is rarely seen without a "chewstick" in his mouth. In chapter 8 he starts using thicker ones.
-
*Tower of God*:
- Nobic really should stop chewing his fingers.
- Ha Jinsung. Went from cigarettes to Chupa Chup lollipops (thanks to Wangnan). Even Rak calls him the "candy turtle".
- Jet from
*Avatar: The Last Airbender* constantly chews on and holds a blade of grass in his mouth, but he loses it along with much of his badassery when he ||gets brainwashed.|| Sokka even tries to see if replacing it would help. It doesn't.
- Det. Harvey Bullock on
*Batman: The Animated Series* constantly chewed a toothpick, in a way that made it rather clear he either used to smoke, or still did when the camera and censors weren't around. Once used for Squick, when he flicked it at his officious landlord. It stuck.
- In fact, in one episode, where Batman suspects Bullock of having a police informant killed (the informant had previously accused Bullock of taking bribes) a toothpick at the crime scene is his biggest tip-off. ||Bullock is innocent; the toothpick was planted by the real culprit, Killer Croc.||
- The
*DuckTales (1987)* episode "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Duck" features a parody of Sherlock Holmes who constantly keeps a pipe in his teeth, which he doesn't smoke, likely just to look distinguished.
- Played for laughs in one episode of
*The Fairly OddParents!* with Cosmo and his wand, to show off his ditz status.
- Two in
*G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero*:
- Breaker is literally always chewing gum and is willing to disobey a direct order to discard it.
- Clutch, somewhat similarly, has been known to chew on the same toothpick for months.
-
*King of the Hill*:
- Dale Gribble is rarely seen without a cigarette in his mouth.
**Dale:** My oral fixation!
- In one episode he switches to chewing tobacco, but his wife convinces him to switch back when he won't stop spitting on the floor.
-
*Western Animation/Looneytunes*:
- Bugs Bunny and his carrots, which were kind of a substitute for a cigar.
-
*Yankee Doodle Daffy*: Any time Sleepy LaGoon is on screen, he's seen licking his lollipop, which is so big it nearly conceals his face.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*:
- Newborn filly Pumpkin Cake has the odd habit of chewing on just about anything she can find — except food. Tableclothes, bath towels, stuffed toys, rubber chickens, etc. As she's a month old when it really kicks in, it's possible she's teething (horses teeth at one month).
- Applejack can often be seen with a piece of straw in her mouth, as can her brother Macintosh.
- Pinkie's toothless alligator Gummy often vacantly latches onto objects or ponies.
- In the
*Rick and Morty* episode "Promortyus", Summer decides to have a toothpick in her mouth for some reason. This ends up saving her as the Face Huggers poke their eyes on it when they jump at her.
-
*The Simpsons*:
- Maggie Simpson and her pacifier.
- An Ogdenville farmer on
*The Simpsons* has a piece of straw in his mouth.
- The Sea Captain, Horatio McAllister, is always seen with a pipe in his mouth, which he rarely actually smokes.
- In
*Star vs. the Forces of Evil* the titular Star frequently chews on her wand.
- The creators of
*Star Wars: The Clone Wars* originally intended to give Bounty Hunter Cad Bane a habit of smoking cigars, but they had to scrap it, so instead he's almost always seen chewing a toothpick, when not on job. In an episode from Season 4, he threatens to slit a pawnshop owner's throat with one of his toothpicks.
- In Season 7, Crosshair, the Bad Batchs Cold Sniper, also has a toothpick habit.
-
*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)*:
- Slim, a one-shot character, usually chewed a match. Another one-shot character, Spuds, would chew on a stick.
- A minor villain in the "Turtles in Space" arc was Gruel, a sadistic and slovenly Triceraton slave driver. One of his horns was replaced by a metal one, which he was constantly removing to use like a toothpick.
- Baseball players in general chew gum or tobacco (as per personal preference). Supposedly, it relaxes them in what is normally a stressful situation, and in particular it also helps keep the mouth moist in the dry baseball diamond.
- Winston Churchill kept a cigar in his mouth pretty much from dawn until bedtime. At home he would just kind of chew on them unlit, and even had special sticky-paper bands made up to help hold them together.
- His pal Franklin D. Roosevelt was a cigarette-in-a-holder guy, and was depicted that way almost everywhere.
- Doug Walker. If there's a giving-a-blowjob joke to be made, then
*by God*, he will make it.
- Hayden Panettiere seems to have this weird compulsion to lick things. Considering her physical appearance, this can lead to some fetish appeal.
- Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters is always seen chewing gum on stage, including whilst singing. He says it helps with all the shouting.
- Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal always bites any trophy he wins. Especially the grand slam trophies.
- Mixed Martial Arts fighter and UFC Lightweight champion Benson Henderson often fights with a toothpick hidden in his mouth, in spite of the danger this presents. He produced it from his mouth immediately after the final bell of his successful title defense against Nate Diaz, but denied it in the following interview. His coach admits that he has repeatedly told Henderson not to pull this stunt and even checks his mouth before fights, but Henderson still manages to sneak it in there sometimes.
- Although not every role that Brad Pitt plays has an oral fixation, more of his characters than is common are shown eating at some point. Pitt himself must be the one suggesting that his characters eat something in various scenes as "stage business."
- Similarily to Pitt, a lot of David Tennant's characters have a habit of sticking things in their mouths. The Doctor tastes things because he has special Time Lord-senses in his tongue that he uses to pick up vital info, Kilgrave licks Jessica's cheek to assert dominance, and Barty Crouch Jr. constantly licks his lips because he's bat-shit crazy.
- Tennant himself also shows signs of this. On the commentary for Doctor Who's second series episode "The Impossible Planet", he stops the conversation dead when he says that he wants to chew on the Ood tentacles...and then describes what they would feel like in his mouth. In detail. In case there was any doubt, he also talks about biting their ears in the
*Confidential* for the same episode.
- Some neurodivergent people stim through this method. Nine times out of ten, this is to self-regulate.
- Of course, the trope is named after Sigmund Freud's concept.
- Basketball star Stephen Curry is always chewing on his mouth guard, to the point
*NBA 2K* had to incorporate it.
- Soccer manager Maurizio Sarri is a very heavy smoker. Because he is unable to smoke on the pitch, he instead chews on cigarette butts on the sidelines during games.
- Many kittens suck on blankets or their owner's skin, sometimes to an obsessive degree, as a substitution for nursing on their mother, especially if they were taken away from their mother at too early an age.
- Oral fixations are a common stim among autistic people, often taking the form of chewing on the seam of the collar of t-shirts. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OralFixationFixation |
Oracular Urchin - TV Tropes
She's Layla Miller. She knows stuff. I wouldn't argue with that.
Usually female, small and fey in a disturbing way, the Oracular Urchin knows more about the future—or the present—than she really should. Sometimes her mysterious comments are clear, but usually they just confuse matters until everything's over, and maybe not even then. When things come to a head, the Oracular Urchin may be the one who explains Everything (either explicitly or by implication) to the hero — and, to the audience.
Related to the Waif Prophet, but the Oracular Urchin is not usually ill or weak in any way — just ... different, strangely informed and, usually, very oddly plugged-in. Once you have enough background to parse what they say.
See also Fainting Seer, Mad Oracle, and Mysterious Waif. If no one believes her, she's The Cassandra.
## Examples:
- A filler episode of the
*Ranma ½* anime is centered on Akane's friend Miyo, a very cute Fortune Teller who tells her how cure a mysterious illness that befalls the Tendō household.
- Quon Kisaragi and Reika Mishima from
*RahXephon*. Quon tends toward quiet crypticness, but seems to be strangely familiar with Ayato. ||Because he's her clone/son and her counterpart in tuning the world.|| Mishima is more active, but still very cryptic, and is very insistent on Ayato becoming one with the Rahxephon. More strangely, she doesn't seem to have a reflection and no one remembers her but Ayato. ||She's the soul of the Rahxephon personified, Ixtli, and modeled after the girl he loves: the younger Haruka Mishima.||
- Rin from
*Please Save My Earth*.
- "D" from
*Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure* probably counts, too.
- Lain Iwakura from
*Serial Experiments Lain* is an extreme variation on this type.
- Ran from
*Texhnolyze* can see one of the many possibilities of the future. Not surprising, considering she comes from the same dude who created Lain Iwakura.
- Rei Ayanami from
*Neon Genesis Evangelion* is a borderline Oracular Urchin — she is fey and clearly knows far more of what's going on than most of the other characters, but she provides no revelations to anyone — including, for a long time, the audience.
- Chikage from
*Sister Princess* is a little old to be an "urchins" but certainly mysterious and oracular.
- Ditto with Cheza from
*Wolf's Rain*.
- Spoofed by Hitomi Aasu in
*Puni Puni Poemi*, who actually has accurate (but ultimately, not very useful) precognitive powers.
- Manaka of
*Boogiepop Phantom*. After confusing the audience and much of the cast with her glowing flashback/flashforward butterflies, she explains everything via voiceover in the penultimate episode. Well, almost everything. Kind of.
- Shouko in
*Night Head Genesis*.
-
*My-HiME*'s Nagi Homura. He's barely older than even the youngest of the HiME, and yet he knows far more about the Orphans than any of them do. While he prefers to sit on the sidelines in the anime, mangaverse Nagi takes it a step further, actively opposing the HiME and positioning himself as a secondhand villain.
- Little Kohane Tsuyuri from
*×××HOLiC* has the ability to see spirits much like Watanuki's, which leads them to develop an Intergenerational Friendship
- Carim Gracia of
*Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS*, who has the ability to magically create prophecies for the near future once a year. Unfortunately, the prophecies come in the dead Ancient Belka language, record things at random, *and* are written in poem form that can be interpreted in many ways, making them rather cryptic once translated into something readable. Carim lampshades how helpful this trope tends to be by saying that her ability is about as useful as a fairly accurate horoscope due to the mentioned factors. Still, both The Church and The Federation treat these prophecies seriously since, hey, they're *still* glimpses into the future.
- Haruka in
*Until Death Do Us Part*. It's a main plot that everyone wants her because of her powers.
- Anlu the Oracle from
*Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden*. ||And she pays for it with her life.||
- Yashiro Hoshimiya fills this role in
*Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl*. At first she appears to be an obnoxious girl obsessed with space like the titular character Erio Touwa, and she constantly berates Makoto Niwa for having caused her to stop believing in alien activity. Then at the end of episode 13, after telling Makoto to move slightly, a meteor lands right in the spot where he was standing just moments earlier, causing him to wonder if she really was an alien or not.
-
*Frankenweenie* has the Weird Girl, who interprets the contents of her cat's litterbox to look into the future.
- In
*The Matrix*, the androgynous monk child ("Spoon Boy" according to the script) who claims that "There is no spoon."
- The plague ridden child in Mel Gibson's
*Apocalypto* who accosts the slavers as they bring their captives in for sacrifice.
- While female, small, fey, and creepy, this child is probably more of a Waif Prophet due to her obvious illness.
-
*Scary Movie 3* has Cody.
-
*Men in Black 3*, has an alien named Griffin, who can see multiple futures on what can or may happen.
-
*Push* has Cassie, a second-generation Watcher, capable of seeing visions of possible futures and drawing them (badly). Her Triad counterpart is Pop Girl who is older.
- In
*Morgan*, Morgan has a bit of a precognitive ability that lets her glean information about people without having spoken to them. Lee Weathers takes it in stride but the psychoanalyst Dr. Shapiro appears to lose his cool over it and drives Morgan to the breaking point emotionally...which ends up getting him killed.
- The Quorial, the body of mostly middle-aged and older leaders among the Servants of Saint Camber, curiously includes Rhidian, a woman "who looked to be barely into puberty," yet provides a psychic shield for the whole Quorial, preventing Kelson from reading their minds. It is she who speaks for the Quorial to inform Kelson of their decision to offer him a chance to avoid the death penalty for sacrilege by undergoing the
*cruaidh-dheuchainn*, a ritual ordeal which she tells Kelson she has herself undergone. She is said to speak enigmatically and has "a disturbingly direct gaze".
- In Tamora Pierce's Tortall book
*Lady Knight*, Kel runs across an oracular street urchin who—along with her own seeing powers—has an omniscient god-like thing using her as a puppet on occasion.
- Devera, the brown-eyed little girl from (this is not hyperbole) every book Steven Brust has ever written. Her
*lack* of appearance in *Five Hundred Years After* is even lampshaded in the "Author interview" at the end. A full tally of her appearances may be found here; 'ware spoilers. This is what happens when a part-goddess little girl with Time Travel powers is allowed to run around loose.
- Aura in the Alastair Reynolds novel
*Absolution Gap*, who is infused with knowledge by an alien entity while still unborn in order to give humans some kind of chance against the Inhibitors.
- Steven Erikson's
*Malazan Book of the Fallen*:
- Kettle is an undead girl who lives in the Azath cemetery in Letheras and nonchalantly kills people she thinks are bad between providing everyone who will listen with matter-of-fact revelations of things "the dead told her", which generally relate to current events she should have no means of knowing about. Part of her uncanny insights come from her being connected to the Azath Tower and serving it by feeding it the corpses of those she kills. Silchas Ruin claims that Kettle has two souls inside of her, one of which is Forkrul Assail, though he never specifies if the other is native to her once-mortal body or another one stuffed in there after she died. Kettle vaguely remembers being both a mortal child and a Nameless One child of the Eres, who was wrapped up in prophecies. When the Azath Tower dies, Kettle starts coming back to life, but she never stops with her mysterious revelations. ||At the end of
*Reaper's Gale*, Silchas kills her, and a new Azath House sprouts from her body||.
- Subverted with Grub, an boy orphan who tags along with the Malazan army. He starts out as being uncannily good at digging up bad omens and getting along with strange creatures, and both High Mage Quick Ben and the priest Banaschar comment on how he is touched by
*something*, so the expectation develops that he will start providing prophetic speeches as soon as he learns to speak. High Mage Sinn also is convinced that Grub is not a human child but the Anthropomorphic Personification of the suffering of the refugees during the Chain of Dogs in *Deadhouse Gates*. But Grub grows up an absolutely normal boy with no greater insight into anything but Sinn's annoying antics, and he feels nothing unusual about himself. Only at the very end of the series does it become clear that he *is* a Child Prodigy in military tactics, which stems from his potentially unnatural origin in the Chain of Dogs.
- Jojen Reed of
*A Song of Ice and Fire*.
- "There are dreams and dreams."
-
*Romance of the Three Kingdoms*: The songs of children singing in the street are prophetic. There however is at least one time where someone merely *claims* that they exist, and one incident where a treacherous retainer interprets some children's prediction his way.
-
*Gaunt's Ghosts*: In *Straight Silver*, Gaunt and Beltayr meet with a strange woman in the woods, who says she is Elinor Zaker, a retired Battle Sister, and gives Gaunt intimations of the future — vague, because she explicitly tells him that she can not tell him too much. Gaunt sees her scars and concludes that she suffered brain damage. She also lends him a car, which vanishes after they have gotten where they are going. As do its keys. And they can't find her chapel afterwards. And her name proves to be that of a bionically-augmented warrior who fought in a Crusade in the region for its founder and died in battle *6000 years ago*.
-
*The Dresden Files* has the Archive. She's usually not particularly cryptic, but she knows *everything that's ever been written down* (at least since the position was created possibly around 580-570 BCE starting with Pythia). Omniscience of anything recorded isn't the whole of her powers — while the Archive is usually an an adult, the current one's circumstances result in something a step (possibly a very small step) down from a prepubescent goddess.
-
*The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray*: When Devil-Boy Jack first appears he's described as a ten year old beggar whose eyes are sewn shut. For the rest of the book, he predicts the future, knows things nobody else does (usually because there's no way they can) and remains as unnervingly deadpan as ever during the end mission, even though he knows that several people in his party will die (he also knows who it will be, when and how). We never find out where he came from, why he was blinded in such a gruesome way, or indeed, anything about his background or personal life. He's very creepy, but a valuable asset to the protagonists.
-
*Inheritance Cycle*: Elva is just your standard little girl with disturbing eyes, an odd silver mark on her forehead (from a dragon no less), and the ability to sense the pain and how to deal with it of everyone around her for an unspecified distance. It doesn't help that ||until almost halfway through Brisingr,|| she can't ignore everyone else's pain and it hurts worse if she tries to not help them.
-
*Good Omens*: Anathema Device, thanks to being direct descendant of the only 100% accurate prophetess in human history and a studious scholar of her prophecies. She is also a minor psychic herself.
- Gretel from
*The Milkweed Triptych* is a villainous version; a sociopath who can see decades into the future and uses this knowledge to become The Chessmaster.
- How Cassandra is portrayed early in David Gemmell's
*Troy* trilogy (she grows up).
- The magic users in
*The Dinosaur Lords*, especially youthful Aphrodite and way older than she looks Fantastic Anthropologist Karyl meets, are portrayed this way. They seem to know astoundingly much about Karyl, and even while Aphrodite makes an effort to explain herself away, the other woman is simply mysterious.
-
*Worm*: Lisa "Tattletale" Wilborn, whose power is more of a super-accurate Sherlock Scan than anything actually precognitive, and frequently leads to her knowing things about people that they'd rather stayed private... And sometimes things Lisa didn't want to know either.
- Trance Gemini in
*Andromeda*.
-
*The 4400*: Maia, who was only eight when she disappeared in 1946, has the ability to see the future. All of her visions come true and there appears to be no way to change things. The best example of this is ||NTAC's inability to prevent Jordan Collier's murder|| in "As Fate Would Have It". In "The New World", it is revealed that her ability has grown stronger since going off the promicin inhibitor to the point that she wakes up every morning knowing exactly what is going to happen. Prior to this, her power was restricted to occasional flashes. By "Gone, Part I", she has learned to focus her ability to the point that she can control when she receives visions to a certain extent.
- Nancy in the "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" episodes of
*Doctor Who*.
- Sanjog Iyer in
*Heroes*, who seems to vacillate between being an ordinary boy and an all-seeing Spirit Advisor in the course of a single scene. As is usual for this trope, despite the earth-shaking importance of Sanjog's insights, nobody ever just grabs the little blighter painfully by the ear and orders him to explain himself clearly for a change.
-
*Heroes* also has Molly Walker, whose power is to know where a person is by concentrating on him/her, and for some reason she feels the need to be all cryptic about it. She returns as a Waif Prophet later in the season (her illness must be cured before she can use her powers again.)
- Walt on
*Lost*, which is frustratingly *never explained*.
-
*Power Rangers Wild Force* had such a child: he couldn't remember who he was but found people and things from the battle 3,000 years ago strangely familiar, and occasionally saved the day with New Powers as the Plot Demands. Turns out he's the spirit of a Humongous Mecha from three thousand years ago and was testing the heroes all along.
- There's an unnamed Oracular Urchin in two episodes of the second series of
*Torchwood* — in "Dead Man Walking", she tells Jack where to find ||the Resurrection Gauntlet's mate|| and cautions him against using it with a surprisingly literal Tarot reading, and in the series-of-flashbacks-episode "Fragments", it's revealed how Jack met her and found out that ||eventually he would meet the Doctor, but not for another hundred years.||
- River from
*Firefly*.
- The "Waif Child" from the
*Are You Afraid of the Dark?* movie "The Tale of the Silver Sight" fits this trope. ||Though as the evil creator of the titular Artifact of Doom, he has reason to be knowledgable.||
- In
*The 10th Kingdom*, the little girl in Kissing Town. Later revealed to be the spirit of Snow White.
- Radar O'Reilly of
*M*A*S*H* could strangely anticipate incoming helicopters, phone calls, and orders people were about to give him. Downplayed in the book, where he simply has unusually good hearing.
- Literary/Musical Theater example - Edgar from
*Ragtime* has intermittent prophetic moments, but they are never even remotely clear until after the foreseen event. It's a little creepy.
- In
*Anyone Can Whistle*, Baby Joan Schroeder is used this way to sell the alleged Rock of Limitless Water.
- Cha Dawn in the
*Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri* Expansion Pack is a 10-year old kid with all the wisdom of a 90-year old elder, capable of communicating with the aliens.
- ||Trenia|| from
*Makai Kingdom* is one of these, although at first glance she appears to be an extremely ditzy Cloudcuckoolander. She even goes as far as telling Pram (an actual oracle) that there are things about the Netherworld even *she* isn't supposed to know. Pram would probably qualify, too, aside from being Really 700 Years Old and a Deadpan Snarker.
- ||Pram was only faking being an oracle by sneaking looks at the Sacred Tome.||
- Justified in that ||Trenia
**is** the Sacred Tome.||
- Sybill from
*Alundra*, though it could be argued that she is a Waif Prophet instead, due to her being a child, and having something that is *like* a mental illness, after a fashion.
- In
*Final Fantasy X*, a spiritual Oracular Urchin follows the main character, usually in his dreams, making random appearances to deliver a message, albeit usually not a very useful one, with the exception of the game's revelation. Eventually, he is revealed to be ||the fayth of the dragon aeon, Bahamut.||
- In
*Final Fantasy Tactics*, Saint Ajora's claim to fame was, shortly after *being born* (translation error), he pointed out a well that would spread disease, which it did. He then went on to found a religion. Of course, ||that was apparently all a lie of the Glabados Church, and Ajora's just this guy, you know? This guy with ambitions of godhood.||
- Nephilim from
*Xenosaga*.
- This fact makes hardly any sense, considering the fact that Nephilim is really from the past and not the future. Originally from Canada during the era of Lost Jerusalem, ||Earth, for those who don't know||, Nephilim was ||the first to disappear when the system went haywire during an experiment with the Zohar.||
- Nephilim is ||in touch with U-DO, a being from another dimension||, and can see many things which the protagonists do not.
- Thearesa from
*Fable*.
- This role is filled by Pharos in
*Persona 3*, ||an early embodiment of Ryoji, the Appriser who will summon Nyx to end all life on Earth. He appears before the main character because the Appriser was sealed into his body ten years ago.||
- Janus in
*Chrono Trigger*. "The black winds howl. One among you... will shortly perish."
- The Forecaster in
*Fallout: New Vegas*, a psychic child who can be paid to reveal his prophecies regarding the Mojave, the upcoming Battle of Hoover Dam and The Courier.
- From
*Fire Emblem*:
- Sophia from
*Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade*, who was chosen as a priestess because of her prophetic visions.
- Ninian from
*Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade* was this in the past. ||More exactly, she was this as the Shrine Dragon.|| Her little brother Nils fits in a little more after he takes over Hannah's work.
- Aht in
*Radiant Historia*. It's revealed early on that she's a shaman with the power to see souls and talk to the dead, and she occasionally lets slip hints that she knows much more about what's going on than she's saying.
- In
*The Secret World*, the Dragon are under the grace of 'The Child', a very young prophet who rarely speaks to anyone. The one person he *does* speak to, who relays his statements and intent for the good of the clan, is the "Voice of the Dragon", and eventually, when she screws up terribly, she's mind-wiped and replaced.
- Rika Furude from
*Higurashi: When They Cry*, by virtue of ||being the only human possessing Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, at least at first. Also happens to be the real main character, unlike Decoy Protagonists Keiichi, Akasaka, Shion or Rena||.
- Maria Ushiromiya from
*Umineko: When They Cry* is an unerringly Cheerful Child, with a childlike, yet strangely accurate belief in the Golden Witch, Beatrice. As things get worse, she turns into a Creepy Child. ||She is actually friends with Beatrice, whose true identity is Sayo Yasuda, a servant who is also the true identity of Shannon and Kanon. It's eventually subverted since it turns out that Maria doesn't actually know as much about the true nature of the murders as she seems to; while Sayo had told Maria about her plan to "open the door to the Golden Land", Maria is too naive to realize that this is a Deadly Euphemism for blowing up the island and everyone on it.||
-
*Steven Universe*: Sapphire's predictions and speech can get very cryptic and abrupt when she's upset, as she has a hard time focusing on the present without Ruby's influence and thus only looks into the future, sometimes even detrimentally. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OracularUrchin |
Pimped-Out Dress - TV Tropes
*"I have to get fitted for my custom dress... It cost me 1 million Inotium, you know."*
*This item is available in the Trope Co. catalog*.
In a nutshell, a dress made with a whole bunch of fancy trimmings, and/or materials, just to make it look pretty.
This has long been Truth in Television. Wearing such a dress in Real Life serves two simultaneous purposes.
- To clearly show the wealth and/or social status of the lady wearing it.
- To make the lady wearing it look good.
In fiction, there are also two simultaneous purposes.
- To clearly show the wealth/social status of the lady wearing it, or to show that She Cleans Up Nicely (especially with Princess for a Day).
- So that the artist or costumer can show off.
The exact form of the dress doesn't matter. It can apply to grand, sweeping gowns, or mini dresses. What matters is the heavy use of fancy materials or decorations (which can be expensive, even today).
Some of the most common gown pimping options include:
- Many, many yards of cloth, including layers of skirts, capes, trains, and long hanging sleeves
- Puffs, including Giant Poofy Sleeves
- Slashes, Puffs pulled through slashes, and Goring (folds of fabric sewn in between slashes)
- Ribbons
- Frills, flounces, ruffles, and pleats
- Lace and gauze
- Embroidery and Brocade
- Tassles or Fringes
- A corset or bustier (visible or just holding up the fancy bodice)
- Several layers of petticoats, sleeves, or other parts of the dress.
- A frame to hold the skirt in shape (most common were farthingales, panniers, crinolines, and bustles)
- A Reticella collar or lace ruff
- Bloomers worn underneath the dress (sometimes visible, sometimes not)
- Flowers (real or fake)
- Jewelry (or anything that makes sparkles)
- Gold or Silver Lamé
- Fur (trimming the dress, or even lining it for warmth)
- Feathers
- A large, fancy design or symbol, or lots of smaller symbols
- Gloves (long, especially High-Class Gloves, or short depending on the sleeve length and/or neckline). Usually white, but can be worn in colors to match or contrast with the dress.
- A matching Hand Muff, Cape, Stole, Hat and/or other accessories.
- Fancy Hair Decorations
- Veil (whether the large ones for weddings or the smaller ones attached to hats)
- Bouquet (for wedding dresses, and other occasions depending on the culture)
- A parasol (depending on the period)
- A hand fan, usually the folding kind, and sometimes fur-trimmed.
- If possible, incorporating some of the Requisite Royal Regalia (especially if the wearer is a queen or a princess)
There is no real objective line between this and a regular evening dress, so it's more a manner of how obvious it is the dress is pimped out. Say a lady has an evening dress with a fancy design embroidered onto a small part of the skirt. Fancy and stylish, but it's not that obvious, even when you see the skirt. So it wouldn't be this kind of dress. If most or all of the dress was instead almost covered in embroidered designs, it would be this trope.
Sometimes a character with a Clothes Make the Legend dress uses this trope to make her dress fancier, while still keeping its iconic look.
This trope might conceivably apply to men's clothes, but in fiction, this type of outfit is usually reserved for either known historical uses, based off those uses, or else characters who are outright fops. Of course, a guy who is any sort of Crossdresser may play the trope completely straight simply by copying female fashion—for the most obvious, the Drag Queen almost always loves this kind of glamorous and ultra-feminine dress, and indeed is likely to wear clothes like this much
*more* often than most women in modern times.
This will show up more often when combined with princesses, especially Princess Classic. In any setting where elves are present, and clothes are described, about every other outfit is likely to be given loads of details. It's highly likely that
*all* clothes female dark elves wear will be this, including when they are a Sharp Dressed Woman. There are also quite a few games on the web which involve using sprites to make Virtual Paper Dolls, which allow mixing and matching to make pimped out dresses.
Real Life Fashion designers still love to make these, whether they are the impractical dresses on runways, or the slightly more practical dresses on red carpet events.
A Sub-Trope of Costume Porn and Impractically Fancy Outfit
A Super-Trope to:
There are a lot of Sister Tropes, as this can overlap with them all:
Compare Pimped-Out Car.
Compare/Contrast Simple, yet Opulent and Little Black Dress.
Contrast Modest Royalty, Real Women Don't Wear Dresses.
## Examples with their own pages:
<!—index—>
<!—/index—>
## Other examples:
Paintings
-
*Las Meninas*: The Princess Protagonist is in a lovely gown, black and white and embroidered with florals, befitting her station. Both ladies-in-waiting are also in voluminous silver gowns.
-
*Ophelia (Millais)*: The titular character is wearing a fine-looking dress with intricate gold detailing that almost makes her blend in with her surroundings.
-
*The Swing*: The woman's billowing dress is made of silk. It has ruffled sleeves and hemline, at least two layers of cloth (a pink outer one and an inner white one), and a white, laced bodice.
- In
*Beyond Heroes: Of Sunshine and Red Lyrium*, it's indicated that Varric considers some if not most of the dresses worn at the Winter Palace ball to be of this nature. He describes the people around him as being dressed in "voluminous floof and fripperies."
- Lydia makes one of these for herself for her senior prom in
*Cinderjuice*. Because she's Lydia, it's adorned with sparkling black beadwork designed to look like bats and cobwebs.
- All of Zelda's outfits in the game mod
*Hyrule: Total War* fall into this, whether it's her canonical dress, a pink and white mini dress with a large red jewel on her belt and on her collar, or a blue and white dress◊ with a heavily ornamented belt and blue jewel.
- Nalanda's wardrobe in
*Jedi Padme Trilogy* is just as elaborate as all of Amidala's fancy clothes in the movies.
- In
*Kyon: Big Damn Hero*, Mikuru made a pimped out Gothic Lolita dress for Tsuruya to wear in a *single day*.
- In
*Meeting Someone New*, a *The Hobbit* fanfic, Dís forces Kíli to wear a fancy tunic with embroidery, and all sorts of bling in his hair for a special occasion. He is very grumpy about it.
- In
*Never Alone*, both Lelouch and Cornelia lament on going to a ball hosted by their brother Clovis, since the latter will pick out their outfits. Cornelia described her own outfit as combining the impracticality of a Victorian ball gown with the tackiness of a cocktail dress, while Lelouch's suit is said to have more laces than *lingerines*. Cornelia's only question when Lelouch announces his plan for revenge against Clovis is about the Noodle Implement he'll use.
- In RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse, Princess Luna is noted to wear absolutely fabulous, sparkly, and gorgeous dresses to the noble balls as a way of showing off her wealth, power, and artistic taste. Except when she decides to set it all aside to give her Decadent Court a message about failing to uphold their duties to the common pony.
-
*The Rod Squad*, a *Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers* Alternate Universe Fic set in The '70s, ends in these.
- In
*SAPR*, a crossover between *My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic* and *RWBY*, ||Ciel Soleil|| turns out to have a taste for old fashion and incredibly elaborate gowns. This comes as a complete shock to everyone who knows her because of her normal persona. She starts squealing like a schoolgirl at the prospect of going on a date with someone who she perceives to have the same old tastes and values as herself.
- In
*Voldemort's Daughter* Belladonna's dress for her fifteenth birthday ball is made of butterfly silk and has a jeweled neckline, beaded chains and tiny diamond beads at the hem. This is accessorized by a goblin-silver tiara, silver armbands and diamond-and-silver bracelets.
- The Queen of Hearts in
*Alice in Wonderland* wears a dress with a high collar, underskirt with the black and gold chevron design, and the overskirt with white ermine trim (although that's clear just in a still during the opening credits; the animation limitations made it look like just a solid white trim in the main film).
- In the
*tradition* of Disney, Don Bluth's movie *Anastasia* includes not one, but *three* pimped out dresses.
- One is a gorgeous, pale yellow dress with a blue sash, gauze sleeves, and strings of pearls, (and an Imperial Russian tiara), which Anya dreams up during the "Once Upon a December" song.
- Another is the very simple, dark blue strapless dress that she wears at the Parisian Opera (the train, however, certainly gives this dress its due of sparkles).
- Finally, there is the dress that she wears during the celebration her Grandmama holds, that is similar to the first dress, but with more fancy designs, and hanging sleeves.
- The majority of the
*Barbie* Direct to Video films feature fancy dresses, usually pink, purple, or blue.
-
*Barbie in the Nutcracker*: Clara's dancing dress is a tutu with a skirt made of several layers of gauze, and a bodice heavily trimmed with flowers.
-
*Barbie as Rapunzel*: A purple overdress with a light purple underskirt and bodice, gold brocade edging the bodice, and a layer of lace over the sleeves and the slit in the overskirt.
-
*Barbie of Swan Lake*: A purple dress with translucent blue fabric cut like large feathers that drapes over the skirt, flares out from the sleeves, and forms into a pair of wings over her chest.
-
*Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper*: Anneliese wears a pink dress with lots of gauze and silk, and gold trimming on her bodice, and gold brocade on her stomacher. Erika wears a blue dress with lace trimming, pink ribbons, and a flower-embroidered white petticoat.
-
*Barbie Fairytopia*: The fairy girls wear dresses that are flower-themed, usually in the form of skirts cut to look like blooming flowers, but some outfits have flowers trimming them.
-
*Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses*: Each princess wears a fancy dress. Most have a frilled hem, short overskirt that is edged with ruffled, a neckline trimmed with lace, and little puff sleeves.
-
*Barbie as the Island Princess*: A blue dress with lots of dark blue brocade on the skirt, a pink gauzy overskirt, a heavily beaded bodice, and a peacock tail, that was actually loaned from her peacock friend.
-
*Barbie & The Diamond Castle*: Liana and Alexa get similar dress when they are made princesses: both having lots of sparkly brocade, a gauzy oveskirt, and a Cool Crown. Even their peasant dresses are pretty fancy, being of much brighter colors and smoother fabrics than the other peasants in that world wear.
-
*Barbie in A Christmas Carol*: Several, most worn by the Eden, the Scrooge-esque protagonist, but some are worn by others. The most prominent dresses in the marketing and covers the red dress Eden wears with the gold brocade on the bodice and gold waist ribbon (but worn on the side), and a white dress Barbie wears that is covered with lace and has a multi-tiered pleated skirt. And the ghost of Christmas present wears a green with several rings of decorated ribbons around the skirt, to make it look like a Christmas tree.
-
*Barbie and the Three Musketeers*: The heroines wear different dresses, but they are all loaded in their own ways with lace, brocade, frills, and overskirts and petticoats.
-
*Barbie: Princess Charm School*: At the end, the girls wear glittery dresses, with long flowing skirts, gold trimming, and bodices where almost the entire front is Gem-Encrusted, looking like the top was cut from a huge jewel.
-
*Barbie: The Pearl Princess*: Lumina gets a beautiful multicolored mermaid tail.
-
*Barbie and the Secret Door*: Barbie's character gets a beautiful multicolored flowery dress.
- The Queen and Princess of Heart in
*The Care Bears: Adventure in Wonderland* have some fancy dresses, some with heart motifs.
- In
*The Book of Life*, La Muerte's dress is covered in embroidery and marigolds, spreads out across the ground and is bordered at the hem with lit candles.
- The Disney Princesses have a fair amount. Their many fancy dresses could fill out this trope by themselves, but in their merchandising, the dresses are fancied up even further. A few sets trim the dresses with ribbons, white fur, and white fur muffs with huge ribbons on them. Another set turns all the dresses gold. Another trims all the dresses with jewels, and that actually comes in two varieties: a set with them just wearing the bejeweled dresses, and a set with them wearing the dresses and similarly bejeweled white fur Capes. Disney also made quite a few paper doll books based on their princesses with outfits they didn't wear in the movie.
-
*Snow White* had a few. Snow White's iconic dress has the golden skirt, blue bodice, round white collar, and slashed puff sleeves with red fabric underneath. Even the evil queen got a black and purple dress with white ermine trimming (although the animation doesn't make that clear) and some gold decorations.
-
*Cinderella* is an unusual example of actually showing the pimping-out process, featuring a scene in which her animal friends pimp out her ball gown, unfortunately they used beads and a sash belonging to her stepsisters, who used that excuse to tear the dress apart. Her iconic silvery dress, with the puffed overskirt, little puff sleeves, and glass slippers, was instead made with magic sparkles thanks to her Fairy Godmother.
- Ariel gets a few in
*The Little Mermaid*: The pink and white luncheon dress with the slashed puff sleeves, her Fairytale Wedding Dress, and her dresses in the sequel, *The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea*.
- Belle wears a few in
*Beauty and the Beast*. Her iconic dress is gold with a ribbon trimming the skirt, and the fabric on the skirt and neckline made to bunch up, creating a puff effect. Her pink dress had the frill trimming on the sleeves and hem. Her Happy Holidays Dress in *Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas* is wine colored with the underskirt, bodice, and sleeve ruffles being golden yellow with brocade, has small roses on the sleeves and neckline, and a ribbon at the back of the waist (that is even bigger in The Merch).
- Princess Jasmine from
*Aladdin* has a few outfits that fits this trope, most of them cheerfully combining it with Bedlah Babe.
- Even Pocahontas, with her modest wardrobe got a paper doll book with outfits of the Braids, Beads and Buckskins variety. Made before the direct-to-video sequel, but had a page that said "Later in life, Pocahontas went to London. These are some dresses she would've worn." It showed a couple of dresses in the fashion of that era.
- Princess Kida of Atlantis from
*Atlantis: The Lost Empire* is a notable exception to this trend, as well as to the official Disney Princess line-up, for the sole reason that the movie she was in sunk at the box office.
- Megara and Esmeralda, too. Meg stays in a light pink toga for the entire film, and Esmeralda wears a glittery red dress for exactly one scene before swapping back to her normal clothes. She also spends the entirety of the climax wearing nothing but a chemise.
-
*The Princess and the Frog* has a number of old-fashioned ones, though most are either explicitly handmade costumes or magically conjured. Charlotte likes to wear pink dresses with puff sleeves and very wide skirts. Tiana wears a few as well, for various reasons. One is a white flapper dress with a white fox stole she wears in an Imagine Spot. Her second dress is blue and has a small bit of trimmings. Her third dress, and first wedding dress, is magically made, and lily-pad themed, with the bodice and skirt having fabric cut and layered to look like leaves. She then wears a fancy conventional wedding dress and evening gown at the end. During the party she was catering, she also wears an earth-toned dress with purple accents designed to look like medieval court wear.
- Rapunzel in
*Tangled* wears a mildly pimped out purple and lavender dress, with a few ribbons, and slashed sleeves. Her wedding dress is more pimped out with lots of lace, a huge veil, diamond tiara, and tiny puff sleeves.
- Elsa from
*Frozen* **makes her own** Pimped-Out Dress from ice and snow — a slinky, sparkly ice-blue number with a slit clear up to mid-thigh, and a snowflake-patterned sheer cape just to cap the whole thing off. Needless to say, it became instantly iconic.
- Yzma sports villainous versions of this trope in
*The Emperor's New Groove*. At one point, the huge ribbed wing/collar... *thing*.. attached to her current outfit falls off, and she hastily pushes it out of sight.
- Queen Tara's gorgeous petal dress in
*Epic (2013)*. In fact, it actually seems to come as a package deal with being queen. When a new one is crowned, she magically gets a similar dress.
- Cinderella in
*Happily N'Ever After* gets a Pink dress with High-Class Gloves, an overskirt with brocade trimming, a lighter pink ruffled petticoat, and a heart-shapes stomacher. At the end, she wears a similar blue dress.
- Queen Victoria in
*The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists* wears a light yellow dress loaded with frills on the shoulders, collar, and first petticoat, and ||a Steampunk mechanical second petticoat||.
- Vanellope Von Schweetz gets a frilly, pink, fancy, and heavy dress after her finish line cross in
*Wreck-It Ralph* resets the game and restores her to her proper position as princess of *Sugar Rush*. She chooses her regular clothes, however (hoodie, candy cup skirt and mismatched stockings) and role of president.
- Illustrations for
*Adalmina's Pearl* show Adalmina in properly fancy dresses for a princess.
- In
*A Brother's Price*, everyone at the ball at the royal palace seem to wear some variant of this. Jerin's shirt has little bells sewn onto the sleeves, and he complains that he feels like his culture's equivalent of a Christmas tree.
- Shows up in
*Discworld* a few times.
- Princess Keli's Vermine-trimmed dress in
*Mort*.
*Whoever had designed the dress didn't known when to stop. They'd put lace over the silk, and trimmed it with black vermine, and strung pearls anywhere that looked bare, and puffed and starched the sleeves and then added silver filigree and then started over with the silk.*
- Esme Weatherwax buys one of these in
*Maskerade* to blend in with an opera crowd. It's black, of course, because Granny wouldn't wear anything else, but it's "black on holiday" with lots of jet beads and sequins.
- Defied by City Watch Commander Samuel Vimes (formerly a lowly Night Watch captain, then knighted and later made Duke of Ankh against his will), who goes out of his way to avoid wearing his hated official ducal outfits as much as possible. These consist of a velvet cloak and hat, a red shirt with silly baggy sleeves, tights and puffed shorts, a "tiny shiny breastplate" and a helmet with feathers in it. Yet Vimes's stubbornly proletarian soul prefers a honest policeman's outfit (leather knee-breeches, leather cloak, sandals or sturdy boots, a dented breastplate and a helmet blessedly free of any silly feathers), the sartorial conflict is preprogrammed.
- The wizards of Unseen University love ornate and grand robes. They have shown a magpie-like (if magpies were a bunch of fat old nicotine-addicted men in beards) fascination with glittery accessories and tend to pimp out their robes and broadbrimmed pointy hats as much as possible. Or at least the older and more conservative wizards do. There's no use in being important if commoners cannot see
*how* important you are, they argue. A fine example was the sentient Archchancellors' Hat, which had, among other things, a ring of blazing octarine stones affixed all around its rim which gave it "a rich and sinister tastelessness". Even more elaborate are their festive costumes, as seen during formal occasions such as the wizards' procession:
*There were a lot of them [wizards] in the hall, in all their glory. And there was nothing finer than a wizard dressed up formally, until someone could find a way of inflating a Bird of Paradise, possibly by using an elastic band and some kind of gas.*
- Even the incompetent Rincewind the Wizzard, in his threadbare moth-eaten red robes and flip-flops, dreams of a new wizarding hat with fresh sequins and "those, you know, like glass chandelier things? Lots of those all round the rim" and its inscription
*Wizzard* spelled with three Zs.
- There's a mention in
*The Fifth Elephant* that a number of female dwarves decided that if they were going to overturn centuries of tradition by presenting themselves as female, they weren't going to then just settle for twinset and pearls. Cheery admits that her dress made her look like a "rather stupid lettuce", suggesting that they've worked out fanciness but are still struggling with taste.
- Ayla's Matrimonial outfit in
*Earth's Children*. We are treated to a very detailed description of it - among other things, the leather's been specially treated to stay supple, it's been dyed a gold-like colour and has hundreds of amber beads sewn over it in an intricate pattern. Everyone who sees it is practically awed. Ayla herself thinks it's very beautiful and it has personal value to her as it was made by people she considered family, but her new in-laws know just from looking that the outfit is fit for someone of very high status because of how long it would've taken to make and the quality of the materials and craftsmanship.
- In
*The Goblin Emperor*, the ladies at court tend to wear this. How tasteful the dresses are, varies. And then there's poor Maia who has to wear clothes befitting an Emperor, which includes a lot of jewels in his hair, a lot of rings on his hands, and not much protection against the cold weather.
-
*Journey to Chaos*: Being a royal, Kasile often wears fancy clothing and especially on special occasions like the Spring Joust or opening ceremony for the New Scepter competition. All of them involve embroidery and layered skirts, and because she is *Ataidaran* royalty, there are a lot of rubies, the royal crest is writ large on her sash, and the dresses themselves have fire motifs.
- In
*Kushiel's Legacy*, Phèdre spends a while waxing lyrical about her dress before every fête, ball, masque or other special occasion. The red and black dress for her first assignation comes to mind, and the gown she wore in *Kushiel's Avatar* to ||murder the Mahrkagir with her hair-pin||. And when she wears a gown with a low back, that shows her tattoo, she means business.
- In the fantasy series
*Lady of Gems*, the Enchantress Hireshas 27 ceremonial robes certainly qualify.
- Since
*Mistborn: The Original Trilogy* has a bunch of Dances and Balls, the heroine wears a number of these at various points. Several get ruined during the first book when Vin gets attacked during the balls and has to rip off her dress to fight effectively. In the second and third books, she gets around that by finding a dressmaker who specifically makes dresses that aren't such a bother to fight in.
- Mark Twain's "The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton" gives a detailed description of the dress Rosannah is wearing when she first speaks to Alonzo (over the telephone), tongue-in-cheekishly calling it "subdued attire" in the following paragraph.
Her gown was of a simple magenta tulle, cut bias, traversed by three rows of light-blue flounces, with the selvage edges turned up with ashes-of-roses chenille, over-dress of dark bay tartalan with scarlet satin lambrequins; corn-colored polonaise,
*en panier*, looped with mother-of-pearl buttons and silver cord, and hauled aft and made fast by buff velvet lashings; basque of lavender reps, picked out with valenciennes; low neck, short sleeves; maroon velvet necktie edged with delicate pink silk; inside handkerchief of some simple three-ply ingrain fabric of a soft saffron tint; coral bracelets and locket-chain; coiffure of forget-me-nots and lilies-of-the-valley massed around a noble calla.
-
*Nightfall (Series)*: Prince Vladimir forces Myra to wear one. She hates it since she realizes he picked it specifically because it would limit her movements and would make escape attempts more difficult.
- Alexander Pope, when writing
*The Rape of the Lock,* knew better than to insert lavish descriptions of Belinda's outfits... however, considering that her petticoat alone, with its fifty-sylph guard of honor, is described in terms of which Achilles himself would have been proud, it simply follows that the dress that goes over it is equally sumptuous.
- Esme Squalor in
*A Series of Unfortunate Events* wears a bizarre and disturbing variant — a huge dress that looks like a fire, complete with black lace for smoke, which crackles when she walks.
- Esme Squalor loves this trope in a twisted way, as she is always wearing something ridiculously pimped out because it is "In," including stiletto heels that are
**actual stiletto knives**.
- Qilue in
*Silverfall* by Ed Greenwood came to the masquerade (for some business, *not* to show off) in such "[un-]dress" that everyone automatically assumed it's a " *princess*" costume:
**Simylra:**
a lady... and not
*quite*
naked. She's wearing some black leather straps—here and there, you know.
note :
plus buttock-high boots with silver heel spikes and elbow-length gloves of the same material, plus a handful of two of silver and gems hanging from those straps They must bear some powerful spells; her disguise is nearly perfect.
**Cathlona**
: Her disguise?
**Simylra**
: A drow princess. ...Gods, how can anyone compete with
*that*
?
**Cathlona**
: (looking for herself) Simmy, either get me a drink
—a very
*large*
drink—or let me go home...
**Dumathchess Ilchoas "the Dauntless"**
: ...A
*woman*
, did you say? You mean you're not really a drow princess?
**Qilue**
: A drow princess? No
...
- Sansa's wedding outfit in
*A Song of Ice and Fire*. Even if not the most elaborate gown in the series, it's certainly the most Costume Porn for one. This is just a *partial* quote from Citadel:
"a gown of ivory samite and cloth-of-silver, lined with silvery satin, with long dagged sleeves that were almost touching the ground, the bodice slashed almost to the belly, the deep vee covered over with a panel of ornate Myrish lace in dove-grey, long and full skirts and very tight waist; tight slippers of soft grey doeskin; a costly maiden's cloak, meant for a wedding ceremony, made of velvet heavy with pearls, embroidered in silver, and fastened by a silver chain."
- Parodied in a short story wherein a designer makes dresses so elaborate and ridiculous that they completely obscure the woman inside. At the end of the story, the men at a garden party start to notice that the women at the party are weirdly unresponsive, because they are just talking to empty dresses. It turns out that ||the women are all hanging out inside the house in their underwear.||.
-
*The Starbound Trilogy*: In *These Broken Stars*, Lilac is wearing a flouncy silk emerald ballgown when she and Tarver are marooned on a deserted planet. It's soon in tatters as they trek through forests and across plains and mountains, and she abandons it as soon as she finds a change of clothes. ||The whispers replicate it when they bring her back to life.||
- In the first TV version of
*Anne of Green Gables*, the dream of Annes heart is a dress with puffed sleeves. Thanks to Matthew, she gets her wish — over Marillas sneering protests.
- The Academy Awards. Oh, sure, the Emmys and Tonys have pretty dresses too, but what else is the point of the Red Carpet segment? Certainly not those little interviews. The Red Carpet is
*made* for this trope.
- The first three
*Blackadder* series had quite a few, particularly Elizabeth's dresses in the second series.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer* has a few, notably Buffy's 18th century style noble lady outfit in the episode "Halloween".
-
*The Carol Burnett Show* had several, since Bob Mackie did the costuming.
- In
*The Christmas Toy*, one of the toys was a Captain Ersatz of Barbie, and she wears a Happy Holidays Dress that is glittery blue with a white fur cape and hat (then she decides to get changed for the rescue mission).
- In
*The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance*, the members of the Vapra Clan have the most elegant and showy dresses among the Gelflings. Hup steals one for Deet to improve her chances to have an audience with the All-Maudra Mayrin.
-
*Designing Women* finds ways to fit in a few, like in a fantasy sequence in the final episode.
- Ace foregoes her usual bomber jacket for one of these in the
*Doctor Who* serial *Ghost Light*. Once she's done crossdressing, that is.
-
*Downton Abbey* had several, as is expected with a historical period drama set in the beginning of twenties century and in The Roaring '20s.
- The "lady has no taste" version is frequently used on
*The Drew Carey Show* with Mimi. Her wedding gown was covered with giant flower buds that opened at the culmination of the ceremony.
-
*Dynasty (1981)*, especially when it came to shoulder pads, or anything that made the dresses sparkle.
-
*Elizabeth R* of course has several, worn by Elizabeth, or others. The first episode (when she's still a princess) notes that her dress with ermine sleeves is her finest gown.
-
*Firefly*:
- Inara Serra is a registered companion, which means she leads a glamorous life. She has a few gorgeous dresses.
- In "Shindig", Kaylee played Princess for a Day in a pink and white dress that loaded with flounces and frills on the skirt and has tiny puff sleeves (that according to Mal made her look like "a sheep standing on its hind legs"). However, Kaylee's dress was bought in a shop. This resulted in ridicule from the local Alpha Bitches, until Kaylee demonstrated that she knows things about spaceship engines, which instantly endeared her to the male half of that ball.
- There were of course several other dresses worn at the party in "Shindig" including the one it "takes the space of a wink to remove" that had a fancy sash, and a layered skirt with each layer bunched into frills.
-
*Game of Thrones*: Westeros has a sharp feudal class distinction, so if you are a woman you are wearing either some dirty sweaty rags or a Pimped Out Dress. However, it's the royal personages like Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and Margaery Tyrell who wear the most pimped out dresses in the most variety of styles. And Sansa Stark. A notable example is the black dress adorned with feathers which Sansa wears to signify her switch to taking charge of her life after *years* of being and Unwitting Pawn in the games of others. The effect is quite striking.
-
*Hannah Montana* had a number of outfits on stage, that started to turn into these when the show caught on and the budget went up.
- Mercedes's Gothic wedding dress in
*Hollyoaks*.
- In
*Just Shoot Me!*, Maya wears a pink fairy princess dress, with gauzy wings and a fake ermine trim, when she thinks everyone else is dressing up for Halloween.
- Morgana in
*Merlin*, as well as Guinevere by the end of series four, and all of the visiting princesses (of which there have been several).
- Many of the outfits in the "Parade of States/Nations" parts of the
*Miss USA*, *Miss Teen USA*, and *Miss Universe* Beauty Contests. Unfortunately also applies to child pageants, as can be seen in *Toddlers & Tiaras*. Unfortunate in that the dresses are often skimpier than they should be.
-
*Murdoch Mysteries*: The show is set in the late Victorian era and in the beginning of the twentieth century, and many ladies wear gorgeous dresses. Two show's coroners, Drs Julia Ogden and Emily Grace, are seen performing autopsies in beautiful outfits (no scrubs for doctors yet), and whenever the characters go to the theatre or have a dinner party, the trope is played to extremes.
-
*The Palace*.
- In the Christmas Episode of
*Pee-wee's Playhouse*, Miss Yvonne wears a Happy Holidays Dress that includes High-Class Gloves, white feather trim on the gloves and dress neckline, and her hair done up like a Christmas tree.
- Any avant-garde challenge on
*Project Runway* tends to feature this.
- If there was a fancy event in
*Road to Avonlea*, then fancy dresses would be worn.A publicity still◊ shows Felicity in a red dress with dark red gauze over the sleeves and bodice, and the gauze is heavily trimmed with white lace.
-
*Say Yes to the Dress* often involves pimped out dresses tried on, although they aren't always the ones chosen.
- Even the
*Star Trek* series will feature this trope.
- In
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine*, Kira and Dax wear Medieval dresses for a holosuite program of Arthurian Legend.
- Lwaxana Troi of
*Star Trek: The Next Generation* has several, given her high noble status, that she quite often reminds people of. Her wedding dress was particularly elaborate. The reaction when she showed up for her wedding in *traditional* Betazoid wedding garb (that is, completely naked) was marvelous.
- The dresses on
*Strictly Come Dancing*, and ballroom dancing in general are often like this. If it involves feathers, glitter and/or sequins, and moderate frills (so the dress looks fancy but can still move), so much the better.
- Most of Azkadellia's wardrobe in
*Tin Man*.
-
*The Tudors* is this with about half the outfits, even though they are Hollywood Costuming. Frills, puffs, and pearls seems to be the favorite trimming the costumers use.
-
*Upstairs Downstairs*, including the revival.
-
*RuPaul's Drag Race* is a reality show where drag queens compete to show off their Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent, so naturally there are going to be some true stunners.
- The members of ABBA wore fancy 18th century clothes when performing at the wedding festivities of Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf in 1976.
- The Agonist, Alissa, in "Thank You, Pain".
- The Angelspit video for "Sleep Now".
- BoA wore a few in the video for "Hurricane Venus".
- Britney Spears:
- Céline Dion has worn some for her videos, and there is her real life Fairytale Wedding Dress with loads of beading on the bodice, lots of petticoats to make the bell skirt, and after the ceremony she added a white mink jacket with wide sleeves.
- The cover art of almost every one of Enya's albums depicts her wearing this sort of dress; notable examples are
*The Memory of Trees*, *Amarantine*, *And Winter Came*, and *The Celts*. She also wears similarly gorgeous, sumptuous dresses in her music videos, such as "Caribbean Blue", "The Celts", "Only If", and "On My Way Home" (the latter also being an example of Pretty in Mink). Even her more simple dresses are still stunning and elegant, but with her ethereal beauty she could make almost anything look beautiful.
- The singers in Hello! Project are given quite a few.
- Playing Juliet in
*Romeo and Juliet*, Liza Arzamasova wore a red and orange dress with hanging sleeves and lots of colored beading on the sleeves and bodice.
- A few dresses in the Martina McBride song "Blessed". The main dress is a white dress with a beaded bodice, and gauze skirt and train. While on a swing, she wears a green dress with a white gauze petticoat, and a necklace with a red butterfly. Near the end of the video, she wears a blue dress with ruching on the back of the skirt. Some of the girls in the video wore costume princess dresses.
- mothy loves dressing up his female characters like this.
- Roza Rymbaeva has worn one or two.
- Sarah Brightman wears several for her concerts.
- Taylor Swift:
- She mentions a wedding dress looking like pasta in the lyrics for "Speak Now".
- She wears a couple in the video for "Love Story". One is a white dress with gold floral designs down the front of the bodice and skirt. Another is a copper dress with lots of embroidery and lace. While singing that song on stage on her "Fearless Tour", she wore a red dress covered with embroidery, has lace lower sleeves, a gold stomacher, and a red and gold striped petticoat.
- Sharon den Adel of Within Temptation designs and wears these.
- Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
- The signature styles of both Hizaki◊ and Jasmine You◊ of Versailles, the main difference between the two being that Hizaki tends to go for "cute" while Jasmine went for "elegant". (Please also note that they're both men.)
- Kaya is another example of a Visual Kei crossdresser who specializes in these; his dress in the video for "Transmigration" deserves special mention for its sheer impracticality (and that's not even touching his hair).
- The dresses Amneris wears in
*Aida*.
- Christmas Eve's wedding dress in
*Avenue Q*.
- In the stage version of
*Beauty and the Beast*, Belle's dress in the "Something There" number is pink and red with puff sleeves, ruffle edging on the overskirt and underskirt, and the overskirt bunched to make waves of puffs in the fabric (similar to Belle's gold dress in the movie). Her gold dress◊ is made of gauze, with white hanging sleeves, and a trimming with pink flowers.
- Several of the Cirque du Soleil shows;
*Alegría* and *La Nouba* come to mind.
- The dress Mina wears when she meets the count in
*Drakula*.
- Eva in Evita wears a bedazzled white ballgown when she sings "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina".
- Phaedra in
*Jerusalem*.
- Many of the characters in Mr.Grumpy's Toy Shoppe have these, most townsfolk do, and you could probably call the dollies that.
- Queen Aggravaine's wardrobe in
*Once Upon a Mattress* consists of dresses that are cut and decoration in outlandish ways. The princesses in the story wear fancy dresses, but in more conventional styles.
- The musical
*The Phantom of the Opera* is loaded with these.
- Takarazuka Revue productions are rife with this, including Peacock Girl tails, even if worn by a Bifauxnen actresses.
- Sarah's ballgown in
*Tanz Der Vampire* is a red dress◊ with ruching, flower-shaped bows on the skirt, and black gauze petticoat.
- Stage revivals of
*White Christmas* sometimes will redo the holiday dresses worn at the end◊, but others will make their own versions. The Broadway version stars out with a number that has carolers in red dresses◊ trimmed with white fur, plaid vests, fur hoods, and white fur muffs with holly at the front. The end has the Haynes sisters in two different red dresses◊, Judy in a dark red dress with beaded trimming and a gauze scarlet underskirt, and Betty wearing a satin scarlet dress with white fur trimming the neckline, tiers of white fur trimming the top of the skirt, and the skirt is ruffled below that. Both dresses have white opera gloves.
- Glinda wears some in the musical
*Wicked*. There is◊ her ice blue dress with puff sleeves, lace, glitter, and the skirt cut in several wavy tiers. Then there is her pink dress with a small bustier on top, and a short skirt that is several layers of ruffled gauze.
- And when other productions do their own costumes, Glinda sometimes gets even more pimped out. In a Danish production, Glinda's bubble dress is white with opera gloves, a brocaded bodice, and a gauze skirt covered with white feathers.
- Elphaba's Act II dress is fabulous, as this article notes. It's made from up to
*forty yards of fabric,* all stitched together onto the main black dress. And this is all just to make it look like her simple black dress has turned to rags.
- The
*Ziegfeld Follies* were loaded with Costume Porn, including loads of ornate dresses. Of course there is a tumblr showing lots of pictures of these outfits.
- This picture◊ shows some of the range of what was done on the show. At the center are two dresses in mostly normal styles, and trimmed with flowers, ribbons, ruffles, and ruching. At the left is a more elaborate dress with a lace skirt, flowers, ruffled collar, ermine overskirt, ermine wrap with lace and flower trimming, ermine hat with ruffled bow, and an ermine muff with a large flower on the front. At the right is a really off-the-wall outfit that looks like an undergarment or swimsuit with a long ermine piece draped over it, with ermine cuffs and a huge ermine hat.
- One of the more modest dresses is this gauze dress with lace trimming◊.
- As befitting the real Empress, Elisabeth of Austria wears a few of these in her musical. Her Takarazuka Revue costumes are even more Pimped-Out than the original German productions. The reveal of the Sternkleid/Star Dress in the act 1 finale may draw applause, as it replicates the iconic portrait of Sisi by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (which is the trope page image, and pops up in pop culture most often whenever Sisi is mentioned).
- American Girls Collection does this with the holiday dresses, since these are supposed to be formal outfits.
- Barbie has easily one of the biggest collection of pimped out dresses of any fictional character ever. The line even has collection sets just for making nothing but more pimped out dresses. Some random ones include:
- Hollywood Cast Party is a red dress with a narrow underskirt, overskirt that has lots of draping fabric, and a red feather stole.
- The Siren is a black dress with pink ruffled petticoats, opera gloves, and a white fur stole.
- Angel of Joy is a white dress with white embroidery, ruffled green underskirt, gauze hanging sleeves, and red and gold ribbons trimming the waist and sleeves.
- Goddess of the Galaxy is an almost Raygun Gothic dress with a metal bustier, black and silver Showgirl Skirt that becomes gauze and silver at the bottom, and a black and silver striped coat with a flared collar.
- Empress Bride is a Fairytale Wedding Dress with a gauze underdress, lots of gold decorations, and pearls hanging like tassels from the overskirt.
- Queen of Sapphires is a blue dress with lots of bunched fabric, gauze petticoat, and the gauze overskirt attached to the wrist like a stole.
- The Queen of Hearts designer dress is a red dress covered with sequins, a red cape trimmed with sequins and has a heart-shaped collar, and a red heart headdress with sequins and feathers.
- The Queen of Hearts dress in
*Alice in Wonderland* style is red with lots of designs over the underdress in the playing card style, gold trimming and heart decorations on the overdress, High Collar of Doom, white fur hem and cuffs, gold crown, and she is holding a croquet flamingo.
- Holiday Jewel is a green dress with a red skirt, gold decorations trimming the cuffs, collar, and skirt, but almost covering the bodice, and has Giant Poofy Sleeves.
- Specifically, the Happy Holidays line includes:
- 1988 is a red dress with loads of poofy glittery gauze on the skirt and sleeves, effectively making the latter into Giant Poofy Sleeves. There is also a white waist ribbon on the front of the dress, and a large white hair bow.
- 1989 is a white dress with a gauzy underskirt, beaded trim on the neckline, white fur trim on the overskirt, and a white fur stole.
- 1990 is a pink dress of ruffled glittery gauze, but of a different cut than the 1988 dress. The sleeves are large, but flare out rather than puff. The skirt is also more like a wavy spiral of layers than several tiers of gauze.
- 1991 is a green velvet dress with a beaded bodice and beads on the Giant Poofy Sleeves and hair ribbon.
- 1992 is silver with giant poofy sleeves, gauze overskirt, and jewelry hanging like icicles on the bodice and sleeves.
- 1993 is a red dress with a gold beaded bodice, skirt of glittery gauze and gold edging, and the sleeves are made of large red bows.
- 1994 is a gold dress with white faux fur trimming the skirt and shoulders, a petticoat with gold embroidery flowers, jewels down the front of the bodice, sprigs of holly at the front of the shoulder fur pieces, and a headband of wrapping gold, green, and red beads.
- 1995 is a greed dress with glitter decorations in the shape of holly, puff sleeves, a huge white collar laid flat and has holly decoration, a white tiered lace petticoat, and a red ribbon at the front of the waist that has a large silver flower over it.
- 1996 is a burgundy dress with gold trimming, jewels down the front of the bodice, ruffled tiered gold petticoat, white fur trimming on the cuffs and collar, and a white fur muff and hat.
- 1997 is a white dress with a red overdress mostly made of large ribbons trimming the skirt and making the sleeves. The ribbons, skirt and bodice, all have a line in the center of lace with gold glitter. The ribbons also have gold edging. It's topped by a gold tiara.
- 1998 is a black velvet dress with diamonds on the skirt made to look like shooting stars (lines of small jewels with large jewels at the end), more diamonds speckling the bodice, and diamonds laid out in a diamond pattern on the belt and cuffs. The dress is topped with a large pink stole and jeweled tiara.
- 1999 Holiday Treasures is a red dress with jewels in the middle of silver lines in a diamond pattern, lace trimming, puff sleeves, ribbons on the sleeves, and a white petticoat.
- 2000 Holiday Treasures is a green dress with a red underskirt, gold decorations on the skirt, gold ribbons and lace on the top, gauze on the collar and sleeves, and a red ribbon wrapping just below the neckline.
- 2001 Holiday Teasures is a blue dress with the overskirt bunched up asymmetrically, the right overskirt being trimmed with white fur, and a white underskirt with silver snowflakes decorating it.
- 2000 Celebration is a gold dress with a white fur collar, gauze overskirt, white lace petticoat, gold necklace, and gold tiara.
- 2001 Holiday Celebration is a white dress with silver starts all over the skirt, gauze sleeves, a white fur stole with red lining, and a silver tiara.
- 2002 Holiday Celebration is a dusty rose dress with a glittery large ribbon at the front of the waist, a light pink bodice with dark pink brocade, and a collar of puffed and bunched fabric draped like a stole.
- The 2004 Holiday dress is either pink with the Caucasian doll, or green with the African American doll. Both have beaded trimming on the skirt, brocade on the bodice, flared sleeves, and lace shoulder straps.
- 2005 Holiday is white with glittery silver streaks, gauzy green underdress, a giant green ribbon with silver edging wrapping around the dress, a pink jewel holding the ribbon at the bow, and a flare of white gauze at the left shoulder.
- 2006 Holiday is a black velvet dress with gold trimming, starts made of jewels all over it, and a white fur hem and collar.
- 2007 Holiday is a red velvet dress with black lace trimming, red satin underskirt, belt with a jeweled buckle, opera gloves, white fur edging the overskirt, and a white fur headband.
- 2010 Holiday is a white dress with red brocade on the bodice a red ribbon around the waist, and a long red stole wrapped like a jacket.
- 2011 Holiday is a green dress with gold lining, gold underskirt, and swirling gold decorations with diamonds studding parts of the swirls.
- The Winter Princess line includes:
- Winter Princess is a dark blue velvet dress with a sliver petticoat, blue rose decorations, and white fur collar, cuffs, muff, and headband.
- Peppermint Princess is a red dress with the underskirt having red and white stripes, a gold flower on the left of the overskirt, and white fur trimming the skirt, collar, and a white fur headband.
- Jewel Princess is a red dress with a plaid skirt, jewels down the front of the bodice, and white fur trimming and muff.
- Midnight Princess is a black dress with gold petticoat, multicolored ribbons with gold edging, gold decorations on the cuffs and bodice, gauze making half the top, and lots of jewelry studs.
- Evergreen Princess is a green dress with lots of gold trimming.
- Hello Kitty has some, either worn by Kitty, or as part of the merchandise, including Fairytale Wedding Dresses (seen here).
- While the show
*She-Ra: Princess of Power* has some (including her main dress), the toyline has the most examples of pimped dresses.
- Queen Vivaldi in
*Alice in the Country of Hearts* wears a red dress with trimming of black frills, a large collar shaped like a heart, a black bustier, and lots of hearts on the dress.
- During the ball, Alice wears a dress with some frills trimming it.
- In
*Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney*, Alita Tiala's dress has a feather arrangement to look like wings on her chest, a Four-Leaf Clover in the middle of the feathers, and lots of frills.
-
*Fate/stay night*, Saber gets extra points for not only having a fancy dress, particularly the gold trimming, but one that's further pimped out with plate mail. It's to be expected, though: most of the examples here are merely princesses, while Saber is ||a king. King Arthur, to be precise||.
- In
*Fate/Nuovo Guerra*, Lempicialynn wears a red dress trimmed with black frills, and Lumivellamo wears a blue dress with white trimming and frills.
- Yumemi's outfit◊ in
*Planetarian* is fancy enough to count, with so much metal trimming and decorations (like metal shoulder guards topped by a collar/cape, short metal overskirt, and hair ribbons that end with what look like seat belt buckles) that it almost seems like a Battle Ballgown (if she fought anything), but it does make it clear that she's a Robot Girl.
- One girl in
*Sekien no Inganock* wears an orange dress with lots of ruching, detached sleeves, a top that is gauze above the neckline and has gold rococo decoration, and a yellow overskirt.
- The three girls of
*Shikkoku no Sharnoth* wear fancy dresses.
- Mary Clarissa Christie wears a dark blue dress◊ with white frills, black ribbons, and a white petticoat with intricate brocade.
- Charlotte Brontë wears a yellow dress with tiered ruffles, puff sleeves, blue flowers trimming the sleeves, a blue cravat, and a white fur puff ball on the collar.
- Angelica Derleth wears a pink dress with pink ribbons, black ruffles (some with red ribbons in the middle), double puffed sleeves (as in a puff at the shoulders and a puff at the wrist), a lighter pink underskirt with intricate brocade, pink lace, and a fancy bonnet with purple ribbons and feathers.
- In
*Tears to Tiara*, Llyr wears a blue dress with a black overskirt that has white and gold trimming, black opera gloves with a gold band on each, and a puffy hat with a veil. Rhiannon wears a white dress◊ with red trimming, a red petticoat, a red sash around the waist, gold decorations, and a hat long tassels on each side.
- Arcueid in
*Tsukihime* wore at least two dresses as Archetype: Earth.
- The witches of
*Umineko: When They Cry* all seem to get this, as well as one or two members of the Ushiromiya family.
- Beatrice's dress is one of the most elaborate◊. It's a dark brown dress with large orange symbols and trimming, a dark red ruched petticoat, puff sleeves, a small pink bow, and white flounces. As a child◊, she wore a dark red dress with puff sleeves and two large white sashes that tied at the back and fell down like a cape.
- Bernkastel wears a blue and white dress◊ with ruffles, flared sleeves, a large blue bow at the neck, and a double tiered underskirt.
- Lambdadelta wears a pink dress◊ with pink ruffles, red bows, black opera gloves, puff sleeves, and a pumpkin decoration on the waist.
- Virgilia wears a black dress◊ with white ruffles, a white ruffled petticoat, and a large hat with red flowers and white ruffles under the brim.
- Featherine wears two◊. One is a pink kimono with a bell skirt, opera gloves, and a green sash with medals decorating it. The other is a brown dress with lots of white frill trimming, and a gold sash with a green jewel clasping it together.
- Shannon◊ has one skirt on top of a miniskirt, a corset, and several buckles. And she's just a servant.
- Natsuhi wears a dress with at least three layers in the skirt, each cut to show the other layers. In the manga, she wears an even more frilly dress.
-
*Adventure Time*: Princess Bubblegum plays this trope straight most of the time◊, with a seemingly limitless wardrobe of gowns and pouffy dresses, but also subverts it frequently, as she seems just as comfortable wearing a hoodie and leggings, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She's probably also the only princess on this list that you'll see wearing a labcoat over her gown.
- A number of dresses show up in
*American Dad!*, for various reasons, whether a costume party, or magical holiday fairies. One former tooth fairy, not a ghost of Christmas Past, wears a blue Happy Holidays Dress that has snowflake decorations and gauze layering.
- In the
*Animaniacs* episode, "King Yakko", Hello Nurse is the kingdom's prime minister, and wears a magenta dress with ermine trim on the skirt, and a blue cloak.
- These show up in the Classic Disney Shorts.
- The Damsel in Distress in "The China Shop" wears a blue 18th century dress with purple bows and ribbons, and a pink petticoat.
- The girl in "The Moth and the Flame" wears a red dress with a short pink skirt, and a collar and hem trimmed with white fur.
- The Cookie Queen in "The Cookie Carnival" is given a dress made out of food. It has a cupcake paper as a skirt frame, blue and white eclair creme to make the frilly overdress, heart candies decorating the middle of the skirt, and the only non-food related item is a blue waist ribbon. The concept art showed the dress being red and white. And she's not the only one, as "Miss Strawberry Blonde" wears a skirt that is a strawberry shortcake where the layers get wider from the top down.
-
*Daria* has a few, some in the show, but most in the credits pictures.
- Quinn's pink middle ages dress, with white fur trimming in "Fair Enough".
- Erin's wedding dress in "I Don't", with the massive bell skirt, lace, and loads of floral trimmings.
- Some show up in
*Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers*. An odd case is a blue one in worn an opera with an ermine cape and little ermine overskirt. The odd part was the Chip later found and put on a small one to distract the episode's villain.
-
*Gargoyles* had a Shout-Out to *Beauty and the Beast*, where Elisa Maza once wore Belle's golden ballgown on Halloween while Goliath wore Beast's dress suit.
- In
*Kim Possible: So the Drama*, Kim is seen wearing a mildly pimped-out prom dress, which gets charred by a Diablo's laser beams, prompting her to shout, "Do you know how much babysitting I had to do to buy this dress?"
- Lady Lovely Locks and her friends wore similar dresses that each had medium poofy sleeves, and three rings of frills on their skirts. Otherwise the dresses varied in with the ruffles, ribbons, and other details. Duchess Ravenwaves wore a dark purple dress with puffed sleeves and leaf-like layers of different colored fabric on the sleeves and skirt.
- Despite being equines, the
*My Little Pony* series and toy line finds ways to dress them up. We saw this from a Fashion Show in the second TV special, to Rarity from *My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic* being a fashion designer with a penchant for creating these.
- "Suited for Success" is about making dresses for her friends, but their Taking Advantage of Generosity turned the dresses into Impossibly Tacky Clothes. They made it up to her by completing the dress she designed for herself. In the meantime, Rarity sang a song about making fancy dresses, "Art of the Dress".
- The practicalities of Pimped-Out Dresses are lampshaded, Rarity spends one party standing in a corner ordering everyone to keep well away from her for fear of damaging it, any amount of strenuous effort tends to leave them disheveled, and they make sure to take them off before actually getting into a fight (with Rarity seen carefully smoothing them out and folding them up despite an 'in progress' invasion occuring).
- When the girls in
*Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders* are in regular clothes, they can be pimped out. Gwenevere has worn a pink mini dress with gold stars decorating it, and a pink dress with puff sleeves and a three-tiered skirt.
- The eponymous
*Princess Sissi* wears many in the show.
- There is a yellow dress with a blue petticoat, blue ribbons and pink bows on the skirt, and gold decorations on the bodice.
- A green dress with puff sleeves, white ruffles on the hem and neckline, and several strips of yellow frills on the front of the bodice and skirt.
- A blue dress with white trimming and pink bows on the skirt and neckline.
- A white dress with a pink petticoat and neckline, puff sleeves, and a string of pearls worn around the waist.
- Finally, there is her wedding dress, with opera gloves, flowers, frills, and puff sleeves.
- In the video
*Princess Sydney Christmas: Three Gold Coins*, Sydney wears a few dresses, such a a red Happy Holidays Dress with a thick, white fur hem and neckline, and a coronation dress with an ermine cape and ermine-trimmed skirt.
-
*Rosie's Rules*: Crystal, Rosie, and Margarita take turns wearing a poofy dress in "Sister Surprise.
- The eponymous
*She-Ra: Princess of Power* wears a white Mini Dress Of Power that has loads of gold decorations, a gold Cool Crown shaped like wings, and a short red cape.
- In
*Total Drama*, Courtney wears a purple dress in the episode "The Princess Pride", that is basically a Palette Swap of Cinderella's dress, save for the fancy diamond tiara. In the episode "Niagra Brawls", she wears a white version of that dress as a Fairytale Wedding Dress.
- The
*Winx Club* have fancy dresses and gowns on certain occasions, they have plenty of them to give the Barbie a run for her money. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpulentDress |
Oral Fixation - TV Tropes
She carries it with her everywhere.
*"The only thing she learned was that a pen function was not like a real pen in the most important way there was. You could not chew it."*
Sometimes a character will suck or chew on something as a form of characterization. These can range from toothpicks and blades of straw or grass to pencils, pens, cigarettes, lollipops, hard candy or chewing gum. Smoking Is Cool is an example, and it's possible that some of these are a way to capture the look while the No Smoking rule is in force. An Oral Fixation might also be a sign they are an ex-smoker, having substituted the deadly habit for a less unhealthy one. When food is used, this can overlap with Erotic Eating. Occasionally used in older works to indicate a character is particularly childish, though that usage is something of a Discredited Trope due to modern developments in developmental psychology.
In anime, having a piece of straw in one's mouth is a common depiction of a
*banchou*, or juvenile delinquent gang-leader character. In the West, the closest equivalent is the Dead Horse Trope of the toothpick-chewing thug — a character chewing a piece of straw merely signifies he's a Country Mouse. Toothpicks are still frequently used when a smoking character is transposed to a Lighter and Softer work. However, if a character employs this trope while smoking *is* present, then you've got a Cigar Chomper.
## Examples:
-
*7 Seeds* has Akio from Team Autumn, who is rarely ever seen *without* his pipe.
- Kurome in
*Akame ga Kill!* is often seen snacking, even in the middle of a mission sometimes. Chelsea, one of the protagonists, is also almost always sucking on a lollipop.
-
*Assassination Classroom*:
- Gastro likes to lick
*guns* and to drink ramen broth with the gun barrels.
- Karma has a habit of chewing things (nails, paper, etc.) whenever he's seriously upset.
- In the manga version of
*Battle Royale,* Sho (who has a bad smoking habit) is shown licking a cigarette several times, and *boy* is it detailed. Even referred to in-universe as an "oral fixation."
- In
*Beyond the Boundary*, Mitsuki often has a Chupa Chups in her mouth.
- In
*Black Butler II*, much focus is given to Alois's mouth and tongue, and he's constantly licking things like his mouth, among other things.
- Spoofed in
*Bleach* with Shunsui Kyoraku, who sticks a blade of straw in his mouth because he thought it would look cool, but it turns out to be toxic.
- Amaimon in
*Blue Exorcist* almost always has either a lollipop or one of his fingernails in his mouth.
- Hermann Kaltz from
*Captain Tsubasa* often has a small twig in his mouth. While Brilliant, but Lazy, him spitting it out means he finally gets serious.
-
*Death Note*:
- Mello is perpetually chomping a chocolate bar. In the manga, he also has a habit of
*suggestively* licking the chocolate before biting into it.
- His companion, Matt, is rarely seen without a cigarette in his mouth.
- L chews his thumbnail when he's thinking. Or excited. Or bored. Pretty much constantly, actually. When he's not eating sweets.
- His Evil Twin Beyond Birthday from
*Another Note* does the same. Justified, as he's trying to imitate L.
- Banchou Leomon from
*Digimon Data Squad* chomps on a piece of straw.
- Youichi Hiruma of
*Eyeshield 21* frequently chews and blows bubblegum, and has been seen with a cigarette once or twice. Rival quarterback the Kid is almost always seen with a blade of grass (or wheat, or something) in his mouth, as well.
- In
*Fullmetal Alchemist*, Jean Havoc is only seen without a cigarette in a few hospital scenes.
- In
*Get Backers*, although not licking any other object per se, Psycho for Hire Takuma Fudou loves to constantly lick his lips. This can be seen as a trait that makes him more disturbing, or... something for fetish appeal. Or both.
-
*Hajiotsu* has Otogi generally chewing or sucking on some kind of treat, like a lollipop or chocolate stick.
-
*Hatsukoi Limited* has Misaki Yamamoto and her habit of having a lollipop in her mouth. The guy who first stuck one in her mouth might have been her first crush.
-
*Hellsing*:
- Integra is constantly smoking, to the point where if anyone nearby has a lighter, they're expected to light her next cigar. Yes, even the Catholic Assassins.
- Alucard is often depicted holding a small cross between his fangs on covers.
- Naomasa in
*Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere* keeps an Allen wrench in her mouth.
- Mako in
*Kill la Kill* sports a reed when given the powers of a Two-Star uniform.
- Kio of
*Loveless* is almost always eating a lollipop. And trying to get other people to eat them, too.
- Kaneda of the
*Lychee Light Club* is almost constantly hunched over chewing on his nails.
-
*My Dress-Up Darling*: One of Marin's friends at school, Nowa Sugaya, is often seen with a lollipop in her mouth, even offering Gojo one when they meet.
-
*Naruto*:
- Genma Shiranui, a minor Jonin, constantly chews on what looks like a toothpick. Notably, when faced with the Sound 4, he spits it to deflect a kunai thrown at him, and it becomes apparent that it was actually a senbon.
- Orochimaru has a creepy habit of licking his lips.
- Asuma is always smoking unless it's serious.
- Omoi is often seen with a sucker in his mouth, even when talking.
- Kawayanagi from
*Ojojojo* always has a twig sticking out of his mouth.
-
*One Piece*:
- Sanji is rarely seen without a cigarette. It was changed to a lollipop in the 4Kids Macekre, and removed entirely for the edited Funimation dub.
- One of the Marines, Smoker, is self explanatory—but with cigars (two
*at once*) instead. 4Kids edited out the cigars while leaving the smoke (saying his body was making the smoke as part of the power) which also required the addition gaps in his teeth, while Funimation is planning to do the opposite: leave the cigars, remove the smoke.
- Crocodile can often be seen smoking a cigar.
- Child Emperor from
*One-Punch Man* is frequently depicted licking a lollipop he's holding in his hand. When the situation calls for him to use both hands, he'll hold it in his mouth.
-
*Pokémon: The Series*:
- Ash's Treecko always had a tiny wood branch which makes him the most badass of all of Ash's Pokémon. (As badass as you can get in
*Pokémon* at least.) He continues the habit when he evolves into Grovyle, but loses it temporarily when he evolved into Sceptile, as result of a Heroic BSoD.
- Pancham always has a leaf in its mouth. This is a type trait, and not unique to Serena's Pancham.
- Bunta Marui from
*The Prince of Tennis* loves to chew and blow on gum.
- Kyouko in
*Puella Magi Madoka Magica* is always shown eating snack foods, and even fights with a piece of Pocky in her mouth.
-
*Reborn! (2004)*:
- Spanner is always shown with a lollipop, and in one anime Omake is revealed to make them himself (including
*natto* flavour). Explained and lampshaded that the sugar boost is good for the brain.
- Likewise, Gokudera in the manga always had a cigarette in his mouth.
- Mizore Shirayuki from
*Rosario + Vampire* provides the page image. She very often has a lollipop in her mouth, but this is justified; she's a yuki-onna and the pop is used to keep herself cool. According to an Omake, it's got a super-chilly frost core. Other snow fairies are seen with similar coolant candies when outside of their homeland.
- Sagara Sanosuke from
*Rurouni Kenshin* is almost always seen with a completely stripped fish skeleton in his mouth, or a small plant if he is traveling.
- In
*Samurai 7*, Tessai, Ukyo's Beleaguered Assistant (and Battle Butler), always has an unlit corncob pipe in his mouth.
- Jack, from
*Shanghai Youma Kikai*, is literally never seen without a cigarette.
- In
*Sherlock Hound*, Holmes keeps his pipe in his mouth almost all the time, even when it isn't lit. In one episode, he seals it so he can keep it on a non-smoking train.
- The resident samurai Mifune from
*Soul Eater* always has a reed in his mouth.
- In
*Strawberry Marshmallow*, when Nobue has (temporarily) stopped smoking, one of the things she does is, when asked to write the answer on the chalkboard, stick the piece of chalk in her mouth as if it were a cigarette. She also picks up an amazing Pocky habit — the resulting weight gain is what drives her back to cigarettes.
- Saku from
*Tantei Opera Milky Holmes* always has a lollipop in her mouth.
- Fat kid Fuguo in
*Urayasu Tekkin Kazoku* almost always has an ice cream bar in his mouth.
- Gascogne from
*Vandread*. Interestingly becomes plot-important when ||the weird metal thing turns out to transform into a key.||
- The titular Violet in
*Violet Evergarden* is prone to nibbling on things she is given, like the brooch Gilbert gifted her and the plush dog from Claudia. She also prefers to remove her gloves by holding a finger to her teeth. It makes sense as Violet cannot feel anything with her metal arms so she uses her mouth to actually get some sensation from things.
- Yami Bakura and Yami Marik of
*Yu-Gi-Oh!* sometimes lick their lips.
- In
*Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V*, Sora sucks on lollipops a lot, and given how strong he is can knock someone out by throwing one. When angry or upset, he tends to bite them rather than suck them.
- Koenma's pacifier in
*YuYu Hakusho*: not so out of place in his toddler form, but much more noticeable in his older and more Bishounen guise. Apparently, several centuries of soaking in a junior god's essence also makes it a fairly potent magical object.
- In the anime of
*Medabots* Coach Mountain always has a toothpick in his mouth.
-
*Batman*:
- Detective Harvey Bullock. In the comics he's generally chomping on a cigar; in the animated series, it's a toothpick.
- And then there's Matches Malone.
- Harley Quinn is often seen chewing bubble gum while out of costume.
- The Penguin is never seen without his trademark cigarette holder.
- Herbie and his lollipops from the comic
*Herbie*
-
*Lucky Luke* originally smoked, until he traded his cigarette for a blade of grass.
- Lampshaded in
*Marcel Dalton*: "Cigar? -I stopped. -I forgot. Blade of grass? -No thanks, I'm stopping."
- Dr. Will Magnus, creator of the
*Metal Men*, is hardly ever seen without a pipe in his mouth. During *52*, he admits that he doesn't smoke, and that the pipe is "just to chew on." Another character directly namedrops this as an oral fixation.
-
*Robin (1993)*: Callie Evans is often chewing bubble gum or gnawing on straws or pencils if she's not playing basketball.
-
*The Transformers (IDW)*: Kup is given a cigar-like piece of metal that he chews on.
- Parodied in the comic
*Van Von Hunter*: the title character (a vampire hunter) constantly chews a toothpick. His sidekick finally asks about it, just in time for him to dramatically reveal that it's really a miniature *stake.*
- Kanril Eleya of
*Bait and Switch* has for her Trademark Favorite Food the jumja stick, a Bajoran sweet made from tree sap that resembles a large lollypop. She's even been known to have them in lieu of breakfast.
-
*The Bolt Chronicles*: In "The Walk," Penny plucks a stalk of grass and puts it in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
- Jun Shigeno in the
*Horseshoes and Hand Grenades* side story *Month of Sundays* places lollipops in her mouth when she's depressed or in serious thinking mode.
- In some of the
*Kill la Kill AU* comics, a then 8-year old Ryuuko was seen with a cigarette in her mouth. This played for slight drama in one comic, where she opens her mouth in shock and it falls out, to which she doesn't put it back in.
- The snake conman Benjamin Hares in
*Old West* has a toothpick in his mouth when he first shows up to swindle his estranged wife Grace.
-
*Hornet* of *Pacific: World War II U.S. Navy Shipgirls* has a craving for lollipops, so naturally she's seen enjoying them, even when she's already hurt.
- In the
*One Piece* fanfic *'Til You Feel It All Around You*, Sanji doesn't want to smoke around his deaged nakama. In its place, he unconsciously develops a habit of biting his thumb, something he doesn't realize until Franky points it out to him.
-
*The Simpsons: Team L.A.S.H.*: Reflecting how dependent she was on her pacifier when she was a baby, Maggie chews bubble gum at almost all times, and bites her old pacifier (which she wears on a pendant around her neck) when shes stressed.
- Emeth debuts in
*Warriors of the World* chewing a leaf and it's occasionally lampshaded as the sight of it moving as he chews is distracting to his party members if they focus on it for a bit too long. It's implied that the leaf is some sort of drug that helps him stay relaxed.
- Da Chief Root from
*Artemis Fowl* keeps a cigar in his mouth, but unlit, because actually lighting cigars is against regulations (good thing, too, as it's apparently a "fungus cigar").
- During particularly stressful situations in
*The Eternity Code*, Spiro often sticks a cigar in his mouth, which the narration notes will be chewed to a pulp but not lit. "His doctors had forbidden it. Politely."
- Ce'Nedra in
*The Belgariad* habitually chews on her hair when nervous or thinking.
- In
*Bravelands* it's mentioned that a minor character named Grass Middleleaf is always chewing on a stalk of grass.
- In
*Charlie and the Chocolate Factory*, Violet Beauregarde adores chewing gum and can make a single stick of it last to record-setting levels. She only takes a break at mealtimes and bedtime, but that piece of gum is never far away. This becomes her undoing when she decides to sample a stick of experimental gum in the titular factory...
- Beaver, from Stephen King's
*Dreamcatcher*, is constantly chewing on toothpicks. ||It leads, indirectly, to his death||.
- Mr. Sir from
*Holes* constantly chewed sunflower seeds. He used to smoke, but chewed seeds after he quit.
- The character Mars Bar in the novel
*Maniac Magee* gets his nickname from his love of candy bars. He habitually holds one in his teeth like a fat cigar. Near the end, another character begins calling him Snickers.
-
*Nero Wolfe*: Police Inspector Cramer has a cigar in his mouth almost all the time — he hardly ever smokes it, he just chomps it. And this is *not* a bow to the modern perception of smoking, as the character was doing this in stories published before World War II.
- In
*River of Teeth*, Cal Hotchkiss is never seen without a toothpick in his mouth, occasionally two. The intensity with which he chews on them varies with the emotional intensity of the scene. When Houndstooth, in the burning down of whose ranch Cal was involved, mockingly inquieres whether Cal has quit smoking his tight-lipped answer amounts to having had gotten all the smoke he'd needed on that day.
- Gwen, one of the two Kid Detectives in the
*Something Queer [is going on]* series, taps her braces when she is thinking hard, a habit which tends to annoy the people around her.
- In the novel
*Song of Solomon* by Toni Morrison, the character Pilate is described as always chewing something: orange seeds, pine needles, a rubber band.
-
*That Hideous Strength*, Major Hardcastle always has a cheroot in her mouth; she hardly ever lights it. When she does, watch out!
- More a fixation on the mouth than on eating, but a lot of the imagery around the band DOROTHY has a laser-focus on Dorothy Martin's bright red lips, including the cover art for the EP and first album and the music video for "Get Up."
- In
*Calvin and Hobbes*, Calvin loves chewing gum. He's even *subscribed to a magazine about chewing*!
- Duke in the
*Doonesbury* comic strip always has a lit cigarette in a cigarette holder hanging from his mouth. The character is based on Hunter S. Thompson, who made signature use of cigarette holders.
- One time in
*Peanuts* Charlie Brown found what he thought was the Little Red-Haired Girl's dropped pencil and saw that she had chewed on it. "She's human!"
- The shooter in
*Eight Ball Deluxe* has a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
- Professional wrestler Scott Hall usually chews a toothpick during promos.
- Joey Ryan has a thing for suckers and lollipops. He will suck on one, give it to a fan, and then take it back after they have sucked on it. He will suck on one, wipe his hairy self down with it, and go back to sucking it. He doesn't care if they fall on the floor either,
*few* things will turn him off from one, especially if it is a blow pop.
- The easiest way to get Sara Del Rey to loosen up is to make her think gum is involved. As long as she's not working in the ring she'll
*always* go for it.
- Ann Traxx chews gum for very long periods of time, sticking it on the ring post to chew later when she has a match. She once "accidentally" dropped her gum on the floor, only to pick it up and keep chewing. Another time she jumped Lexie Fyfe, forced her mouth open and took Fyfe's gum to add to her own wad of it. All this lead up to a Humiliating Wager where Ann Thraxx forced XJAM Commissioner Charlie to chew that very same wad of gum.
- Pete Dunne has a habit of posing with title belts by holding them between his teeth.
- The model for Horticulous Slimux from
*Warhammer: Age of Sigmar* and *Warhammer 40,000* is chewing on a human bone in the same manner that a stereotypical country farmer chews on a stalk of wheat or corn. This is intended to strengthen the agricultural theme of Nurgle's head gardener.
-
*Ace Attorney*:
- Juan Corrida, one of the victims in
*Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney* constantly has a piece of straw in his mouth- except in the photo of the crime scene, of course.
- In
*Ace Attorney Investigations*, Detective Badd appears at first to be your standard hardboiled cop, smoking a cigarette, but it's actually a lollipop. (And as he sucks on it... his speech pauses... dramatically...)
- Simon Blackquill keeps one of his pet hawk's feathers in his mouth.
- In
*Bayonetta*, the titular character is frequently seen with a lollipop. Additionally, by pressing the button corresponding to the type of lollipop boost you want and holding it down until the lollipop comes onscreen, you can actually change the color of Bayonetta's lollipop ||and get a (usually) much-needed boost. The best part? This doesn't count as a used item||.
- Kokonoe from
*Blazblue* has custom made silvervine lollipops, and she's almost never seen without one. The gag reels joke they're the source of her intelligence and she's been eating them for so long she can't eat anything else.
-
*Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series*: Texas born General Carville can often be seen chewing on a toothpick. Played for laughs in one scene where he absentmindedly grabs a pick, pulls out the one he already had in his mouth, realizes what he just did, stares at them for a second in confusion, then shrugs and puts the new one in.
- Cid from
*Final Fantasy VII* smokes cigarettes. Every tenth battle, it's a cigar instead. He can even use his cigarettes in battle, by using them to *light dynamite*.
- The Engineer in
*Half-Life: Opposing Force* always had a lit cigarette in his mouth, which he uses to ignite his blowtorch when asked to break a door open.
-
*Halo*: Captain Keyes from *Halo: Combat Evolved* chews his grandfather's tobacco pipe. The novels explain that he's not allowed to smoke it while onboard a spacecraft, because of the contained atmosphere.
- Naturally, Juliet from
*Lollipop Chainsaw* sucks on lollipops a lot, using them as Power-Up Food.
- Cassie Cage, a new character introduced in
*Mortal Kombat X*, is always chewing and blowing bubble gum. She even uses it in one of her Fatalities.
- Munehisa Iwai from
*Persona 5* always has what appears to be a cigarette sticking out of his mouth. Though it's later revealed to be a lollipop.
- The
*Pokémon* Pancham and Pangoro. Pancham is always seen chewing on a leaf, in an effort to look cool. Pangoro keeps a bamboo shoot in its mouth, fitting with its *banchou* motif, and allowing it to deduce enemy movement.
- Johnathan Ingram, lead character of
*Policenauts*, is always depicted with a cigarette in his mouth. And he never lights it. Several characters point out that it is illegal to smoke on a space colony because of air purification issues and/or the threat of the oxygen igniting. Though it's implied Johnathan doesn't smoke anyway.
- You can equip a blade of grass just to invoke this trope in
*Ragnarok Online*.
- Detective Magnotta, Christopher Walken's character in
*Ripper*, can simply **not** keep a cigar out of his mouth for more than five minutes. And he doesn't really even smoke them, just chews them vigorously.
- Red and most other Caninu of
*Solatorobo* tend to like chewing on bones, and even have a variety of bite styles to express different personalities. Apparently, girls are considered delinquents if they walk around chewing on them◊.
- One of Mitsurugi's costumes in
*Soulcalibur 2* gives him a blade of grass/wheat.
- In the first
*Starcraft* game, the image avatar for the Firebat unit was depicted with a cigarette in his mouth.
- Repede from
*Tales of Vesperia* carries his old master's pipe around in his mouth whenever he's not in battle. He was even like this as a puppy, carrying around things like sticks, small bones, and even a spoon.
- In the game
*Wing Commander*, Captain Ian "Hunter" St. John constantly has a cigar in his mouth.
- In
*The World Ends with You*, Koki Kariya's lollipop/bean paste is sort of his personal signature item to the point Beat tends to refer to him has "Lollipop" - subverted, though, as he never actually has it in his mouth when he appears, instead holding it. Rather delicately.
- Arsenic from
*Band vs. Band*, with cigarettes as well as a variety of candy and popsicles and beverages with straws.
- The bounty hunter Sadick from
*Charby the Vampirate* is normally chewing on a toothpick, and when caught without one tends to end up gnawing on his lower lip.
- Carlita and Shanna from
*Elf Blood* are rarely depicted without a cigarette in their mouths. Shanna even chain-smokes when she's stressed or particularly upset.
- Merlu of
*Juathuur* - straw version.
- Brent, from
*Misfile*, chews on toothpicks.
- Dave from
*Narbonic* was almost never seen without a cigarette in his mouth... until he went back in time and changed the past so that he never started smoking. It became a Running Gag that he would mention how he used to smoke and no one else would remember it.
- Da Chief in
*Star Power* is of a species that deals with stress by chewing on things, and is rarely seen without a "chewstick" in his mouth. In chapter 8 he starts using thicker ones.
-
*Tower of God*:
- Nobic really should stop chewing his fingers.
- Ha Jinsung. Went from cigarettes to Chupa Chup lollipops (thanks to Wangnan). Even Rak calls him the "candy turtle".
- Jet from
*Avatar: The Last Airbender* constantly chews on and holds a blade of grass in his mouth, but he loses it along with much of his badassery when he ||gets brainwashed.|| Sokka even tries to see if replacing it would help. It doesn't.
- Det. Harvey Bullock on
*Batman: The Animated Series* constantly chewed a toothpick, in a way that made it rather clear he either used to smoke, or still did when the camera and censors weren't around. Once used for Squick, when he flicked it at his officious landlord. It stuck.
- In fact, in one episode, where Batman suspects Bullock of having a police informant killed (the informant had previously accused Bullock of taking bribes) a toothpick at the crime scene is his biggest tip-off. ||Bullock is innocent; the toothpick was planted by the real culprit, Killer Croc.||
- The
*DuckTales (1987)* episode "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Duck" features a parody of Sherlock Holmes who constantly keeps a pipe in his teeth, which he doesn't smoke, likely just to look distinguished.
- Played for laughs in one episode of
*The Fairly OddParents!* with Cosmo and his wand, to show off his ditz status.
- Two in
*G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero*:
- Breaker is literally always chewing gum and is willing to disobey a direct order to discard it.
- Clutch, somewhat similarly, has been known to chew on the same toothpick for months.
-
*King of the Hill*:
- Dale Gribble is rarely seen without a cigarette in his mouth.
**Dale:** My oral fixation!
- In one episode he switches to chewing tobacco, but his wife convinces him to switch back when he won't stop spitting on the floor.
-
*Western Animation/Looneytunes*:
- Bugs Bunny and his carrots, which were kind of a substitute for a cigar.
-
*Yankee Doodle Daffy*: Any time Sleepy LaGoon is on screen, he's seen licking his lollipop, which is so big it nearly conceals his face.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*:
- Newborn filly Pumpkin Cake has the odd habit of chewing on just about anything she can find — except food. Tableclothes, bath towels, stuffed toys, rubber chickens, etc. As she's a month old when it really kicks in, it's possible she's teething (horses teeth at one month).
- Applejack can often be seen with a piece of straw in her mouth, as can her brother Macintosh.
- Pinkie's toothless alligator Gummy often vacantly latches onto objects or ponies.
- In the
*Rick and Morty* episode "Promortyus", Summer decides to have a toothpick in her mouth for some reason. This ends up saving her as the Face Huggers poke their eyes on it when they jump at her.
-
*The Simpsons*:
- Maggie Simpson and her pacifier.
- An Ogdenville farmer on
*The Simpsons* has a piece of straw in his mouth.
- The Sea Captain, Horatio McAllister, is always seen with a pipe in his mouth, which he rarely actually smokes.
- In
*Star vs. the Forces of Evil* the titular Star frequently chews on her wand.
- The creators of
*Star Wars: The Clone Wars* originally intended to give Bounty Hunter Cad Bane a habit of smoking cigars, but they had to scrap it, so instead he's almost always seen chewing a toothpick, when not on job. In an episode from Season 4, he threatens to slit a pawnshop owner's throat with one of his toothpicks.
- In Season 7, Crosshair, the Bad Batchs Cold Sniper, also has a toothpick habit.
-
*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)*:
- Slim, a one-shot character, usually chewed a match. Another one-shot character, Spuds, would chew on a stick.
- A minor villain in the "Turtles in Space" arc was Gruel, a sadistic and slovenly Triceraton slave driver. One of his horns was replaced by a metal one, which he was constantly removing to use like a toothpick.
- Baseball players in general chew gum or tobacco (as per personal preference). Supposedly, it relaxes them in what is normally a stressful situation, and in particular it also helps keep the mouth moist in the dry baseball diamond.
- Winston Churchill kept a cigar in his mouth pretty much from dawn until bedtime. At home he would just kind of chew on them unlit, and even had special sticky-paper bands made up to help hold them together.
- His pal Franklin D. Roosevelt was a cigarette-in-a-holder guy, and was depicted that way almost everywhere.
- Doug Walker. If there's a giving-a-blowjob joke to be made, then
*by God*, he will make it.
- Hayden Panettiere seems to have this weird compulsion to lick things. Considering her physical appearance, this can lead to some fetish appeal.
- Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters is always seen chewing gum on stage, including whilst singing. He says it helps with all the shouting.
- Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal always bites any trophy he wins. Especially the grand slam trophies.
- Mixed Martial Arts fighter and UFC Lightweight champion Benson Henderson often fights with a toothpick hidden in his mouth, in spite of the danger this presents. He produced it from his mouth immediately after the final bell of his successful title defense against Nate Diaz, but denied it in the following interview. His coach admits that he has repeatedly told Henderson not to pull this stunt and even checks his mouth before fights, but Henderson still manages to sneak it in there sometimes.
- Although not every role that Brad Pitt plays has an oral fixation, more of his characters than is common are shown eating at some point. Pitt himself must be the one suggesting that his characters eat something in various scenes as "stage business."
- Similarily to Pitt, a lot of David Tennant's characters have a habit of sticking things in their mouths. The Doctor tastes things because he has special Time Lord-senses in his tongue that he uses to pick up vital info, Kilgrave licks Jessica's cheek to assert dominance, and Barty Crouch Jr. constantly licks his lips because he's bat-shit crazy.
- Tennant himself also shows signs of this. On the commentary for Doctor Who's second series episode "The Impossible Planet", he stops the conversation dead when he says that he wants to chew on the Ood tentacles...and then describes what they would feel like in his mouth. In detail. In case there was any doubt, he also talks about biting their ears in the
*Confidential* for the same episode.
- Some neurodivergent people stim through this method. Nine times out of ten, this is to self-regulate.
- Of course, the trope is named after Sigmund Freud's concept.
- Basketball star Stephen Curry is always chewing on his mouth guard, to the point
*NBA 2K* had to incorporate it.
- Soccer manager Maurizio Sarri is a very heavy smoker. Because he is unable to smoke on the pitch, he instead chews on cigarette butts on the sidelines during games.
- Many kittens suck on blankets or their owner's skin, sometimes to an obsessive degree, as a substitution for nursing on their mother, especially if they were taken away from their mother at too early an age.
- Oral fixations are a common stim among autistic people, often taking the form of chewing on the seam of the collar of t-shirts. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OralFixation |
Open Sesame - TV Tropes
*"Sesame is a word that opens a lot of doors where I come from."*
—
**Kippi ben Kippod**, *Rechov Sumsum*
A door, gate, portal or area is secured by a magic lock that uses a sound to open the lock, including a spoken phrase. In modern setting or science fiction, the lock might be a biometric scanner.
The fact that it sounds an awful lot like "Open Says-A-Me" is a coincidence: the phrase is directly translated from Arabic "Iftaḥ yā Simsim", and the pun doesn't work. The use of "Sesame" ("Simsim" in Arabic) just happens to be a random word, which makes sense; why would you make the magic words to a secret chamber of riches something which anyone could figure out?
note : While in-universe the password seems randomly chosen, "sesame" was probably used by Real Life oral-tradition storytellers because of a certain cultural understanding regarding the sesame seed, which grows in a seed pod that splits open when mature, possibly giving it a passing resemblance to female genitalia; but also possibly due to a Hebrew word or phrase pronounced like "sem" or "shem" and referencing the name of God or heaven. Either thing would be hidden, protected, and treasured, and thus a reference implies the keeping of secrets and treasures. By using a colorful or well-known metaphor that implies the intended meaning (this sort of thing is known as a "kenning" among Germanic peoples), one can hopefully bypass (some) censors and improve memory retention of the story's details, useful things for traditional storytellers.
Of course, the story is too familiar these days for it to be used as a password in a serious sense, making the phrase something of a Dead Horse Trope, only Played for Laughs.
For musical passwords, see Songs in the Key of Lock. Don't confuse with Speak Friend and Enter, which is when a seemingly complex puzzle has a simple solution.
## Examples:
- Used as the basis for two gadgets in
*Doraemon*. One is a jar of literal 'open sesame', where if you sprinkle the sesame on any locked object it'll open. Another one instead gives any openable object biometric authentication (only the person who sprinkled the sesame can open the object, and if you've got a cold causing your voice to change it's not going to work). We're not told what happens if you use the first kind of sesame on an object secured by the second kind of sesame.
- The
*Lupin III: Part II* episode "A Safe Bet" has Lupin desperately trying to open a specially-made safe that contains the antidote to a poison he has been given. After trying every trick he knows, he gets so frustrated he wonders if opening it isn't something as stupid as yelling "Open Sesame!" It is.
- Featured in
*Magi: Labyrinth of Magic*, which has most of its design roots in *Arabian Nights* to begin with.
-
*Happy Heroes*: In Season 3 episode 8, Careful S. chases Kalo to a cave that has its door voice-activated. Careful S. tries the voice command "open sesame" to no avail, then tries "open pumpkin", "open watermelon", and "open fruit platter". The fourth one prompts the door to open.
- In
*The Smurfs* story "The Smurfs And The Book That Tells Everything", Brainy uses a spell given to him by the book that only allows it to be used when it hears *only Brainy* announcing his name.
- An early
*Captain America (Tales of Suspense)* story has a prison breakout where the cons can't open the main security door because they aren't aware that it only opens when you say "Captain America" to it. A sequel story included the obvious security problem, as the door accidentally opened when someone said Cap's name.
- In one
*Cavewoman* mini-series, the phrase needed to open a magical portal is "Oh my God! I don't want to die!". As the portal is guarded by flesh-eating yetis, this has resulted in a lot of intruders accidentally saying the activation phrase.
- In
*Aladdin and the King of Thieves*, this is naturally the way to open up the entrance to the Forty Thieves' lair. The ocean parts and a stone road running out to a large offshore rock formation forms. And then a crack opens in the rock formation, leading to the lair.
- Used amusingly in
*WALLE*, when Auto prompts the captain for voice confirmation, he replies "Uhhh..." - which, of course, is accepted.
- In
*The Rescuers Down Under*, when Bernard, Bianca and Jake reach McLeach's hideout where he's keeping Cody, Bernard and Bianca start digging under the door to get in while Jake sarcastically says "Have you tried 'Open Sesame'. At that moment, McLeach opened the door and the three rodents were raised into the air on it.
- The RKO 1955 action-comedy
*Son Of Sinbad* has the wives and daughters of the original Forty Thieves, seeking vengeance for their slaughtered families, living in a cave worked by this means... sort of.
"Open Sesame!"
*[door opens, woman enters with friend]*
"Close Sesame!"
*[door closes, woman picks up a carrot, walks around a wall]*
"Good girl, Sesame."
*[gives the carrot to Sesame; Sesame is a trained mule]*
-
*Sneakers* has a voiceprint lock that requires a specific phrase; unlike in *Shadowrun*, it ends up being possible to beat the lock with a tape recorder.
-
*The Bourne Ultimatum* has Noah Vosen keep all his incriminating documents in a safe with a voiceprint lock. Rather stupidly, the phrase he uses is his own name ||and he answers his phone in the exact same way||.
- At the end of
*The Hot Rock*, Dortmunder finally gets the sought-after diamond after a bank guard was given a hypnotic suggestion. He casually utters the key words "Afghanistan banana stand" to the guard - there's some tension as the guard doesn't *act* hypnotized, but he does follow instructions and hands over the diamond.
- In
*The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring*, when the Fellowship tries to enter Moria through the enchanted gate that's inscribed "Speak friend and enter". Which actually TELLS you what to say.
-
*Curse Of The Crystal Eye* naturally uses the phrase to open the 40 Thieves' cave, along with the titular huge diamond.
-
*Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein*: Desperate to escape back through a secret door that opened onto the Frankenstein Monster, Wilbur (Costello) resorts to frantically yelling "Open sesame, open sesame!" Inexplicably, this works.
- The name of this trope comes from the tales of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", where the 40 Thieves hide their stolen loot in a cave. The entrance uses a rock that moves only when you say, "Open Sesame" (Ali Baba follows them there). The jealous man who follows Ali Baba ends up trapped because he can't remember the name of the grain, and is caught and murdered by the thieves.
- Older Than Radio: Though often included in editions of
*The Arabian Nights*, the oldest known version of Ali Baba is an 18th-century French translation by Antoine Galland.
- In the
*Enchanted Forest Chronicles*, a gate in the Caves of Fire and Night is protected by a spell like this; originally the key was just "open sesame" but the dragons had to keep making it more complicated. The one we hear is a rhyming couplet followed by the word "alberolingarn".
-
*Atlas Shrugged* has Galt saying a phrase to get into the power house.
- In
*The Lord of the Rings*, the door to the mines of Moria has one of these, with the inscription, "Speak friend and enter". Which actually TELLS you what to say.
- In the
*Crosstime Traffic* book *The Valley-Westside War*, the password for entering the secret crosstime chamber is *Mellon*, referencing the entrance to Moria. A character from the post-apocalyptic world is able to figure it out, though, since LOTR was published before 1967 (when the nuclear war happened), and copies still exist.
- The character was planning on trying "Open Sesame" next if
*Mellon* didn't work.
- Robert A. Heinlein's
*Stranger in a Strange Land*. Ben Caxton's apartment had a door lock that opens when a specific phrase is spoken.
- The Battle School lockers in
*Ender's Game* have voice-activated locks.
-
*Harry Potter*: Want to get into the Chamber of Secrets? Then you'd better know how to speak Parseltongue! ||Apparently, just making the correct noises without knowing the language also works, as Ron did years later.||
- In
*The Language of Power*, the fourth book in the *Steerswoman* series, the wizard Jannik has a voice-activated lock ||on his computer||.
- An episode of
*Mission: Impossible* requires the mark the IMF is seeking to open the warhead room by saying the words, "January Suborbital Denomination."
-
*Doctor Who*:
- In "The Invasion of Time", there was a hidden doorway that opened when a particular phrase was spoken. The phrase was "There's nothing more useless than a door with a voice lock."
- In "Battlefield", the door is keyed to the Doctor saying "Open up — it's me."
- Played with in "The Doctor's Wife", where Amy and Rory are told that the key to a door is "crimson eleven delight petrichor", but saying it doesn't work: ||the door has a telepathic interface, and the key is to
*think* the meaning of each word in turn||.
-
*Legends of the Hidden Temple*: When a player enters the Room of the Secret Password, they must find a tablet with one of three possible passwords ("Long Live Olmec!"; "Open Sesame!"; Klaatu Barada Nikto!") and yell it out; if the password is correct, the doors will unlock.
- An episode of
*Leverage* has a safe with a voice activated lock. The thieves get in by being able to record every possible sound from the safe's owner by getting him to say the name of a very complicated French dish, then have him drop the F-bomb when he realizes it's raw shrimp.
- An episode of
*The Muppet Show* has a sketch involving Fozzie Bear trying to get into Ali Baba's cave. "Open Sesame" is repeatedly invoked, and eventually results in a whole bunch of *Sesame Street* characters emerging from the cave.
- Used in a skit in
*Sesame Street* itself too. Kermit in his TV news reporter outfit, is interviewing Ali Baba, who cannot remember the famous password; eventually, he leaves, and Kermit signs off to the camera, telling viewers to tune in next time when they "Open Sesame Street News"... Which accidentally opens the door. (Causing Kermit to be mugged by the Forty Thieves.) Incidentally, the title of *Sesame Street* is actually a reference to the phrase, since the show (like the phrase) is meant to open new worlds to children.
- In the opening episode of
*UFO (1970)*, Alex Freeman activates the lift to SHADO's Elaborate Underground Base by doing a Large Ham recitation from *Romeo and Juliet* into a receiver disguised as a humidor case. Once his voiceprint is verified, the office starts sinking into the ground.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*. The lift to the Initiative's Elaborate Underground Base is activated by a similar method, which causes problems when demons steal the voices of everyone in Sunnydale. Two Initiative soldiers enter the lift and can't give voiceprint verification, causing the lift to fill with Deadly Gas. Fortunately the scientists down below realize what's happening and get them out in time, silently pointing to the sign saying IN CASE OF EMERGENCY USE STAIRS.
-
*The Outer Limits (1995)*, episode "The Haven": the ultra-secure, ultra-private apartments in the titular residential complex are so heavily automated that even the kitchen cabinets can't be opened or closed unless the resident tells them to. This backfires when the male lead can't even get into his own fridge when the system stops working.
-
*Star Trek: The Original Series* episode "The Paradise Syndrome": the sonic key to open the "temple" containing the planet's asteroid deflector happens to sound exactly like Kirk calling the ship, and Scotty answering.
- In the
*Shadowrun* Tabletop RPG, voiceprint locks are designed so simply tape recording and using the voice of an authorized person won't work.
- In the BattleTech universe, the standard activation sequence for a 'Mech involves a voiceprint match
*followed by* a code phrase.
- In
*Dungeons & Dragons*, the wizard spell *Knock* will open any door, and requires only a verbal component. The player character is justified in going up to the door and saying "Open Sesame".
- Kashuan Keep in
*Final Fantasy II* can only be opened by either the voice of a member of the Kashuan royal family or the ringing of the Goddess's Bell.
- Sonic tries this phrase in Sonic and the Secret Rings to try and enter Erazor Djinn's Final Boss room. Given he's in the Arabian Nights, it'd qualify as a Genre Savvy move, but it doesn't work as the door requires the seven World Rings to open.
- The PC adventure
*King's Quest V* has a treasury used by a band of thieves open with the very same phrase as the title of this trope, most likely as a shout out to *Arabian Nights*, given the series' tendency to reuse fairy tales in their plots.
- "Opensesame" is the Cheat Code in
*Deus Ex* to unlock any door you target.
- In Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia, Lyner attempts this and several variations in the Musical Corridor, and the door opens... because someone was coming through in the other direction.
- Subverted in
*The Stanley Parable*: at one point, you are presented with a door that has a voice receiver, and the Narrator tells you the password. However, due to Stanley being a Heroic Mime (or the game not supporting voice input, whatever), *the door cannot be opened*. The Narrator interprets your silence as mockery, and grows more agitated.
- In the Original Campaign of
*Neverwinter Nights*, one of the side-quests involves holding a conversation with a child standing outside her house. She tells you that a secret passage opens behind a certain piece of furniture in her house when someone says "Hal-u-eth" (the name of a famous historical figure in the game). If you use the piece of furniture and you have this information, you get the chance to say "Halueth" and you get sent to the side-quest area.
-
*Uninvited*: The subtly-named "O Sesame" spell. Acquired by using "Dolldoll" on the gypsy doll and used in the chapel to open the way to the stone wall maze.
- In
*Phaeton* the door to the Dungeon of Flames is opened with "Open Sesame", no matter what language it is spoken in. The dungeon is also implied to be the former cave of the forty thieves.
- The Looney Tunes short
*Ali Baba Bunny* involves Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck accidentally tunneling into the cave of a wealthy sultan. When the sultan's guard, Hassan sees this, he tries to invoke the phrase in order to open the cave and capture them, but finds that he's forgotten the proper word:
Uh...Open, sarsaparilla? Open, Saskatchewan? Open, septuagenarian? Open, saddle soap?
- Occurred in
*Denver the Last Dinosaur* which also require a dance.
- In one episode of
*Dexter's Laboratory*, the titular laboratory only opens when you use the spoken password "Star Wars". Any other phrase, such as *omelette du fromage*, won't work and will only increase the security around the lab ||including the self-destruct||.
-
*SpongeBob SquarePants*:
- In the episode "Jellyfish Hunter", Mr. Krabs used a voice-activated lock on the enclosure with all the jellyfish he had Spongebob capture. However, while telling Spongebob about the lock he says "The door is voice-activated, and will only open if I say 'open'." You can guess what happens next.
- Averted in "Survival of the Idiots" where Spongebob and Patrick are trapped in the hibernating Sandy's wintery tree dome. Patrick takes a deep breath, throws out his arms, and says "Open Sesame! ... Well, I've done all I can do."
-
*The Arabian Knights* cartoon on *The Banana Splits* Show. The entrance to the title characters' cave was covered by a rock that slid aside when one of them said "Open Sesame!"
- In
*Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves*, Popeye pursues the Forty Thieves when they kidnap Olive and Wimpy to their cave and has some difficulty remembering the magic word he overheard them use to open the door, so he just cuts a hole into the stone door with his pipe. Later, when Popeye is beset with the thieves and can stand no more, he takes out his spinach can and says to it, "Open, says me!" and it magically opens.
- In the
*Scooby-Doo* episode "Go Away, Ghost Ship" a hidden warehouse is guarded by a (mechanical) talking skull that demands a password. Since this is an episode with ghost pirates, Velma tries "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum," which doesn't work. Shaggy tries "Yum yum yum and a liverwurst a la mode" as a joke *and it does.*
**Shaggy:** Wow, some password!
- In
*Danny Phantom*, the password Jack programmed into the Fenton Portal's security is 'Open Sesame'. The Guys In White are shocked that the password is something that simple.
- Throughout the second half of the short, "When You're Hot..." from the
*Tiny Toon Adventures* episode, "Going Places", Plucky unsuccessfully attempts to open a box that says, "OPEN IN CASE OF FIRE" to put out a fire at Acme Looniversity. When Buster tells him to get the box open, Plucky tells him, "I've tried everything except saying, 'Open Sesame!'". Turns out, saying "Open Sesame!" opens the box.
- In
*The Transformers*, Dr. Arkeville's secret laboratory hidden within a cliff face only opens when he says this command. Lampshaded by Starscream.
**Arkeville:**
I, Dr. Arkeville, genius of science, say... OPEN SESAME!
**Starscream:** How original
.
- A skit in
*Right Now Kapow* involves the leader of the Forty Thieves forgetting this password. Under the threat of execution by the thieves, he reveals personal information to a tech support hotline to reset the password. Unfortunately, resetting the password also resets the contents of the cave, leaving the empty-handed thieves to take out their frustration on him.
-
*The Owl House*: When Eda first brings Luz to the Owl House, Hooty the owl face on the front door asks for a password, though Eda has no patience for this and pokes him in the eyes. Hooty complains that she never wants to have any fun, then opens his mouth to let them through. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpenSesame |
Optical Compression - TV Tropes
We don't have an article named Main/OpticalCompression. If you want to start this new page, just click the edit button above. Be careful, though, the only things that go in the Main namespace are tropes and should be created through the YKTTW
system. Don't put in redirects for shows, books, etc.. Use the right namespace for those. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpticalCompression |
Oral Tradition - TV Tropes
Once, before film, before printing, before even writing, all stories were spread by word of mouth alone. If you wanted a story, you had to get someone to actually sit down at a fire and
*tell you*. Most of the oldest stories have their roots in this medium.
Oral storytelling has distinctive features, shaping the tropes it uses. Speech is not nearly as fast as reading, so an evening's worth of story is shorter. It's also not possible to page back through an oral story to make sure it's internally consistent, and the story itself needs the kind of repetitive features that aid memorization. Even
*with* good memorization, stories tend to change and evolve over long periods of time, as the details of the original telling are altered by different storytellers, to suit various audiences and circumstances, and with cultural and linguistic changes.
Nowadays, you kids with your new-fangled "writing" and "movies" like to think of Oral Tradition as a medium of the past. But even in the most literate and high-tech cultures, stories, beliefs, ideas, and jokes continue to circulate orally. Online social networking will have to become even more omnipresent before Oral Tradition really dies as a medium.
The genres most often associated with Oral Tradition are Myth, Legend, and Folklore (folktales, fairy tales, folk ballads, folk songs, etc.), or just Mythology. These genres are not just oral — many mythological works have passed into or originated from other media such as writing and theatre. But these genres originated with oral storytelling, and are frequently referred to collectively as "oral tradition."
An oral work, once written down, isn't Oral Tradition anymore. The oral versions can still wander around, and often do. But the written version is now Literature, and will change independently from the oral versions. This is an important distinction for this wiki, because the two media are subject to different types of adaptation, circulate by different channels, and often employ different tropes.
It also comes up in the style of the wording, for example the repetition in oral works vs. the richer description, more detailed narration, and illustration that usually only shows up in writing. Once a work is written, it's much easier for the author to look back over the whole thing, removing contradictions and inconsistencies, before presenting it to an audience. This is not to say that tropes from the oral tradition do not show up in written media at all: usually, there is a transition period when a story moves from oral to written form.
This can be seen best in early literature, which still rely on repetition, formulaic storytelling, and rhyme schemes in some form or another (consider that poetry used to be the
*main* form of storytelling because of this). Nor to say that oral tradition is independent of literary versions: the Brothers Grimm correctly deduced that some of the oral tales they collected were in fact derived from Charles Perrault's literary tales, and a Japanese folklorist established that the publication of their works produced noticeable changes in the fairy tales told in Japan; the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, originating as a literary tale using fairy tale motifs, has reappeared in many variants in oral tales; and folklorists talking with storytellers are often told of their actively seeking out literary sources to increase their repertoires of stories and motifs.
Since oral works by definition aren't written down, it's almost impossible to trope them. The works troped on This Very Wiki, even those that originated in Oral Tradition, are almost all adaptations in other media.
See also Language Tropes. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OralTradition |
Oppressive States of America - TV Tropes
**Snake Plissken:**
Got a smoke?
**Sergeant Malloy:**
The United States is a no-smoking nation. No smoking, no drinking, no drugs. No women — unless, of course, you're married. No guns, no foul language, no red meat.
**Snake Plissken:**
Land of the free.
20 Minutes into the Future, or perhaps an Alternate History gone wrong, the United States is no longer the shining beacon of democracy that it once was. Perhaps civil war and/or an invasion has turned the country into The Dictatorship, corporate influence has undermined the democratic ideals the nation once held, a theocratic religious movement has taken control of the government, or democracy has been suspended in order to fight off external or internal threats, real and/or imagined. Whatever the reason, the nation is only a democracy in name, or sometimes, not even that if the regime is painfully honest.
Expect to see FEMA, DHS agents, cops that are always clad in riot gear, or even the military patrolling the streets, harassing innocent citizens for arbitrary crimes or by virtue of simply "being there." Civil rights have been suspended for the "greater good," and political dissidents are shipped off to concentration camps or made to "quietly disappear", never to be seen again.
A La Résistance of sorts will be featured usually, made up of fed-up citizens, and sometimes former or dissenting military or police personnel that are following their oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign
**and domestic**. Regardless, they'll be dismissed as terrorists by the American government, and will usually be used to justify the oppression.
How they are portrayed depends on the work. Some may have them as plucky heroes that still believe in idealistic American beliefs and are willing to die to restore them, whereas if the scale goes further towards cynicism, may have them portrayed as well meaning rebels that commit some atrocities to fight against the system, or even Right Wing Militia Fanatics (who turned out to be Properly Paranoid after all) who are little better than the system they are fighting, and often become much worse.
In a political work that is left-leaning, expect to see this trope overlap with The Boorish version of Eagleland, an America where separation of church and state no longer exists and in which the government is in the pockets of crooked businessmen and warmongers - or a combination of both, all sponsored by the brutal and crooked president. Right-leaning works will favor a Commie Land America, with shades of either old-style Stalinism or '60s radicalism depending on the period the work came from; or since the end of the Cold War, radical Islamists imposing Sharia law, in which the separation of church and state no longer exists. Libertarian and centrist works will often take elements of both of these portrayals.
Can overlap with Fallen States of America, if the nation has become a dictatorship as a result of the fallen status, or is one of the reasons behind it, although it is possible for the US to still be a superpower, or at least still be a "first-world nation". Divided States of America or a Second American Civil War is also a possible trope as well, as the remaining US government may be trying to keep what is left of the nation together by any means possible, if the oppressive was not the cause of the Civil War to begin with. (Of course, The revolution may not be civilized as well.)
Invaded States of America can count too when the nation goes dictatorial to protect against the enemy, or if the invaded sections are under a restrictive foreign government. Also see Evil States of America, which is where the United States are the badguys, oppressive or not.
Basically Day of the Jackboot with a specifically American focus.
Sub-Trope of Different States of America.
**No Real Life Examples past the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.** Needless to say, many ideologues and conspiracy theorists on all extremes of the political spectrum believe this trope to be Truth in Television, some tropers and readers could probably write an essay complete with citations about how there are at least some elements that are truthful, let's just leave it at that.
## Examples
- In
*Black Bullet*, the light novels mentioned many countries that treat cursed children much worse than Tokyo. United States happens to be one of them, as cursed children are hunted down and captured like wild animals, forced into slavery (usually either sold into sex slavery or to civil security companies), and used as experiments to unlock their superhuman abilities and implanting Varanium parts in their bodies.
- The second arc of
*Blue Comet SPT Layzner* (episodes 26-38)
- In
*Transmetropolitan* the police are pretty corrupt and oppressive to begin with, carrying riot shields with SUBMIT printed on them and stomping of protestors' faces. When the Smiler takes over it gets worse, culminating in the City getting put under martial law.
- In
*What If?* #44, the USA became an increasingly fascistic police state (complete with rounding up of blacks and Jews) because of the influence of a jingoistic impostor Captain America
until the real one awakens in 1983..
-
*Superman: Red Son* involves virtually the whole world becoming communist thanks to Superman solving various economic problems. The US in an exception: its economy is on the verge of collapse and there is a mention of tanks in the streets of New York to suppress food riots. There's also a mention of a President Friedman.
- In
*DMZ*, the US is in the midst of second civil war, and while the lines of territory aren't very clear, (as the rebellious "Free States of America" is much closer to an insurgency than a nation state) the territory that is firmly controlled by the original US Government is kept under martial law, the government has essentially taken over the media and turned it all into propaganda, and it has few if any qualms about murdering or ruining the lives of innocent civilians, especially if it somehow gives them an edge against the Free States.
-
*Liberality for All* is set in a United States that has become a left-wing dictatorship under the UN thanks to Al Gore winning in 2000.
-
*Watchmen*: Richard Nixon is closing in on his fifth term, crime is rampant all over the country and Zeppelins from Another World are shown to be watching over all the streets. Also in *Before Watchmen*, it is revealed that because of the Red Scare, the Costume Vigilantes were made to show their identities and prove they were not involved with the Russians. This example is not quite as extreme as some others, though - a free press of sorts still exists, and at the end of the comic it looks like Nixon is going to lose the election to Robert Redford.
- Quite a few of the
*Chick Tracts* are set in these sorts of futures, often with the dictatorship being aligned with the Vatican.
-
*Judge Dredd*:
- America has been split into three independent mega-cities, each of which is a fascist police state. Somewhat atypical in that the main characters are the Judges, i.e. the ones who are
*enforcing* the police state, yet they mostly aren't portrayed negatively. Primarily because the Dreddverse is an extreme Crapsack World that has been on the brink of total destruction each time the Judges weren't there to hold the line.
- The Alternate Universe that the Dark Judges hailed from was at first depicted ambiguously, but more recent stories have set it in a clear analogue of the United States. Somehow the fascist police state created there was even WORSE than in Judge Dredd's world, with the judges ultimately deciding to just wipe out their whole population in the name of law. Since the publication of "Fall of Deadworld" it's become clear that pre-Judge Death this universe was effectively the Mirror Universe for Dredd's. In the Dreddverse the Judges are harsh but intended to be fundamentally fair and are trying to preserve civilization in the midst of a post-apocalyptic world (Depending on the Writer). On Deadworld they are explicitly out for their own power, take drugs to suppress morality and corruption is not only endemic but expected. It's telling that the local Judge Child (who in the Dreddverse is Evil All Along) is a fundamentally good person and Death's prophecised last obstacle to his evil dream.
- Frank Miller's
*Give Me Liberty* intersected this with Divided States of America.
-
*Squadron Supreme:* In the backstory, America was one of these, with civilians being dragged off to camps to be brainwashed into obeying the Overmind, a telepathic villain who'd taken control of President Kyle Richmond, and through him his fellow members of the Squadron Supreme. The team's efforts to undo the damage done ultimately result in an even more oppressive government taking over when the Squadron gets trapped in another universe.
-
*Halloween Unspectacular* has several examples:
- The story "An Average Day" features an America that has become dominated by corporations. Lower and middle class employees/citizens are forced to take drugs that keep them obedient and compliant, and those who show resistance to the drugs' effects face a variety of cruel fates, from conscription to exile to liquidation.
- "The Dictator" features the eponymous nameless tyrant (who is implied to be the embodiment of all of mankind's crueler inclinations) having taken over the US. Under his rule, his "Freedom Brigades" round up and imprison or execute anyone deemed an enemy of the state. Which includes
*entire towns*.
- The second Myth Arc sees the Nazi remnant group PURITY manage to seize control of the US (by means of President Fulton selling out to them). They proceed to have anyone with powers rounded up in concentration camps, while critics of the regime are either arrested or executed.
-
*Conquest of the Planet of the Apes*: The United States has become this in 1991, with the Governors now holding very powerful authority. Since the movie was released around the time of the Vietnam protests, it's probably taking a real life situation and turning it up to eleven.
-
*C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America*. In the Confederacy (which now includes even the Northern states and most of the Americas after their conquests) the entire black population is enslaved, gender equality is non-existent, deviation of sexual orientation is not tolerated, Hispanics and Asians are subjected to apartheid, and there is not much political freedom even for white people.
-
*Demolition Man*: Set in a future where the US has gone totalitarian, banning virtually anything that could possibly be considered unhealthy or offensive. Heavily implied to have come about after a period of mass privatization and civil unrest.
-
*Firebird 2015 AD*: The US government just woke up one day in August 1992 and decreed that gasoline would be for law enforcement and military use only, creating an agency to stomp down on any civilian use of gasoline. The film takes place 23 years after the edict was passed, with driving having become a symbol of rebellion. It is implied that the government did not stopped there, but the film does not focuses on that.
-
*The Running Man*. The U.S. has become intensely repressive, including (among other things) slaughtering people who are protesting not having enough food.
-
*Escape from L.A.*, the sequel to *Escape from New York*, has the U.S. going fascist when the Big One hits Los Angeles, and a religious nut uses this as a platform to get himself promoted to President for Life, even relocating the Capitol a little ways south to his hometown of Lynchburg, VA (a Take That! to Jerry Falwell, the founder of the "Moral Majority", whose Thomas Road Baptist Church is in the town). Anything he considers to be against his new "Moral America" laws (read: anything he doesn't like — tobacco, alcohol, red meat, guns, profanity, non-Christian religions, atheism, non-marital sex and more) is banned, with those who break the laws having to choose between getting deported to Los Angeles Island, which is every bit the hellhole that Manhattan Island Penitentiary was, or being executed in the electric chair. Snake lampshades it when he sarcastically calls the new states "the land of the free". At the same time, the country's military has degraded to the point where a ragtag force of Latin American countries has a legitimate chance of invading the US.
- The situation doesn't appear to be very much better in the prequel, what with the whole "the entire of Manhattan Island is now one big concentration camp" thing, but other background details suggest the US government is too close to imploding completely to be doing much in the way of effective oppression.
- Similarly, in
*Back to the Future Part II* an alternate timeline is created where Richard Nixon is still President in the 1980s following the repeal of the 22nd amendment, the Vietnam War rages on and crime and corruption are at endemic levels as Casinos spread nation wide.
- The corporation-as-government or Mega-Corp in
*RoboCop*.
-
*Gray State* was to be an independent action thriller about an America in the grip of an oppressive regime, rooted in many real-life Conspiracy Theorist fears and marketed to that crowd. In the trailer, Americans are under martial law and constant surveillance via both cameras and Tracking Chips, the economy is in freefall, foreign UN troops are being brought into the US to patrol the streets, and dissidents are being sent to concentration camps under the control of FEMA where they are beheaded via guillotine. There are also hints (most notably the triangle motifs) that this is all the work of The Illuminati, and that the government stages fake terrorist attacks to keep people scared and compliant. What's more, the trailer's tagline "The Second American Revolution May Not Be Remembered" hinted at a Downer Ending where La Résistance was ultimately crushed and the regime won. It remains unfinished ever since its creator David Crowley killed his family and himself in 2015. The Werner Herzog-produced documentary *A Gray State* was about Crowley and how he believed this trope to be on its way to becoming Truth in Television, how his beliefs drove him over the edge, and how the film's backers decided that Crowley and his family had been taken out by the government because his story got too close to their actual plans.
- In
*Barb Wire* (a thinly-veiled remake of *Casablanca*), the US has become a Third World country under martial law. The government forces do whatever they want, and their officers walk around like Gestapo (wearing Commissar Caps). The economy is so bad that people prefer to be paid in *Canadian* dollars, and Canada is seen as the place to go for anyone who doesn't want to live in this hellhole. Strangely, prostitution is legal, and prostitutes are required to undergo frequent medical exams and display their med-cards upon request.
-
*Death Race 2000*: The USA has morphed into the United Provinces of America, with the titular brutal blood sport being a form of Bread and Circuses for what's clearly a fascist state. They're implied to rule the (former?) Soviet Union and China, because Mr President has residences in both countries capitals, while looking to wage new wars (France is blamed in the film for attacks by domestic rebels).
- In Philip K. Dick's novel
*Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said*, the police and the National Guard (often referred to as "pols" and "nats" in the story) have come to restore order and install a dictatorship in the United States following a Second Civil War. They enforce checkpoints throughout the country, and those who don't provide identification are shipped off to labor camps.
- In Sinclair Lewis'
*It Can't Happen Here* a fascist government gets voted into office and proceeds to turn the country into an oppressive dictatorship.
- In Robert A. Heinlein's novella "If This Goes On", the U.S. has become a theocratic police state.
-
*The Handmaid's Tale*: The fascist, theocratic Republic of Gilead is (one of?) the USA's successor states.
- In Allen Steele's
*Coyote*, the United States has degenerated into the fascist and theocratic "United Republic of America" where intellectual dissidents are rounded up with their families and carted off to forced re-education camps. After the Republic collapses, it is effectively taken over by a united South and Central America to form the Western Hemisphere Union, a socialist/communist society. While it's quite a bit better than the Republic, they are *very* imperialist and seek to control the former U.R.A. colony of Coyote.
- Strongly implied in
*Illuminatus!*, and would naturally come up in any work of fiction where The Illuminati (or a similar Ancient Conspiracy) are the ones REALLY running the country. The country isn't actually depicted as any more oppressive than the real life United States during the Vietnam war, but it *is* depicted as incompetent and monomaniac, and easily manipulated by The Illuminati towards the total loss of personal privacy and permanent state of martial law. ||Supposedly. But even that is just another case of misdirection, since the conspiracy's true goal is the near-extinction of all humanity.||
- In the first book of James Blish's
*Cities in Flight* series, America is rapidly becoming a totalitarian state ruled by the hereditary head of the FBI, Francis X. MacHinery.
- In
*The Hunger Games*, after an unspecified collapse of civilization (possibly involving some major geographic changes) the U.S. has become a tyrannical autocracy renamed "Panem" and is split into twelve districts. This name is derived from the Latin phrase "panem et circenses" or "Bread and Circuses," hence Peeta being the son of a baker and the eponymous "Games" serving as circuses to entertain the masses and keep them in check.
- In
*Parable of the Talents* by Octavia Butler, the U.S. has become this. The United States is ruled by Jarrett, an Evangelical Christian who uses all non-Christians as a scapegoat and puts them in concentration camps. The country is in shambles and Alaska has seceded from the union and is at war with Canada.
- In
*The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress*, all of Earth is an oppressive state to the lunar colony, but "North America" is the most vocal and aggressive.
- In the 2060s storyline of
*Star Trek: Federation* the Optimum Movement takes over much of the world, including the United States. There the Constitution has been suspended and only the fifteen states with Optimum majorities are allowed to send representatives to Congress.
- The Harry Turtledove short story
*Joe Steele* has Joe Steel - an Alternate History version of Josef Stalin whose parents immigrated to the United States - turn America into a Communist dictatorship after being elected President.
- The Timeline-191 series by the same author features a US that, having lost two wars to a Confederate/Britain/France alliance, has allied closely with Imperial Germany. The nation is increasingly regimented and militarized, everything is strictly rationed, and conscription is universal. A series of Mormon uprisings causes the government to simply ban the Mormon church, and the administration of occupied Canada, Texas, and Kentucky is extremely brutal, with suspected criminals executed without trial, hostages taken in retaliation for guerilla activity, and (oddly given that the main political divide in the setting is the Democrats and the Socialist Party) virtually no safety or labor rights laws. The Confederacy isn't as strife-ridden, at least for most of the series, but much more racist, and becomes genocidally paranoid when engaged in its last war with the oppressive Union.
- In
*Animorphs,* the third Megamorphs book suddenly opens here with no initial explanation; it quickly comes out that Visser Four managed to find the Time Matrix and rewrite history. As a result the United States is part of a British empire trying to wipe out "primitives" in South America, slavery is legal (though based on disability rather than race), Jake is a Sociopathic Hero and Rachel is in a reeducation camp to "learn her place." Fortunately this circumstance is inconvenient for both of the series' Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, who restore the Animorphs' memories and send them through time to fix things.
- In
*Christian Nation*, the United States becomes an oppressive Christian theocracy through an alternate history where Sarah Palin becomes the first female President and is followed by her aide Steve Jordan succeeding her, suspending the Constitution in favor of The Blessings which every state is obliged to follow as the law of the land.
- Fyodor Berezin's
*Red Stars* series describes a parallel world with a point of divergence being a British warship providing fire support to pockets of resistance to the Nazi war machine in the Balkans, forcing Hitler to delay Operation Barbarossa by a month. As a result, Stalin manages to successfully plan and execute an invasion of Germany, beating the Nazis in under 2 years and proceeding to move on to "liberate" the rest of Europe. Fast-forward to modern times, the Alt!USSR dominates the world, with only North America remaining free, although "free" is a relative term, since the economic and social pressure (not to mention a state of semi-open war and liberal use of tactical nukes) has forced the US into this trope.
- The 80s sci-fi series
*U.S.S.A.* by Tom De Haven is set in an America that is taken over by the military and turns into a Police State called the United Secure States of America. Movies are censored, rock music is banned, and outspoken teachers are disappearing. Eddie Ludlow, a high school student in Ohio, decides to try to fight this oppressive new order with the help of other like-minded kids.
- The first half of
*Victoria* has the United States turn into an overly politically correct and repressive state where people are sued heavily for something as simple as smoking and other people being nearby. This leads to riots in the streets, militia uprisings, and roving gangs in big cities and ends with a very suspicious-looking terrorist attack that blows Washington D.C. off the map and kills off a majority of the Presidential line of succession. The second half is about the aftermath, following the (supposedly) heroic successor state of Victoria as it conquers rival successor states with its militia forces and sheer unpredictability. They then proceed to create their own version of this trope, though theirs is on the opposite side of the political spectrum, being a right-wing fundamentalist state. The narrative paints this as a happy ending.
-
*The Long Walk*: The United States has become a dictatorship under the control of the Major and his Secret Police after the country lost World War II (note that the U.S. is still independent, since it appears the Axis Powers only performed skirmish campaigns in the Americas). The regime keeps the population docile with the annual Long Walk, where 100 teenage boys are forced on a grueling marathon and killed one by one.
-
*Caliphate* has the United States become a Christian theocratic empire in response to an nuclear assault in their territory and Western Europe being converted into an Islamic state. The President outright rules like an Emperor in-name-only, the Constitution is repealed and they have annexed most of the American continent such as Canada and Mexico - the few independent countries not under their control such as Brazil and the Philippines are just client states instead.
- In
*We Are Legion (We Are Bob)*, when Bob is re-awakened 117 years after being hit by a car, he learns that the US was taken over by the religious right and transformed into the Free American Independent Theocratic Hegemony (FAITH for short). Incorrect thought is remedied by brainwashing straight out of *A Clockwork Orange*, numerous theocratic factions are too busy fighting with one another to actually run the country, the Internet is gone (the information there is hard to control), and history has undergone many revisions by the government. Bob himself, as an uploaded "replicant", is seen as either a useful tool or a spawn of the Devil, depending on the faction. But very few treat him as a person.
- In
*America 2014*, the George Blush Administration passed a law that stripped voting rights from anyone convicted for drug-related crimes, disenfranchising a large enough percentage of the population that the Republicans cemented their control of the government after 2004. The country is renamed "God's United States", and Blush is on his 4th term by the title year. Everyone is subject to Sinister Surveillance, the War on Terror seems like it will last forever, and dissidents are sent to Private Profit Prisons by a Kangaroo Court.
-
*Charmed*'s 6th season has Chris who comes back in time to help prevent an accident that causes ||Wyatt|| to lose all sense of morality and take control via magic - it's not clear whether this is actually just America or the whole world.
-
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine*: A smaller example featured The Sanctuary Districts, sections of cities walled off that housed the poor and unemployed. While their intent was to aid them, they later degraded into internment camps.
- This happened in an alternate universe on
*Stargate SG-1*, after the Stargate program went public. The world was not ready, and a scramble for control over the Stargates led to civil unrest and geopolitical power-mongering.
- The Sliders visited several examples of this, such as an alternate-history America in which J Edgar Hoover had become president, leading within a few decades to a totalitarian US in which the government was woefully underfunded, organized criminals ran the economy, and the police wore kilts.
- Those are skirts, thank you very much.
- And the worst part is, there's no rock 'n' roll.
- Another version of the US has this almost happen to it, with a popular Presidential candidate spouting slogans like "America for Americans" and advocating for the removal of all those who don't fit the American "genetic standard" (ironically,
*Native* Americans would probably be kicked out too.) Basically, anyone non-white might as well move to Mexico. He has already managed to do this to California (being the state's governor). His company is also supplying so-called robotic servants to do menial tasks. The dark secret of his campaign is that those servants are, in fact, US citizens who don't fit the "standard" and are forced to undergo Unwilling Roboticisation.
- Likewise, an alternate universe in
*Lois & Clark* brought us President Charlton Heston. One person, one vote, one semi-automatic rifle! It's implied that the reason America has degraded into a wild west nightmare is that Alt-Clark married Lana Lang, who forbids him from fighting crime.
-
*Dark Angel* is set in a world where the US was devastated by a terrorist EMP attack in 2009. Little more than 10 years later, the US has degenerated into a 3rd world banana republic kept in check by periodic martial law.
-
*Person of Interest* The fourth season's plot is basically the story of how ||the Samaritan artificial intelligence system|| begins constructing one before moving onto the world. Building a large network of politicians to do its bidding, creating the means to brainwash the next generation of American children, and manipulating the intel given to counter-terrorist operatives are just the tip of the iceberg of the steps it takes to achieve its goal.
-
*The Handmaid's Tale*, like the novel before it. It keeps the same setting as the book (Boston and Cambridge, MA), but *seeing* those liberal bastions transformed under an oppressive theocracy gives the series extra shock value. In the flashbacks of the time leading up to the "official" founding of Gilead, things were not much better. Riot police respond to a march of people protesting the law stripping women of their property rights by firing on them with heavy machine guns.
-
*The Outer Limits (1995)*:
- In "Decompression", the Time Traveler tells Senator Wyndom Brody that history has been altered and the Age of Enlightenment that he created as President has been replaced by a new timeline in which the US is a police state where people are constantly monitored. In this new timeline, acts of terrorism and riots were widespread throughout the country and a weak President was able to capitalize on the situation by becoming a tyrant. She does not name the President but Brody is certain that it is Governor Stanton, his opponent for his party's nomination. The Time Traveler convinces Brody that he must save himself and correct the course of history by jumping out of the plane, which will crash on re-entry. She assures him that she will transport him to safety. ||However, when he does so, the Time Traveler reveals that her true mission was to change history and prevent him from becoming President as his selfishness, egotism and paranoia combined to turn him into the tyrannical President of whom she spoke. She accomplished her mission by appealing to Brody's considerable sense of self-importance and desire to save his own skin. The Time Traveler then allows him to fall to his death. The plane lands safely without him.||
- In "Abaddon", the former United States has been ruled by the North American Corporation since 2102. Its population, known as shareholders, live their lives in service to the Company.
- In Paul Kantner's 1970 science-fiction concept album,
*Blows Against the Empire*, the increasingly oppressive and fascistic government of the US, which has outright declared rock-and-roll illegal, inspires a rag-tag band of hippies to hijack a starship and set off on their own.
- The setting of Styx's 1983 concept album,
*Kilroy Was Here*, was of a futuristic America where a theocratic dictatorship has banned rock music.
- The Nine Inch Nails album
*Year Zero* from 2007 is set in an America that has become a Christian Fundamentalist theocracy, maintaining control of the populace through the Bureau of Morality and the First Evangelical Church of Piano, as well as through seeding the water with a drug called Parepin.
- In
*Trinity*, the United States of America will socially collapse due to conflicts with the super-powered aberrants. The military and key corporations take control from the broken civilian government and establish the Federated States of America, a fascist nation where the voting system is rigged to give the wealthy and corporations the lion's share of votes in all elections. All media is censored and civil rights are purely at government discretion. The FSA also annexed large chunks of Canada and Mexico as part of a resource grab.
- The 80s action movie-inspired free game
*The Hard Way* features an America much like the one from *Escape from New York*, with MICOM ( **M**ilitary- **I**ndustrial **COM**plex) and the Yuppies controlling everything, Manhattan being turned into a state penitentiary, political dissent being considered treason under the "Freedom Act," HOMSEC goons blackbagging people at night and sending them to FEMA camps, Chinese-Americans being interned because of the current war against China, survivalists, death cults and racial supremacists thriving outside the big cities; and everyone with slave wages, potato chips and TV sets — basically a corporate-fascist America nightmare. All this in the backdrop of a three-way conflict between the US, the Chinese and the Soviet Union for the last remaining natural resources, with the rest of the world not being much better than America.
- Prior to 2056, in the
*Shadowrun* game-setting, elections in the UCAS had been conducted via a "remote-vote" system. That year, it was revealed that this voting system had been rigged to ensure a reelection; the incumbent administration was ousted, followed by an immediate Special Presidential Election in 2057 to restore legitimate democracy and avert this trope. Of course, with the mega-corporations ruling the world anyway...
- The US is well into this trope in
*GURPS Cyberworld*, even *before* the government gets around to formally suspending the Constitution. The Provisional President makes regular speeches about the upcoming end to the Permanent Emergency and a return to democracy, but no one with a working brain believes those speeches.
- The US, as well as most of the world, have become this in the RPG
*Brave New World* (no relation to the novel) after a super-villain Delta nearly killed President Kennedy.
- The game
*SIGMATA: This Signal Kills Fascists* is set in an alternate 80s era America that has been taken over by homegrown fascism, but is meant to draw parallels to America under Donald Trump, who was President when the game was released. The police and the military have been consolidated into one body called the "Freedom Fist" that enforces a nationalistic and oppressive rule across America. While there are still elections, and still things like the Bill of Rights, the Regime has strong control over all branches of government, and enforcement of these rights is significantly lopsided with a very strong bias against women and minorities racial, sexual and otherwise, who find that there are all kinds of ways to criminalize them or otherwise render the rights they're supposed to have moot. Immigrants are hauled into internment camps for daring to outstay their welcome. The media are controlled, and all forms of communication are used to try to catch would-be resisters; the only hope the five groups that make up the resistance have is The Signal, which gives those that have been attuned to it the power to fight back against the Freedom Fist and the Regime.
-
*Deus Ex*: Freedoms have been curbed to fight off "excessive terrorism." After the Northwest war before the game starts, parts of the nation are still under martial law. ||As the world continues to go to shit, the nation goes under full-fledged martial law in order to control rising civil unrest.||
- The Infocom game
*A Mind Forever Voyaging* shows the decline of the US from a democracy to a theocratic dictatorship over three decades. The player character is an AI who can see the future and must prevent the death of democracy.
-
*Hearts of Iron IV* Game Mods:
-
*Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg*:
- If Douglas MacArthur becomes president in the events that lead to the Second American Civil War, then he can either become Cincinnatus and step down after the war has ended, or more likely he'll decide to keep his "emergency powers" and become President for Life, maintaining his military junta indefinitely. Even the former outcome has a horrible precedent for American human rights and democracy.
- If the Second American Civil War results in a American Union State victory and then has William Pelley assassinate Huey Long in the resulting power struggle, it leads to the new American nation becoming a "democracy" where only white Christian men get the vote, leftists are worked to death in concentration camps, and race crimes against black Americans become just another part of daily life. The new nation becomes One Nation Under Copyright as he reforms the economic system to be dominated by monopolies loyal to him, the KKK become an influential part of the new government, and the Minutemen become a State Sec who crush all his opposition. Pelley also prohibits vaccines under the new regime (as he believes they are a leftist plot), which results in the biggest polio outbreak in American history and millions of Americans are left crippled. The Second American Civil War and its belligerents are all generally treated as Grey-and-Gray Morality, but Pelley's vision for a new America is rightly treated as a horrible conclusion.
- Likewise, if the AUS win the war and the Corporatists have sufficient power within the alliance, they can also get rid of Long without instituting his populist reforms and seize power for themselves indefinitely. In fact even if Long wins the ensuing power struggle, it results in a dictatorship, though he at least enforces benevolent social and economic policies while using the Minutemen to crush all his enemies.
- Also if the Combined Syndicalists of America win and then Browder or Foster's Totalist movement seize power, the nation becomes a purge-happy USSR Expy. However there is then a chance that Smedley Butler will march his army on Washington to force the new regime to stand down, ironically in the same way MacArthur may have done to kick off the civil war in the first place.
-
*The New Order: Last Days of Europe*:
- One of the outcomes of the 1972 election is for Francis Parker Yockey, an open Nazi sympathizer, to take office. If he does so, he will immediately begin tearing down American democracy, bring segregation to extremes even hardcore segregationists think is too far, encourage racist hate crimes against ethnic minorities, refuse to prosecute The Klan when they commit said hate crimes, give funding and intel to the Reich
note : Well, actually to ||the *Burgundians*, who he mistakes for Germans||, shut down freedom of the press, and make himself President for Life. Every week there is a Waco-like event, and the country is effectively following an American brand of Nazism. All this is in his first hundred days. By the admission of the developers, he is *the* most tyrannical leader for the United States to elect.
- Another outcome of the 1972 election would be for Gus Hall to take power. At first, he doesn't seem so bad, as he advocates for racial equality and worker's rights in a nation lacking both, but as time goes on, he shows that he is willing to do anything to get his way. He quickly turns into a Stalin-esque tyrant who purges political opponents, expands state power (when not needed) under the guise of enforcing civil rights, and encourages political violence on the streets. Not only does he weaken the FBI and the CIA
*while in a cold war with the Nazis*, but in the course of doing so, he launches an anti-gay "Lavender Scare" as a justification for his purge, aimed at FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover (in real life long suspected of being Armoured Closet Gay) above all else.
-
*Liberal Crime Squad* begins with US either heading this way or already there (if you begin with nightmare mode on). The Conservatives are to blame, of course.
- The
*Fallout* series. Before the Great War, the United States government had become increasingly paranoid and militaristic in the face of the resource shortages and the Sino-American War. Going so far as to censor speech and secretly nationalizing companies. The Enclave (the éminence grise of the federal government) exacerbated geopolitical relations and ignored the Constitution of the United States, put into motion a series of unconstitutional, inhumane, and war criminal projects; (for example; the Robobrain manufacturing process — where factories were set up to extract the brains *from living prisoners* to be used for expendable robot processors, the various Vault experiments, the Forced Evolutionary Virus experiments, the various bio weapons programs, et cetera). While after the war, they were willing to cause global genocide to achieve its goals of wiping out communism and becoming the sole heirs of the planet.
- Implied in
*Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri*. One of Pravin Lal's quotes references a painful lesson about the importance of free flow of information learned by Americans in Earth's final century. Additionally, Miriam Godwinson's file lists her as hailing from the Christian States of America, either implying a takeover by fundamentalists or a Divided States of America situation. The fact that Ulrik Svensgaard is listed as coming from the *United* States of America indicates the latter case.
-
*Homefront*: Overlaps with Invaded States of America. Any area controlled by Korea is under military rule, where US citizens are killed left and right. Even before the war, the US wasn't doing so hot in terms of freedom, as it slipped into Fallen States of America territory. Out in the boonies, the militia fighters are just as bad as the Koreans.
-
*Metal Wolf Chaos* has the United States turned into a dictatorship after a takeover by the Vice President.
- The US in
*Shattered Union* became this way under the Presidency of David Jefferson Adams, who put the West Coast under martial law and sailed to a second term through a blatantly rigged election (because there's no way he could've been re-elected under any other circumstances). The nuclear terrorist attack on Washington, D.C. during his inauguration, and the ensuing decapitation of the federal government and the line of succession triggers the Second American Civil War. Whether the player creates one of these or returns the nation to her glory days depends on how he or she conducts the war (sparing cities and avoiding the use of WMDs tends to avoid this trope).
-
*Civilization*: America is a mainstay Civ and can be played with any level of Government Opression. In fact, the starting government is almost always a chiefdom/despotism, meaning for much of the early game play, America is this. Notably in Civ V, America's AI was highly expansive and sought big empires, which almost demands that they pick the Communist inspired late game government.
- In
*Wolfenstein: The New Order*, the Allies lost World War II because the Nazis came up with super-science weapons that allowed them to devastate Britain and America, which surrendered after Washington was nuked. Overlaps with Fallen States of America.
- Sequel game
*Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus* takes place in the conquered America, and shows this side of the trope. Nazi rule is absolute, forcing people to assimilate Germanic culture and adhere to Nazi standards (such as reducing Afro-Americans to slavery). It's also implied that the Ku Klux Klan is not only actively out and in force, but may be legitimized or at least supported by the Nazis.
- The Alternate History story
*Decades of Darkness* is about the transformation of the United States into an authoritarian, slave-holding empire, with the author describing the intention as creating a more realistic version of The Draka.
- The Point of Divergence is the War of 1812 spilling into a much earlier civil war that sees every state north/east of Pennsylvania seceding and forming the Republic of New England, which aligns with Britain and helps hand them a resounding victory in the war. The remnant, revanchist US, dominated by the southern states and their slave-holding elite, becomes an imperial power built upon white supremacy, expanding across Latin America and co-opting the local white elites while keeping the black, indio, and mestizo masses in slavery and peonage. While still maintaining democratic forms, the franchise has been tightly restricted to the white population
note : Albeit with some finagling over the definition of 'white' in order to placate to the large numbers of rich Latino collaborators; money does very much whiten here. Some readers have noted, with some irony, that this white supremacist alt-US would have a rather swarthy-looking ruling class by our standards, especially in the southern states carved out of the former Mexico and Latin America., and the major parties merely promote variations on the oppressive structure that the nation is built upon. By the 20th century, they've even started forcing their fellow white people (specifically, ||Canadian rebels in the conquered British Columbia||) into slavery.
- New England also goes through a period of fascism (known here as "vitalism") from the mid 1920s through the early '30s due to an economic crisis, fear of socialism spreading in Canada and Newfoundland, and a badly lost war with the US, though fortunately, the vitalists' bumbling leadership eventually gets them thrown out in a bloodless coup and replaced with a comparatively benign, democratic socialist government. Notably, the general who led the coup chooses to go into exile in Iceland rather than remain in New England, lest he run the risk of becoming a dictator himself.
- The Alternate History
*A World of Laughter, a World of Tears* explores a world where Eisenhower had a heart attack in 1952 and Walt Disney became President instead. Under him the United States maintains segregation and goes in an increasingly paranoid and authoritarian direction. Many celebrities flee to Europe as The Mickey Mouse Club and its eager children and parents use patriotism and accusations of Un-American activity to browbeat (or just beat down) 1950s counterculture. Much better than it sounds.
- Another Alternate History story,
*Fear, Loathing and Gumbo on the Campaign Trail '72*, features this in its Sequel Series. ||Donald Rumsfeld|| gets elected President in 1980 despite losing the popular vote by a decisive margin, chiefly due to the vagaries of the Electoral College system and left-wing voters being divided between two candidates. Under his watch, political dissidents (including ||George Carlin, Barry Goldwater, James Gavin, and Roger Ebert||) are "disappeared", Hollywood becomes a far-right Propaganda Machine pushing the US government line, rapacious yuppie capitalism and religious fundamentalism rule the land, the civilian internet is strangled in its cradle in the interest of "national security", the military-industrial complex grows increasingly bloated and overstretched, and interstate travel is restricted. The 1984 election saw blatant vote fraud (and even then, ||Rumsfeld|| once more lost the popular vote and had to rely on the Electoral College), and it's implied that there will be a False Flag Operation to justify support for apartheid South Africa.
- ||After Rumsfeld is thrown out of office, his successor, the conservative Jeremiah Denton, decides to serve out the remainder of his term and restore human rights after being horrified by what Rumsfeld did. Unfortunately, his own fundamentalist allies swept him from power. By 1990, they've create a totalitarian theocracy under the rule of Douglas Coe, and have unleashed nuclear weapons in a civil war against breakaway states||.
-
*Capto Iugulum*: Scottist America was definitely this, with the military controlling all aspects of society, the practice of slavery expanding into industry and lasting into the 20th century, even harsher Indian Wars, and much of the west ruled by generals via "Military Districts."
-
*Ad Astra Per Aspera*: Congress successfully impeaches Andrew Johnson, resulting in a much more chaotic Reconstruction. Consequently, the United States gradually becomes more authoritarian, until the Constitution is formally abolished in 1965 and replaced with an absolute monarchy.
- In
*Reds!: A Revolutionary Timeline*, due to William McKinley not being assassinated by Leon Czolgosz (the rewrite re-imagines the point of divergence being a more unified Socialist movement by the end of the 1890s) a socialist regime takes control of America by revolution in 1933, and becomes the Union of American Socialist Republics (UASR). However, in this case the socialists are (mostly) the good guys. Not surprisingly, it was the attempt of previous administrations to suppress radical socialism that caused this revolution. This trope varies in its severity throughout this timeline:
- The suppression of dissidents that occurred during our World War I is slightly worse, resulting in the arrest of socialist politicians, and even respected statesmen like
*Robert La Follette*.
- When the socialist Worker's Party wins the 1932 election in a landslide, First Secretary Nicholas Longworth and General Douglas MacArthur successfully pressure outgoing President Herbert Hoover to suspend the Constitution, paving the way for the assassination of the Socialist President-Elect Norman Thomas and a mass arrest of the Worker's Party leading members. The so-called Freedom Corps and The Klan attempt to put down any opposition, notably massacring Huey Long and disloyal members of the Louisiana State Legislature when they openly protest against this bald-faced subversion of the Constitution. This is the final straw that sets the stage for the Civil War from which the UASR will be birthed.
- When it becomes clear that they are going to be on the losing end of the Civil War, the remnants of the US government and their supporters flee to Cuba and establish a new government, with Douglas MacArthur as President Evil. He proceeds to oppress the Cuban population. It's implied that this will be subverted in the later years of the Cuban-US nation.
- The early years of the UASR are a downplayed version of this trope. Many of those deemed "reactionaries" and "counter-revolutionaries" are dealt with by Kangaroo Court and firing squads, but it is nowhere near the scale of the Soviet Union, and many of the sentenced were genuinely responsible in suppressing American democracy. These actions are still seen in-universe as a black spot on the early history of the UASR, but none of the UASR leaders are portrayed as evil for them.
- In
*The Falcon Cannot Hear*, where the assassination of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 leads to a Second American Civil War by 1937, many of the factions involved in the fighting are some flavor of authoritarian. The American Soviet Republic is a Moscow-backed Stalinist state, the Civilian Government (aka the Whites) is a coalition of fascists and corporate interests backed by Nazi Germany, and Douglas MacArthur's military government (aka the Khakis) is the heir to the military coup that started the civil war in the first place. Only the Red Oak Pact, a coalition between the democratic socialist Provisional Government (aka the Blues) and the agrarian populist Continental Congress (aka the Greens), can be considered benign; while they get their share of What the Hell, Hero? moments as well, they're very much A Lighter Shade of Grey compared to the competition. ||Fortunately, the Red Oak Pact eventually prevails, with the Khakis collapsing after a hurricane hits Washington, D.C. and kills MacArthur, disgruntled leaders and factions in the Whites and Reds defecting to the Red Oak Pact, and the Canadians eventually sending troops to support them.||
- In
*The Innocent*, the United States, like the rest of the world, is taken over by children who turns all the adults into slaves.
- In
*No W*, America quickly becomes this under President ||Rick Santorum||, who starts turning it into a theocratic dictatorship. Political opponents and public figures who criticize him tend to either die in plane crashes, get arrested on trumped up charges, or outright disappear. Laws are passed that discriminate against the LGBT community as sacrilegious, and ban video games or television shows that have even the slightest adult content. And eventually, the Muslim population is rounded up in "protection centers", supposedly to protect them from bigotry, but it is implied they're a precursor for extermination camps.
-
*An Examination of Extra-Universal Systems of Government* has a couple of examples:
- The United States under the reign of Edward Butler indiscriminately bombed Islamic countries (including nuking Mecca and Medina), tried to persecute Islam in America, and placed the country under martial law in an attempt to prevent anyone from opposing or impeaching the Butler regime. Fortunately, Butler's regime didn't last long, and America fell into rebellion, utterly dissolving the United States, with nearly all the former states joining the North American Union, while Butler set up a Government in Exile in Guantanamo.
- The United States in the world of "The Eagle in Exile" is described as a "right-wing Soviet Union" after a revolution turned the country into an autocratic state dominated by the military and the "Tea Party Coalition." This caused Americans living overseas and in exile to form the American Overseas Republic.
- The US in the "Liberty Now Has A Country" timeline underwent a massive surge in the Red Scare, in which the government fell under the sway of Joe McCarthy (who eventually became President) and became fervently totalitarian in the 1960s and 1970s. This resulted in a massive revolt against a J. Edgar Hoover-ruled regime in 1977, and leading to the birth of the Federated States of America.
- Founded from the aftermath of a longer and more violent Civil War and the Second American Revolution, the American Union is a one-party state ruled by the racially inclusive Sovereignist Party, which deport people of non-Caucasian ancestry from its country. Under the old guard of the New Founders, the Sovereignist Party forcibly removed millions of "undesirable populations" to labor camps in Canada's Northern Territories, where thousands died from the journey and the rest were worked to death in the coldthe New Founders believed that the "cold could do the work of poison gas." By the modern day the Americans refuse to talk about the "Second Trail of Tears", as mentioning it is punishable with arrest or worse.
- The National Socialist States of America is basically the Nazi-American puppet from
*The Man in the High Castle* becoming its own independent nation. After a coup in 1986, a futurist faction came to power that proceeded to obliterate American culture and Christianity, and pursue an apocalyptic and hypernationalist foreign policy.
-
*What Madness is This?* has the Federalist Party rig America's political system in their favor and lead the nation into an ill-advised war with France. After the Southern states secede in protest, the rump United States reorganizes itself into the Republican Union of America. After getting roped into the Napoleonic Wars, the Republican Union is invaded by British troops from Canada, who then proceed to Rape, Pillage, and Burn before being driven out. As a result, the Union develops a grudge against both their southern neighbors (for failing to come to their aid) and France (for dragging them into the conflict, then not giving them enough of a reward when Britain was defeated). The Republican Union spends the 19th century stewing with anger against the Southern republics and their French allies while oppressing anyone who isn't a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. By 1900, the Republican Union has turned into a full-fledged militaristic dictatorship. ||In the 1950s, the Republican Union finally reconquers the south and renames itself the New United States of America. However, NUSA only lasts about a decade and a half before fallling apart due to a plot by a Mega-Corp.||
-
*For All Time* sees the United States descend into isolationism and racial instability throughout the 20th century. By the mid-1970s, things have deteriorated into a quagmire of feuding racial militias, with domestic terrorism, a collapsing economy, a genetically-engineered flu pandemic, and, after ||a nuclear meltdown at a Mississippi power plant||, a drastically exacerbated energy crisis. In response, President ||Jim Jones|| establishes an authoritarian rule over America after his election in 1976, locking up his opponents in labor camps, ruthlessly crushing militants of all stripes, and creating a paramilitary force called the "National Volunteer Army" to help enforce his rule. After ||Jones attempts to start a nuclear war to fulfill a delusional prophecy and is deposed in a silent coup||, ||Alexander Haig|| takes over as President and rules America with an iron fist, although he manages to bring some stability to the country.
- A somewhat lighter example in
*New Deal Coalition Retained*. Under the administration of President ||Ted Bundy||, the US passes heavily draconian anti-drug laws, and the National Guard is repeatedly used in large-scale roundups of drug users. Simultaneously, hate groups (many of which have started peddling drugs) are banned and similarly rounded up. Critics repeatedly bring up how these actions violate civil liberties and free speech.
- The
*Justice League* episode "A Better World" takes place in an Alternate Universe where the Justice League has become the tyrannical Justice Lords after the death of The Flash, and the subsequent murder of Lex Luthor. The Justice Lords appear to have an iron grip on everything, even going so far as to lobotomize their enemies, and keeping them in a place that is decidedly *not* a Cardboard Prison.
- The Alien and Sedition Acts passed by President John Adams during the "Quasi-War" with Britain and France, which were a major factor in destroying Adams' presidency and getting Thomas Jefferson elected President in 1800.
- President Woodrow Wilson would later pass similar laws as justification for the imprisonment of anti-war activists, socialists and other dissidents during WWI. This continued after the war with the First Red Scare, 1919-20, when thousands of foreign-born radical leftists were deported.
- Sadly true for the Native Americans, who saw their rights undermined from the beginning of the US and were forced to migrate westwards. It got worse for them.
- Both sides during The American Civil War engaged in oppressive actions.
- On the Union side, Maryland was put under martial law to prevent it from seceding, and suspected sympathizers to the Confederacy could be arrested without warrant or trial. In spite of the historically famous stance against slavery, even freed black people ran the risk of being mistaken for escaped slaves before the war and could very easily be sold back into slavery on nothing more than the word of a single white man.
- In the Confederacy, meanwhile, Union sympathizers (especially in Appalachia) found themselves terrorized by the secessionist governments, to the point where northwestern Virginia (a solidly pro-Union area in a Confederate state) counter-seceded and formed the pro-Union state of West Virginia. The Confederate central government also put down any attempts to increase local autonomy and, of course, continued practicing slavery.
- If you were black during the era of segregation in the US, you were in for a bad time. In certain parts of America, a black person who did or said the wrong thing (or was even accused or suspected of doing the wrong thing), especially to a white person, was pretty much doomed — even if he or she was proclaimed innocent by the court, he or she was in very real danger of being lynched by an angry white mob, with the police either standing by and doing nothing or, worse, actively egging them on or joining in. And across the country, black people and other minorities were not even allowed to live in certain towns, or even be in them after dark unless required by their job.
- The most notorious cases were in the Southern United States. After the Civil War and the end of the Reconstruction period, many states passed so-called "Jim Crow" laws that restricted where their newly-freed black populations could go, what jobs they could have, where they could live, what government services they could use, etc. The Jim Crow system, particularly the increasingly extreme effort taken to uphold it in the 1950s and '60s (look up Bull Connor and Orval Faubus if you need a downer), is
*still* regarded as the collective Old Shame of the South.
- In the North, meanwhile, segregation was carried out through means that were less blatant, yet arguably more insidious and harder to root out through government action. Most often, it was economic segregation, with black people being forced into ghettoes through discriminatory housing and real estate policies, and a thick glass ceiling preventing them from getting decent educations or careers. Affirmative action policies were created in The '70s in order to mitigate the effects of this 'soft' discrimination, but they haven't been without controversy.
- In the Southwest, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were collectively excluded from white establishments along with African-Americans◊ and dogs. Any Mexican accused of wrongdoing against a white person also faced the same fate of an African-American under similar circumstances.
- In California, the only reason the education department did not adopt draconian policies similar to those in Southern states was because beginning with the the ruling of the ''Lemon Grove'' case and culminating with "Mendez vs. Westminster", the California Supreme Court declared that racially segregating schools was illegal under their constitution. They also overturned an anti-miscegenation law before most of the US did.
- During the two Red Scares during the early to middle part of the 20th century, holding differing opinions from the American mainstream could land you in a lot of trouble. The most notable was McCarthyism during the '50s, which was effectively witch hunts for suspected Communists. Those caught in the hunts, even if they weren't Communists, could and frequently did have their lives and careers destroyed.
- Leading up to the First Red Scare, the US' entrance into WWI was marked by a sharp increase in repressive measures towards pacifists, organized labor, socialists, Communists, German-Americans, immigrants, and other perceived subversive or disloyal elements. The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 led to raids and prosecutions. The German language was excised from public life, with German classes stopped and German books burned. Some states even outlawed speaking German on the phone (ostensibly to stop spies from doing so). The "Committee on Public Information" (Creel Committee) fed the public propaganda and helped direct repression and harassment towards perceived enemy sympathizers or pacifists.
- The Japanese Internment during World War II, in which 120,000 people, about two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were relocated to camps with little warning, and some were only able to take the clothes on their backs. Conditions in the camps varied greatly, from perfectly livable to downright horrific, due to the varied legal status of the camps (some were governed by the Geneva Convention and other international treaties, where conditions were the best, and others were governed by different areas of American law, which ran the gamut). In some camps, the internees were strictly confined to what amounted to barbed-wire enclosures, and internees were even shot on occasion. In other locations, the internees were allowed to wander outside the camps, engaged in agriculture, and even simply moved away to areas outside the West Coast "exclusion zone." Some especially fortunate internees were permitted to move back into the exclusion zone, though under "supervision."
- Italian- and German-Americans were interned as well, although in much smaller numbers. However, they were free to leave the camps as long as they proved their loyalty to the U.S. and were able to get a job or go to school outside the defense zones, and many joined the military to prove their loyalty. Unfortunately, these camps pushed many Germans who were not previously sympathetic to the Nazis into the arms of what would eventually become the core of the modern neo-Nazi and White Power movements.
- The great irony of the Japanese Internment is the case of
*Korematsu v. United States*, in which the Supreme Court held the internment program to be constitutional. It's a widely and rightly reviled decision, along with other infamous decisions like *Dred Scott v. Sanford*, but it was also the birth of the Supreme Court's most rigorous and most important level of scrutiny: strict scrutiny. Most laws treating people differently based on their race or national origin are subject to strict scrutiny. Under a strict scrutiny analysis, a law is essentially presumed unconstitutional, and it requires an enormous showing from the government in order to survive. The government has only been able to meet this burden a handful of times. Through this standard, American courts demolished much of the racism inherent in governance, including segregation, Jim Crow, forced sterilizations, immigration quotas and court enforcement of racially restrictive covenants.
- Before the ruling of
*Loving vs. Virginia* in 1967, numerous states had laws that banned whites from marrying non whites, and breaking these laws often resulted in the guilty parties serving time behind bars.
- The passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 effectively halted Chinese immigration to America. This stemmed from violent pogroms against Chinese laborers and various policies imposed by states. After the law was passed, large-scale riots such as the Rock Springs and the Hells Canyon Massacres forced many to leave for other areas or return back home. It wasn't until the 1960s that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 restored mass immigration to the States from China. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppressiveStatesOfAmerica |
Eye Beams - TV Tropes
*"Staring contest! You lose!"*
A Stock Superpower (and also a classic Super Robot weapon) that allows characters to shoot blasts out of their eyes. Blasts of what, you ask? Sometimes the generic, all-encompassing term of "energy." Sometimes "heat," in which case it is (logically) known as Heat Vision. Sometimes "lasers," in which case it is known (again, with excessive logic) as Laser Vision. The point is, they hurt. These are the
*real* Glowing Eyes of Doom.
This is the stock power of the Mecha Mook and those with powers beyond mortal men. Also, a stock joke about "laser eye surgery" fad.
Seldom is it explained how a beam which can burn or injure just about anything else is contained when trapped behind the character's eye
*lids*, nor how the beam-producing mechanism within the eye avoids obstructing the vision of the actual seeing parts of the eye.
Compare X-Ray Vision, Deadly Gaze, Magical Eye, Breath Weapon, Head Blast, Hand Blast, and Psi Blast. Often The Glasses Come Off for this. A favorite attack for the Oculothorax. Not to be confused with I-beams, the architectural element, although those too can be used as weapons.
## Example Subpages:
<!—index—>
<!—/index—>
## Other Examples:
- In
*Metro Manners*'s "Aisle Blocking" PSA, Super Kind vaporizes Rude Dude's bike with her eyes.
- In
*BoBoiBoy*, whenever BoBoiBoy Light isn't shooting light beams with his hands, he's doing it with his eyes instead.
- At one point, the silver golem Karn in
*Magic: The Gathering* vaporizes a Phyrexian who has latched onto his arm with,"A blinding light from his eyes".
- One of the powers in
*Super Munchkin*. Users risk accidentally destroying their own headgear with it.
-
*Abraxas (Hrodvitnon)*: In their final form, Viv and San gain the ability to fire Gravity Beam-like Destroyed Thunder from their eyes, an ability which the original Toho incarnation of Monster X possessed.
-
*Advice and Trust*: Zeruel's optic beams are extremely powerful. He used them to pierce nearly all defensive layers of the cast's underground base and nearly vaporized Rei with them.
- In
*Power Girl* fanfic *A Force of Four*, three Kryptonian criminals use their heat vision wantonly to burn places down and punish or even fry enemies.
The three outlaws of Krypton were standing in a circle about Power Girl, sending six beams of heat from their eyes at her caped back. One Kryptonian could cause pain. Two could injure. Three could destroy.
-
*The Child of Love*: In chapter 7 the cast fights an Angel is armed with a wide beam of yellow light it shoots at regular intervals.
-
*Last Child of Krypton*: Shinji has heat vision thanks to his Kryptonian DNA. He uses it most memorably to ||burn Leliel down when it tries to Mind Rape Asuka|| in a scene which is a homage to *For the Man Who Has Everything*.
-
*Superwomen of Eva 2: Lone Heir of Krypton*: Asuka has heat eye-beams due to being half-Kryptonian. She discovers this when she is cooking and accidentally sets the eggs on fire.
- In
*Origin Story*, Alex Harris (being a Kryptonian trapped in the '"Marvel Universe'') uses her heat vision multiple times, most notably to disable Carol Danvers.
- In the
*Haunted Mansion and the Hatbox Ghost* Fan Verse, the One-Eyed Black Cat can project a laser-like red beam from his "missing" eye, which can destroy, reshape, mind-control, and a dozen other things.
- In
*Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!*, Izuku is Kryptonian, with the Heat Vision to match. It's currently powerful enough to slice off the arm of a robot with ease and bore through the hide of a rotting Kaiju corpse, but his lack of practice has made his fine control poor, to the point that he can't cut in a straight line.
- In the
*Undertale* AU *Inverted Fate*, Undyne has a robotic left eye that can shoot lasers instead f an eyepatch, as she is the Royal Scientist instead of the Captain of the Royal Guard she was in canon.
- In
*Showa & Vampire*, Black 13 has the ability to fire lasers from his eyes.
-
*Inner Demons*: This is an apparently inherent ability of Queen!Twilight's zombie soldiers.
- In
*Hellsister Trilogy*, Supergirl's heat vision is her best weapon, but Darkseid's Omega Effect eye beams can easily hurt or even kill a Kryptonian.
Shed tried to keep out of the way of his Omega Effect beams, but, finally, it just wasnt possible. The terrible beams from his eyes lanced out, caught her in the eyes, and dealt out blindness and pain. Supergirl screamed.
- In
*The Last Daughter*, Taylor discovers she can shoot heat blasts from her eyes during her fight with Behemoth.
- In
*Project Ignition*, Lux's optic beams hurt as bad a Procyon shots, so it's best to just not get hit.
-
*The Future Flash*: Bart Allen has this power due to being half-Kryptonian.
- "Recently we picked up a
*Dennis The Menace* storybook with charming Bob Paplow illustrations. What we didn't bargain on, however, was that the original owner had used a pencil and his or her imagination to turn a prosaic story of Dennis and Ruff into an orgy of BLASTING MUTANT-STYLE EYEBEAMS!!!"
- Xu Chu has these in
*Farce of the Three Kingdoms*. Ma Chao complains that this is out of genre (he's wrong).
- In the
*A Dip In The Inkwell* oneshot "Lemonade Pitcher", Estimation Eddie wears an Eyepatch of Power that covers up his eye, which can shoot beams that create and reheat hot dogs. When he tries to use his power for the former purpose to help his teammates, however, he ends up getting injured and fears that the energy in his eye can backfire and cause him severe brain damage.
- In the
*Sorcery!* series, Red-Eyes are a race of lanky humanoids whose eyes are constantly closed. That's because when they open them, they can shoot fiery beams that are quite deadly. Having such a lethal weapon at their disposal has made all of them conceited bullies.
-
*Ok Go* song **Invincible** have this in lyrics:
*When they finally come to destroy the Earth* *They'll have to deal with you first* *And now, my money says they won't know about* *The thousand Fahrenheit hot metal lights behind your eyes*
- "CNR" by "Weird Al" Yankovic includes the lyric:
*Ninja warrior, master of disguise* *He could melt your brain with his laser beam eyes* *Oh yeah* *Oh yeah*
- This was one of Paul Stanley's powers in their TV movie,
*KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park*.
- Afterwards, the band spent $250,000 trying to come up with a way for Paul to appear to shoot laser beams from his eye during their concerts.
- Ace Frehley is shown with these on the cover of
*Rock And Roll Over*.
- In the music video for "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons has the teddy bear, after defeating the champion vaporize two of the boss's Mooks with its eyes.
- In
*They Might Be Giants* "The Lady and the Tiger", the Lady from Frank Stockton's "The Lady, or the Tiger?" claims to have laser eyes that she plans to use to escape, but the Tiger doesn't think that's such a good idea:
The Lady said "I'm busting out of this prison,
I got laser vision
And I'm burning a hole in the wall!"
The Tiger said "Wait, you'll start a fire
Destroy the entire
Lady and the Tiger hall!"
- The surreal music video for Hot Chip's single "I Feel Better" - which already features an angelic figure with a Breath Weapon - also ends with the floating head of a black man who can fire lasers from his eyes, who uses this power to kill off the parody boy band Hot Chip's portrayed as, the
*actual* members of Hot Chip, and a few audience members before destroying the stage itself.
- Buddha (yes, the founder of Buddhism himself) was said, after being denied access to the scrolls at a temple, to have sat down and stared at the wall until a hole was burned into it. The monks caved in and gave him full access after that. Considering the realism in most of Buddha's stories, this stands out quite a bit, although it's nothing compared to most of too-Anime-for-
*Goku* higher mythology.
- Older Than Print: Before the Tuatha De Danaan moved into Ireland in Celtic Mythology, the giant Fomor were led by Balor of the One Eye, whose deadly gaze could burn men "like leaves cast into a forge." When Balor was slain by his grandson Lugh, he fell face first to the ground with his eye still open, and burned a hole into the ground. It's still there today, as a lake.
- Another version of the above myth has Balor's eye bashed out the back of his head, casting its deadly gaze on his own army. Needless to say, they didn't win.
- Shiva got an extra eye when gods tried to make him stop mourning for Sati and marry Parvati (he didn't know she was the reincarnation of his ex-wife, and no one thought to tell him). He opened his two eyes, noticed her, the god of lust Kama shot Shiva with a bow to stir up passion in him (sounds familiar?)... and then the plan backfired: to everyone's surprise he opened a
*third* eye and incinerated Kama with an eyebeam (Parvati found another way to become his wife and asked him to resurrect Kama). Scorching gaze of annoyed ascetics is a recurring motif for Hinduism, but mortals' anatomy doesn't change.
- From Guarani mythology, Teju Jagua, a mix of a dog and a lizard with seven heads that guards caverns and fruits that's feared for his "
*Fiery Gaze*". Essentially, a kind of South-American dragon. Fortunately, Teju Jagua is pretty friendly and tame compared to his siblings thanks to Tupã.
- The basilisk was held to have eye beams of
*pure death*, causing instantaneous death to any caught in its gaze. Another take on the myth is that the victim is betrayed by their own vision, and dies when they behold the creature. Still others hold a combination of the two, and eye contact between monster and victim is required.
- In Classical Mythology the gaze of a witch could cause some harm or bad luck, but Medea, as granddaughter of Helios, could turn it up to Agony Beam level, driving the unkillable bronze giant Talos to suicide for his unprovoked attack on the Argonauts and herself (at least in one version. In the other she simply hypnotized him into suicide). One wonders why Jason, knowing her unstable character, thought he could get away with breaking up and trying to keep her away from their children...
- Medjed, a very obscure deity in the Egyptian Mythology (he's only mentioned twice in the Book of Dead), is said to be able to shoot rays of light from his eye.
-
*BIONICLE*:
- Heat Vision and Laser Vision are two of the forty-two Makuta powers. Other users include Rahkshi of Heat Vision and ||Tahu||.
- Most Skakdi, including the Piraka, have some variant of this as well. Noticeably, not all of them had offensive-based versions. Three of the Piraka had telescopic/x-ray vision, infrared vision, and spellbinder (basically inducing confusion and vertigo) vision respectively alone.
- Burnt Face Man from the flash animation series by the same name, attempts to use "his laser eyes" to catch a falling baby. He does not have said power. Baby go splat.
-
*DSBT InsaniT*:
- Robo-Wolf can fire powerful red laser beams from its eyes.
- Robo has eye beams, but they are really weak.
- Portica has 'eye laser rings', as Boo calls them.
- Rodney has eye beams strong enough to destroy boulders.
-
*FreedomToons*:
- Ben Shapiro (and his family) use these to obliterate their debate opponents.
- Marianne Williamson uses this at the end of "Dem Debate 2: Electoral Boogaloo".
-
*Happy Tree Friends*: Splendid, being a Superman Expy, has this superpower, which he can amplify using glasses and binoculars.
-
*Red vs. Blue*:
-
*Thrilling Intent* One of Markus' attacks involves shooting thin beams of fire from his eyes.
-
*X-Ray & Vav* has this as X-Ray's main weapon, a pair of glasses that also give him X-Ray Vision. However, X-Ray is such a horrible shot, he'll end up destroying the city before he hits his target.
-
*Uncyclopedia* articles judged to be "bat fuck insane" feature a photomanipulated image◊ of Pope John Paul II shooting eye beams while shouting "Eye Beams!"
-
*World Domination in Retrospect*:
- Amplitude applies his Sizeshifter powers via eye beam.
- Captain Lightning has the more traditionally destructive type.
- Gecko installs a laser eye for himself, though it will fry his brain if left on for too long.
- Discussed in
*Deviant*, though no one's been shown with the power yet.
- Technically, any military laser is that - the mirror or lense that focused the beam on target could also be used in reverse to collect light FROM target on sensor, thus acting like telescope.
- The James Webb telescope that scheduled to flight in 2021 (after LONG delays) used the folding mirror, initially developed for Cold War era SDI laser satellite.
- The Horned Lizard, or at least some species of same, has a defense mechanism whereby it can, to quote The Other Wiki, "squirt an aimed stream of blood from the corners of the eyes for a distance of up to 5 feet." The blood is caustic, foul-tasting, and a bit of a surprise for a would-be predator. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OpticBlast |
Opt Out - TV Tropes
**Minion:**
Hey, I've been turned into a cow. Can I go home?
**Yzma:**
You're excused. Anyone else?
**Other Minions:**
No, we're good.
This is it. The end of the line. The final confrontation with the Big Bad awaits and every one of the Good Guys is rarin' to go.
All but one.
One person has decided he isn't going to take part in the upcoming finale. Whether he's merely choosing not to cross the Line in the Sand or simply declaring "Screw This, I'm Outta Here." He's stepping down and leaving it to the rest of the group. The reasons for this can range from acknowledging that he Can't Catch Up and would only be a hindrance, to personal feelings interfering with their ability to do battle against the Big Bad. It could also be a mentor Passing the Torch. Or perhaps things have simply gone too far and he just can't take it anymore.
On the more selfish/pragmatic end of the scale, this character could just want to be normal and use a chance to get away from the craziness once it's presented. Or realize that his goals no longer line up with those of the heroes and thus decide he has no reason to remain with them. Maybe he was badly wounded previously, or his idealism was broken, or someone he loved is dead and he needs time to recover. There might also be a falling out or conflict of ideals with the rest of the group that convinces the person he's better off out of it. Perhaps he doesn't think his chances of surviving this particular battle are high and wants to live. They could also just be a Dirty Coward.
Opting Out typically means the end of this character's role in the story and will usually result in their being Put on a Bus. It can be used to show how serious a situation has become, if the reasons for the character leaving are in the "Can't Catch Up" or "Can't Take It Anymore" range. The specific reasons can also determine whether the character's decision is right, wrong, wise, selfish, or anyplace in between.
As often as not, an Opting Out character is allowed to leave and go as he pleases. His teammates may not necessarily be happy about this turn of events, and they may or may not hold this choice against him. On the flip side, an evil character may Kick the Dog and kill a character on his side attempting to Opt Out, showing just how evil that character is because his Mooks remain where they are out of fear of what will happen to them if they leave.
See also Shoo Out the Clowns, which this trope may overlap with, depending on the character. Both tropes can serve to show how serious the situation has become; though a character who Opts Out is usually making the decision of their own accord.
On rare occasions, the character is opting out because he thinks he'll be better able to help his companions from
*outside* the battle. Sometimes they go to muster reinforcements, or to Bring News Back of an impending Last Stand. (The former often causes a Big Damn Heroes moment.)
Also compare Changed My Mind, Kid, which many characters who
*appear* to Opt Out ultimately pull. However, this trope is specific to when a character Opts Out and *means* it. Also compare I Want My Beloved to Be Happy, which can be a romantic version of opting out. Crossing a Line in the Sand is the version where the leader gives their people the option to opt out without dishonor before engaging on a deadly mission. See also You Can Turn Back, when the hero tries to convince his companions to opt out. See also Not What I Signed on For, where the character refuses to continue participating in something he finds distasteful or unethical. Finally, see Screw This, I'm Outta Here for a generally negative take on Opting Out, usually because it occurs at the worst possible moment or in an act of pure cowardice.
## Examples
- This is what ||Wave and Kurome of the Jaegers|| in
*Akame ga Kill!* ultimately choose to do after their final battle with Night Raid. ||Despite the fact Wave managed to combine his Teigu with that of his best friend Run, fight Tatsumi to a draw||, and realize just how corrupt the Empire he serves really is, he refuses to side with the Rebellion when offered the chance so as to avoid breaking his promise to the man who saved his life and to take care of ||Kurome. Kurome originally refuses, but after Wave returns her feelings and destroys Yatsufusa she agrees to go with him||. Night Raid lets them go ||both for the fact that Wave was the Token Good Teammate of the Jaegers and because it meant Akame wouldn't have to worry about killing her little sister, something that she had been dreading for the entire story||.
- Happens at least twice in
*Bakugan*:
- Used in-universe in the novel/series of light novels
*Brave Story*. In Wataru's video game, his favorite character, Neena the fairy, does this. Wataru, who didn't get the cutscene that hinted at her departure, had spent the whole time levelling her and had to start all over when he didn't have her for the final boss. Miyuki Miyabe definitely knows what JRPGs are like.
- ||Fumie|| in
*Den-noh Coil*, after an encounter with Illegals towards the end, tells Yasako she wants nothing more to do with researching them. From then on Yasako ends up working alongside ||Isako||. It's understandable, she's an 11-year-old girl who's become increasingly frightened of Illegals. It also highlights a major theme of the series, that there's a space between peoples' connections that can be hard to cross, even between friends.
- An odd example of this in the
*main character* is Son Goku in *Dragon Ball Z*. At the end of the Cell Saga, Goku intentionally gave up his fight with Cell to let Gohan take the spotlight. When, at the end of it all, Goku was dead, he just as deliberately opted to *not* be revived with the Dragon Balls, for fear of attracting more trouble to Earth. Other examples are Chiaozu, who Tienshinhan made opt out of the fight with the Androids, and Yajirobe, who *tried* to do this in the Saiyan Saga but wound up getting caught up in things anyway.
- In
*Dragon Ball Super*, Vegeta convinces Master Roshi to ring himself out during the Tournament of Power, seeing as the old man is heavily weakened and could die again in the process. Beerus actually doesn't begrudge the old warrior for this, seeing the damage he caused to other Universes in the fights.
- Jean Havoc announces his intention to Opt Out in
*Fullmetal Alchemist*. He notes that his commanding officer Roy Mustang isn't going to get very far with a follower who is ||paralyzed and unable to walk||, and rages that he should be left behind. Mustang concedes, but only to a point; he says he will leave Havoc behind but expects him to catch up. Not long after, he gets Put on a Bus back to his hometown. ||And then The Bus Came Back during the climax, when Havoc uses his family's simple general goods store to supply his friends with badly-needed weaponry and supplies. The endings of both the show and the manga show him regaining the use of his legs, too.||
-
*JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind* has an instance of this when Bucciarati draws a Line in the Sand and ||breaks ties with Diavolo||, Fugo, unable to bring himself to join one side or the other, walks out. The out-of-universe reason for this is because he initially intended Fugo to be The Mole of the group but changed his mind after a bout of depression, and decided it would be too much for the characters.
- The
*Liar Game* literally banks on this, as those in charge of the game make their profits by requiring any winners wanting to Opt Out to forfeit half of their winnings to do so.
- In the third Sound Stage of
*Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS*, Subaru gets a visit from her father in the hospital, who suggests that she withdraw from the case now that ||her sister Ginga has been kidnapped||. Subaru, however, insists on fighting to finish what she's started, and her father respects her decision, making this an aversion.
- In
*Mobile Suit Gundam SEED*, Kuzzey and ten other crewmembers do this when the Archangel decides to defend Orb against the Atlantic Federation, and The Captain had given anyone who didn't want to fight against their former army the chance to leave. He actually tries to go back on it when he finds out that Miriallia and Sai aren't leaving, but Sai convinces him to leave since he'd not the type that's suited to battle.
-
*Naruto*'s Danzo gets alot of guff for choosing to avoid senselessly throwing his life away by charging in headfirst when current Big Bad Pain attacks Konoha. He not only avoided fighting Pain but actually attempted to prevent Naruto from returning as well, on the (totally accurate) basis that Naruto would be unable to stop Pain.
- In the later chapters of
*Nisekoi,* many of the girls seeking Raku's affection start to drop out of the running for Raku. It falls short of I Want My Beloved to Be Happy as the girls are ending their pursuits as much for their own sakes, having realized Raku does not feel the same towards them, as much as for someone else's, such as ||Tsugumi bowing out for Chitoge's sake||.
-
*One Piece*:
- Princess Vivi wanted to join the Straw Hat pirates permanently, but Opted Out when she decided her responsibilities to her country of Alabasta were more important.
- Also, despite being asked to join by Luffy, ||Jimbei|| decided not to (for the time being), because they had some unfinished business to do first. ||We later find out those plans were to break ties with Big Mom. He does so, but it isn't until the next arc that he finally arrives in time to join the Straw Hats||.
- After trying to pull the Cowardly Lion shtick almost every time his friends stopped on a scary island or got into a really big battle, Usopp appeared to do this
*seriously* during the Water 7 Arc. His refusal to fight happened on board the Sea Train because the Straw Hats were about to make themselves enemies of the World Government. ||More so, he previously had a huge fight with Luffy, lost, split from the crew, and felt unworthy to show his face around them in humiliation. Usopp began to doubt his own strength after losing a fight on his own. Worse, the Merry was diagnosed as mortally damaged and the crew had to get a new ship. The way it appeared to Usopp was as though Luffy made a choice without his consent and it was like throwing away a friend to discard the Merry. When Luffy slipped up and told Usopp to leave if he didn't like the decision, it sparked Usopp's separation from the Straw Hats and a duel between him and Luffy||. Completely averted when Usopp reappears in the guise of Sogeking — he was simply too prideful to show his face to the crew after what happened. ||Fortunately, Usopp later apologized for his actions and was very, very tearfully welcomed back by Luffy.||
- ||Admiral Sengoku|| does this, when ||the World Government says they aren't gonna tell the world about a
*huge* threat.||
- In the backstory, twenty kings banded together to form the World Government. Those kings went on to take their families and live in the Holy Land Mariejois, but one family opted out of that part of the plan and stayed in their own lands. The 19 other families went on to become the Celestial Dragons, one of the most stellar examples of Aristocrats Are Evil in fiction. The one family that opted out, ||the Nefertari Family, continues to rule the kingdom of Alabasta|| to this day. Naturally, it is the only one that is genuinely kind.
-
*Shakugan no Shana*: Eita Tanaka eventually chooses normal life over supporting the Flame Haze after he very nearly loses the girl he loves due to the fighting. He even returns the seal that prevents him from being frozen when someone casts a seal. Most ultimately support his decision, though close friend Keisaku argues with him over it briefly.
- ||Keroyon|| of
*20th Century Boys* ignored Kenji's call to action to fight Friend. He regretted this years later and Jumped at the Call when he stumbled into leads to Kenji's sister.
- In
*Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds*, Jack, Crow, and Yusei said this when Kiryu tried to get Team Satisfaction to make a last stand against Sector Security.
- In
*Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL*, this causes Gilag's plan to screw up royally. In one episode. He tries to trap Yuma by holding a team dueling tournament. However, Shark gets fed up halfway through and leaves, which forces Gilag to be Yuma's partner against Tori and Cathy, something he *really* didn't want to do. (A Barian would die if he lost to a duelist using a Chaos Xyz, like the one that he gave Tori to use against Yuma.) Fortunately for Gilag, he and Yuma win, but this would be the last time the other Barians trust him with a plan to defeat Yuma.
- In
*YuYu Hakusho*, Kazuma Kuwabara doesn't even participate in the last story arc. This is even though he ended up being the strongest human alive ||and the only human in the hero's main group|| by the time the arc started. Of course, in this series, that didn't mean much anyway.
- Played with for Hiei. Hiei leaves just after the beginning of the Sensui arc, saying he's had enough working for humans. He does return Just in Time later.
- During the ball in Masquerade, Zakuros stress about her career and ||secret war against the aliens|| seem to reach the limit ||with her reflecting about her life and coming close to a breakdown||, in a creepy realistic way, makes her go away with Pai. In the end ||we dont know what happens to them next, but the general feeling is that Zakuro and Pai wont fight anymore||. ||Its kinda implicit that Pai loves her as well||.
- Interestingly played with in
*The RWBY Loops*. During the Tale of Two Sisters, a small number of enemy Pennydrones walk out due to what is essentially a combination of ennui and boredom. While this is initially played for laughs, it's eventually pointed out by one of them that they literally cannot feel anything anymore, and only joined in the fight because they had nothing better to do.
-
*Boyz n the Hood* is particularly unusual in that ||the Opt Out is the right choice. By refusing to fight the gangbangers who killed Ricky, Tre allows himself to escape from the Cycle of Revenge and start a new life. Doughboy fights them without him, and kills them all, but is murdered in turn two weeks later.||
- Played for Laughs towards the end of
*Deadpool*. Wade is tooling up to face the villain holding his ex-girlfriend hostage. Weasel helps him gather his guns then solemnly tells Wade that he'd go with him....he just doesn't *want* to. Wade accepts this and goes to recruit some X-Men for back-up instead.
- In
*Eternals*, ||Kingo believes that the Eternals should fulfill their mission to Arishem by letting the birth of a Celestial destroy Earth, but he can't bring himself to hurt the other Eternals, so he leaves with his valet before the final confrontation||.
- In
*The Great Muppet Caper*, in the leadup to the climatic jewel heist, Kermit describes to all the other residents at the Happiness Hotel just how dangerous their mission will be, and gives them all a chance to back out. They all do. Then Fozzie gives a speech calling them all back together.
- Played for Laughs in
*Iron Man 3* when a random henchman, after seeing Iron Man destroy the rest of his team, simply throws his gun down and leaves, declaring that he always hated his job anyways.
- In the last book of
*Animorphs*, before the final battle, most of the Auxiliary Animorphs *try* to opt out. Jake makes it clear that this isn't an option.
- In
*Harry Potter* books Six and Seven, Harry *tries* to convince his friends to do this, but they refuse.
- As someone who never wanted to be there in the first place, Rincewind emphatically does this in
*Interesting Times*. While the big battle begins, Rincewind is several miles away, and accelerating.
- In Stephen King's
*It*, Stan Uris dramatically (and lethally) opts out of the final confrontation with the titular monster by climbing into a bathtub and slitting his own wrists.
- As the united Gondor-Rohan army is approaching the Black Gate in
*The Lord of the Rings*, Aragorn notices that many of the young soldiers are nearly catatonic with fear. He takes pity on them and offers them an alternative, less dangerous mission that they can do while the main army attacks the gate.
- ||Bobby Pendragon himself|| pulls a dramatic one of these at the end of
*The Pilgrims of Rayne* by ||blowing up his only door off the territory, cutting himself off but trapping the bad guy with him, with the full intention of staying there forever. It doesn't stick.||
- Stu Redmond in
*The Stand* is forced to Opt Out of the final confrontation when he's injured during the trek to Vegas.
- Rimmer from
*Red Dwarf* does this all. The. Time.
- Even when no-one offers him the
*chance* to opt out. He's got a longer yellow streak than a herd of diarrhetic camels.
- At the end of the 2004 version of
*The Bard's Tale*, this is the eponymous Bard's third option That's right; the **player** can choose to not bother with a Final Boss battle for either side, and just go straight for the Neutral Ending.
- If you choose not to accept ||Morrigan's Dark Ritual|| before the final battle of
*Dragon Age: Origins*, ||Morrigan|| will decide Screw This, I'm Outta Here and leave. Also, if you choose to spare and ||recruit Loghain at the Landsmeet||, near the end of the game, ||Alistair will be outraged and see him as a Karma Houdini||, and will leave. ||If he has been hardened, you may be able to convince him to stay as king; otherwise, he will become a homeless drunk or be executed.||
- Similarly, in
*Dragon Age II*, if you ||spare Anders, Sebastian|| will leave note : if you have the *Exiled Prince* DLC installed. Depending on your approval, ||anyone in your party besides Varric and Isabela (if she has not already left)|| may leave if they don't like your decision ||of whom to support in the mage-templar conflict|| and you don't have enough friendship/rivalry to convince them to stay. ||Aveline and Fenris leave if you support the mages, while Anders and Merrill leave if you side with the templars.||
- It's also possible to have some of your party members leave prematurely in
*Dragon Age: Inquisition* if you antagonize them sufficiently. For example, ||during one argument, Dorian may decide to head back to Tevinter immediately rather than waiting until after the final battle.||
- At the end of the prologue in
*Neverwinter Nights*, your Guest-Star Party Member Pavel will say that the life of an adventurer is not for him and quit the quest to cure the Wailing Death.
- Just before the final leg of the story in
*Kane & Lynch*, Thapa declares "Screw This, I'm Outta Here."
- In
*Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise*, after Jagi's finally disposed of and Airi freed from his influence, Rei chooses to leave Eden with his sister in tow, since there's no further reason for him to stay around. This turned out to be a wise decision, as Raoh shows up soon afterwards, right before the final chapter||(s)||.
- Unless you managed to get the Golden Ending during the Last-Second Ending Choice in
*Triangle Strategy*, one of the Deuteragonists ends up opting out because the decision made goes completely against their ideals. ||Frederica leaves because Roland's plan to capitulate to Hyzanthe leaves her people oppressed. Benedict leaves because Frederica's plan to free her people will mean the end of the Wolffort House. Roland leaves because Benedict plans to ally with Aesfrost and Roland hates Aesfrost for what they've done.||
- Happens in
*Warcraft III* at the start of "The Culling". Arthas issues a grave ultimatum to Uther: help him to purge Stratholme of its infected citizenry or leave the kingdom's service. Uther and his followers leave, with Uther telling Arthas that he is crossing a terrible line. Jaina also leaves Arthas' side, telling him she can't watch him do it. In the end, it's just Arthas and his men performing the grisly task of killing innocent people before Mal'Ganis can convert them into zombies.
- On a smaller scale, see the page quote above from
*The Emperor's New Groove*. The joke in that scene is that *all* the minions had suffered some kind of Forced Transformation, yet only the cow even asks to Opt Out, despite Yzma being clearly willing to allow it.
- Done by Captain Marvel in
*Justice League Unlimited*. When the League doesn't live up to his expectations (Marvel's so idealistic he makes the Blue Boy Scout look cynical), he tells them how disappointed he is and resigns.
- This is a result of Real Life Writes the Plot; the show's writers had difficulty securing the rights to use Captain Marvel characters in the series and were only able to get Marvel's rights for a single episode, so he had to be ousted from the series. Aside from a brief mention of Black Adam later, no Captain Marvel-related character ever appeared again.
- Muir in
*Ōban Star-Racers*, upon learning the Ultimate Prize would not fulfill the goal he entered the Great Race of Oban for, is the only racer to *not* show up for the final contest.
- In the
*South Park* episode "Return of the Lord of the Rings to the Two Towers", Token volunteers to watch the One Tape to see what's wrong with it, and then quits playing due to the trauma (unknown to any of them, the tape is a *porn film* they got by mistake. All of the villains they encounter are horny teens out to get it because the rental guy gave it to the kids by mistake and it's the last one in the store).
- In the film Predacons Rising, after ||Megatron is freed from being enslaved by Unicron||, he claims to no longer have the stomach for conquest and appears to leave Cybertron for parts unknown.
- It was also parodied in an episode of
*The Venture Bros.* where agents assigned to guarding a yard sale were given the "leave now" speech, and then the one guy that left was killed. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OptOut |
Opposite Tropes - TV Tropes
Here is a place to note the tropes which are opposites of one another.
See also the Canonical List of Subtle Trope Distinctions, Trope Grid (which covers when there's more than one possible Opposite Trope), Distaff Counterpart for a list of tropes with gender counterparts (male vs female), and Evil Counterpart for a list of tropes with moral counterparts (good vs evil).
Sub-Trope of Inverted Trope.
## Opposite tropes:
- 100% Completion vs. Minimalist Run: Win the game by collecting everything vs. Win the game by collecting nothing.
- Abusive Parents vs. Good Parents: Parent is cruel to their kids vs. parent is great with their kids.
- Accidental Innuendo vs. Innocent Innuendo: A statement which sounds suggestive by accident vs. a statement which sounds suggestive but is completely innocent.
- Accidental Murder vs. Creating Life Is Unforeseen: Accidentally causing death vs. accidentally causing life.
- Accidental Nightmare Fuel vs. Nightmare Retardant: Not meant to be scary but is vs. meant to be scary but isn't.
- Acoustic License vs. I Can't Hear You: Hearing vs. not hearing something when something loud is happening.
- Acrofatic vs. Glacier Waif: A big guy you'd expect to be the Mighty Glacier (or Stone Wall) is actually the Fragile Speedster (or a Lightning Bruiser) vs. a small girl you'd expect to be the Fragile Speedster (or Glass Cannon) is actually the Mighty Glacier (or Stone Wall).
- Action-Based Mission vs. Stealth-Based Mission: A mission involving violence in a game with little violence vs. a mission involving stealth in a game with little stealth.
- Action Girl vs. Damsel in Distress: A woman or girl who does action stuff vs. a woman or girl who
*other people* need to do action stuff to save.
- Action Hero vs. Non-Action Guy: Someone who fights to solve problems vs. someone who doesn't.
- Actionized Adaptation vs. Pacified Adaptation: An adaptation features more action vs. an adaptation features less action.
- Actually Pretty Funny / Played for Laughs vs. Dude, Not Funny!: The joke was at someone's expense but they found it funny anyway/there is a joke, vs. topics that are
*too* serious to be jokes.
- A-Cup Angst vs. Big-Breast Pride: Character is ashamed of having small breasts vs. character is proud of having big breasts.
- A-Cup Angst vs. D-Cup Distress: Character is upset about having small breasts vs. character is upset about having big breasts. Contrast to D-Cup Distress vs. Petite Pride
- A-Cup Angst vs. Petite Pride: Grief vs. pride about having small breasts.
- Adaptational Attractiveness vs. Adaptational Ugliness: An unattractive character becomes more attractive in an adaptation vs. an attractive character becomes less attractive in an adaptation.
- Adaptational Badass vs. Adaptational Wimp: Character is made stronger in adaptation vs. character is made weaker in adaptation.
- Adaptational Comic Relief vs. Adaptational Seriousness: A character becomes goofier in an adaptation vs. a character becomes more serious in an adaptation.
- Adaptational Heroism vs. Adaptational Villainy: A villainous character becomes a hero in another adaptation vs. a heroic character becomes a villain in another adaptation.
- Adaptational Jerkass vs. Adaptational Nice Guy: A Nice Guy character becomes a Jerkass in another adaptation vs. a Jerkass character becomes a Nice Guy in another adaptation.
- Adaptational Modesty vs. Adaptational Skimpiness: A character's costume is less revealing in the adaptation vs. a character's costume is more revealing in the adaptation.
- Adaptation Expansion vs. Compressed Adaptation: Adaptation Expansion takes a short work (e.g. a poem) and fleshes it out in to a larger piece (e.g. a movie). Compressed Adaptation takes a work with a lot of history and/or development and condensed down to fill a specific amount of time (e.g. an adaptation of a 50+ year old comic book in to a two and a half hour movie).
- Adults Are Useless vs. Reasonable Authority Figure: Adult characters are useless vs. adult characters are helpful.
- Advancing Boss of Doom vs. "Get Back Here!" Boss: The boss chases after you vs. you chase after the boss.
- Adventure Rebuff vs. Refusal of the Call: Someone is told not to help vs. someone refuses to help.
- Affably Evil vs. Good is Not Nice: Evil character who's nice vs. good character who isn't.
- After Boss Recovery vs. Suspicious Videogame Generosity: With an After Boss Recovery, upon winning (or, if the boss is a Hopeless Boss Fight) you get a ton of recovery items. With Suspicious Videogame Generosity, the game starts throwing very powerful and/or useful items at you (potion that will heal you or a teammate completely, items that resore magic points); it's the game's (and game developer's) way of warning you that there is a horrifically bad boss or challenging area close by, so you'd better save and make sure you use all the items being given to you.
- Agent Mulder vs. Agent Scully: Believer vs. skeptic.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot vs. Benevolent A.I.: Artificial Intelligence goes rogue and becomes evil vs. Artificial Intelligence that just wants to help its creators or do the job it was designed to do.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg vs. Defiant to the End or Face Death with Dignity: Character facing death who pleads their would-be killer for mercy vs. character facing death who is fearless or even mocking and insulting to their would-be killer.
- The Alcoholic vs. The Teetotaler: Drinks a lot vs. doesn't drink.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy vs. Drunken Master: Character is incompetent when drunk vs. character who gets even more competent when drunk.
- Aliens Are Bastards vs. Innocent Aliens: Mean aliens vs. nice aliens.
- Allergic to Evil vs. Good Hurts Evil: Good guys are hurt by evil vs. bad guys are hurt by good.
- Allergic to Routine vs. Creature of Habit: Hates routine vs. loves it.
- All-American Face vs. Foreign Wrestling Heel: A patriotic wrestler that the fans love vs. a foreign wrestler that the fans hate.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys vs. Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A female character interested in men with 'bad attitude' vs. a female character interested in males with 'good attitude'.
- All Myths Are True vs. Arbitrary Skepticism: Believing in all myths vs. picking and choosing which myths are real.
- All Part of the Show vs. You Just Ruined the Shot: An outrageous act is not part of the performance or is part of the performance.
- All-Star Cast vs. Amateur Cast: The show has famous people in the cast vs. the show has unknown people in the cast.
- Almost Dead Guy vs. Not Quite Dead (or Only Mostly Dead): Someone stays long enough to indulge information before dying vs. turning out to still be alive.
- Alpha Bitch vs. Fallen Princess: A popular jerk vs. an unpopular former jerk.
- Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome vs. Reed Richards Is Useless: Heroic character who uses awesome technology and money to change the world for the better vs. one that keeps their toys to themselves becayse Status Quo Is God.
- Aluminium Christmas Trees vs. Reality Is Unrealistic: Something which exists in Real Life is assumed to be fictional vs. something which is fictional is assumed to be real.
- Always Chaotic Evil vs. Always Lawful Good: A race is always villainous vs. always heroic.
- Amazon Chaser vs. No Guy Wants an Amazon: A guy is in love with or is repulsed by a strong woman.
- Americans Hate Tingle vs. Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Hate vs. love of a series outside its country of origin.
- Amoral Attorney vs Crusading Lawyer: A lawyer who is morally evil vs. a lawyer who is morally good.
- Ancient Conspiracy vs. Ancient Tradition: A malevolent ancient organization vs. a benevolent ancient organization. (However, they might overlap.)
- And the Fandom Rejoiced vs. Tainted by the Preview: Optimism vs. pessimism over an upcoming work after any pre-release announcement.
- And Then John Was a Zombie vs. Tomato in the Mirror: And Then John Was a Zombie is when a character is turned into something bad at the end. Tomato in the Mirror is when the character turns out to have been the bad thing all along.
- And You Thought It Was a Game vs. And You Thought It Was Real: A character believes that a real situation is fake vs. a character believes that a fake situation is real.
- Angst? What Angst? vs. Wangst: Character whines a lot less than you think they should vs. character whines too much.
- Animals Hate Him vs. Friend to All Living Things: Animals hate someone vs. animals like someone.
- Anticlimax Boss vs. Climax Boss: A boss that's easy to beat despite its story importance vs. a boss that matches its story importance as far as difficulty.
- Anticlimax Boss vs. Boss in Mook Clothing: A boss is easier to beat than expected vs. a mook is harder to beat than expected.
- Anti-Hero vs. Anti-Villain: A hero who lacks the qualities of a hero vs. a villain who lacks the qualities of a villain.
- Anti-Hero vs. Ideal Hero: A hero who lacks moral uprightness vs. a hero who doesn't.
- Anti-Hero vs. The Hero: A hero who lacks the qualities of a hero vs. a straight-laced protagonist.
- The Anti-Nihilist vs. Straw Nihilist: "Life has no meaning...because it's up to us to give it one." vs. "Life has no meaning!"
- Anti-Sue vs. Common Mary Sue Traits: Character is a Mary Sue or Marty Stu but doesn't have common traits of one/has rare traits of one, vs. character has traits common amongst Mary Sues and Marty Stus and may or may not be one themselves.
- Anyone Can Die vs. Red Shirt: Important character gets killed off vs. only nameless extras get killed off.
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape vs. In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: A race refuses to kill members of its own or exclusively kills members of its own.
- Apologizes a Lot vs. The Unapologetic: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." vs "I never apologize!"
- Appeal to Novelty vs. Appeal to Tradition: The new way is how we should do things vs. the old way is how we should do things
- Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy vs. Martial Pacifist: A martial artist who isn't afraid to use violence but has no discipline vs. a martial artist who is disciplined but refuses to use violence.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking vs. Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Mundane item in a list of horrible ones vs. horrible item in a list of mundane ones.
- Artificial Brilliance vs. Artificial Stupidity: The extremes of videogame AI.
- As Long as There Is Evil vs. As Long as There Is One Man: Evil or good will always persist.
- Ascended Demon vs. Fallen Angel: A demon becomes a heroic being vs. an angel becomes evil
- Ascended Fanon vs. Jossed: A fan theory that later gets confirmed by the Word of God ... or not.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence vs. Dragged Off to Hell: Someone leaves Earth by going up to Heaven or getting dragged down to Hell.
- Asshole Victim vs. Sympathetic Murderer: A murdered person who was unsympathetic vs. a killer who has redeeming qualities.
- Ass Kicks You vs. Literal Ass-Kicking: Attacking
*with* the buttocks vs. attacking the buttocks
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever vs. Incredible Shrinking Man: Character grows vs. character shrinks
- Author's Saving Throw vs. Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Attempting to fix/get rid of a perceived problem or The Scrappy vs. retooling the offending element to make it better.
- Avoid the Dreaded G Rating vs. Getting Crap Past the Radar: Blatantly putting in adult humor vs. sneaking it in.
- Avoid the Dreaded G Rating vs. Rated M for Money: Using non-family-friendly things to avoid being marketed exclusively to children vs. shamelessly going for adult audiences.
- Awesome, but Impractical vs. Boring, but Practical: It looks cool but has too many drawbacks vs. it looks boring but it's able to do the job effectively
- Awesome McCoolname vs. Atrocious Alias: A character has a cool name vs. a character has an embarrassing name
- Back from the Dead vs. Killed Off for Real: A character dies and comes back to life vs. a character dies and doesn't.
- Bad-Guy Bar vs. Good-Guy Bar: A bar where the villains or heroes hang out.
- Bad Liar vs. Consummate Liar: Character is a terrible vs. skilled liar.
- Badass Army vs. Red Shirt Army: Army of extremely strong and capable fighters vs. army of striplings who die in droves.
- Badass Decay vs. Took a Level in Badass: Originally badass character becomes less so over time vs. originally non-badass character becoming more so over time.
- Badass in Distress vs. Damsel in Distress: A captured person that is a capable combatant vs. a defenseless civilian.
- Badass Pacifist vs. Blood Knight: Character is badass for not liking to fight vs. character is badass for liking to fight.
- Bait-and-Switch Credits vs. Spoiler Opening: The opening credits are lying about something in the show vs. revealing a future plot point.
- Balance Buff vs. Nerf: Something is made more powerful in order to make a game more balanced vs. something is made less powerful in order to make a game more balanced.
- Bears Are Bad News vs. Beary Friendly / Beary Funny: A bear who is dangerous and hostile vs. a bear who is amiable or amusing.
- Beautiful All Along vs Ugly All Along: Physically attractive or unattractive but hiding that fact.
- Beauty Equals Goodness vs. Evil Is Sexy: Not always opposites in a technical sense, and in fact is usually played at the same time. Often, the attractiveness of a good person is usually in a modest, almost innocent and "classy" way, while an attractive Evil person is in a more primal, overt, and lustful way.
- Because Destiny Says So vs. Screw Destiny: Fate vs. free will.
- Because You Were Nice to Me vs. Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Betraying someone because the opposing side treated them well vs. the original side treated them badly.
- Be Careful What You Wish For vs. Wish-Fulfillment: Dream turning into a nightmare vs. dream coming true.
- Beige Prose vs. Purple Prose: Too little vs. too many words
- Being Evil Sucks vs. Being Good Sucks: Villainy or heroism is not fun.
- Belief Makes You Stupid vs. Hollywood Atheist: Believing in the supernatural makes you stupid vs.
*not* believing in the supernatural makes you stupid.
- Berserk Button vs Kindness Button: Doing something that makes a character angry vs. doing something that makes a character pleasant.
- Best Beer Ever vs. A Tankard of Moose Urine: Really good beer vs. really bad beer.
- Betrayal by Offspring vs Parental Betrayal: Children betraying their own parents vs. parents betraying their own children.
- Better as Friends vs. Just Friends: Romantic relationship becoming platonic vs. platonic relationship becoming romantic
- Big Bad vs. Big Good: The ultimate villain vs. the ultimate hero.
- Big-Breast Pride vs D-Cup Distress: Pride vs grief about having big breasts
- Big-Breast Pride vs Petite Pride: Both being buxom and havind flat chest have their assets.
- Big "NO!" vs. Big "YES!": Shouting, "No!" vs. shouting, "Yes!".
- Big "NO!" vs. Little "No": Saying no loudly vs. quietly.
- Big Sleep vs. Dies Wide Open: Dies with closed eyes vs. dies with open eyes
- Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head vs. Flowery Insults: Overly short and blunt insults vs. overly long and eloquent insults.
- Big "WHAT?!" vs. Flat "What": Saying "what" loudly vs. in a monotone
- Bile Fascination vs. Hype Aversion: Bile Fascination is a peculiar attraction to a really bad work because of all of the negative buzz surrounding it. Hype Aversion is intentionally avoiding a product because everyone and their mother loves to talk about how great it is.
- Birds of a Feather vs. Opposites Attract: Partners are extremely similar vs. partners aren't similar at all.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing vs. Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Major Jerkass behind Nice Guy facade vs. guy who shows openly both his nice guy and jerkass persona.
- Black-and-Gray Morality vs. White-and-Grey Morality: A moral setting where there are bad guys and no obvious good guys vs. a moral setting where there are good guys and no clear-cut bad guys.
- Black-and-White Morality vs. Grey-and-Gray Morality: Unambiguously good heroes & unambiguously evil villains versus morally ambiguous heroes and villains.
- Blackface vs. White Like Me: Person pretends to be black and embodies negative stereotypes of black people vs. person pretends to be white and embodies negative stereotypes of white people.
- Black Like Me vs. White Like Me: A white person pretends to be black or a black person pretends to be white.
- Blessed with Suck vs. Cursed with Awesome: Good powers with a negative side vs. bad powers with a positive side.
- Blinded by the Light vs. Harmless Luminescence: Opposite ends of how harmful light is, to eyes.
- Bloodless Carnage vs. High-Pressure Blood: No blood at all vs. an unrealistically-high amount of blood.
- Blown Across the Room vs. Law of Inverse Recoil: Gunshots with way too much recoil vs. gunshots with no recoil.
- Bonus Space vs. Whammy: A good space on a game show's game board vs. a bad space on a game show's game board (usually one that takes away all of your money).
- Book Dumb vs. Geek: Incompetent in academics but competent in other areas vs. competent in academics but incompetent in other areas.
- Booze-Based Buff vs. Intoxication Mechanic: The player character in a video consuming alcohol gives them a tactical advantage in gameplay vs. gives them a disadvantage.
- Break Them by Talking vs. "No More Holding Back" Speech or Heroism Motive Speech: A villain deconstructs the hero's motives for fighting and tries to exploit his psychological weaknesses, versus a hero who deconstructs his motives for fighting and then reaffirms his will to surmount them.
- Breakable Weapons vs. Unbreakable Weapons: Weapons that do or do not break.
- Breakout Character vs. Shoo Out the New Guy: The Ensemble Dark Horse or Unpopular Popular Character gets a bigger role due to fan reaction vs. The Scrappy or Creator's Pet gets a smaller role due to fan reaction.
- Breather Boss vs. That One Boss: A boss that is easy vs. difficult to beat.
- Breather Episode vs. Wham Episode: An episode that is light vs. heavy on plot. (TROPER GENERAL'S WARNING: putting these back-to-back can induce Mood Whiplash)
- Breather Episode vs. Very Special Episode: An episode meant to be entertaining in a lighthearted way vs. an episode meant to be educational in a serious way.
- Breather Episode vs. Unexpectedly Dark Episode: The work takes a more lighthearted tone than usual vs. the work takes a more serious tone than usual.
- Breath Weapon vs. Fartillery: An attack from the mouth vs. an attack from the... other end.
- Bring My Brown Pants vs. Stress Vomit: Fear makes something come out one end or the other.
- Broad Strokes vs. Fan Wank — the former is the ultimate in Doylist interpretation, while the latter is the ultimate in Watsonian interpretation.
- Brought Down to Normal vs. "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Character temporarily loses an amazing trait vs. character temporarily gains one.
- Buffy Speak vs. Spock Speak: Simplistic dialogue vs. technical dialogue.
- Bullying the Disabled vs. Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Bullying a disabled person vs. a person with a disability using their disability as an excuse to why they can be mean.
- Bury Your Gays vs. Preserve Your Gays: The gay character dies vs. the gay character doesn't die.
- But Now I Must Go vs. I Choose to Stay: Choosing to leave or stay at a critical juncture.
- Butch Lesbian vs. Lipstick Lesbian: Lesbian women are either manly or very stereotypically effeminate.
- Butt-Monkey vs. Karma Houdini: Someone is very unlucky vs. someone gets away with everything.
- Butt-Monkey vs. Mary Sue: A character who fails at pretty much everything versus a character who succeeds at pretty much everything. The opposite-ness can be explored further: People hate the Mary Sue played straight, but love to laugh at the Butt-Monkey played straight. Inversely, people love to laugh at an exaggerated Mary Sue (Parody Sue or 30-Sue Pileup) but hates yanking the dog's chain that comes about when you exaggerate the Butt-Monkey.
- Buy or Get Lost vs. Friendly Shopkeeper: A shopkeeper who's impatient vs. one who's very welcoming.
- Bystander Syndrome vs. Chronic Hero Syndrome: Ignoring those in need of help vs. rushing to help everyone
- Cain and Abel vs. Sibling Team: Siblings that try to kill each other vs. siblings that help each other.
- Camp Gay vs. Manly Gay: Gay men are either effeminate or very stereotypically manly.
- Camp Straight vs. Straight Gay: Straight man with stereotypical Camp Gay traits included vs. gay man with no stereotypical gay traits.
- Canon (or Word of God) vs. Fanon: The writers made it up vs. the viewers did.
- Canonical List of Subtle Trope Distinctions vs. Opposite Tropes: Lists of similar vs. dissimilar tropes.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin' vs. Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': Someone that keeps getting in trouble vs. someone that can't get in trouble.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin' vs. Karma Houdini: Someone always gets in trouble vs. never gets in trouble.
- Can't Hold His Liquor vs. Never Gets Drunk: Someone gets drunk easily vs. someone can't get drunk.
- Card-Carrying Villain vs. Knight Templar: Proud of being a villain vs. the villain is convinced he's the hero.
- Care-Bear Stare vs. Mind Rape: A mental attack that is pleasant vs. unpleasant.
- Career Resurrection vs. Creator Killer or Star-Derailing Role: A role that rebuilds or destroys a creator's career.
- Casanova Wannabe vs. Kavorka Man (or Even the Guys Want Him): An attractive person that wants attention from the opposite sex but fails vs. an unattractive person that gets attention from the opposite sex vs. a person that's so attractive that members of the same gender are attracted to them.
- Cassandra Truth vs. Sarcastic Confession: Someone tells the truth properly but no one believes them vs. someone deliberately hides the truth via a snide tone of voice.
- Cast Incest vs. Incestuous Casting: Actors who play relatives dating vs. actual relatives playing lovers.
- Casting a Shadow vs. Light 'em Up: Darkness-based Elemental Powers vs. light-based ones.
- Cast of Snowflakes vs. Only Six Faces: Everyone looks distinct vs. everyone looks similar.
- Category Traitor vs. You Are a Credit to Your Race: Condemning someone from one's own race vs. praising an individual from a so-called "enemy" race.
- Celibate Hero and Ethical Slut vs. Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: A good character who refuses to have sex until they're married vs. a good character who happens to be sexually active vs. an evil character who shuns sex while struggling with their sexuality.
- Celibate Hero vs. Unholy Matrimony: Single aromantic hero vs. a villainous couple.
- Cerebus Syndrome vs Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: A story starts as innocent, funny, and with no sense in its established narrative to turn in a tragical, serious, and with clear consequences in its development vs. a story starts tragical, serious, and with clear consequences in its development to turn in an innocent, funny and with no sense in its established narrative.
- Character Alignment tropes tend to be constructed so as to yield opposite pairs — as seen in the most commonly used system:
- Cheerful Child vs. Creepy Child: A kid meant to be cute vs. a kid meant to scare you.
- Cheerful Child vs. Troubled Child: A kid in good spirits vs. a kid who has issues.
- Chewing the Scenery vs. Dull Surprise: Overacting vs. underacting.
- The Chew Toy vs. The Woobie: Seeing him suffer makes you laugh vs. seeing him suffer makes you go "aww".
- Chickification vs. Xenafication: A woman becomes less or more of an Action Girl over time.
- Chummy Commies vs. Dirty Communists: The Reds are our allies against our current Number 1 enemies vs. the Reds are our Number 1 enemies.
- City Mouse vs. Country Mouse: Someone from the city isn't used to living in the country vs. someone from the country isn't used to living in the city.
- City Noir vs. Shining City: Both in terms of visuals and character, one city is horrible to live in while the other is clean and awesome (think, Gotham City vs. Metropolis).
- City of Adventure vs. Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: A city that is full of excitement vs. a city that is full of boredom.
- Clarke's Third Law vs. Magic Versus Science: Magic is indistinguishable from science vs. magic and science are diametrically opposed forces.
- Clones Are People, Too vs. Expendable Clone: Clones are treated like people or garbage.
- Close-Range Combatant vs. Long-Range Fighter: A fighter that fights exclusively up close vs. far away.
- Cluster F-Bomb vs. Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Profanity-laden dialogue vs. mild curse words that aren't actual curses.
- Cluster F-Bomb vs. Precision F-Strike: Many curse words vs. one curse word out of nowhere.
- Cold Snap vs. Heat Wave: Unseasonably cold weather vs. unseasonably hot weather.
- College Is "High School, Part 2" vs. Elaborate University High: The work treats college like high school vs. the work's high school is big and complex enough to be like a college.
- Comically Cross-Eyed vs. Fish Eyes: Eyes which deviate inwards vs. eyes which deviate outwards.
- Com Mons vs. Olympus Mons: wimpy summon monsters vs. godlike summon monsters
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong vs. Peer Pressure Makes You Evil (or Blithe Spirit): The minority opinion is considered to be wrong by the writers vs. the majority opinion is considered to be wrong by the writers vs. the minority opinion convinces the majority opinion to agree with them.
- Complete Monster vs. Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Purely evil vs. purely good
- Complete Monster vs. Ideal Hero: The ultimate ends of the morality scale.
- Compliment Backfire vs. Insult Backfire: A compliment is taken as an insult vs. an insult is taken as a compliment
- Confidence Building Scheme vs. Confidence Sabotage: Trying to build up someones confidence vs. trying to make someone feel less confident.
- Continuing is Painful vs. Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: You can continue playing after you die but with a serious penalty that almost makes it not worth it, vs. death or failure that practically doesn't mean anything.
- Cool Shades vs. Nerd Glasses (although nerds can be cool too)
- Corrupt Church vs. Saintly Church: A church that is malevolent vs. a church that is benevolent.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive vs. Uncle Pennybags: A businessman that is malevolent vs. a businessman that is benevolent.
- Corruption by a Minor vs. Corruption of a Minor: A child tricking an adult into committing a crime vs. an adult tricking a child into committing a crime.
- Could Have Been Messy vs. Good Thing You Can Heal: Bringing up how bad an injury could have been vs. showing the injury but healing it soon afterwards.
- Cowardly Lion (or The So-Called Coward) vs. Miles Gloriosus: Apparent coward, actual hero. vs. apparent hero, actual coward.
- Crack Fic vs. Original Flavour: Fanfiction which makes no sense vs. one that makes perfect sense.
- Crapsack World vs. Utopia: In the Crapsack World, life is pointless and everything sucks. In Utopia, everything and everyone is perfect.
- Creator Breakdown vs. Creator Recovery: A creator's work becoming Darker and Edgier as a result of personal problems vs. a creator's work becoming Lighter and Softer as a result of personal happiness.
- Creator's Pet vs. Take That, Scrappy!: The creators of a work fluffing up a hated character vs. them making fun of him/her/it.
- Creator's Pet vs. They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A character the audience hates gets too much screentime vs. a character the audience likes doesn't get enough screentime.
- Creator's Pet vs. Unpopular Popular Character: Character only the author seems to like vs. character only the fans seem to like.
- Creepy Blue Eyes vs. Innocent Blue Eyes: Blue eyes are creepy vs. cute.
- Creepy Child vs. Psychopathic Manchild: Child who acts adult-like in an unsettling way vs. adult who acts child-like in an unsettling way.
- Creepy Cleanliness vs. Uncleanliness Is Next to Ungodliness: Cleanliness vs. dirtiness is creepy
- Creepy Crossdresser vs. Wholesome Crossdresser: A crossdresser is unsavory vs. a crossdresser is a perfectly fine person.
- Creepy High-Pitched Voice vs. Evil Sounds Deep: Overly high-pitched voices are evil vs. overly deep voices are evil.
- Crippling Overspecialization vs. Master of None: Someone who specializes in one thing at the cost of everything else or someone who can do anything but isn't good at any one thing.
- Cruel Elephant vs. Honorable Elephant: Elephants are mean-spirited vs. elephants are noble.
- Cruel Mercy vs. Cruel to Be Kind: Sparing someone to make them suffer vs. harming someone to help them survive
- Cruel Mercy vs. Mercy Kill: Sparing someone to make them suffer vs. killing someone to end their suffering
- Crutch Character vs. Magikarp Power: A video game character that gets weaker over time vs. a video game character that gets stronger over time.
- Cuddle Bug/No Sense of Personal Space vs. Hates Being Touched: Character likes touching/getting too close to people vs. character does not like people touching/getting too close to them.
- Cue the Rain vs. Cue the Sun: The rain means things are getting bad vs. the sun means things are getting good.
- Cue the Sun vs. Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Death: The sun rises to signify something good vs. clouds cover up the sun to signify something bad.
- Cute Ghost Girl vs. Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: A ghost girl that is meant to be cute vs. a ghost girl that is meant to be scary.
- Cute Witch/Hot Witch vs. Wicked Witch: The witch is an adorable little girl (or a more mature woman who happens to be a knockout beauty) vs. the classic witch, old and possibly monstrous.
- Cutscene Incompetence vs. Cutscene Power to the Max: A video game character is weaker or stronger in the cutscenes than in the gameplay.
- Cutting Off the Branches vs. Third-Option Adaptation: One of the endings is canon vs. a new ending is made up.
- Cyberpunk vs. Raygun Gothic: A dystopian high-tech future vs. an optimistic low-tech future.
- The Cynic vs. The Idealist: Pessimism vs. optimism
- Damsel in Distress vs. Damsel out of Distress: A damsel that has to be saved by outside forces vs. a damsel that can save herself.
- Damsel in Distress vs. Distressed Dude: A woman/girl vs. a man/boy is in danger.
- Damsel Scrappy vs. The Woobie: A Butt-Monkey, Chew Toy, or Damsel in Distress you despise vs. sympathize with.
- Darker and Edgier vs. Lighter and Softer: A work gets more or less mature and serious over time.
- Dark Fic vs. W.A.F.F.: A serious fanfiction vs. a cute fanfiction.
- Dark Is Evil vs. Dark Is Not Evil: Something/somebody has spooky traits and is evil vs. something/somebody has spooky traits but isn't evil.
- Dark Is Evil vs. Light Is Good: Something with dark traits and is actively malevolent vs. something with light traits and is actively benevolent.
- Dark Is Evil vs. Light Is Not Good: Something evil has dark vs. light traits.
- Dark Is Not Evil vs Light Is Good: Something good has dark vs. light traits.
- Dark Is Not Evil vs. Light Is Not Good: Something seems spooky and ominous but genuinely good vs. something seems benign and friendly but is actually evil.
- Dark Magical Girl vs. Magical Girl: A magical girl with a troubled past vs. a non-troubled past.
- Deathbringer the Adorable vs. Fluffy the Terrible: Cute monster with vicious-sounding name vs vicious monster with a cute-sounding name.
- DecemberDecember Romance vs. MayDecember Romance vs. Puppy Love: a couple made up of old characters vs. a couple made of a younger character and an older one vs. a couple made up of young characters
- Deconstruction vs. Reconstruction (or Affectionate Parody): A trope is picked apart for its lack of realism, is changed to fit a more realistic setting, or is played for laughs in a respectful way.?
- Defictionalisation vs. Product Placement: A fictional item becomes real vs. a real item is included in a fictional work.
- Definitely Just a Cold vs. Playing Sick: A sick character pretends they're not sick or only have a minor illness vs. a healthy character pretends to be sick.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance vs. Politically Correct History: Deliberately depicting regressive or offensive views for the sake of historical accuracy vs. deliberately downplaying/omitting regressive or offensive views even if it doesn't make sense for the time period
- Denied Parody vs. Parody Retcon: Something that seems like a parody but isn't vs. a handwave of a work's faults as a parody.
- Depraved Bisexual vs. No Love for the Wicked: Being willing to have sex with anyone makes you villainous vs. lack of desire to have sex with anyone makes you villainous.
- Description Cut vs. I Resemble That Remark!: Saying someone will do something before cutting to them doing the opposite vs. reacting to a criticism in a way that proves it right.
- Designated Hero vs. Designated Villain: Someone who acts evil but is meant to be the hero vs. someone who acts good but is meant to be the villain.
- Designated Love Interest vs. Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Romantic relationship accidentally comes off as platonic vs. platonic relationship accidentally comes off as romantic.
- Dethroning Moment of Suck vs. Moment of Awesome: A series' low point vs. a series' high point
- Deus ex Machina vs. Diabolus ex Machina: Out-of-nowhere win for the good guys vs. out-of-nowhere win for the bad guys.
- Deus Sex Machina vs. Virgin Power: A Deus Sex Machina is a power that requires you-know-what to be triggered. A Virgin Power is some sort of ability of Applied Phlebotinum that relies on the user abstaining from you-know-what.
- Devious Dolphins vs. Friendly, Playful Dolphin/Heroic Dolphin: Dolphins are evil and violent vs. dolphins are fun and helpful.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat vs. Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help: A villain stops when victory is at hand to do something evil vs. a hero stops his quest to do something good.
- Diegetic Switch vs. Left the Background Music On: Music switches from being diegetic to being a non-diegetic soundtrack, versus music that the audience assumed to be non-diegetic being revealed to be diegetic.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil vs. Information Wants to Be Free: Villains engaging in digital piracy vs. heroes engaging in digital piracy.
- Dirty Coward vs. Lovable Coward: Someone is nervy and evil vs. someone is nervy and good.
- Disneyfication vs. Grimmification: Making an adaptation more child-friendly than the original vs. making a story more adult-oriented than the original.
- Disowned Parent vs. I Have No Son!: A child disowns a parent vs. a parent disowns their child.
- Disproportionate Retribution vs. Disproportionate Reward: Getting punished heavily for a slight offense vs. getting rewarded heavily for a mild good deed.
- Distracted by the Sexy vs. Not Distracted by the Sexy or Ignore the Fanservice: Someone is distracted by sexual attraction vs. someone is acting traditionally sexy but another person doesn't pay attention.
- The Ditz vs. The Smart Guy: A dumb character vs. a smart one.
- The Ditz vs. TV Genius: A stereotypical dumb character vs. a stereotypical smart one.
- Ditzy Genius vs. Genius Ditz: A genius who's really bad at one thing vs. a ditz who is really good at one thing.
- Divided States of America vs. Expanded States of America: America splits into territories or expands into other countries.
- Does Not Like Spam vs. Trademark Favorite Food: Someone hates vs. loves a food.
- Doing in the Scientist vs. Doing In the Wizard: Retconning something that had a scientific explanation into having a magical one vs. retconning something that had a magical explanation into having a scientific one.
- Doing In the Wizard vs. A Wizard Did It: explaining a seemingly impossible event in detail vs. hand waving it away as "just magic"
- Down the Rabbit Hole vs. Up the Real Rabbit Hole: Someone escaping to a fantasy world and accepting it vs. someone going to a fantasy world and saying that theirs is the real world.
- Downer Ending vs. Happy Ending: The ending is sad vs. happy.
- Draco in Leather Pants vs. Ron the Death Eater: Both are character interpretation tropes. Draco in Leather Pants occurs when a character's flaws are downplayed and their virtues are promoted by a fan to make a character more appealing to them. Ron the Death Eater downplays a character's good traits, often exposing and exaggerating their flaws to pave the way for the fan's One True Pairing or because they simply dislike the character.
- Dragon Rider vs. Shoulder-Sized Dragon: People riding dragons vs. dragons sitting on people.
- Dragons Are Demonic vs. Dragons Are Divine: Dragons as evil and destructive vs. dragons as majestic and benevolent.
- Dramatic Irony vs. Tomato Surprise: The audience is aware of important information that the characters are not privy to, leading to a dramatic reveal vs. The characters are aware of important information that the audience is not privy to, leading to a dramatic reveal.
- Dream Team vs. Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The best of the best vs. the best they had on hand at the time.
- Dry Docking vs. Shipping: A fanfiction where an Official Couple is no longer a couple vs. a fanfiction that pairs characters up (maybe Platonic Life-Partners becoming a couple).
- Dug Too Deep vs. Journey to the Sky: Embarking on a travel that takes the character too deep beneath the surface vs. embarking on a travel that takes the character too far above the surface. Though not necessarily a hard rule, the former usually leads to a horrifying discovery (Hell, a Sealed Evil in a Can, a very dangerous geological phenomenon, etc.), while the latter usually leads to a wonderful discovery (a Floating Continent, Garden of Eden, outer space, etc.)
- Dumb Is Good/Good Is Dumb vs. Good Is Not Dumb: Being stupid or lacking wisdom with a friendly demeanor vs. being the opposite of stupid and unwise.
- Dumbass No More vs. Took a Level in Dumbass: A dumb character becoming smart vs. a smart character becoming dumb.
- Dump Stat vs. One Stat to Rule Them All: A stat that can be ignored vs. a stat that can be entirely focused on.
- Dystopia vs. Utopia: A Crapsack World with serious sociopolitical issues vs. an ideal world.
- Easily Forgiven vs. Reformed, but Rejected: A character does something bad and others forgive him without any repercussions vs. a character who is reformed, but others refuse to believe it.
- Easy-Mode Mockery vs. Hard Mode Perks: Penalties for playing a game on an easy difficulty level vs. bonuses for playing the same game on a harder difficulty level.
- The Eeyore vs. The Pollyanna: The Eeyore always sees the proverbial glass half-empty, while The Pollyanna is eternally optimistic about their circumstances in life.
- Egomaniac Hunter vs. Great White Hunter: Jerkass or villainous hunter vs. Nice Guy or heroic hunter.
- Elite Army vs. Zerg Rush/We Have Reserves: A small army of particularly powerful warriors vs. a massive army of Cannon Fodder.
- Embodiment of Vice vs. Embodiment of Virtue: The personification of a bad trait vs. a good trait.
- Emotionless Girl vs. Genki Girl: A woman expresses no enthusiasm vs. a woman expresses a lot of enthusiasm
- Enclosed Extraterrestrials vs Exposed Extraterrestrials: Aliens that are completely covered up vs. naked aliens.
- Encounter Bait vs. Encounter Repellant: Increasing vs. decreasing the frequency of Random Encounters in a Role-Playing Game with an item or spell.
- Endless Daytime vs. The Night That Never Ends: A place where it's always daytime vs. a place where it's never daytime.
- Enjoy The Story, Skip The Game vs. Play the Game, Skip the Story: A game with a good story but bad gameplay vs. a game with good gameplay but a bad story.
- Ensemble Dark Horse vs. The Scrappy or Creator's Pet: The Ensemble Dark Horse is a character who gains an unexpected amount of popularity with an audience despite having a not-so-big role. The Scrappy is a character who becomes unexpectedly rejected by the fandom, for being considered annoying and/or unlikeable. If The Scrappy becomes prominent in a story and the audience still doesn't embrace the character, then that character is a Creator's Pet.
- Escalating War vs. Zany Scheme Chicken: A series of revenge plots that escalate over time vs. a series of schemes that get more ridiculous over time.
- Everybody Knew Already vs. Thought They Knew Already: Thinking people don't know something when they actually do vs. thinking people do know something when they actually don't.
- Everybody Lives vs. "Everybody Dies" Ending: In an Everybody Lives scenario, all of the main characters survive to the very end. In an "Everybody Dies" Ending, a large portion of the cast/all of the cast are killed off.
- Everyone Is Bi vs. No Bisexuals: All the characters are bi vs. none of the characters are bi.
- Everyone's in the Loop vs. Poor Communication Kills: Characters are updated on important information vs. characters are not told or updated about important information.
- Evil All Along vs. Good All Along: Morally wrong or right but hiding that fact.
- Evil Chancellor vs. The Good Chancellor: A villainous advisor vs. a heroic advisor.
- Eviler than Thou vs. Holier Than Thou: Eviler than Thou vs. Even Evil Has Standards
- Evil Feels Good vs. Good Feels Good: Doing bad things or good things feels good.
- Evil Is Cool vs. This Is Your Brain on Evil: Doing bad things makes you look more or less impressive.
- Evil Is Burning Hot vs. Evil Is Deathly Cold: Bad guys hang out in a hot area vs. bad guys hang out in a cold area.
- Evil Luddite vs. Nature Hero: Bad guy who (sometimes) loathes technology vs. good person who eschews technology to be in touch with the natural world.
- The Evil Prince vs. Knight in Shining Armor: A villainous royal vs. a heroic champion.
- Evil Reactionary vs. Good Old Ways: Villainous character who opposes social progress based on dated beliefs and/or interests vs. good-hearted character who dresses and/or behaves in an old-fashioned way.
- Evil Reactionary vs. The Revolution Will Not Be Civilised: Villainous character who opposes social progress vs. villainous character who demands social change regardless of the harm it causes to others.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin vs. Never Trust a Title: The title explains everything exactly vs. the title lies
- Exceeded the Goal vs. Gone Horribly Right: Exceeding a goal has positive, or at the very least neutral, results vs. exceeding a goal has negative results.
- Executive Meddling vs. Protection from Editors: Executives giving (often unwanted) input in a work vs. only the author deciding the direction of the story.
- Express Delivery vs. Longest Pregnancy Ever: A unusually short (full-term) pregnancy vs. an unusually long one.
- Extreme Omnivore vs. Picky Eater: A person who will eat just about anything vs. a person who is very selective about their food.
- Gag Penis vs. Teeny Weenie: A large vs. a small penis.
- Game-Breaker vs. Joke Character (or Joke Item): A character or item that makes the game a joke vs. a character or item that is intentionally bad as a joke.
- Gargle Blaster vs. Klatchian Coffee: A drink that gets you instantly and insanely drunk or sober.
- Genius Ditz vs. Modern Major General: An incompetent character who's good at one thing
note : or *some* things vs. a competent character who is good at most of his jobs except for one of 'em.
- Genius Programming vs. Idiot Programming: The opposite extremes of programming expertise.
- Genre Blindness vs. Genre Savvy: A character that is unaware or aware of the genre they're a part of.
- Gentle Giant vs. The Napoleon: A Gentle Giant is a character who looks big and menacing, but actually has a kind and softer side. The Napoleon looks small and non-threatening, but is very dangerous,
*especially* if you should make fun of his/her height.
- Gentleman and a Scholar vs. Insufferable Imbecile: A Nice Guy with an intellectual inclination vs. a rude, argumentative and likely violent idiot.
- George Jetson Job Security vs. Ultimate Job Security: Always getting fired vs. never getting fired.
- Get It Over With vs. Scheherezade Gambit: Pleading for someone to kill them vs. pleading for someone to let them live.
- Get Thee to a Nunnery vs. Have a Gay Old Time: A word that gets less or more raunchy over time.
- Ghibli Hills vs. Mordor: Lush, colorful landscape vs. dark, frightening landscape. See also Scenery Porn vs. Scenery Gorn.
- Giant Mook vs. Mini Mook: Big enemy vs. little enemy.
- Girls Have Cooties vs. Puppy Love: Children of opposite genders that shy away from or fall in love with each other.
- Girly Girl vs. Tomboy: A female character with feminine traits vs. a female character with masculine traits.
- Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex vs. Pre-Climax Climax: Sex after surviving a dangerous event vs. sex right before a dangerous event.
- Glass Cannon vs Stone Wall: Can dish out damage and move fast but is easy to defeat vs. can't dish out damage or move fast but can tank hits.
- A God Am I vs. A God I Am Not: A mortal believes they're god out of madness, vs. a god-like being refusing the label of god to stay sane.
- God Guise vs. God in Human Form: A human that pretends to be a god vs. a god that pretends to be a human.
- God Is Evil vs. Satan Is Good: The Christian God portrayed as a villain vs. the Devil portrayed as a hero.
- God-Mode Sue vs. The Load: "Why are we even here? He can do everything!" vs. "Why is this guy even here? He can't do anything!"
- Good Is Dumb vs. Good Is Not Dumb: The heroes are dumb or smart.
- Good-Times Montage vs. Sad-Times Montage: A montage showing fun vs. depression.
- Gory Discretion Shot vs. Sexy Discretion Shot: You don't want to see it versus you want to see it.
- Go, Ye Heroes, Go and Die vs. Rousing Speech: Motivational speech that... isn't vs. motivational speech that works.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language vs. Surprisingly Good Foreign Langauge: Bad or good use of foreign languages.
- Grey Rain of Depression vs. Happy Rain: Rain indicates that someone is sad vs. rain makes someone happy.
- Growing the Beard vs. Jumping the Shark: Growing the Beard is a moment when a particular show or series reaches a point where everything gets better. Jumping the Shark is when it hits a new low, and everything is perceived to get
*worse* from then on.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold vs. White Hair, Black Heart: Good character with light hair vs. evil character with light hair.
- Hair-Raising Hare vs. Righteous Rabbit: Rabbits or hares depicted as violent and frightening vs. rabbits or hares depicted as cute and heroic.
- Hands-Off Parenting vs. Helicopter Parents: Parents aren't involved in raising their kids vs. parents are too involved in raising their kids.
- Handsome Lech vs. Kavorka Man: A handsome Casanova Wannabe vs. an unattractive Casanova.
- Happiness Tropes vs. Sadness Tropes: Tropes about happiness vs. sadness
- Harmless Villain vs. Villain Sue: A villain that can't do anything vs. a villain that is very overpowered.
- Harsher in Hindsight vs. Hilarious in Hindsight: Something funny seems serious looking back vs. something that isn't funny seems funny looking back.
- Hate Plague vs. Love Is in the Air: A virus that causes people to get angry with vs. fall in love with each other.
- He's Dead, Jim vs. He's Okay: A character announcing that someone is dead vs. a character announcing that someone is alright.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power vs. What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: An unconventional superpower is considered to be great or useless.
- Heartwarming Moments vs. Nightmare Fuel: Something that's touching vs. something that's terrifying.
- Herbivores Are Friendly vs. Predators Are Mean: Animals who don't eat meat are passive vs. animals who eat meat are aggressive.
- Herbivores Are Friendly vs. Xenophobic Herbivore: Plant-eaters are kind to others vs. plant eaters are mistrustful and prejudiced against others.
- The Hermit vs. Hates Being Alone: A character who enjoys being alone vs a character who hates being alone.
- Hero Ball vs. Villain Ball: Hero does something dumb vs. villain does something dumb.
- Heroes Act, Villains Hinder vs. Villains Act, Heroes React: The heroes are the active party vs. the villains are the active party.
- Hero Antagonist vs. Villain Protagonist: An antagonist with good traits vs. a protagonist with evil traits.
- Heroes' Frontier Step vs. Moral Event Horizon: A character's first step into noble heroism or irredeemable villainy.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath vs. Psychopathic Manchild: A mentally ill comedic hero vs. a mentally ill scary villain.
- Hero Protagonist vs. Villain Antagonist: A protagonist with good traits vs. an antagonist with evil traits.
- Heroic Seductress vs. The Vamp: Heroine who uses sex for good vs. Villainess who uses sex for evil
- "The Hero Sucks" Song vs. "The Villain Sucks" Song: A song insulting a hero vs a song insulting a villain.
- Hero with Bad Publicity vs. Villain with Good Publicity: A hero is hated by the public vs a villain who isn't.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners vs. Like Brother and Sister: Very close same-sex friends vs. Very close opposite-sex friends
- Hiding the Handicap vs. Obfuscating Disability: A disabled character tries to hide the fact that they're disabled vs. A non-disabled character pretending that they are.
- High Heel Hurt vs. High-Heel Power: Wearing high heel shoes weakens or strengthens the wearer.
- High Fantasy vs. Low Fantasy: High Fantasy is a world wildly different from ours, with widespread magic use and fantastical elements and epic scale conflict (massive wars, the rise and fall of nations, gods walking the earth, the very real threat of The End of the World as We Know It). Low Fantasy might not look too different from our world, magic and monsters are very rare if not non-existent, and scale tends to be down to a single hero or a small group and their trials and tribulations rather than what affects the entire world.
- Historical Hero Upgrade vs. Historical Villain Upgrade: A historical figure is made to be more good or evil than they were in real life.
- Hive Mind vs. Split Personality: One mind in many bodies vs. many minds in one body.
- Hobbes Was Right vs. Rousseau Was Right: People are naturally awful until they're dictated by a higher power vs. people are naturally innocent until they suffer negative circumstances.
- Hollywood Homely vs. Informed Attractiveness: Character isn't as unattractive as the show would have you believe vs. character isn't as attractive as the show would have you believe.
- Hollywood Spelling vs My Nayme Is: Names are standardized vs. names are spelled eccentrically.
- Honest Advisor vs. Yes-Man: An advisor that speaks their mind vs. an advisor that sucks up to their leader.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold vs. Predatory Prostitute: A heroic sex worker vs. a villainous sex worker.
- Hopeless Boss Fight vs. Zero-Effort Boss: A boss fight you can't win vs. a boss fight you can't lose.
- Home Sweet Home vs. In Harm's Way: Wanting to stay home instead of go on a journey vs. putting yourself in danger to avoid getting bored.
- Hostile Weather vs. Weather Saves the Day: Weather conditions are inconvenient or harmful vs. weather conditions are beneficial.
- Hotter and Sexier vs. Tamer and Chaster: A character or work gets more or less sexually charged as they go on.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl vs. Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: The man is much larger than the woman or the woman is much larger than the man.
- Humans Are Bastards vs. Humans Are Good and Humans Are Special: Humans are inherently evil or heroic or special.
- Humans Are Diplomats vs. Humans Are Warriors: Humans are peaceful vs. humans are warlike or violent.
- Humans Are Special vs. Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Humans are significant or insignificant as far as the rest of the universe is concerned.
- Hysterical Woman vs. Women Are Wiser: An irrational female character vs. a wise female character.
- I Am Not Spock vs. I Am Not Leonard Nimoy:An actor/actress is known for being the face of a certain character/s vs. a character/s is/are known for being portrayed for a certain actor/actress.
- I Always Wanted to Say That vs. You Just Had to Say It: The speaker says what they have always wanted to say vs. the recipient chides the speaker for saying what they said.
- Indecisive Parody vs. Redundant Parody: The parody accidentally copies the tone of the original vs. the parody accidentally copies the jokes of the original.
- I Need a Freaking Drink vs. No More for Me: A character thinks they need to drink vs. a character thinks they need to
*not* drink.
- Instant Home Delivery vs. Product Delivery Ordeal: A package is sent to someone instantaneously without any difficulty vs. a package is sent to someone with great difficulty and effort.
- Idiot Ball vs. Smart Ball: Unnatural act of idiocy vs. unnatural act of competence
- Idle Rich vs. Non-Idle Rich: Rich people who don't do anything vs. rich people who actually do things.
- If I Can't Have You
vs. I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: A spurned lover can't give up the one they failed at a relationship with or allows them to be with the one they truly love.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him! vs. Kill Him Already!: Someone who doesn't want the hero to kill the villain vs. someone who does.
- If Jesus, Then Aliens vs. No Such Thing as Space Jesus: Everything paranormal exists including gods vs. the only powerful beings are aliens.
- I Just Want to Be Normal vs. I Just Want to Be Special: Someone with superpowers who wants to be a normal person vs. a normal person who wants to have superpowers.
- I Just Want to Have Friends vs. I Work Alone: Someone who wants friends vs. someone who works solo by choice.
- I Like Those Odds vs. Never Tell Me the Odds!: Someone who likes hearing about their chances vs. someone who doesn't.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy vs. Improbable Aiming Skills: At the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy, a character (usually a bad guy) is incapable of hitting the broad side of a barn...at point blank range. With Improbable Aiming Skills, a character can hit just about anything with a firearm in ways that shouldn't be humanly possible.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes vs. Rummage Sale Reject: Cool clothes that would not exist in real life vs. shoddy clothes that would exist in real life.
- I Am X, Son of Y vs. You're Not My Father: Proudly declare vs disown their parentage
- Inadequate Inheritor vs. Turn Out Like His Father: Failure to turn out like your father despite all pressure to do so vs. failure to not turn out like your father despite all pressure to do so.
- Infinite Supplies vs. Perpetual Poverty: A character that is always rich vs. poor.
- Instant Death Bullet vs. Only a Flesh Wound: A wound that instantly kills someone vs. a wound that someone brushes off as minor.
- Insufferable Genius vs. Kindhearted Simpleton: A smart character who is mean vs a dumb character who is nice.
- Insufferable Imbecile vs. Kindhearted Simpleton: An dumb character who is a bozo that is stupidly rude or mean vs. a dumb character who is warm-hearted, open-hearted, and nice.
- Insult of Endearment vs. Terms of Endangerment: Rude nicknames being used by friends vs. kind nicknames being used by enemies or at least insincere people.
- In Touch with His Feminine Side vs. Tomboy: A male character has feminine traits vs a female character who has masculine traits.
- In-Universe Game Clock vs. Take Your Time Game time flows constantly vs. game time flows only when the plot requires it.
- Iron Woobie vs. Sympathetic Sue: A character that the audience feels sorry for but takes their issues in stride vs. a poorly written character meant for the audience to feel pity for.
- It's All My Fault vs. Never My Fault: Believing that it's your fault despite it isn't vs. blaming others when it really is your fault.
- It's Popular, Now It Sucks! vs. Quality by Popular Vote: A work that is hated or loved for its popularity.
- It's Probably Nothing vs. Throwing the Distraction: Guards ignore an accidental sound made by an intruder vs. guards are distracted by a deliberate sound made by an intruder.
- It's the Same, Now It Sucks! vs. They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A work staying the same or changing is brought up as a negative.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy vs. Murder the Hypotenuse: A character allows their failed lover to move on with someone else or tries to kill them.
- I Was Just Joking vs. My God, You Are Serious!: The speaker admits they are joking or serious.
- I Was Quite a Looker vs. Silver Fox: Elderly characters who were once more attractive than they are currently vs. Elderly characters who retain their outer beauty well into their old age.
- I Was Quite the Looker vs. She Is All Grown Up: Someone who got less or more attractive over time.
- It Will Never Catch On vs. This Is Going to Be Huge: Something expected to fail succeeds like crazy vs. something expected to be a smash-hit turns out to be a flop. Hilarious in Hindsight applies to both tropes.
- Iyashikei vs. Utsuge: Visual Novels that give you a Warm and Fuzzy Feeling vs. Visual Novels that
make you cry yourself to sleep. Particularly notable in that the terms translate to "healing" and "depressing", respectively.
**will**
- Jaded Washout vs. Small Name, Big Ego: A loser who used to be influential vs. a loser who thinks they are influential.
- Jerkass vs. Nice Guy: Someone is mean vs. someone is nice.
- Jumped at the Call vs. Refusal of the Call: Wanting to do something heroic at the first opportunity vs. refusing to do anything heroic.
- Jumping the Gender Barrier vs. Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Falling in love with or being repulsed by someone who switched genders.
- Karma Houdini vs. Laser-Guided Karma or Karmic Death: Little to no punishment for bad deeds vs. apropos punishment.
- Keep Away vs. MacGuffin Delivery Service: Two parties work together to keep the MacGuffin away from the heroes vs. the MacGuffin switches hands between the parties often.
- Kick the Dog vs. Pet the Dog: Showing that a bad guy is bad vs. showing that a bad guy isn't all that bad.
- Kick the Dog vs. What You Are in the Dark: Showing villainy in public vs. showing heroism in private.
- Kiddie Kid vs. Wise Beyond Their Years: A teen, pre-teen or child who acts more immature than their usual age vs. a pre-teen or child who acts mature.
- Kiss-Kiss-Slap vs. Slap-Slap-Kiss: "I love you! ... I hate you!" vs. "I hate you! ... I love you!"
- Krav Maga vs. Le Parkour: A martial art based solely on disarming and defeating your opponent, and a martial art based solely on avoiding/escaping conflict in the first place.
- Kneel Before Frodo vs. Kneel Before Zod: Decided to kneel before a hero vs. forced to kneel before a villain
- The Lad-ette vs. Proper Lady: Woman lacking in feminine grace vs. woman full of feminine grace.
- Large Ham vs. The Stoic: Expresses heaps of emotion vs. expresses no emotion.
- Late Export for You vs. Short Run in Peru: The work gets dubbed in other countries much later or earlier than its home country.
- Legacy Immortality vs. My Grandson, Myself: Successive mentors and students pretend to be the same immortal person over a long period of time vs. an immortal or long-lived character tries to evade detection by pretending to be their own descendant.
- Leslie Nielsen Syndrome vs. Tom Hanks Syndrome: An actor mainly known for dramatic roles transitions to mainly comedic roles vs. an actor mainly known for comedic roles transitions to mainly dramatic roles.
- Let Me Get This Straight... vs What Is Going On?: Summarizing an explanation vs. demanding an explanation.
- Let's Get Dangerous! vs. Not-So-Harmless Villain: low-key hero becoming powerful vs. low-key villain becoming powerful.
- Let's Split Up, Gang! vs. Never Split the Party: Splitting into teams vs. sticking together as one group.
- Lie Back and Think of England vs. Think Unsexy Thoughts: Character doesn't enjoy sex but has to have it, so thinks pleasant thoughts as a distraction vs. character enjoys sex but can't have it at that moment (or wants to prolong it), so thinks unpleasant thoughts as a distraction.
- Life Imitates Art vs. Truth in Television: Something happens in fiction before real life vs. something happens in real life before fiction.
- Light Is Good vs. Light Is Not Good: Traits stereotypically associated with positivity are good vs. are evil.
- Lima Syndrome vs. Stockholm Syndrome: Captor develops feelings for prisoner vs. prisoner develops feelings for captor
- Limited Wardrobe vs. Unlimited Wardrobe: Character never changes their clothes vs. character keeps changing their clothes
- Living Forever Is Awesome vs. Who Wants to Live Forever?: Living forever is fun vs. living forever sucks.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight vs. Raging Stiffie: Guy wants an erection and can't get one vs. guy doesn't want an erection and has one.
- Loner-Turned-Friend vs. Used to Be More Social: An antisocial character that becomes more social vs. a social character that becomes more antisocial.
- Long-Runners vs. Short-Runners: Franchises that have been around for a long time vs. franchises that ended very soon after they began.
- Lost in Medias Res vs. Prolonged Prologue: Too little exposition in the beginning vs. too much exposition at expence of action in the beginning.
- Lower-Class Lout vs. Upper-Class Twit, The Upper Crass and Aristocrats Are Evil: A negative stereotype of the working class vs. a negative stereotype of the upper class.
- Luke, I Am Your Father vs. Luke, You Are My Father: A parent reveals their parentage to their child vs. a child reveals their parentage to their parent.
- Macekre vs. Woolseyism: A Macekre is a loose translation of a work that barely resembles its source material. A Woolseyism is a translation of a work that maintains the spirit of the original work, while still making it palatable for its intended audience.
- Macabre Moth Motif / Moth Menace vs. Pretty Butterflies: Moths or butterflies are sinister or dangerous vs moths or butterflies are harmless and beautiful.
- Made of Iron vs. Made of Plasticine: Character is unrealistically hard to injure vs. character is unrealistically easy to injure.
- Made Out to Be a Jerkass vs. Punished for Sympathy: Being branded as a bad person for fighting off a bad person vs being branded as a bad person for being nice to a bad person.
- Mad Scientist vs. Science Hero: A nutty, evil scientist vs. a level-headed, heroic scientist.
- Mage Born of Muggles vs. Muggle Born of Mages: A superpowered person with normal parents vs. a normal person with superpowered parents.
- Magically Inept Fighter vs. Squishy Wizard: A physical fighter who can't use magic vs. a magical fighter who can't take physical hits well.
- Magic and Science vs. Swords and Guns. The brains of fantasy and science-fiction, respectively, versus the brawns of said genres.
- The Magic Comes Back vs. The Magic Goes Away: Magic returns to or fades away from a setting.
- Magic Knight vs. Squishy Wizard: A character who fights with both magic and weapons vs. a character who fights with only magic.
- Magic Skirt vs. Marilyn Maneuver: A woman's skirt never goes up in the air vs. a woman's skirt goes up in the air.
- Magic Skirt vs. Panty Shot: A woman's undies don't show vs. they do.
- Magnificent Bastard vs. Smug Snake: While a Magnificent Bastard can sometimes pull off ridiculously complicated plans and get people to do what he/she wants and still come out smelling like a rose, the Smug Snake only
*thinks* they can, and often comes across as a deluded Jerkass.
- Major Injury Underreaction vs. Minor Injury Overreaction: Someone reacts well to a large wound or reacts poorly to a superficial wound.
- Make Wrong What Once Went Right vs. Set Right What Once Went Wrong: A time traveler that uses their gifts for evil or good.
- Manchild vs. Wise Beyond Their Years: An adult who acts immature vs. a pre-teen or child who acts mature.
- Maniac Monkeys vs. Silly Simian: Monkeys and apes portrayed as evil vs. monkeys and apes portrayed as funny.
- The McCoy vs. The Spock: Someone who follows emotions vs. someone who follows logic.
- Mechanical Lifeforms vs. Organic Technology: Machines that are alive vs. technology made from biological matter.
- Men Are Better Than Women vs. Women Are Wiser: Men are smarter than women vs. women are smarter than men.
- Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales vs. Offending the Creator's Own: Members of a specific social group enjoying a work by outsiders despite what might be considered stereotypical depictions, vs. members of a social group getting offended by their portrayal in a work by a creator who is actually in that group.
- Mighty Whitey vs. Token White: The one white guy in the setting is the most powerful one or just a normal person.
- Modesty Shorts vs. Zettai Ryouiki: Clothes cover the upper part of the leg below the skirt vs. clothes emphasize it.
- Mook Chivalry vs. Zerg Rush: Mooks attacking one at a time vs. mooks attacking all at once
- Monster Clown vs. Non-Ironic Clown: The clown is terrifying and dangerous vs. clown who is whimsical and fun to be around.
- Monstrosity Equals Weakness vs. Power-Upgrading Deformation: Being more monstrous making you less dangerous vs. more powerful.
- More Hero than Thou vs. Who Will Bell the Cat?: Characters strive to do the dangerous deed vs. characters retreat on learning that they might personally have to do the deed.
- Most Annoying Sound vs. Most Wonderful Sound: The audience hates a sound vs. the audience likes a sound.
- Motor Mouth vs. The Quiet One: A character who talks a lot vs. a character who doesn't.
- Mundane Made Awesome vs. Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Something normal treated as cool vs. something cool treated as normal.
- Muggle Power vs. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Normal people feel the need to speak out against superheroes or superheroes are responsible for normal people.
- My Country, Right or Wrong vs. My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: Fighting for or supporting your country of origin regardless of perceived or real wrongs vs. Self-Deprecation and rage aimed at own nationality.
- My Girl Is a Slut vs. My Girl Is Not a Slut: On one hand you have the usual "woman who dares to have sex = whore" and its contrary, a woman who isn't put down or insulted for having an active sex-life but rather sought after
*because* of that.
- My Beloved Smother vs. When You Coming Home, Dad?: Parents that do nothing but control their children vs. parents that never have time for their children.
- Sanity Slippage vs. Sanity Strengthening: A character loses their mind or becomes more sane over the course of the story.
- Sarcasm Mode vs. Sincerity Mode: Irony vs. honesty.
- Save the Villain vs. Villainous Rescue: The hero saves the villain vs. the villain saves the hero.
- Scary Black Man vs. Intimidating White Presence: Black men freak out white characters vs. white characters freak out black characters.
- Science Hero/Science Is Good vs. Science Is Bad: Heroes use science vs. villains use science.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules! vs. Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Turning down money due to moral standards vs. using wealth to break rules.
- Secret Chaser vs. Secret-Keeper: Someone wanting to know a secret vs. someone who finds out a secret.
- Sequelitis vs. Surprisingly Improved Sequel: A sequel that is worse or better than the original.
- Seven Deadly Sins vs. Seven Heavenly Virtues: Representations of the biblical sins vs. the biblical virtues.
- Sex Is Evil vs. Sex Is Good: Sex is considered to be morally wrong or right.
- Sheathe Your Sword or Talking the Monster to Death vs. Violence is the Only Option: Defeating that same opponent through pacifism or a Rousing Speech vs. defeating an opponent with violence.
- She Cleans Up Nicely vs. Unkempt Beauty: character is dolled up to look sexy vs. character looking sexy even without fancy clothes.
- Shout-Out vs. Take That!: A positive reference to another work vs. a negative reference to another work.
- Silence Is Golden vs. Speech-Centric Work: A story gives primary focus to the visuals vs. a story that gives primary focus to the dialogues
- Shut Up, Hannibal! vs. Shut Up, Kirk!: The hero tells the villain to shut up vs. the villain tells the hero to shut up.
- Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers! vs. Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Being cynical gets the character called out vs. being idealistic gets the character called out.
- A Simple Plan vs. Zany Scheme: A simple plan that gets more complicated over time vs. a plan that is convoluted from the get-go.
- Slut-Shaming vs Virgin-Shaming: Shaming someone for being sexually active vs. shaming someone for not having sex.
- The Snark Knight vs. Stepford Smiler: A character that freely snarks at everything and is negative vs. a character that hides their true self behind a mask of positivity.
- So Bad, It's Good vs. So Bad, It's Horrible: A work that is entertaining despite its bad quality vs. a work that is so bad that it's not entertaining.
- So Bad, It's Horrible vs. So Cool, It's Awesome: A work that is low vs. high in quality, critical reviews, and audience reception.
- So Proud of You vs. Why Couldn't You Be Different?: A parent is proud of or dismissive of their child.
- Spanner in the Works vs. Unwitting Pawn: A hero accidentally/surprisingly stops villain's Evil Plan vs. a hero accidentally/surprisingly helps it.
- Special Effect Failure vs. Visual Effects of Awesome: Special effects that are bad or good.
- The Squad vs. Command Roster: The frontline soldiers fighting and dying on the battlefield, compared to the commanding officers issuing orders to said soldiers at home base.
- Squee vs. Squick: reaction to something favorable vs. reaction to something repulsive
- Stable Time Loop vs. Temporal Paradox: Time travel is consistent or inconsistent due to dimensional interference.
- Standard Sci-Fi Army vs. Standard Sci-Fi Fleet: The former being reserved for ground combat, the latter being reserved for space combat.
- Star-Derailing Role vs. Star-Making Role: The role that breaked or made an actor's career.
- Stoic Woobie vs. Wangst or Emo: A character that the audience feels sorry for who keeps up a poker face vs. a character that the audience doesn't feel sorry for due to how whiny they are.
- Stone Soup vs. Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup: A character's eccentricities force people to work together vs. people working together causes the project to fail.
- Strawman Emotional vs. Straw Vulcan: A stereotypical emotional character vs. a stereotypical logical character.
- Strawman Emotional
*and* Straw Vulcan vs. Emotions vs. Stoicism: Stereotypes of emotions and logic vs. conflicts between emotions and logic.
- Super Robots vs. Real Robots: Humongous Mecha that can bend and break the laws of physics, versus those that abide to said laws of physics at all times.
- Surprisingly Happy Ending vs. Sudden Downer Ending: An apparently sad ending is turned into a happy one vs. An apparently happy ending is turned into a sad one.
- Sympathy for the Devil vs. Sympathy for the Hero: A hero feels sympathetic towards the villain vs. a villain feels sympathetic towards the hero.
## Examples of "opposite number" series: | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppositeTrope |
Oratorio - TV Tropes
An
**oratorio** is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists, according to The Other Wiki. Like an opera, an oratorio has recognizable characters, and is similar in length. Oratorios also tell a story, with particular singers assigned the roles of certain characters (usually, the soloists get the lead parts and the choir plays the role of Greek Chorus). But unlike operas, oratorios are strictly concert pieces, with no props or costumes.
Oratorios are usually religious in nature, telling a story from the Bible or a saint's legend. The form was invented to keep the opera singers employed during Lent, when the theatres were closed down.
Oratorios are also similar to cantatas, in that cantatas are also large-scale vocal works and occasionally identifiable characters, but they usually do not tell a story (Bach's Coffee Cantata is a notable exception).
The generally recognized king of oratorios is George Frederic Handel (much as his contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach was the king of cantatas), who wrote lots of them because they were cheaper to produce than operas but brought in nearly as many people paying almost or just as much for the ticket (and so had higher profit margins—no fool, he). Handel's
*Messiah* (the source of the famous Hallelujah chorus) is probably the best-known oratorio out there, though J.S. Bach's two extant oratorios, the St. Matthew Passion and the St. John Passion, are also well-known.
<!—/index—> | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Oratorio |
Orange/Blue Contrast - TV Tropes
*"All of *Castlevania *'s level palettes incorporated orange in some way. And often incorporated shades of blue, which is orange's complement. A.k.a., it makes orange 'pop out'. It made everything really pop in general, and the game felt alive."*
We'll start off with a little warning: after you finish reading this article, this color combination will be everywhere you look. It will follow you around and constantly haunt you. Thankfully for most people, this effect fades after a few days.
Basic complementary color theory states that two contrasting colors "pop" when put together, so the natural technique is to color films to have a strong, contrasting palette. The one thing you will almost always have in a film is people. Human skin runs from pale pinkish yellow to dark brown, all of which are shades of orange. The color that contrasts best with orange is blue. So you turn up the shadows to the cyan end and the highlights to the orange.
While other pairs of complementary colors
*are* associated with specific concepts, fiery orange and cool blue are strongly associated with *opposing* concepts fire and ice, earth and sky, land and sea, dawn and dusk, invested humanism vs. elegant indifference, good old fashioned explosions vs. futuristic science stuff (and the obligatory Good Colors, Evil Colors contrast). It's a trope because it's used on purpose, and it does something. Especially in theater, orange and blue are sometimes referred to as amber and teal in this context.
Early two-color (red and green) Technicolor (1916-1935) rendered
*everything* in teal and orange. In the hands of adept art and costume designers, the results could be striking (e.g., 1930's *King of Jazz* or 1932's *Doctor X*). Potentially jarring to modern audiences is early filmmakers' custom of making most of the movie in black and white, then switching to color for one scene or reel (e.g., 1928's *The Wedding March* or 1933's *The Vampire Bat*). With the introduction of three-color Technicolor in 1934, enabling a greater variety of color, blue and orange palettes ceased to be a technological limitation.
In the modern context, this trope has gone beyond simple colour grading and into set and costume design for the grading later. For example, a room might have blue walls and a brown cabinet with an amber lamp while the female lead is in a yellow dress, all of which can be color-graded to create the Orange/Blue Contrast. If the female lead has orange hair, expect the male lead to often wear blue clothing to contrast with it. If you wish to die of alcohol poisoning, take a shot every time the set and costume design dovetail to force the contrast.
Games have also picked up on this trend. A discussion of the coloring trends especially in orange as they pertain to comics can be read read here.
Additionally, using orange and blue is generally the best option to cater to the colorblind when color is essential, especially in video games. As orange is predominantly red, with a little bit of green, and blue is, well blue (cyan also has a lot of green), people unable to register one color can still pick up the contrast using the remaining colors.
Subtrope of Mood Lighting and sister trope to Unnaturally Blue Lighting and Warm Place, Warm Lighting, as well as a very specific and common form of Color Contrast and Color Wash. Not to be confused with Blue-and-Orange Morality (even when it overlaps with Good Colors, Evil Colors, as in
*TRON: Legacy*). Ties in with Hollywood Darkness, which is usually blue or teal, and often accompanies a Fire/Ice Duo.
Has a vague resemblance to the Loudness War common in music; in both cases, something is pushed up a notch in post-production, removing all subtlety from the sound or picture. Can be a factor in Digital Destruction. See also Red/Green Contrast and Yellow/Purple Contrast.
## Examples:
- In a 2018 Australian fashion promo video, the female model's attire is an orange dress and an orange hat, whereas the two male models (Trekkies would recognize the black-haired one as Evan Evagora, the model-turned-actor who portrayed Elnor on
*Star Trek: Picard*) are garbed in blue suits.
- Proto, the mascot of Protegent, is Whyatt/Super Why recoloured into this colour scheme.
- Studio GoHands —
*Mardock Scramble*, *K* — does this with a mix of blue/green/orange. Sometimes this appears more bleak than attention-getting, which works well in a post-apocalyptic setting.
-
*Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann*:
- Kamina's design incorporates this. His iconic Cool Shades are orange or red depending on the light, his Badass Cape is red with an orange flame pattern, even his eyes and skin tone have hints of orange in them. This contrasts with his blue hair and tattoos.
- The story begins deep underground, where the colors are almost entirely various shades of grey. As the protagonists break through to the surface at the end of the first episode, the evening skyscape is colored half-blue half-orange.
- In Parallel Works 8, the first shots of the world are heavily orange, while it finishes as blue.
-
*Dragon Ball*:
- The Turtle School gi, most famously worn by Goku, fits this color scheme: orange overshirt and pants with blue undershirt, wristbands, and shoes. In the original
*Dragon Ball* anime, it was red and black rather than orange and blue, but in the switch to *Dragon Ball Z* it shifts to the modern colour scheme. Additionally, it contrasts with his first gi and his *Dragon Ball GT* gi, both of which are blue. note : As for the manga itself, the colour scheme differs from the anime because Toriyama wasn't sure what colour Goku's starting gi was. This resulted in the anime going with blue based on what little coloured chapters existed at the time, while the modern Full Colour print uses orange to fit with Toriyama's modern intent.
- Heck, this trope even applies to the colours Goku and his rival Vegeta wear (orange and blue respectively). As for Vegeta himself, he has long been associated with blue undersuits and armour with a yellow trim.
- The fight between Goku and Frieza in
*Resurrection "F"* turns into this — Frieza's new Golden Super Mode has a fiery orange aura, while Goku's new form has a Heavenly Blue aura.
- In the Moro arc, this applies to Goku and Moros Battle Auras during their battle on earth, with Gokus Ultra Instinct Sign being blue and Moros being orange.
- This is
*Naruto*'s original color scheme. After the Time Skip, he swaps the blue for black, which then becomes his default look. Deliberately invoked as the author based the colour scheme off of Goku's from *Dragon Ball* and since Sasuke is Naruto's rival, he wears blue just like Vegeta.
- In
*Toriko*, this is the titular characters main colors with his clothes being orange, with his blue hair going along with it as well along with his dark blue shirt and boots.
- Twins Amiboshi and Suboshi in
*Fushigi Yuugi*. Calm and mature Amiboshi wears blue, while his hot-headed, emotional twin Suboshi wears orange.
- The Digi-Destineds, Taichi "Tai" Kamiya (Taichi Yagami) and Yamato "Matt" Ishida" (Yamato Ishida) in
*Digimon Adventure*, are The Leader and The Lancer and have their crests and crest empowered digivices colored orange and blue respectively. Tai's Digimon, Agumon, has orange skin and blue stripes in Champion and Ultimate form.
- In
*Romeo X Juliet*, Romeo and those aligned with the Montagues are colored cool blues, greens, and violets, while Juliet and the Capulet sympathizers are warm oranges, reds, and browns.
-
*Digimon Data Squad*: Marcus and Thomas's respective Digivices and battle auras are orange and blue. Appropriate, as they are expies of the aforementioned Tai and Matt. Like Tai, Marcus's Agumon has orange skin and blue stripes in Champion and Ultimate form. Marcus is a Hot-Blooded street fighter while Thomas is The Strategist.
-
*Weathering With You*: After Hina clears the sky for the fireworks festival, one of the following shots has a blue-lit NTT DoCoMo Tower in the foreground and an orange-red lit Tokyo Tower in the background.
-
*Ride Your Wave*: Masaaki Yuasa intentionally used orange and blue to define the color contrasts between fire and water. Also, the film's two leads, Hinako and Minato, are often colored orange and blue respectively.
-
*Aggretsuko*: Retsuko is an orange-furred red panda (likely representing her fiery temper, determination to do her best at work without letting her coworkers annoy her, and love of metal music) who wears a blue uniform (likely representing the calm, friendly personality she has when someone isn't pissing her off).
- In
*Asteroid in Love*, the Color Motifs of Mira and Ao are these two, in that order, which fits their status as an Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo, also in that order.
- The Duel Gundam has this going on in
*Mobile Suit Gundam SEED*, its main body is mostly blue and light grey, with orange for its forehead gem and chest vents. With the Assault Shroud equipped, it gains an additional shade of blue, as well as more orange on its missile pod, chest armor, leg thrusters, and other bits of armor.
- Downplayed in
*Futari wa Pretty Cure*: The energetic, athletic Nagisa/Cure Black has orange hair, while the intelligent, demure Honoka/Cure White has dark blue hair.
- Alexandre Cabanel's
*The Fallen Angel*: The primary hues of the painting are orange and blue. The former is in Lucifer's ginger hair, cream-colored skin (notably orange on the torso), and red-rimmed, teary eyes; plus some small orange touches in his blackening wings. To a lesser extent, a bluish orange is present in some of the background angel's clothes and hair. Blue, on the other hand, is present in the overall lighting and shading of the painting, background elements due to atmospherical distortion, some angel's clothes, and Lucifer's eyes and wings. The contrast is somewhat downplayed but still very noticeable.
- The Czech photographer and traveller Jiří Kolbaba took an amazing series of photographs in Namibia, some of which illustrate this trope wonderfully. See one of his gorgeous pictures from a part of the Namib desert called Sossusvlei here.◊
-
*The Persistence of Memory*: Two prominent colors in the painting, showing its heightened take on reality. The landscape and one of the clocks is orange, while the water and the other clocks are tinted blue. It was inspired by the Catalan seaside.
-
*The Scream (Munch)*: In most of the versions of the painting, the bright and unnatural orange of the sunset contrasts with the deep blue of the water below the dock, helping it become a very striking image.
-
*Lamput*: Lamput, the main character, is orange while Fat Doc and Slim Doc, the villains, are a dark shade of gray-blue.
- Pongdybory of
*Noonbory and the Super 7* has blue skin and wears an orange beanie.
-
*Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf*:
- Done with some of the logos. For example, the
*Flying Island: The Sky Adventure* logo has the title in orange and the subtitle in blue.
- The blue, bell-adorned neck ornament worn by Weslie, the hero, is a contrast to the orange beret worn by Wolffy, the villain.
- The colorists at DC Comics in the early Eighties seem to have really loved the color orange, especially on the Superman titles.
- The Thing has orange, rocky skin, and is commonly depicted as wearing his blue Fantastic Four uniform. He also has blue eyes.
-
*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*: Leonardo is the leader and eldest of the turtles and wears a blue mask. Michaelangelo is the youngest and wears an orange mask.
- Deathstroke's classic costume is blue and orange.
- Taskmaster, whose role in Marvel is similar to Deathstroke's, also wears a blue and orange costume, with some white added. The similarities may be because both characters were designed by the same artist.
- The author of
*Old West* has made a cover that features downwards from above an orange sunsetting sky over the town of Mud, a blue lake situated next to the town and a dark cave.
- In
*Powdered Gold and Pottery*, Shouto's hero costume incorporates soft blue and orange colors to symbolize his ice and fire powers. Its pastel shades are also meant to contrast sharply with how Endeavor wears dark, bold colors.
-
*Aladdin*: Most scenes feature both blue and orange prominently. Even the main characters have blue/orange contrasts in their outfits.
-
*The Adventures of Tintin (2011)* has this prominently on the poster.
- The Blu-Ray "restoration" of
*Fantasia* uses this, most prominently in the "Night On Bald Mountain" sequence, where everything that was originally black is now blue.
- This poster◊ for
*Brave*, with the orange being Merida's hair, and the blue being the Will-o'-the-Wisps and the fog.
- Marlin (orange clownfish) and Dory (blue regal tang) from
*Finding Nemo*.
-
*Atlantis: The Lost Empire*:
- The blue of the ocean contrasts against the orange light from the submarine's windows.
- Orange fire in torches contrasting against the overall blue of Atlantis.
- During an underwater chase sequence, the torpedo explosions are rendered in orange to pop against the blue ocean.
-
*My Little Pony: Equestria Girls*:
- In the first movie, the then-Big Bad Sunset Shimmer is a primarily orange and red character with some yellow hues. The main heroine Twilight Sparkle, on the other hand, is colored lavender, violet, and blue.
- In
*Rainbow Rocks*, the Dazzlings have the contrast between themselves — the lead Adagio Dazzle is yellow/orange, while her bandmates Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk are in teal and purple color schemes.
-
*Forgotten Friendship* has Sunset Shimmer (again) and Trixie Lulamoon, who have sharply contrasting colors, with Sunset's red-and-yellow hair, amber skin, orange top, and maroon skirt compared with Trixie's white hair, pale blue skin, dark blue clothes and purple skirt. This emphasizes their differences and complementary aspects when standing side-by-side.
- In
*Turning Red*, the 4*Town boys all wears orange shirts (a colour no other character is associated with) with blue jeans, each styled to match their personality (ex. jokester Aaron T. has overalls with one strap unbuckled, athlete Aaron Z. has a tank top and cut jeans to replicate a basketball uniform, etc.)
- Orange-furred Nick and blue-clothed Judy from
*Zootopia*.
- One of the posters for
*Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Dunk for Future* uses this to contrast Team Defenders, shown in blue at the top of the poster, and Team Tiger, shown in orange at the bottom.
-
*Adam & Paul*: The scene where Adam and Paul wander around high on heroin has orange streetlights contrasting with blue shadows.
-
*Ad Astra*: At the Lima station, there are multiple shots contrasting blue and yellow lighting. In at least one scene, this contrasts the coldness and isolation of space with humanity and human connection.
-
*Australia*: The Scenery Porn. The Australian Outback is bright orange and sandy desert contrasted with deep, cloudless blue sky. Plus the orange tinting on the human characters and often-appearing dark blue lighting.
-
*Blade Runner*:
-
*The Final Cut* features this in almost every scene. It's part of its distinctive visual style.
- The original cuts with the proper color timing had their fair share of orange-and-blue, some 15-20 years before it became commonplace.
- The sequel
*Blade Runner 2049* follows through with this tradition with its poster artwork and in the film itself with uses of strong orange palettes (particularly in Las Vegas) and moody blues at night.
-
*Darkman*: The poster of this Sam Raimi film is something of a predecessor of this tend in movie posters. The blue comes from the nighttime sky and the light of a helicopter flying overhead, and the orange from the blazing fire to the right.
-
*Divergent*:
- In
*Divergent*, the orange is dominant during the fear simulations, with blue in the background. This is reversed at the test, where blue is dominant and orange is in the background.
- In
*The Divergent Series: Insurgent*, Jeanine's control room is made up of various shades of blue. The controls on the screen are orange.
-
*The Divergent Series: Allegiant*, does a similar thing where the screens of many of the machines are blue, and the text appears in orange.
- Found throughout
*The Double*. It's more obvious in some scenes than others, such as the ones in the photocopy room, where the lighting is exclusively blue and orange.
-
*Drive (2011)*. In the opening sequence, the only colours (with the exception of the pink title) are the blue and orange coming from the lighting in Los Angeles at night.
-
*The Fly (1986)* has an obvious example — the text and graphics on the telepod-controlling computer are blue and/or orange on a black background — but the colors are subtly, extensively used in conjunction with light and shadow elsewhere. In the early going, Veronica's editor/ex-lover Stathis, who is a Clingy Jealous Guy, is associated with shadows and orange lighting (i.e. her finding him taking a shower in her apartment). Scientist Seth, her new and true love, gets light and blue tones. But then Seth makes a Tragic Mistake that results in a Slow Transformation *and* Split-Personality Takeover. He becomes associated with orange/shadow and his decaying human skin takes on a rusty reddish-orange shade. Come the final 20 minutes (which take place at night) blue comes from the lighting and Veronica's blue dress, and as Stathis becomes a Hero Antagonist he gets a blue-gray sweater. The extremes are pushed as Seth's final "Brundlefly" form emerges and ||Stathis shoots out the cables connecting Ronnie's telepod to the others, followed by the botched teleportation destroying part of a pod||, leaving the entire loft a blue-suffused scene as smoke fills it. As with *The Empire Strikes Back*, this film predates most uses of the trope by a good two decades. David Cronenberg historian William Beard's commentary track on the 2019 Blu-Ray goes into thorough detail on the film's use of color.
- The posters and DVD covers of
*G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra* give a very blatant contrast, having the Joes stand in a blue background, while the Cobra stands in an orange/yellow background.
-
*Godzilla vs. Kong*: Most of the film's posters and promos, and ultimately the film's opening sequence, tend to invoke this contrast by directly aligning the titular Titans with either color palette, creating a clear contrast in images which feature both Titans. Godzilla is aligned with a greenish-blue palette reflecting his aquatic elemental alignment, and Kong is aligned with a reddish-orange (or alternatively earthy-brown) palette, reflecting his earthy elemental alignment. The color alignments furthermore reflect that in this film, Kong is the more human-aligned Titan who's more focused on what's in front of him, whereas Godzilla is the more ruthless Titan who's ultimately more focused on the bigger picture.
-
*The Hobbit*:
- In
*Hollow Man*, invisibility serum is blue and counterserum is orange. Also, in thermal vision living organisms are mostly orange/red and the environment is mostly blue.
-
*Hot Tub Time Machine* has a deep teal and orange tint.
- Most of
*Hugo* is like this, not just from the lighting and color grade, but from the source set and costume design being almost exclusive made up of blue and orange hues. This ends up lending a stylized, Deliberately Monochrome effect highly reminiscent of the black/white films it celebrates, just with a modern tinge.
-
*The Hunger Games: Catching Fire*: Almost every color is some shade of orange or blue, except in the scenes taking place in the Capitol, where purple is added to the mix, and in the jungle, where plenty of green is visible when we see the tops of trees.
-
*Hunky Dory*, set during a famous heat wave, is washed out in a beautiful gold, but a few evening scenes are a soft blue.
-
*I, Frankenstein* has it in almost every shot. You can get sick of teal and orange from this one movie alone!
-
*Jurassic World* and its sequel *Fallen Kingdom* exploit this trope heavily. For example, Dr. Wu's lab in the former is graded blue so that it contrasts with the orange of the famous amber mosquitos. Claire Dearing has red hair that contrasts with Owen Grady's blue shirt, and when Claire isn't around, Owen tends to wear a brown vest over his shirt.
-
*Limitless*: Limitless is an interesting example because of the way it's used; whenever somebody takes the NZT, the scene will shift from blue highlights to orange highlights, and vice versa when it wears off.
- The song and dance number in
*Om Shanti Om* called "Dard E Disco" has lovely orange-blue contrast with gold tones for about 3/4 of the song.
-
*Ophelia* uses this on most of the film's posters; most of them depict red-haired Ophelia in a blue dress, in front of a blue background. Considering Ophelia herself wears blue a lot in the film, she's practically a walking example of this.
-
*Out of Sight* uses orange lighting for scenes in sunny Florida and goes with mostly blue hues when the action shifts to snowy Detroit.
- In
*Peter Pan*, when Peter pauses in the bedroom window, his body is lit in orange from the room with a blue moonlit background.
-
*Riddick*: The first third of the film is made in shades of dark yellow, with occasional splashes of blue. Most of the last third is Hollywood Darkness blue.
-
*Scott Pilgrim vs. The World* purposely uses this trope as a parody for Lucas Lee's movies. All of his movie posters are off-the-scale blue/orange contrast.
- While the contrast is not especially frequent in
*Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings*, the rings glow blue when Wenwu uses them and orange when Shang-Chi uses them. It makes for a bold standoff.
-
*Skyfall:* In Shanghai, the lighting keeps *switching* between orange and blue. One of the final action scenes also uses the palette.
-
*Star Trek Into Darkness* contains many examples, especially in scenes set aboard the Enterprise. We see orangey faces against blue backgrounds, and also sets which are lit (or painted) in patches of blue and patches of orange.
-
*Star Wars*:
- The carbon chamber from
*The Empire Strikes Back* is dimly lit with orange lighting and surrounded by blue-tinged darkness, providing an eerie contrast for the first showdown between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. It also predates the modern "Blue and Orange" phenomenon by about two decades.
- The main poster for
*The Force Awakens* is lit on one side by Kylo Ren's red lightsaber and orange explosions, and on the other side by Finn's blue lightsaber and blue laser fire.
-
*Terminator 2: Judgment Day* is bathed in blue during night scenes. The contrasting hues of orange come from various sources: lights, fire, explosions, liquid metal and clear (yet somewhat washed out) skin tones of the actors. Most scenes during daytime tend to have a broader palette of colors.
-
*TRON: Legacy*: The movie itself consists mostly of this. It could have been grandfathered in as the original *TRON* was mostly black-and-white with Red and Blue glow-lines. For the sequel they kept the Blue glow intact, but then they went and tweaked the Red to be various, mostly Orange-ish shades.
-
*War and Peace (1956)*: In the poster, the characters ("peace") have a blue background, while the battlefield ("war") has an orange background.
- The book cover website Good Show Sir started using the tag "once you see it" for blue and orange covers in spring 2013. Because once you see it, you see it everywhere.
-
*Hilda and Richie*: Both foxes are colored orange; Richie plays this straight through most of the first book as he wears blue clothes, contrasting his orange fur. Hilda downplays this as her default wardrobe color is purple but does wear a light blue dress towards the end of the first book.
-
*Awake*: the two different universes that the show alternates between each get their own color palette: Red/orange for the reality where Britten's wife is alive, and green/blue for the one where his son is. It actually serves a purpose in making it obvious to a careful viewer which one the scene is taking place in.
- In the earlier seasons of
*Bar Rescue,* a recon would be punctuated by a white outline of the bar layout on a royal blue background. When an area of the bar was described in the narration, such as a speed well, it would be highlighted in orange.
-
*Burn Notice*: Watch out for Michael's orange skin, paired with a light blue shirt.
- The final scene of "For a Few Paintballs More" from
*Community* has this colouring all over the place, and it looks awesome. Annie, Abed, and Troy have white clothes which have been stained with orange paint from the sprinkles, while Jeff, Britta, and Pierce are dressed in blue of various shades.
-
*CSI: Miami* had a very saturated color palate while *CSI: NY* was originally darker and drearier. When the two crossed over, guess which characters were bathed in golden light while the others were in dark blue shadows.
-
*Doctor Who*: The new series does this a fair bit, especially the sixth series.
- "42" is prominently orange-lit, set on a mostly-orange spaceship falling into an orange sun. This trope comes into play during the scenes with Martha and Riley stuck in a blue-lit escape pod.
- "The Sound of Drums": The warehouse/flashback scene. The warehouse is dark blue except for the fire, Gallifrey has an orange sky (as established previously), and the Doctor's fire-lit face is 50/50 as he starts his monologue.
- "Nightmare in Silver" uses it to show ||the two sides of the Doctor's mindscape when the Cyber-Planner starts taking over.||
- The Thirteenth Doctor's TARDIS console room, as revealed in "The Ghost Monument", has glowing orange crystals and blue lights in the walls.
- The Thirteenth Doctor's outfit features a noticable amount of blue accents, contrasting with the amber light of her sonic screwdriver.
- Earlier, the Eleventh Doctor's first console room's walls were an orange-copper colour, contrasting with the bright blue of the police box exterior and door frame.
- In some scenes and in a good deal of promotional art, the titular character of
*The Flash (2014)* is awash in orange light or set against an orange background. Some villains, like Zoom and Savitar, are associated with blue light. For the former, it's a representation of his use of Velocity 9 to attain higher speeds. For the latter, it's a sign of his otherworldly connection to the Philosopher's Stone and the Speed Force.
-
*Fringe*: The intro sequence started off blue, but would change to red-orange depending on ||which universe the episode took place in||, sometimes switching back and forth to show frequent transitions during the episode. Much more subtle during the fifth season, but nonetheless present; often the ||now-fugitive|| Fringe team would have to double back to Walter's old Harvard lab, which is an orange hue due to being ||ambered,|| while the scenes that show them ||evading the Observers|| have a bluish tint.
-
*Gotham*: Virtually every scene is rendered in this palette to the point of absurdity. The cityscapes, however, are not.
-
*House*: The show's pilot episode employs an extreme version of this trope, with all colors other than certain shades of orange and blue being completely desaturated. This visual style wasn't carried forward to the full series, but it continued to inform the color scheme of the hospital setting throughout the show's run.
-
*Instant Star* used a blue filter for the school interior sequences, to better match the late 19th/early 20th century stone High School building they used for exteriors and disguise the interior sets built for the midcentury-modern Degrassi school building.
-
*Kamen Rider*
-
*Kamen Rider Agito*: G3 the Secondary Rider has blue armor with orange eyes.
-
*Kamen Rider Kabuto*: Gatack the Secondary Rider is predominantly blue with orange accents, including the eyes.
-
*Kamen Rider Den-O*: Rod Form, Urataros' Den-O form and the second Imagin form, is predominantly blue with orange accents including the eyes. Urataros himself has a blue Imagin body with orange eyes.
- This trope, and the former three examples, are highlighted in
*Test! The Rider Look-Alikes!!*, an installment in the *Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders Super Spin-off* webisode series.
-
*Kamen Rider Double* has the Nasca Dopant, who is predominantly cyan with orange accents on its visor and body, as well as two scarves that slowly fade from blue to orange. Its powered-up form, the R Nasca Dopant, removes this contrast and becomes primarily orange and red.
-
*Kamen Rider Gaim*: Gaim's primary form, Orange Arms, consists of bright orange armor worn over a dark blue bodysuit. In his more powerful Kachidoki Arms form, the orange overtakes the blue in most areas.
-
*Kamen Rider Ghost* has the main riders with these as the color scheme: Ghost the Main Rider is the Orange, while Specter the Secondary Rider is the Blue, and the both of them have contrasting kinds of personality.
-
*Kamen Rider Ex-Aid* gives Emu a Literal Split Personality form, Mighty Brothers XX (Double X), that represents the two sides of his personality: the teal-colored left side is him as a compassionate doctor while the orange right side is him as a fun-loving professional gamer. The colors also serve as Foreshadowing: ||if you invert them you get red and blue — the colors of Kamen Rider Para-DX's two forms, hinting that Parado is Emu's personal Bugster. After this is revealed Parado takes over the orange half of the Mighty Brothers since he was "Genius Gamer M" all along.||
-
*Star Trek: Picard*:
- In "Maps and Legends", the glowing blue graphics on the LCARS screens juxtapose the dark orange walls of the Utopia Planitia Shipyards.
- In "Broken Pieces", the chamber where Elnor's Fight Scene takes place has Unnaturally Blue Lighting, but the hallway leading to it has orange illumination. Depending on where the actors are standing, they may be bathed in both blue and orange light.
- In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", the sapphire blue wings of the synth butterfly that Picard admires gradually become bright orange; it expands from the center, spreading outward towards the tips before receding and returning the wings to their original blue shade.
- The
*Star Trek: Discovery* episode "Point of Light" features a Split-Screen Phone Call between Ash Tyler in a dark, orange-lit cavern on Qo'noS and Michael Burnham in her blue-lit cabin on *Discovery*.
-
*Veronica Mars*: The first season has a very obvious distinction in color-grading when depicting the past (in blues and cooler colors) versus the present (in oranges and warmer colors). It's less emphasized in the second season and entirely gone by the third, which carries over to the movie and the fourth season.
-
*Uchu Sentai Kyuranger*: The Orange and Sky Blue Rangers, Stinger and Kotaro, are paired together, both as a sub-unit of the larger team and because they have a big brother/little brother character dynamic.
-
*Ugly Betty*: Orange and blue show up frequently, in the decor at both Mode and the Suarez household, and in clothing like Betty's blue and orange poncho that she wears in the first episode. The contrast becomes even more pronounced when the Suarezes go to Mexico and the scenes there are given the yellow tint that all American media set in Mexico gets.
-
*Ultraman Ace*: Vakishim is mostly blue when viewed from the front and mostly orange when viewed from the back, which serves as a quick visual indicator that it's a Mix-and-Match Critter Yapool created from a caterpillar (blue) and a space monster (orange).
- Sugar's landmark album
*Copper Blue* has it both on the cover◊ and in the title: pure metallic copper is a vivid metallic orange, while copper sulfate is an intense blue.
- GunsNRoses's
*Use Your Illusion* double-album is an example of this trope. Use Your Illusion I's cover is painted in shades of red, yellow, and orange and is generally filled with heavier, harder-rocking songs. Use Your Illusion II's cover, by contrast is painted in shades of blue and purple and contains bluesier, softer rock songs.
- Dismember's
*Like an Ever Flowing Stream.*
-
*Darkness Descends* by Dark Angel, between the blue-hued graveyard and orange sky.
- Judas Priest uses this trope at times. Take a look at
*Sad Wings of Destiny,◊* *Defenders of the Faith,◊* and *Ram It Down* for a few examples.
- Morbid Angel's not quite as well known
*Formulas Fatal to the Flesh.◊*
- Green Day's 2012 trilogy◊ has Idiosyncratic Cover Art varying only the band member and the colors. Aside from opener
*¡Uno!* (green — for obvious reasons- background and pink font) note : and by extension making of documentary ¡Cuatro!, which reverses the scheme ) *¡Dos!* has an orange background and blue text, and *¡Tre!* is the opposite.
- Amaranthe used this contrast in the covers of their debut album and
*Manifest.*
- The music video for "Remember the Name" by Fort Minor is between this and a green wash. While Mike Shinoda (yes,
*that* Mike Shinoda) is rapping, it's more this, while Ryu (of Style of Beyond) gets the greenest parts.
- The video for Zedd's "Clarity" is based on this concept; popping colors and contrast leads to clarity, get it?
- The music video for Kvelertak's "Evig Vandrar" heavily uses this concept.
- Peter Hollens' video of "Gollum's Song" from Peter Jackson's
*The Lord of the Rings* movies, starts with images of Peter singing in front of an orange backdrop. A glowing line appears on the right side of the screen and slowly moves from right to left, as though burning away the orange backdrop, replacing it with images of Peter singing in front of a dark blue backdrop, his face heavily shadowed. This is meant to illustrate Smeagol's personality slowly being overtaken by Gollum's evil.
- The video for "Dream All Day" by The Posies.
- In the Darker and Edgier variant of Lights' "Ice", this is indicated by the Mortal Kombat-like energy bursts used by each character: orange for the heroine, blue for the villain.
-
*Godzilla (Stern)*'s artwork leans heavily on shades of orange and blue for various reasons, generally creating a thematic contrast between certain entities.
- The playfield artwork uses eye-catching oranges and blues for various effects: the former accompanies exploding buildings, fire, and general destruction, while the latter is associated with the Xiliens and electricity (particularly when it comes to Mechagodzilla).
- The Limited Edition artwork uses it as part of a fire-water dichotomy, associating Godzilla with orange-hued fiery destruction and Mechagodzilla with the deep blue ocean.
- Unlike most wrestlers in WWE, Sin Cara has special lighting
*during* his matches. Said lighting is orange and blue. Sin Cara's ring attire and entrance video are also orange and blue.
- WrestleMania XXVIII utilizes this for their poster.
- The World Wrestling League's "Idol's of" Poster from April 21, 2013. Though when Blue Demon Jr. and Mesias are on it, it's almost inevitable. Subverted when they were picked up by Mega TV and
*High Voltage* became the main show. Scene transitions would *switch* between orange and blue.
- The Amiga originally used black, white, blue, and orange. In its four-color mode — the one used by boot screens and the Workbench UI.
- One of the display palettes for the Apple II, though not as commonly used as black, white, green, and purple/magenta.
- The Firefox logo, of an orange fire/fox encircling the blue planet Earth, and the default color scheme of the browser.
- A short-lived TV service attempted by several phone companies in the mid-90s called Tele-TV utilized this in their logo and on-screen graphics.
- In stage lighting, when a 'white' light is desired, it is common practice to use complementing colors from opposing angles, often amber and blue. This approach gives more 'depth' to actors on stage, resulting in cool blue shadows and warm amber highlights.
- Theatre lights are colored by placing filters known as 'gels' in front of the lighting fixtures. The canonical gels for a basic warm/cool wash are R02 "Bastard Amber" and R60 "No Color Blue".
- The poster for the musical of
*Rebecca* is a giant R of bright orange fire on a deep blue background.
-
*BIONICLE*:
- The mainly blue Gahlok, Gahlok Va, and Gahlok-Kal have orange eyes, with the regular Gahlok even having orange Krana "brains".
- The blue Rahkshi, Guurahk, has orange eyes as well, though so do all the other Rahkshi. Likewise with the blue Skakdi Vezok and Nektann, and the blue Makuta Vamprah (though in 2006 and from 2008 on, almost all villainous characters had orange eyes).
- Nokama in her Toa Metru and Toa Hordika forms also had orange eyes to contrast her blue body.
- Also the Ga-Matoran Vhisola, whose primary color is blue.
- Likewise with the blue Boggarak and its orange eyes.
- The blue Vahki Bordakh had striking orange as its secondary color.
- The 2004 promo material likewise utilized this color-combo by lighting a portion of the background skyline orange to simulate the light and heat emanating from the industrial areas.
- LEGO
*Ice Planet 2002*, although white and black were important colors as well.
-
*NERF Brand*: The NERF Elite series has the blasters colored in blue, orange, and white color scheme.
-
*Battlefield* started using this trope with the cover art from the second *Battlefield: Bad Company* game, but *Battlefield 3* really started it in earnest by putting it in the game itself:
- Blue icons are used for the friendly team, orange for the opposing.
- Game/DLC posters. Orange for gunfire/explosions, blue for cooler atmospheric areas.
- Maps like Operation Metro and Death Valley are washed in blue, while Bandar Desert and Tallah Market are washed in orange.
- Explosions and muzzle flashes are notably orange in color.
-
*Blinx* is orange, and wears a blue jacket.
-
*Brink!*: Orange for Resistance, Blue for Security, all other colors for scenery.
-
*Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons*: The confident older brother wears blue, and his more timid younger brother wears orange.
-
*Crash Bandicoot* is a walking orange-blue contrast; a creature with orange fur wearing nothing but blue pants. In *Crash Team Racing* and *Crash Nitro Kart*, he also drives a blue kart. Ripper Roo in the former is the inverse, having blue fur and driving an orange kart. Crash's sister Coco is also orange, and primarily wears blue overalls (or in later games, blue jeans).
-
*Jak and Daxter*: Jak wears blue and is quiet and reserved. Daxter has orange fur and is loud and hammy.
-
*Mass Effect*:
- The morality of Commander Shepard is tracked on two separate karma meters, a blue one for "Paragon" actions and an orange one for "Renegade" actions.
- The first game used a lot more clean blues and whites in-game and the user interface was blue, while the second switched to gritter oranges and browns and the user interface turned orange. The third game switched back to blue much like the first, though the overall color palette was generally less vibrant and more subdued, giving it an almost grey undertone to match the hopeless, apocalyptic feeling the Reaper War evoked.
- The Systems Alliance and Cerberus, the two main human factions Shepard works for in the series, use blue and orange as their respective color schemes. Not surprisingly, the menus and color schemes in each game match whatever faction Shepard is working for at the time (blue for
*1* and *3* when working with the Alliance, orange for *2* when working with Cerberus).
-
*Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door*: Grubba's primary, passive form, interacted with as an NPC, is mostly blue in color. His much more active, aggressive powered-up form, which is fought as a boss, is instead bright orange.
-
*Star Wars: The Old Republic*: The Darkside marker is orange instead of the more obvious red, which contrasts vividly with the blue Lightside marker (though, given how this contrast is used elsewhere [blue = dark, orange = light], it seems very odd, to say the least).
-
*Tomb Raider II*: Some of the level with the Maria Doria are strongly orange/teal; surprisingly for a non-realistic PC game from 1997.
-
*Portal*: Everything significant to gameplay that comes in two forms, with the exception of the black and white test chamber walls themselves, is blue and orange (or blue and yellow): the two ends of the portal; the repulsion and propulsion gels; the pushing and pulling states of the excursion funnels; the off and on states of the lights indicating a connection with the Big Red Buttons; the highlights and eyes on Atlas and P-body; even the "eyes" of Wheatley and GLaDOS. The test chambers in *Portal* were deliberately made mostly cool blues in contrast to the warm oranges of the behind-the scenes-areas.
- The
*Half-Life* series in general is fond of this (orange HEV suit, blue G-Man, orange Resistance, blue Combine, blue Citadel in *Half-Life 2* contrasting with the orange destroyed Citadel in Episode 1, etc).
- The video game adaptations of
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* use practically only blue and orange shades throughout the game.
-
*Mega Man*:
- Every box art for the classic series features this in the cover. Once Zero (red) was introduced, he was often used for contrast with Mega Man X (blue).
- Atlas (orange) and Thetis (blue) from
*Mega Man ZX Advent* are this: Atlas is a hyper-aggressive (presumably) human social Darwinist girl who prefers brute force in combat and wants to use Model W to cause a Forever War, while Thetis is a rather calm Reploid boy who uses a halberd with very fluid techniques and loves the environment (especially underwater environments) to the point where he wants to use Model W to punish humanity for polluting the oceans.
-
*The Legend of Zelda*:
-
*Mortal Kombat 9* has this on the cover and, to a lesser extent, on the main menu background; both achieve this by putting Scorpion and Sub-Zero opposite each other.
- The title screen◊ of
*Aleste 2* features redhead Ellinor Waizen and the title in red-orange lettering against a deep-blue background.
-
*Singularity*: only in the time-warped alternate-2011, though. In 1955, another color palette is used. This is to help show off the unnatural state of the world in 2011.
-
*Sonic the Hedgehog*:
- The titular hedgehog and his fox companion Tails are colored blue and orange, respectively.
- Shadow the Hedgehog — although not orange-colored — features an orange aura in his spin-related attacks to contrast Sonic's bright blue color.
- The original
*Castlevania* for the NES had most, if not all, of its foreground scenery orange, complete with many blue backdrops throughout the game. Even Simon's sprites were a yellow-orange to help him pop out. Averted in *Vampire Killer* for the MSX2, which used a color palette of more subdued browns and shades of gray.
-
*Metroid*:
- Samus' orange Varia Suit contrasts with the cyan Zero Suit she wears underneath it, the blue outfits worn by Galactic Federation staff, most types of Phazon (and thus Dark Samus), and Sylux, a violently anti-Federation rival bounty hunter.
- In the original NES game, the orange Varia Suit contrasts with the opening areas of Brinstar, which predominantly use a blue color scheme.
-
*Metroid Prime* has two distinct types of Phazon. Their respective colors, indeed, are blue and orange (the latter inflicting damage at a rate 82% faster than in the former's case). The orange variety is only found in the Impact Crater, where the Final Boss awaits.
-
*Metroid Prime: Hunters* contrasts Sylux's blue with Spire's orange, with Sylux wanting to use the artifact everyone's looking for to terrorize the Federation and Spire wanting it to find his people.
-
*Metroid Prime 3: Corruption* uses this for box art and other artwork, but it's downplayed in the game itself. While blue is prominent because of Phazon becoming more abundant, orange is largely limited to Samus and her gunship. Shades of orange and some of yellow and/or cream are present in the areas and ambiance of Bryyo and Elysia; the Space Pirates' home planet features large amounts of red.
-
*Metroid Fusion*: Samus starts off with the blue Fusion Suit, while the SA-X is mimicking her orange Varia Suit.
-
*X3: Reunion's* boxart◊ features an orange lava planet with the series' signature "X" overlaid on it, showing a healthy blue planet. In the *Xtended Terran Conflict* Game Mod, Aldrin, a neutral system that most of the Multiple Game Openings begin in prominently features a massive blue Earth-like world backlit by a yellow-orange nebula.
-
*Final Fantasy*:
-
*Final Fantasy X* has Jecht wearing an orange-red sash, wielding a sword with red details, and he's associated with fire. His son Tidus meanwhile wears an outfit with dark blue colorings, his sword is bright blue, and he's associated with water.
-
*Dissidia Final Fantasy*, The Emperor shoots out two differently colored Flares, one orange and one blue. This is to let players tell them apart since the two attacks behave differently. Tidus and Jecht also return with the same color associates as in *Final Fantasy X*. Additionally, Order's Sanctuary is a water-filled white and blue field, while Edge of Madness is a black and red volcanic wasteland — the two arenas are the thrones of the rival gods Cosmos and Chaos.
-
*Red Faction Guerrilla* is set on Mars, a planet coated almost exclusively in red-orange dust. Indeed, most of the game's environments are variations on this theme. So rather than have the traditional orangey-yellow explosions and muzzle flares on the guns, the flame effects are distinctively blue. Furthermore, the antagonistic EDF buildings are all a dark blue with bright blue lights on them, making them pop out from the surrounding landscape (unlike their brown uniforms and cars).
- The Color-Coded Multiplayer in
*Team Fortress 2* may be red vs. blue, but the developers explicitly state that the reason so many of the early maps were set in desert environments was to create a contrast between the warm-colored rocks and dust and the blue sky.
-
*Monday Night Combat* makes its teams orange and blue.
-
*Counter-Strike: Global Offensive* uses counter-terrorist blue and terrorist orange-yellow as team colors.
-
*Pokémon*:
-
*Pokémon Black 2 and White 2*, the Black 2 box has blue (to represent electricity) while White 2 has reddish-orange (to represent fire). This also goes with the black and white contrast present in these games and their prequels.
- Also appears in the Primal Reversion forms of Groudon and Kyogre in
*Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire*.
- This is also the same case for Solgaleo and Lunala respectively in
*Pokémon Sun and Moon*.
- Fitting with the "past x future" theme of
*Pokémon Scarlet and Violet*, both versions have contrasting elements using orange and blue. Professor Sada wears orange prehistoric-like clothes and accessories, while Professor Turo wears a futuristic blue outfit. The same applies to the version mascots: Koraidon is predominantly orange, while Miraidon is predominantly blue. The trope is also present in the individual design of Koraidon, which has a mostly orange body with blue at the base of its plumes and antennae.
-
*Asura's Wrath*: Asura himself is painted and surrounded in orange flames while many of the enemies are advertised in blue backgrounds. The image on the main article and the box art are prime examples of this among others.
- Enforced in
*League of Legends*: many players with partial red-green color-blindness complained about the default Color-Coded Multiplayer scheme, so an orange-and-blue Color-Blind Mode was added.
- An option exists in
*Modern Warfare 3*. By default, teammates have green names and map dots and enemies red, so the colorblind assist option changes those colors to blue and orange, respectively.
-
*Legacy of Kain*, the two protagonists, Kain and Raziel, are color-coded like this. Kain wears a red sash around his chest while Raziel has blue skin, and their checkpoint emblems in *Defiance* are red and blue-green. Raziel devours blue souls while Kain drinks red blood. Blue and green are the colors of the Spectral Realm, Raziel's native plane of being, while orange and red are the colors saturating ||the hell dimension of the Hylden||, which Kain visits late in the game. There's also *Defiance's* "neutral" loading screen◊ — the character-specific ones are orange and blue.
- The Amstrad CPC version of
*Cybernoid* had the status bar framed in blue, while the level walls were orange. The Mission-Pack Sequel reversed this color arrangement.
-
*Turbo Girl* on the Amstrad CPC had the border art in flaming orange and shades of blue, with most elements of the first level using the same colors.
-
*Tiny and Big* is set in a desert with vibrant blue skies. The first two levels particularly use this trope, with Tiny's bright cyan laser cutter serving as a stark contrast to the orange-browns of the environment.
- The Mood Lighting of Los Santos in
*Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas* has this, with the sky being a strong shade of blue, and the ground heavily orange-tinted, coupled with heat haze to make the place look truly hot and smoggy.
-
*Elite Dangerous* uses a ton of orange (and the occasional bit of yellow or red) in its HUD. Teal is used more sparingly, but it's there. In fact, your primary and secondary fire groups are color-coded orange and teal, as is your throttle (to indicate whether you're in your optimal maneuvering thrust band). Modding the config files to change the HUD colors is popular, but this can negatively affect the radar's color-coding of targets.
- The infighting between the two leaders of the Golden Path in
*Far Cry 4* is represented by a blue elephant, who represents Sabal (who wears a blue jacket), fighting an orange tiger, who represents Amita (who wears an orange jacket). The uniform of the Golden Path is a blue outfit with a yellow logo and bandanna, but in a lot of light, the yellow looks orange. Your skill tree is also divided between orange tiger skills and blue elephant skills.
-
*Transistor* has this everywhere, right from the start, where the blue of the eponymous sword contrasts with the reddish-orange colour scheme of, well, Red.
-
*Smite*: Order structures show up as bluish-green on the map and Chaos structures show up as orange.
- In
*James Bond 007: The Duel* for the Sega Genesis, shades of blue and orange dominate the background palette for most of the game. The exceptions are Mission 2 (the only level set in a natural environment) and Mission 5, which replaces the oranges with purples and reds.
-
*Conker's Bad Fur Day*: Conker is an orange squirrel wearing a cyan shirt.
-
*Splatoon* uses covering everything in neon ink as a main gameplay mechanic, so Color Contrast is essential between teams. While there are many combinations in the games, blue and orange is the most featured pair for the original game, being used in trailers, promotional artwork, and the box art. The orange Inkling girl and blue Inkling boy are even considered the Series Mascots for the franchise, being the default representatives when appearing in other games such as *Mario Kart 8 Deluxe* and *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*. In a more practical use of the pair, activating color lock mode in this first entry forces all online multiplayer team colors to orange and blue. The *Octo Expansion* campaign in *Splatoon 2* makes a Call-Back to the classic blue and orange ink in ||the boss fight with Inner Agent 3.||
-
*Undertale* has blue-colored attacks which will only damage you if you move while it moves through you and orange attacks which will damage you if you don't move.
-
*Robocraft*: As of the Full Spectrum Combat update, the game gives a choice of sixteen colors to color your robot with. However, twelve of them are only available to premium account users. The others can only pick between white, gray, *blue and orange*.
-
*Borderlands*: Days and nights on Pandora in all games are only differentiated by the color filter (orange for daytime, blue for nighttime). More subtly, there's the reddish-orange and dark yellow of Jakobs (marked Western-inspired Nostalgia Filter, high base damage, no elemental effects) contrasting the cobalt blue of Maliwan (futuristic and sleek, low base damage, always elemental). note : This is less pronounced in *Borderlands 2* and onwards, when brands aren't just a Palette Swap of one another, but still noticeable most of the time.
-
*Halo 3*: The game's box art has this.
-
*FTL: Faster Than Light*: The Rebel ships have orange-painted hulls with bright-blue stripes running on them. *Red-Tail*, a variant of the *Kestrel* cruiser, features such a paint-job.
-
*Fast Racing League*: Orange and cyan are the two phase colors used in Neo and RMX. Switching to the correct color when going over a corresponding element will provide a speed boost.
-
*Tealy and Orangey* has one half of the screen be blue and the other orange. Tealy and Orangey are two balls of their eponymous colors and are unaffected by hazards of the opposite color.
-
*Hollow Knight*: The starting areas, Howling Cliffs, Dirtmouth, and the Forgotten Crossroads, all have a similar dark blue color scheme, which makes the orange Infection stand out as something abnormal compared to the rest of the environments. This becomes even more pronounced once the Forgotten Crossroads ||becomes the Infected Crossroads||.
-
*Warframe*: Plenty of sceneries feature a lot of contrast between orange and blue, such as dim orange lighting inside Grineer galleons and sealabs supplemented with blue light coming through the windows, terraformed Mars having brown canyons under clear blue sky or blue Corpus platforms floating through Jupiter's orange atmosphere.
-
*Stealth Bastard*: The paired, handheld teleporter devices are orange and blue.
-
*Just Cause 3*: The devs have stated that they were invoking this when designing the country of Medici, contrasting orange rocks and sand with clear blue sky and sea. The colour scheme is also present in the flag of the rebels, to contrast with the Red/Green Contrast colour scheme of Di Ravello's regime.
-
*Progressbar 95*: Blue segments are correct and orange ones are wrong (you can still collect them, but you won't get the bonus points blues would give).
- This is heavily featured throughout
*Wick (2020)*; the cathedral is mostly blues and blacks, while the area surrounding Wick and any candles he lights is gold and orange.
-
*Wordle*: High contrast mode substitutes orange and blue for green and yellow.
-
*XCOM 2*: Whenever the Council Spokesman appears, his facial features are hidden in darkness, with a glaring orange light to one side of him and another equally strong blue light on the other.
-
*Digital: A Love Story*: The Amie Workbench's color scheme (itself a sendup of the original Amiga Workbench) uses white, black, orange, and blue.
- The book cover of the webcomic
*Gifts of Wandering Ice*. A yellowish candlelight of a lantern against the blue ice.
- In
*Unit-M*, Agent Orange is a walking embodiment of this trope, sporting orange body hair and blue skin.
- AlterNet: In early 2015, shifted to an orange and navy blue color scheme.
-
*Cracked*:
-
*Looming Gaia*: Evan wears a lot of blue while his best friend/boyfriend Lukas wears orange. Evan is friendly and good-natured, while Lukas is stoic and cynical.
-
*Chowder*: Blue-skinned and nice Mung Daal clashes with and has a rivalry with the orange-skinned and snobbish Endive.
-
*Phineas and Ferb*:
- Phineas wears an orange striped shirt with blue shorts. He also has orange hair and blue eyes. Some minor characters also do this, an example being librarian Sherman(one of the members of the band that Phineas and Ferb work to reunite), who wears an orange shirt with a blue tie.
- During "Gitchee Gitchee Goo", the color filter switches back and forth between orange and blue. The most prominent background shapes are blue, creating a stark contrast during the points when the filter is orange.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic* makes habitual use of this trope in its character designs, employing it in some form whenever characters appear in contrast or association with each other.
- This trope helps highlight the friendly rivalry between the orange Applejack and the electric blue Rainbow Dash. While it's mostly a bonus for the toy box art, this has rarely been used due to miscommunication between the animation and toy divisions.
- The Wonderbolts, on top of their yellow and blue outfits, also mostly come in shades of orange and blue in regards to their coat and mane colors. Spitfire and Soarin', the two most prominent Wonderbolts and the ones who get most speaking parts, are respectively yellow with a fiery orange mane and icy blue with a navy mane.
- This trope is also associated with Princess Celestia, who raises and lowers the sun and is associated with the day, and Princess Luna, who controls the moon, safeguards dreams and is associated with the night.
- Celestia is generally associated with warm, orange-spectrum colors: her magic glows a golden yellow, and her throne is orange and red. Luna, besides being colored navy blue herself, has a deep blue magic aura. In the movie, Luna gets her own blue throne next to Celestia's orange one, and each is depicted with a stained glass window above it — Luna's has a blue depiction of the crescent moon, while Celestia's has a bright orange sun.
- This is especially visible in Luna and Celestia's Superpowered Evil Sides, Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker. Nightmare Moon is clad in blue armor, has a mane consisting of a flowing, navy-blue star field and eyes with light blue scleras and teal irises, and is drawn with a blue outline. Daybreaker is clad in orange armor, has a blazing orange and yellow inferno for a mane and eyes with burnt-brown scleras and glowing yellow irises, and is drawn with an orange outline.
- This is visible with Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst, two old friends who often star in shared episodes and who played important roles in each others' backstories. Starlight and her family tend towards blue-spectrum colors, whereas Sunburst and his tend towards oranges and other fiery colors. Starlight is purple, with a cyan streak in her mane and tail and the same color prominently displayed in her cutie mark; her father is purple, with a green mane and tail. Sunburst is light orange with a darker orange mane, while his mom has a burnt orange coat and a reddish mane. His dad, although only seen in flashbacks, has a yellow coat and orange mane.
- The Hooffields and McColts, a pair of Feuding Families from the episode of the same name, have their rivalry and division highlighted by this color contrast. The Hooffields are exclusively colored in shades of orange, burnt reds, and browns and have curly hair. The McColts, by contrast, have slate blue, gray, and teal coats and straight hair.
- Shimmy Shake and Lighthoof, two cheerleaders who are effectively a single character in terms of personality and never seen apart, are distinguished from one another almost solely by their color schemes. Shimmy Shake's eyes, mane, and coat are bright orange and her cutie mark magenta, while Lighthoof has a cyan coat, aquamarine mane and eyes, and a purple and dark blue cutie mark.
-
*Hey Arnold!* uses orange and blue contrast in their credits, popping the yellow names of the crew out of the blue backround. And in the Halloween special, it was actually orange.
-
*Ned's Newt*: Ned wears an orange shirt, while Newton is entirely blue (almost blue in some of his forms).
- In
*Avatar: The Last Airbender*, the Grand Finale has two determining fights happening in parallel: Aang/Ozai and Azula/Zuko. Both were red, or a kind of orange, versus blue. In one fight, Blue was good, in the other, blue was evil; in both, the fights were made all the more dramatic for the contrast.
- Rabbit Ears Productions: The climax of
*The Legend of Sleepy Hollow* is illustrated with a largely blue and orange palette, which fits well with the terrifying mood of the scene
-
*The Loud House*:
- The main character, Lincoln, is normally wearing an orange Polo shirt with a pair of blue jeans.
- He also has this dynamic with his best friend, Clyde, who has blue stripes on his shirt.
-
*Transformers*:
- In the original G1
*Transformers* series, the Autobots' crashed-spaceship-used-as-an-H.Q. is orange, and the Decepticons' crashed-spaceship-used-as-an-H.Q. is blueish-purple.
- Autobots Huffer and Dion (Orion Pax's friend in the past) have the orangeblueish purple contrast.
- Both of Optimus Primal's Transmetal upgrades in
*Beast Wars* employ this trope, with his first upgrade granting him an orange robot mode and blue beast mode. His second upgrade, ||courtesy of his taking in Generation 1 Optimus Prime's spark to save it||, distributes the orange and blue equally in all of his modes, much like ||his ancestor/namesake||.
-
*Transformers: Animated*: Jetstorm and Jetfire are like-minded twins. The complementary nature of their respective blue and orange color schemes also reflects the fact that they are Combining Mecha. Their commander Sentinel Prime also shares their colors, being mostly blue with orange highlights.
-
*Wander over Yonder*: Wander's body is orange and Sylvia's is blue. They're the two leads and traveling companions.
-
*Steven Universe*:
- Pearl's main outfits utilize a golden yellow/peachy pink and teal color scheme, so it comes off as a pastel variation on this trope.
- The Quartz soldiers encountered in "The Zoo" are mostly Amethysts from the Prime Kindergarten and are purple. However, many of them are Jaspers or Carnelians from the Beta Kindergarten and are consequently orange or reddish-orange.
-
*The Amazing World of Gumball*:
- The two main characters, Gumball and Darwin, are blue and orange respectively. The same contrast is also made when their mother Nicole and Darwin are together, since Nicole is the same blue as Gumball.
- Same with the Official Couple, Gumball and Penny post-"The Shell".
- Recurring character Felicity Parham is orange and her son Billy is blue. The former also has blue lips.
-
*Life With Loopy*: Loopy has robin's egg blue hair and cornflower blue eyes and her older brother, Larry, has red-orange hair and light orange eyes.
- In
*Scaredy Squirrel*, Dave is a blue skunk who wears an orange shirt and vest.
- Many examples in
*Ready Jet Go!*. Bergs wears an orange shirt and blue jeans. His orange shirt also contrasts with his co-worker Dr. Rafferty's blue shirt. Sunspot's orange fur contrasts with Moonbeam's blue fur. And Mindy wears an orange shirt and blue denim shorts.
- In
*Storm Hawks*, Piper's outfit is mostly blue with various orange sections, and she wears an orange headband to complement her navy/cobalt hair.
-
*The Backyardigans* features best friends Pablo, a blue penguin, and Tyrone, an orange moose. Interestingly, they respectively form a Red Oni, Blue Oni duo.
-
*Star Wars: The Clone Wars*: Ahsoka Tano has orange skin, blue eyes, and blue stripes on her montrals (the white sensory organs on her head that resemble hair). ||In season 7, she gets blue lightsabers and the clone troopers she is working with have painted their helmets orange to go along with their white and blue armor in her honor.||
-
*Jackie Chan Adventures*: Jackie wears a blue shirt with khaki-colored pants and is the calm, sensible Technical Pacifist. His niece Jade wears an orange hoodie with blue jeans and is hotheaded, cunning, and ready to fight first, ask questions later.
- The titular character of
*Zeke's Pad* has blue hair and wears an orange shirt, drawing attention to himself (no pun intended) as the main protagonist.
-
*Danny Phantom*: Jack and Maddie Fenton wears orange and blue jumpsuits, respectively. Jack is immature and childish while Maddie is much more sensible.
-
*Work It Out Wombats!*: Zeke's orange fur contrasts with his blue shirt, as well as his brother Malik's blue fur. Super's blue fur contrasts with her orange dress. Sammy has orange skin and blue stripes on his back.
- Blue and Orange is a popular color set for team colors, from schools through the pros and in almost every sport, including auto racing.
- This trope is the reason the old-fashioned 3D glasses for anaglyph 3D images use red and cyan; as complementary colors, they filter the three main colors of light into one of the two lenses (green and blue mixed creates cyan, and red is just red). Other, less common, anaglyph color patterns include red and green, magenta and blue, and magenta and green, but it's the red and blue that works best and have stuck around.
- John Logie Baird, a Scottish television engineer, invented the Telechrome, an early attempt at color television. It used a CRT with two electron guns. They corresponded to cyan and red-orange phosphors, two complementary colors chosen to display skin tones accurately. Perhaps if a video has a particularly extreme blue and orange theme, it would look just fine displayed on a Telechrome. Ultimately, Red, green and blue were decided for color TV, using CRTs with three electron guns.
- Following the 2011 Canadian federal election, the government was split with the Conservative Party of Canada (blue) in power and the New Democratic Party (orange) forming the Official Opposition. Interestingly the NDP's policies are also largely agreed to be in sharper contrast with the Conservative Party than the previous opposition: the Liberal Party (red).
- Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, has orange clouds, but a dark blue atmosphere.
- Life vests and life jackets tend to be bright orange for this exact reason. They make swimmers stand out against blue water, and thus more likely to be rescued in an emergency. An airplane's "black box" will also be orange for the same reason.
- Related is the concept of Safety orange, which is often used by hunters and construction workers to stand out against the blue sky.
- Sunsets on the blue-colored Earth are colored orange, but sunsets on the orangey-red Mars are colored blue.
- The 1970s◊ logo for London Weekend Television has a blue-white-orange stripe that forms the letters LW. The 1980s◊ revision changed the orange to a red.
- The NTSC analog television system's YIQ color space has the orange and blue contrast along the in-phase (I) axis and the green and purple contrast along the quadrature (Q) axis. More bandwidth is allocated to I than to Q because the eye is more sensitive to orange and blue contrast.
- Some forms of colorblindness make it difficult to see red or green (or both). As a result, this can force a person to
*only* see yellow/orange and blue. This is inverted with yellow-blue color blindness (tritanopia) which forces a person *not* to see those colors.
- The colour of the sand in some areas of Namib Desert is vivid orange, and the contrast with a clear blue sky is simply stunning. Have a look at Google Images search for the words "orange blue Namib."
-
*Technically* not allowed in traditional Western European Heraldry, since Orange (called "Tenne") and Blue (called 'Azure') are both classified as 'colors', as opposed to the 'metals' "Or" (gold/yellow) and "Argent" (silver/white), and the rules forbid the use of color on color. Artistic license in the actual colors chosen means that a gold or yellow can be rendered as quite orangey, thereby sneaking past the prohibition.
- The first flag of the Netherlands, the Prinsenvlag, was an orange-white-blue tricolour, as are the flags of New York City and Albany and the former flag of South Africa, all of which were based on the Prinsenvlag due to the important role the Dutch played in those areas. New York City's use of blue and orange extends to several of its sports teams, including baseball's Mets
note : itself a double homage to the previous two National League teams that used to play in the city before they both left for California in 1957 — blue for the Dodgers and orange for the Giants, basketball's Knicks, hockey's Islanders note : They play outside of the city in Nassau County, but the county also has a blue and orange flag, and soccer's NYCFC.
- Often employed on food packaging to make it stand out, most notably the Scottish drink Irn-Bru and the UK snack food Wotsits. To some people in the UK, this colour combination evokes these things regardless of what it's used for.
- Road construction signs, as the bright orange contrasts to the sky.
- The logo of
*Nickelodeon* is frequently orange-colored, while that of its nighttime counterpart (Nick @ Nite) is blue-colored. And the logo for their preschool block (and later channel) Nick Jr. has the "Nick" portion in its trademark orange, with "Jr." in light blue.
- Some hospitals employ this in their rooms, orange for evening and blue for daylight. Blue light suppresses melatonin during the day while orange light lets healthcare workers go about their tasks with reduced disruption of a patient's sleep cycle.
- Europe's two main continental Association Football competitions, the UEFA Champions League and Europa League, identify themselves respectively with blue and orange.
- Copper is an orangey-red metal that burns with a blue flame and gives the color to several vividly blue-to-green compounds and ores, such as turquoise, malachite, chrysocolla, and copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate.
- Some double stars, most notably Almach and Albireo, offer a very nice contrast between an orange primary star and a secondary that appears blue -green for some observers-.
- Shortly before sunset and after sunrise. In photography, both periods share the nickname "Blue Hour". Everything takes on a bluish shade, which often contrasts with manmade lighting: usually an orange tint.
- In the Georgian and Victorian periods, blue and orange were Britain's main political colors, representing the Tories and Whigs respectively, although there was regional variation. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrangeAndBlueContrast |
Orbital Shot - TV Tropes
*"Look, can we stop talking like this? I'm getting very dizzy."*
In this inverse of the Round Table Shot, there is only one subject around whom the camera circles (usually on a dolly track), so as to provide a rotating view from all sides. Sometimes used to give the impression that the subject is spinning.
This was a particularly common shot in music videos during the 1980s. Sometimes after a blurred orbit the setting might be altered to simulate a sudden change. See also Dizzy Cam, which is an Orbital Shot done with a handheld camera at a distressing speed.
Orbital Kiss is a common subtrope. The Orbital Shot is often used in Bullet Time.
Not to be confused with Kill Sat or Orbital Bombardment, both an entirely different kind of orbital shot. Also not to be confused with Roundabout Shot.
## Examples:
- In the final episode of
*Steel Angel Kurumi 2*, the animators' virtual camera does an Orbital Shot around Nako as she performs in the cello competition.
- This happens in
*Death Note*, during a personal confrontation between L and Light.
- The ninja teams in the second opening of
*Naruto*.
- There is one in
*Ouran High School Host Club* around Renge, when she accuses the members of the male club of not being good enough.
- In the opening of the second season of
*K-On!*, there is an orbital shot around the whole band as they're playing in the music room.
- This is seen in the first episode of
*Fate/Zero*, as Kirei is told about the Holy Grail War.
- Episode 1 of
*Kotoura-san* uses this camera trick during the Downer Beginning when Haruka's elementary classmates chant "Monster! Monster! Monster!" towards her after they figured out she has Telepathy. It is done *very effectively* since that moment forever and clearly establishes her sense of loneliness and betrayal even though she was being Innocently Insensitive.
-
*Sailor Moon Crystal* has a fairly elaborate and protracted one in its Transformation Sequence, where the spinning is paired with dizzying zooms and zoom-outs that give a three-dimensional view of the sparkly, prismatic CGI void the heroine transforms in.
- The
*Bleach* anime's opening credits sequence ends on one of these of Ichigo.
- The anime adaptation of
*March Comes in Like a Lion* employs this when Rei let's out a Cathartic Scream in an empty park after Yasui takes out his frustration over his loss onto Rei.
- The first episode of
*Nana Moon* features a rotating shot of Keke as she stands in fear in the elevator when its lights start to flicker as a result of the comet's power.
-
*Brother Bear*: During the song "No Way Out", as Kenai is confessing to Koda that ||he killed his mother||.
-
*Cars 3*: At the start of the Good-Times Montage of Lightning's success near the beginning of the movie as he is racing the Dinoco Light 350, the camera is rotating around him.
-
*The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part*: At the start of "Catchy Song", the camera circles around Wyldstyle to show her feeling of being surrounded by the speakers blaring the music. However, her head keeps facing the camera, turning around on her shoulders at the same rate.
-
*The Lion King (1994)*: When Scar is interrogating Simba in front of his pride over his "responsibility" for Mufasa's death.
-
*My Little Pony: Equestria Girls*:
- Very much overused in
*Norm of the North*. The camera will frequently orbit around the characters, often with little rhyme nor reason. Case in point.
-
*Ratatouille*: While Rémy adds ingredients to the soup just before he notices Linguini watching him.
-
*Shrek*:
-
*Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs*: Happens when the Queen drinks her potion and begins to transform into an old hag.
- In
*Turning Red*, this is combined with a transition to an overhead shot during the red moon ritual scene.
- Used forebodingly in
*Watership Down*, when Hazel's group are inside Cowslip's warren. They're bunched up in the middle of a large chamber with multiple entrances, and the perspective rotates around the room, looking at them through each entrance in turn. It's creepy, because two or three resident rabbits crouch anxiously inside each tunnel, out of the newcomers' view, and are eavesdropping on their conversation.
- In
*Bad Boys II*, when the villain calls the heroes to inform them that he holds the lead girl (who happens to be one hero's sister and the other's girlfriend) hostage, the camera does a dramatic Orbital Shot as one of them delivers the punchline "Shit just got real!"
- Sent up in
*Hot Fuzz*, where the camera spins around the protagonists as they deliver these immortal lines:
**Angel:** You're a doctor. Deal with it. **Danny:** Yeah, motherfucker.
- Parodied in
*Superhero Movie*: Dragonfly and the Hourglass confront each other while the camera spins around... making both of them rather dizzy.
- Famously,
*The Matrix* during Bullet Time.
- Homaged in
*Shaolin Soccer*, when Sing confronts the bullies with a soccer ball while the coach watches.
- Used during Pita's kidnapping in
*Man On Fire*.
- In the
*Twilight* films, this happens whenever Bella and Edward stand beside each other, to denote the seriousness of their conversation. It got really annoying, really fast.
- Done to excess in the final rendition of 'This Is Me' in
*Camp Rock* when Shane and Mitchie meet on the middle of a catwalk-esque podium to sing.
- The forced Mind Meld between Spock and Valeris in
*Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country*
- The Joker and Rachel in
*The Dark Knight* in his second "You wanna know how I got these scars?" scene where he crashes Harvey Dent's fundraiser.
-
*The Dark Knight Rises*:
- Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle get a lot of overlapping close-up orbital shots during the scene where they are dancing together.
- During Batman's first fight with Bane, there is an orbital shot of Bane after Batman tries killing the lights.
- In the just-begging-for-a-RiffTrax horror film
*Darkhunters*, there is a scene where a demon is holding Carol Miller by her jacket and pulling her up to his face, and while they talk the camera is constantly panning around them. It's not a continuous shot but a series of half-orbits around the two of them, zoomed in close to their faces. Watch it here starting at 51:50. It lasts nearly three minutes, so have a bucket handy... Dizziness exacerbated by forcing you to read subtitles during the whole thing!
- A fairly brilliant one in
*Murder in the First,* orbiting a cell set in the middle of a room. Thanks to flyaway walls, the camera appears to move in and out of the cell.
- Abused a lot in
*House of the Dead*, during the big zombie fight scene.
- A long one at the climax of
*Talk Radio*.
- This happens every time Nash has a "Eureka!" Moment in
*A Beautiful Mind*.
- Done in
*Public Enemies* during the start of the second bank robbery. The camera starts level with their gloved hands. Then it swivels around Pete Pierpont as they enter.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- In
*Captain America: The First Avenger*, after Cap escapes the S.H.I.E.L.D. holding area in Manhattan, he ends up in Times Square. The spinning camera nicely represents his bewilderment at the sights and sounds of the modern world. "Times Square Orbital Shot" could be a trope on its own.
- In
*The Avengers*, during Nick Fury's famous quote — "I recognize the council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I've elected to ignore it." — the camera is orbiting around him and the holographic screens showing the council.
-
*A Pearl in the Forest* has a variant on this. Sednem escapes from her village after she is raped. As she breaks down in hysterics in the forest, the forest spins around her, a shot that was presumably captured by placing the actress and the camera together on a rotating platform.
- The opening scene of
*Reservoir Dogs* at the diner, where the protagonists are having a random conversation while the camera spins around the table.
- The extended cut of
*King Kong (2005)* includes an orbital shot of a sailor being Eaten Alive by the piranhadon.
-
*The Shawshank Redemption* has a neat example with an orbital shot of Red ||as he's looking for Andy's hidden cache in the forest, showing how vast and wide the space he's in is, the kind of space he hasn't been in for most of his life.||
-
*Judgment at Nuremberg*: Director Stanley Kramer was nervous about his long courtroom examination scenes coming across as boring on the screen. So he filled the movie with swooping, circling camera movement in and around the characters. The most extreme example of this, and the most famous shot in the movie, is the scene where the camera does a complete 360-degree orbit around Col. Lawson during his opening statement.
- In
*12*, a Russian remake of *12 Angry Men*, the first vote of the jury is captured in a 3 1/2-minute tracking shot that makes a full circle around the jurors. Just when the camera completes its circle and it like it seems the jury will be done in five minutes, the camera zooms in on the Rogue Juror casting his lone Not Guilty vote.
-
*Primer:* Seen when Aaron realizes Abe wants to make a bigger box.
-
*A Hard Day's Night*: While The Beatles are performing "And I Love Her", the camera rotates around Paul McCartney's head, before being silhouetted with a stage light.
-
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part One* does one as Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Mundungus and Fleur all take Polyjuice Potion to assume Harry's appearance. The camera does a full circle, tracking over the five swallowing Polyjuice doses from Moody's flask, then following Moody as he walks around Harry. By the time the camera has gotten back to its starting point, the Polyjuice has taken full effect.
**Fred and George:** Wow, we're identical!
**Moody:** Not yet, you're not.
-
*Arrowverse*:
-
*The Flash (2014)*: Toward the end of "Invincible", the camera circles around Barry, Cisco, and Caitlin when they're talking in the pipeline.
-
*Crisis on Earth-X Part 4*, the camera rotates around a few of the heroes standing in a circle starting when Oliver asks if they've located the Earth-X Waverider.
- Frequently used on
*Lost* when "the whispers" are heard, including a shot of Sayid first hearing the whispers in "Solitary."
- The final scene of the
*Battlestar Galactica* episode "Pegasus".
- Happens in the last episode of
*Carnivàle* while Ben is healing people, spliced with the scene of the ferris wheel spinning.
- The
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer* episode "Lie to Me", when Ford is inviting Buffy to come into his trap.
- Occasionally used on
*MythBusters* to intro a special guest (such as the Navy pilot who took Adam up for the sonic boom vs glass tests).
- Used on the 2009 version of
*V* in episode 5 when Anna talks to someone.
-
*Glee* loves this technique, especially during solos.
- Used during several episodes in the Korean Series
*You Are Beautiful*, such as ||Taekyung and Minam kissing.||
- Used in the CBBC series
*Moondial*, the first time Minty travels into the past.
-
*Stargirl (2020)*: In "Shiv Part One", the camera spins around Stargirl and Shiv for almost 20 seconds during their battle in the auditorium.
- In the
*Star Trek: The Original Series* episode "The Naked Time", the camera circles Spock as he loses control and begins to sob. Leonard Nimoy actually suggested this, as he thought it would be more powerful than a regular shot.
- Almost Once per Episode in
*Star Trek: The Next Generation*, especially in the first season. When the Enterprise D is about to engage its warp drive, the virtual camera will start at either the port or starboard bow, track a full circle around the ship, and end at the stern on the same side before the engines engage.
- Used in the final battle of
*Ultra Fight Orb*, when Orb launches ALL three of his Sluggers to slice Reibatos into chunks. The camera pans around Reibatos so that we, the audience, can clearly see that every inch of the villain's body is being minced.
- More than one episode of
*Ultraman Z* does this, notably in the crossover episode when Ultraman Z and his godfather, Ultraman Ace, takes on the monster Barabbas; the camera spins around Barabbas as both Ultras flies in circles blasting the monster with their ranged attacks.
-
*CSI: NY*: Used nicely in "Hung Out to Dry" as the camera pans all the way around Mac while he's noodling over the cryptic messages on the victims' t-shirts.
- Used in one of the later conversations with Jack in
*Mass Effect 2*, when the camera rotates around her as she tells Shepard about her boyfriend's sacrifice and the effect it had on her.
-
*Super Smash Bros. Brawl*'s Subspace Emissary mode uses this once, when Ness pulls a Big Damn Heroes moment and destroys ||Pokey's statue||.
- Happens when you idle in
*Fallout 3*, *Oblivion*, and *Morrowind*.
-
*Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones* has this as the Prince performs a finishing move on the Final boss
- In
*Max Payne 2*, if you are on a ledge and you jump off and pause it will result in this.
- The reveal trailer for
*Guilty Gear Xrd* actually uses this as a Wham Shot, showing that the game isn't using high resolution sprites like prior games in the series but instead 3D models that have been meticulously animated to resemble sprites as closely as possible.
- The last cutscene in
*Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil*, the one with ||Lolo giving Klonoa a tearful hug good-bye||, orbits around the characters when it happens.
-
*MegaTokyo* does this in five panels, in the middle of a fight in a crowded nightclub. It's about as confusing as you'd expect, and it's entirely possible to miss the fact that it's the *camera* that's rotating, not Kimiko.
- In
*Phantom Planet*, the finale of *Danny Phantom*, ||Danny and Sam|| get one during a romantic moment.
- In an episode of
*The Fairly OddParents!* Timmy has one as he tries on Vicky's crown and is cheered on by all the children.
- Attempted by Bloo in
*Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends* as he was making a movie about... something. The camera was an imaginary friend himself who said he always hated that effect.
- Used in
*The Legend of Korra* episode "The Revelation" when Korra and Mako are fighting some chi-blockers.
-
*Mike, Lu & Og*: In "Nobody's Nose", when the natives surround Mike while proclaiming her to be the "nose" of the First Day of Spring festival.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*
- Done in "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" as the town is cheering Rainbow after she saves a group of senior ponies.
- Happens at one point in "Sleepless in Ponyville".
- Twilight has one in part one of "Twilight's Kingdom" as she is looking up at the princesses flying around her during their Pep-Talk Song.
-
*Elinor Wonders Why*: Done in the episode "Light The Way" as Elinor, Olive, and Ari see dozens of fireflies blinking around them as they blink lights in the night. It's known as one of their famous scenes in the show.
-
*Ninjago*: Used in a flashback in "The Hatching", toward the end of Wu and Garmadon's battle with the Time Twins.
-
*The Simpsons*:
- "Mother Simpson": When Mona sees Joe Namith's wavy hair and opens up to the wild 1960s culture. During this moment, the house background turns into psychedelic, colorful graphics.
- "Grade School Confidential": When Principal Skinner and Mrs. Krabappel embrace while sharing a dance in the romantically-lit school cafeteria.
- "All About Lisa": When Lisa gets applause from the audience at Krusty's show and feels the sensation of popularity for the first time.
- In an episode of
*Catscratch*, the brothers visit Scotland to prove that Gordon is from the Highland Quid clan like he always says he is. When Gordon learns that he may not be from the clan, there's an orbital shot as the words "not from the Highland Quid clan" echo in the background and Gordon has a Heroic BSoD.
- Occurs in
*The Powerpuff Girls (1998)* episode "Fuzzy Logic" when Fuzzy does a Big "NO!" after seeing the squirrel holding up his banjo.
-
*Ready Jet Go!*:
- Used on Jet during the "Lone Star" song in the episode of the same name.
- Used on Mitchell when he sings "The Spirit of Christmas" in "Holidays in Boxwood Terrace".
- Used on Zerk when he looks at the view from the treehouse in "Zerk Visits Earth".
-
*Star Wars: The Clone Wars*, "The Gungan General": When Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Dooku are returned to their cell after their first escape attempt and Hondo is pacing a circle around them the camera tracks Hondo's movements.
- Pearl gets a very dramatic and aesthetically pleasing one in the
*Steven Universe* episode "Mr. Greg".
-
*Tangled: The Series*: Combined with Counterpoint Duet in ||"Cassandra's Revenge" when the camera circles around Varian and Cassandra arguing in song form whether Cassandra is too far gone or not.||
- Done at least Once per Episode in
*Vampirina*, usually during a song number.
- "Verwitterte Melodie" (1943) includes what was a very sophisticated shot for animation of the era, in which the camera does a full 360-degree turn around a record player that a bee finds forgotten in a meadow. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrbitalShot |
Optional Stealth - TV Tropes
**Chirrut:**
I thought you'd charge in guns blazing.
**Bria:**
I want to kill my dad, but it's a stealth mission. You keep stealthing until you fail,
*then*
you kill everyone.
**Chirrut:**
So you're ready to fail then?
**Bria:**
Sure! That's why I've got three blasters.
So there we are: just outside the enemy base, guards are roaming around, looking for you, and the MacGuffin is on a table protected by several closed doors and a little maze you have to navigate throught full of guards. Sounds like your everyday stealth mission....
Except that you have also a decent amount of weaponry, good fighting skill and the enemy AI isn't too bright in regards of disappearing guards. And if you decide to simply charge inside and shoot on everything that moves, you don't suffer from Non Standard Game Over or other too unpleasant maluses.
Sometimes the programmers will be aware of the fact that obligatory Stealth-Based Missions tend to be hard, frustrating and sometimes even bordering on That One Level status. So they'll decide to offer an alternate way to solve the mission. It can give some variety to the game, but has its disadvantages: the most common is that if you fail or ditch the stealth part you'll be penalized somehow (less points, the mission is listed as failed, don't get the 100%, less experience points, etc.), or a successful stealth action will grant you more benefits. In other situations the enemies will be very strong or dangerous and so the stealth approach will allow you to avoid fighting those guys.
This may lead to Starts Stealthily, Ends Loudly. Compare with Combat, Diplomacy, Stealth. Do not confuse with Useless Useful Stealth, which is about stealth mechanics being present, but very hard to use and even disadvantageous at times. See also Action-Based Mission.
## Examples:
-
*The Legend of Zelda*:
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess*: To reach the Arbiter's Grounds, Link must pass through the Bokoblin Compound, a mini-fortress/guard station.
- If Link is spotted at any time, the lookouts will call for reinforcements and swarm him. If you've got the combat chops to handle it, this becomes a Multi-Mook Melee. Entering the compound by day is nearly guaranteed to go this way.
- If stealth is preferred, Link can enter the compound at night and get much closer to the lookouts without alarming them. The darkness makes Link harder to spot, while making it easier for Link to spot (and snipe) the lookouts since their eyes glow at night. Link can also douse torches with the gale boomerang, providing him with additional cover. Also, several of the guards who normally patrol the compound will be asleep. Link can either snipe them or, if you're good, sneak on by.
- In
*The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask*, it appears to be necessary to infiltrate the Pirate Fortress via stealth, as the pirates will throw him out of spotted. However, if he has the Stone Mask, the pirates will not notice his presence at all.
- The same goes for the Gerudo Fortress in
*The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time*, where you can either spend a good amount of time memorizing the guards' patrol routes and sneaking by them to avoid capture, or —since they don't have the sense to confiscate your gear when they capture you— you can use arrows to KO their asses and simply explore the compound at your leisure.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild* adds a stealth mechanic where you can sneak up on enemies to do more damage, or even to rob their camps blind with them none the wiser. The game lets you know if you're too loud with a waveform indicator showing all the sounds Link is making.
- The game intends for you to be stealthy when infiltrating the Yiga Clan's hideout. You won't get a Game Over if you're caught, but the patrolling sentries have a One-Hit Kill attack that even ignores Auto-Revive. The official player's guide mentions that with luck, skill, or cheesing your way into areas with better equipment, fighting them is
*technically* an option, but stealth is the better way to go. However, each of the 2 rooms also provides vantage points where you can't be spotted while having a lookout on the entire room, so you can also snipe them with Ancient Arrows. Whether this option is an example or a subversion shall be left up to the reader.
- Freeing Divine Beast Vah Ruta requires you to collect Shock Arrows from a nearby Lynel's camp — while this Lynel is always the weakest variety, it's likely you'll get to this part of the game early enough that it'll still vastly outmatch you, so you'll probably want to avoid its wrath and just collect the arrows stuck in the environment because even if you have the skill to defeat it, you're likely to run out of weapons mid battle.
- Vah Rudaniah uses drones to try to detect Link and his Guest-Star Party Member Yunobo's presence, but alternatively, Link can instead use Magnesis on a metal crate then just smash the drones with it. Or attack them with any other weapon in his arsenal.
-
*The Amazing Spider-Man* allows the player to have plenty of opportunities to stealth-KO any opponents who don't see them, and is the easiest way to dispose of enemies as opposed to a normal battle.
- In
*Metroid: Zero Mission*, when you reach the Zero Suit sequence, you have the option of using complete stealth if you have the right skills. Being spotted affects the background music for the rest of the sequence (you can't kill enemies, only briefly stun them) and also means the Space Pirates will be actively searching for you even once they've lost sight of you, but since you can stun them and trick them into shooting their own allies it's far from impossible to get through. Doing a stealth run of the level is so difficult and requiring of lightning-fast reflexes and mastery of the game's physics that it's considered bragging rights in the Metroid fandom.
- In
*Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones* you can either sneak up on guards and deliver stealth kills or just run into the fray and hack them to bits, depending on whatever mood you're in. Similarly there are also Press X To Stealth Kill sequences where, if you hit all the right buttons, you get a rather flashy stealth kill scene, while if you mess it up, you are spotted and have to fight reinforcements.
- Stealth was necessary in the first
*Boktai* game since enemies would *devastate* you if you were seen, but the sequels greatly increased your own abilities while nerfing the enemies' attacks. Since the stealth element was still there you were free to choose if you wanted to take them down silently or just jump into the fray and beat them down.
- Evolves in prominence throughout the
*Uncharted* franchise. in *Drake's Fortune*, stealth was more a happenstance thing you did shortly before a major gunfight. *Uncharted 2* gave it its own tutorial and some bespoke rooms, while *Uncharted 3* rewarded you with specialized weapons and more ammo than normal (although frustratingly you'd often be spotted automatically part-way in, which could only be avoided through exploits). It wouldn't be fully played straight until *Uncharted 4* where whole battlefields could be stealthed, enemies would lose sight of and give up on you, and you could sneak and hide in tall grass.
- You can defeat a good chunk of the combat encounters throughout
*Spider-Man: Miles Morales* without an enemy noticing you with a good mix of invisibility, quick web-slinging, and tactical use of gadgets. You can also just smash right in front of enemies and smack them as loudly as possible until they're all unconscious. When it comes to progression, all the game cares about is that the enemies get beat.
-
*Mission: Impossible (Konami)*:
- Stealth is a big part of the game, though not strictly speaking is it necessary. Various enemies are on constant patrols, and will only attack once they spot your agent. Taking them out before they see you will save you considerable grief.
- Nicholas' disguises are quite useful for this purpose. Though they only last for a few seconds, that's enough time to run past an enemy and/or take him out with your weapons.
- Many rooms feature security cameras, laser tripwires, or spy bots that patrol the room. You don't need to avoid them, but doing so will avoid triggering an attack by the powerful Iron Claw enemies. Be aware that Nicholas' disguises won't fool any electronic sensors.
- In
*Batman: Arkham Asylum*, in most of the areas, if you feel lucky, you can bring down all the nearby mooks with violent means. However, stealth is safer, especially when gun-toting enemies are around.
- In
*Betrayer*, there are rather developed stealth mechanics for use in the "real world" sections. Over in Otherworld, crouching down and using the sound of wind to cover your footsteps is practically meaningless when skeletons pop out of the ground beneath your feet.
- In
*Hard Corps: Uprising*, mission 5 has you sneaking into a laboratory. You can sneak past the Mooks, or just shoot them as normal (though doing this will put them on permanent alert and a whole strew of endless enemies and a closed gate to contend with).
-
*Hotline Miami*: Some enemies have fixed patrol routes, so striking, retreating and hiding in a nearby room is possible. Silenced guns exist as a mechanic and can be chosen for a level with the "Peter" mask. Despite these features, playing exposed and taking risks is the encouraged route, as performing actions in a quick succession chains into a combo and allows you to score more points. Playing primarily stealthily or cautiously in a level awards the player the "Coward" playstyle.
-
*The Matrix: Path of Neo* has a martial arts equivalent, if in the first training mission you sneak up and stealth-kill some Mooks with a chokehold without the other escaping and triggering an alarm you get a bonus weapon...until it breaks.
- In
*Son of Nor*, stealth doesn't exist as a dedicated mechanic, but the largest levels are big enough for the player to finish them without ever fighting the Sarahul patrols.
-
*Crysis* doesn't require you to be stealthy, but your Nanosuit's Invisibility Cloak certainly helps. The official strategy guide for the third game even has two separate campaign walkthroughs-one for stealth-focused players, and one for those take a more head-on approach.
-
*Halo*:
-
*Halo: Combat Evolved* has multiple sections where you can assassinate the sleeping Grunts and silently kill the few patrolling Elites and Jackals with melee to the back. Or you could just run in guns blazing too.
-
*Halo 2*: The Arbiter's Invisibility Cloak lasts for only about five seconds anyway, so ignoring it is a perfectly viable option if you don't like having to wear down all your enemies versus getting one free assassination. A bonus item lets Master Chief have invisibility too, but it lasts for the same amount of time and the second disadvantage of no visible timer.
-
*Metro 2033* is essentially this trope. You have a (useless for stealth) fighting knife and a (lethal) set of throwing knives, almost every weapon is silent or has a silenced variant, and you can purchase a set of black stealth armor that helps conceal you from enemy vision. On the other hand, you have an arsenal of grenades and can purchase such weapons as a *belt-fed automatic shotgun* if stealth isn't your thing. However, it's certainly encouraged to sneak around, as ammo isn't exactly plentiful note : as in, not at all and neither is the money to buy it unless you know *exactly* where to look it up.
- The sequel took this even farther. Sure, if you want, you
*can* sneak your way through the game, face-punching every mook you come across into blissful dreams, using silenced weaponry and throwing knives... or you can get a belt-fed automatic shotgun and a light machine gun with a drum magazine holding one hundred rounds and waste every single person in your path. It's your call, although stealth does reward you with some interesting and sometimes hilarious worldbuilding flavor, and your ammo capacity has a cap, unlike in *2033*.
- The more nonlinear nature of the levels in
*Metro Exodus* also plays with this. When it's day, bandits in the world are out and about and you're easy to see, favoring a more aggressive approach. Mutants are out during the night, but most bandits are sleeping, guards at their outposts are inattentive, and it's easier to hide during the dark. An outpost that might be incredibly hard to take head-on during the day could turn trivial when you sneak around during the night.
- In
*TimeSplitters 2*, some missions have an optional stealth objective. The Neo Tokyo level is the only one with a compulsory stealth objective (trailing a hacker) for every difficulty level.
-
*Call of Duty*:
- The other characters hide against walls before entering rooms, and lots of the players do this. It's actually easier just to stand in the middle of the doorway and shoot, as while you're trying to navigate around the edge of doors (massive pain), your enemies can get shots in. It's also far too hard to make your player drop to the ground, but there is no additional penalty or chance of injury if you just stand up in the middle of the place. Being un-stealthy is, if anything, advantageous.
- The
*Modern Warfare* games have a few missions where your superior will encourage you to sneak past enemies or at least use silenced weapons on them. It's not required, though, and while you'll get mobbed, it is possible to fight your way out. Said superior will chew you out, though. Plus, the missions "All Ghillied Up" and "Cliffhanger" have achievements for not being spotted.
- Havoc from
*Command & Conquer: Renegade* has to use stealth in one mission to sneak into Raveshaw's mansion but not only is it easier to run-and-gun every Nod guard you find but this kind of rash tactic would be something Havoc would do anyways.
- In most of
*Far Cry*, stealth is not explicitly mandatory, but on the Hard and Realistic difficulties, it is essential, as running and gunning will get you killed in seconds.
-
*GoldenEye (1997)* for N64 had stealth elements, namely in silenced weapons and alarms that mooks could trigger. Some levels were impossible to complete in total stealth (think Control) while others were very difficult if you blew your cover (think Frigate). Most levels were easy enough to barrel through guns blazing even on the most advanced difficulty, though.
- Most "stealth" missions in the
*Medal of Honor* series do not require you to remain under cover, and blowing it is often unavoidable.
-
*No One Lives Forever*, for the most part. Technically, you can complete most levels in *NOLF* with guns blazing, but stealth is a much better solution. Breaking stealth is not as heavily penalized in the *NOLF* series as in other Stealth Based Games.
-
*PAYDAY 2* has Plan B approaches for almost every heist: if you want to go in dressed in heavy armor and carrying a huge gun, feel free: you'll be assured of having to fight it out with the cops, but at least now you have the equipment to handle them. The only exceptions are "Loud-Only" heists, where you start under siege already or there's functionally no way to avoid setting off an alarm, and Shadow Raid, Car Shop, Murky Station, The Yacht Heist, and Breakin' Feds, which are Stealth Required: trigger the alarm and you have only minutes, or even mere seconds depending on the heist and difficulty, to flee.
-
*Soldier of Fortune II:* In the Mansion and Seaward Star missions, you have the option of either running and gunning, or sneaking through; although the latter is the easier option, you are later scripted to blow your cover anyways.
- A slight variation with the Spy in
*Team Fortress 2*: the class is intended to use stealth and is indeed pretty weak in direct combat. That still doesn't stop players from just running around with the Ambassador trying to score headshots.
- In any of the
*S.T.A.L.K.E.R.* titles, you could get silenced weaponry (including a VSS Vintorez, a silenced sniper rifle that hits like a freight train) and attack from a distance, killing with silenced headshots. Or you could just sprint up close and open up with an assault rifle or (in the second two titles) a *light machine gun*.
- In
*Underhell* several sections of the game are built around sneaking around and avoiding detection, but there's nothing stopping you from pulling out an SMG and fighting your way through.
- Hunting fauna and raiding bandit camps in
*Borderlands 2* can usually be done indistinctly by calmly sniping from afar with a sniper rifle and a precision pistol if you run out of bullets, or by sprinting up close and unloading with abandon your submachineguns and shotgun shells.
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*No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle*: In the prison infiltration level, you can easily charge through the prison killing mooks on Mild, since they die in one hit. Averted on Bitter setting.
-
*Brigador* includes a number of mechanics that allow for stealthy approaches. At the start of each mission, enemies are idling or patrolling with shields powered down, and they won't move unless you walk into their cone of vision or make noise by firing a weapon. Different guns have different noise values, so you can pick quieter guns that won't alert too many enemies at once. Attacking someone from the sides grants a damage bonus, with an even bigger bonus for attacking from the back. Smaller mechs are short enough to hide behind buildings, which block line of sight. You can equip a camouflage system that makes you invisible for short periods. Combined, these allow for a playstyle centered around sneaking past enemy patrols to reach objectives or assassinating enemy captains through crafty backstabs. Alternatively, you can always use the more traditional option of hopping into a giant assault mech covered in guns and armor and marching straight through enemy positions.
-
*Azure Striker Gunvolt Series*
-
*Luminous Avenger iX* has a couple of stages that feature grounded Patrol Bots with a line of sight represented by an infared sight. If hit or when spotted, the head will lock in place (doubling their HP) and fire a continuous stream of lasers until they are destroyed or when the target is of their sight. Bullit Dashing onto them while unaware will disable them permanently.
- The gimmick for the Forest stage in
*Azure Striker Gunvolt 3* is that you have to move in stealthily while avoiding mooks and security systems with a detection sensor, and being spotted results in said mooks firing their HMG's relentlessly at you. While you can blitz your way in, being stealthy is the preferred method and the dialogue will change if you managed to sneak your way in undetected.
- There was a hyped-before-release segment of Silent Forest Zone 2 in
*Sonic Lost World* that involves hiding behind an owl robot's beams of light. However, it is possible (but difficult) to keep Sonic moving so fast that the owl robot's lights never catch up to Sonic. This is necessary for 100% completion, as the game grades Sonic's performance based on time taken to finish the stage, and he can't afford to lose precious seconds standing behind a bush waiting for the owl robot.
- One level in
* Mega Man X8* is a Blackout Basement, where the player must avoid patrollers, tripwires and search lights as they maneuvre the level. That, or you can just go "traditional" and destroy all the mooks that show up when you trigger the traps.
- In
*StarCraft*, all three races offer a substantial variety of units, so you can employ a Zerg Rush, use stealthy tactics, or More Dakka. For example, in the final mission in the original game, the nominal strategy is to wage a war of attrition using stealth as a secondary tactic, but a more spectacular and equally effective (though more costly) method is to simply build a massive force for an all-or-nothing battle. Additionally, the terrans and protoss both have units that can cloak, and all three races have ones that can detect cloaked units, adding another layer of complexity.
- Similarly, in
*Homeworld II*, you can choose to develop cloaking technology, which can be highly effective against opponents who don't plan for you developing it, but it isn't a necessity. In general, a winning strategy requires developing a mix of forces that allow units to defend each other and win the resourcing battle, regardless of your actual combat tactics.
- In
*Satellite Reign*, it's perfectly feasible to go in guns blazing, but many times you can use stealth to accomplish objectives without firing a shot, and early on it's probably the better choice since your guns and Agents are weak.
- In
*Drakensang*, there are a couple of missions where you're encouraged to adopt a stealthy approach:
- In the first one in the Blood Mountains castle, you'll have to navigate the whole dungeons without being seen or activating traps. If you fail, the mission changes and you'll have to fight a lot, and the boss fight will be harder.
- If you're discovered while trying to recover the Duke's hammer in the Dark Eyes hideout, you'll have to fight your way out and will receive less reward from Cano.
- Later, in Grimtooth castle, you'll have to avoid orcish patrols, or you'll have to face a whole garrison of them.
- The sequel too has one, but is completely optional: first, you have to evade a giant half-ogre ratcatcher in a sewer-like dungeon, then you have to sneak by a servant (or, if you're discovered, persuade him to not call the guards) and finally you have to pass by some archers on the walls trying to knocking them unconscious without they seeing you. Obviously, unless you have a stealth-oriented character, you shouldn't apply.
- In
*Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs*, at one point you have to navigate a forest of wandering Dusclops; if they spot you, you get warped back to the entrance and have to try again. On the other hand, you *can* wait for one to turn its back and then attack it from behind to take it out.
- Stealth is possible in
*Deus Ex*. While certain NPCs will react positively or negatively based on whether you primarily use lethal or nonlethal force, it usually doesn't matter if you take a stealthy approach or not (although playing stealthily makes nonlethal runs easier for obvious reasons). However, there's a mission near the end where you have to rescue a scientist's daughter from the Majestic-12, in which getting caught results in an MIB killing her, causing you to fail the mission and miss out on a reward. It is still possible to complete the game, though.
- Also entirely possible in
*Deus Ex: Human Revolution*. Using lethal or nonlethal force does change how a couple characters react to you, and there are achievements for being nonlethal, not setting off any alarms, etc. On the other hand, nobody who matters is going to give you real trouble for slaughtering everyone in your path
-
*Mass Effect*
- The first part of "The Arrival" DLC for
*Mass Effect 2* gives an achievement for stealthy completion, but is perfectly doable by killing all the guards instead of sneaking past them.
- In the beginning of "Citadel" for
*Mass Effect 3*, you get a silenced pistol which can be used to kill enemies without alerting the rest. It's also insanely overpowered, so feel free to blast anyone in your way.
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*The Elder Scrolls*:
- In
*Morrowind* and *Oblivion*, both the Thieves' Guild and the local assassin's guild (the Morag Tong and Dark Brotherhood, respectively) generally *encourage* stealth, but don't really enforce it. In fact, the Morag Tong, being an honorable and legal (within Morrowind) entity, encourages their agents to turn themselves in and present their "Writs of Execution" to ensure that the "honorable execution" remains above board. *Oblivion*'s Dark Brotherhood includes a heavily-armored and axe-wielding Orc assassin, who disposes with stealth entirely and encourages you to do the same if you ask for mission advice. Save for occasionally giving better rewards for using stealth, you can typically advance in all of the above factions by completing the missions without using stealth.
-
*Skyrim*:
- During the tutorial, you and your companion come across a sleeping bear. Your companion will advise you to sneak past it (thus teaching you the Sneak mechanic), but he also hands you a bow and suggests you could just try to kill it.
- Compared to the aforementioned Thieves Guild branches in
*Morrowind* and *Oblivion*, the Skyrim branch barely even encourages stealth. Killing your actual target is frowned upon, but you can complete your missions by hacking and blasting your way through every other foe during the quest in the least-stealthy manner possible if you so choose. It makes no difference.
- Boethiah's Daedric quest is stated by the goddess herself to be a stealth mission, with her telling you to kill all the bandits in the mine without them seeing you. However, it doesn't matter if they see you or not, as once you get the Ebony Armor, the quest ends with Boethiah using the same dialogue.
- The entire "Diplomatic Immunity" main quest mission is set up as a stealth mission, with patrolling guards and watchful opponents. However, you can simply complete the quest by charging in and making mincemeat of the guards and wizards. You still progress the same as if you actually snuck past.
- The "Mark of the Assassin" DLC for
*Dragon Age II* gives you an achievement for sneaking undetected past all the guards up until a certain point.
- In
*The Last Story*, there are many battles where you are encouraged to keep out of sight, attract enemy scouts from a distance, and pick them off one at a time when they're alone. Attracting attention just means you have to face their entire group at once.
- In
*Final Fantasy VII*, on the 60th floor of Shinra Headquarters you have the choice of sneaking past the guards or getting caught and fighting them.
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*Final Fantasy XIII* allows to sneak past the Pre-existing Encounters if you choose, or you can strike from behind them to get a preemptive strike (which starts the battle with all enemies at near-Stagger). Deceptisols can be used to make slipping past enemies or getting preemptive strikes easier.
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*Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII* features a mission where Lightning must stalk several cultists. Opting to fight them instead works as well. Stealth also allows for more effective preemptive strikes, as attacking an enemy in the field from behind will lower all enemies' HP by 25% rather than merely 10%.
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*Tales of the Abyss* has a stealth mission, but if you fail enough times, the game lets you kill everyone.
- In
*Alpha Protocol*, if the enemy doesn't see you, they don't try to blast your brains out, and if you manage to get *right* next to an enemy without being detected, you can take them down in one hit. Amusingly, a fair amount of dialogue will change if you stealth your way through a level. Still, going in guns blazing is also a valid solution, and you *will* want some investment in combat skills for the unskippable boss fights.
- In
*Fallout 3* and *Fallout: New Vegas* people specializing in Stealth can play in this way, sneaking about and using a silenced pistol, but breaking out a BFG and Power Armor whenever things get hairy.
- A low-level
*Dungeons & Dragons Online* quest is called "Stealthy Repossession", and involves stealing a special gemstone back from kobolds without killing more than a few kobold prophets. Appropriately built rogues and rangers really can sneak the entire way through, but other classes have little choice but to madly blitz through the dungeon, or else play normally but carefully kill every kobold except the prophets. A handful of other quests become easier with some stealth, but are never impossible without it.
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*Chrono Trigger* has two examples:
- One is escaping Guardia's dungeon. Since you're fully armed (Seriously, what the hell guards?) and the guards aren't exactly tough, you can just tear through swinging your sword to get some tasty experience points. However if you take them down silently you get Mid Tonics for your trouble, an (at this point) valuable and expensive healing item.
- Later aboard the Blackbird you actually
*are* stripped of your gear and are forced to use stealth or be thrown back into the cell. However if you bring Ayla along she can fight like normal since she doesn't equip weapons to begin with.
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*Knights of the Old Republic*: Stealth is usually a case of Useless Useful Stealth, but there are a few exceptions, like sneaking past the rancor in the Taris sewers, using Mission for the jailbreak, or disarming a minefield. It can also be handy on large bases - sneak past the enemy to a computer terminal, hack into the security system, and cause mayhem with gas traps and overloaded conduits, decimating the enemies with minimal effort.
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*Star Wars: The Old Republic*: Jedi Shadows, Sith Assassins, Scoundrels, and Operatives all have stealth capability. While it's not much use in Flashpoints and Operations, it is an excellent way to save time and effort navigating over enemy terrain and running daily missions.
- The Tutorial Mission of
*Baten Kaitos Origins* encourages you to sneak past the enemy guards rather than face them. However the guards aren't very tough, your health is replenished after every battle, and defeating them gives you some *much* needed experience for the rather cruel Wake-Up Call Boss you'll soon be facing at the end of it.
- In
*Fragile Hearts*, there are no random encounters, only patrolling enemies, and the areas theyre in are typically quite large and provide plenty of room for manoeuvre. While you lose the combat experience in this way, the game is already so easy you can easily get by with experience and cash from mandatory fights only, and avoiding late-game enemies typically takes less time than fighting, too.
- In
*Bound by Flame*, you're occasionally allowed to sneak by some of the enemy mobs instead of fighting them, and given that many late-game enemies significantly outstrip the player in terms of health, it's often a much faster way to progress.
- Present in
*Hammer And Sickle*, the officially sanctioned commercial mod of *Silent Storm*. Many missions can be finished without firing a shot if youre good at hiding. The patrol AI and placement is pretty realistic, though, so daylight stealth is impossible (unlike the original games) , and youll have to wait till night. Even then, its best to disable light sources whenever possible to decrease chances of detection, and wear camouflage if youre in the forest.
- In
*The Fall: Last Days of Gaia*, it's possible to bypass enemies by sneaking or crawling past them, which make progressively less noise at the expense of speed. Made somewhat ridiculous with the Fast Sneak and Fast Crawl skills that allow for sneaking at the running speed and crawling at a sneaking speed, respectively.
- In
*The Age of Decadence*, there many missions where the Sneak skill will allow your character to bypass ambushes, perform clean burglaries, and more, assuming that it is high enough for the situation at hand.
- In
*Dead State*, it's often possible to avoid fighting most, if not all zombies and human enemies on the level through stealth-related approaches. The most efficient is to throw a firecracker or something else that makes a lot of noise as far away from yourself as possible and before any zombies have spotted you. hey will swiftly move towards the noise and leave other approaches free for the player.
- In
*Sore Losers*, there are a few episodes where fighting is necessary, and just as many with enforced stealth. In the Magtrain station episode, however, you can both fight all of the Ferusian patrols in your way or sneak behind their backs as efficiently as possible.
- In
*Avernum: Escape from the Pit* at one point (when you're still at low level) you can come across a fort homing several, ferocious Nephar warriors, including shamans and their boss. There's a minor quest where you have to rescue the prisoners from the main hall where the chief is. You can either storm the keep and wade your way through difficult fights, risking your life in the process, or find a secret passage which, if used, can lead you to save the prisoners from under the Nephar's noses without them noticing you. In this case though, you can also gain experience by killing the Nephar themselves.
-
*Pokémon OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire* has the DexNav system which allows you to search for Pokémon with high IVs and/or special moves and abilities, but it requires you to sneak up on them lest they escape.
- One mission in
*Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere* advises you to stay under the radar net as you proceed to the enemy base. It doesn't matter if you are spotted or not, it only determines *when* you end up fighting more enemy planes.
- Same for a mission in
*Ace Combat 2*; the only bonus to reaching the target without breaking stealth is an easier time at destroying a pair of cargo planes that take off as soon as you're detected, which give you the option of an alternate mission if you shoot them down.
- Multiplayer missions in
*Silent Hunter 5* have the players in a wolfpack ready to attack a convoy. The convoy is *always* protected by escorts that will react to the sudden destruction of their charges by aggressively seeking out the players. It's possible to dodge the escorts and avoid direct confrontation, but it's much easier to throw a torpedo up their tailpipe and knock them out of the fighting immediately.
- In
*Shinobido* all levels are supposed to be stealthy, including duels, kidnappings and assassinations. You can still try to use a more direct approach, but it will be much more dangerous, and you'll get less reward if you're spotted. And the Golden Ending pretty much require absolute stealth.
- In the
*Thief* series, you can ditch stealth and kill everyone in sight, but is a lot more dangerous. Alternately, if the environment is big enough, you can just run past the guard and keep running. While they might follow you, their attention span will lapse before they find you. However, there are some missions where killing or even simply getting spotted results in a Game Over. The hardest difficulty setting pretty much forces the player to play as stealthy as possible.
- In the
*Hitman* series, you can play the game like a typical Third-Person Shooter; however, you get a better rating (and thus unlock better weapons) by using stealth and deception to off your targets. The protagonist 47 is quite vulnerable to gunfire however, and for the first few instalments, 47 was unable to heal in the course of a mission, so even you wish to kill everyone in sight you will have to do it somewhat carefully. *Blood Money* added the ability to purchase bulletproof vests and medication to stave off injury, and all games after this have Regenerating Health that kicks in after a few seconds in cover, mitigating this somewhat.
-
*Metal Gear* *is* a stealth-based game series — Rather, it's *the* stealth-based game series. The games have varying difficulty levels. If one chooses the easiest difficulty, then it's a valid option to plow through the game without really needing to use its stealth elements. However, selecting anything above "Normal" makes using stealth absolutely necessary, as guards will be vigilant and difficult to take down, and using stealth is far easier than trying to macho one's way through. The most extreme gameplay modes in the Metal Gear series actually force the player to restart from the beginning if they are so much as noticed by one guard.
- If you decide to save the militia in the beginning of Act 2 of
*Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots* instead of use their execution as cover to sneak past they'll be friendly towards you and you'll have an entire squad to approach Vista Mansion with, making stealth completely unnecessary until you reach the mansion grounds.
-
*Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain* uses this trope to the fullest extent possible. It's YOUR show, from episode 1 to the bitter end, so ANY conventional stealth or shooting is optional as long as you get the mission done. Send an airstrike in the middle of a child-soldier camp? Go right ahead! note : Just remember to use the sleeping gas, because killing children results in mission failure. Request an exfiltration five feet away from the enemy's base? They won't even blink! Grab your mecha and plow through the gates to fire your gatling gun? Prepare the slaughter!
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*Perfect Dark Zero*, but only on the lowest difficulty setting. It is a stealth title, but on the easiest setting stealth is mostly not required.
- The original
*Castle Wolfenstein* and *Beyond Castle Wolfenstein*. It was a good idea to sneak through as much of the castle(s) as possible, because fighting German soldiers was a good way to get killed. However, you *could* fight them if you wanted to, and at times it was actually necessary (e.g. before you got a uniform or passes, or to "clean out" the room where the alarm box was located).
-
*Wolfenstein: The New Order* has an entire skill tree dedicated to stealth, but most of the time you have to fight plot-alerted enemies or armored foes / mechs.
- The third entry in the
*Splinter Cell* stealth series, *Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory*, allows the player to just run through the game guns blazing if they want, going so far as to let players choose an "assault" loadout that gives them extra ammunition and grenades instead of extra stealth tools. It was mostly a reaction to the unpopular "three alarms and you're out" structure of the previous titles and the manual practically calls it Easy Mode. Nevertheless, most players will stick to the stealthy approach, but it can come in handy when things go pear-shaped.
-
*Dishonored* gives options in how you want to play the game. You could, for example, play through the entire game undetected... or become a whirling dervish of supernatural *death.* Notably, there's the Ghost achievement for playing through undetected and in a Pacifist Run.
- In
*Stolen*, you're supposed to use the shadows to sneak around the guards. In practice, GameSpot's reviewer found it was quicker and easier to just beat them senseless.
-
*Assassin's Creed*:
- The series is like this most of the time. There are some missions that desynchronize you for being detected, but by and large it's just as doable to fight all the guards as it is to sneak past them or stealth-kill them.
- There's also the first
*Assassins Creed* game, and the second one, for the most part. Later ones have tended to avert this by punishing being caught with game overs.
- In most of
*Syphon Filter*'s sneaking missions, being spotted immediately results in mission failure, but in a few, such as Rhoemer's Base, you can still continue the mission guns blazing if detected. In *Omega Strain*, although you can continue after blowing your cover in most missions, you won't be able to get 100% Completion for the mission.
- As soon as you get your hands on the weapons in
*Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth*, you can still complete some puzzles in the stealthy way, but is much easier (and satisfying) to just whip out guns and crowbar and kill all those fishmen around.
- In
*Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines*, you're free to solve any kind of situation in the way you're most comfortable with, but a stealth approach will always grant you more points. Unless you're a Nosferatu, though, in which case stealth is mandatory unless you want to constantly violate The Masquerade.
-
*Resident Evil 6* has the Submarine Sequence in Ada's scenario. There's plenty of ammo and cover to go More Dakka with her machine pistol and exploding crossbow bolts and mow the J'avo down, but it is possible (and a *lot* more satisfying) to sneak through without ever firing a shot and never being seen. There's also an achievement for going the stealth route too.
- In all
*Silent Hill* games that feature a flashlight you can turn on or off, going dark makes you practically imperceptible to monsters. You can use this to your advantage and either sneak up on them to attack with impunity, or bypass them completely. Of course, nothing stops you from rolling in with your light on and shoot or whack everything in your way, save for how much ammo and health supplies you have available; in the original trilogy, you also can't pick up items or look at the map.
- In
*The Evil Within*, stealth is very important in the early stages of the first installment. As you upgrade stats and get hold of better weapons it no longer becomes an absolute necessity (in fact it becomes a hindrance since there are no upgrades to stealth), but you'll still want to use sneak kills because they save ammo and are quite satisfying to perform. This is not the case in the DLC chapters, though, as your character can't receive any upgrades and is unarmed for a very long stretch of the two missions, so her only choice most of the time is to stay out of sight. Its sequel works in much the same way, except stealth is way more encouraged given that there are upgrades to enhance your stealth performance this time around.
- Stealth in
*The Last of Us* is a core gameplay mechanic, but as you start getting your hands on more weapons and begin upgrading your skills, it slowly becomes less necessary unless your resources are at an absolute minimum. It's far more encouraged in the sequel due to the enhanced enemy AI and overall providing better options for stealth (such as the ability to craft temporary silencers for your starter pistol).
- Nothing in
*The Persistence* requires you to sneak around, so if you just want to go around smacking ten-foot tall hulks and gunning down defective robots, more power to you. Just get used to the Game Over screen.
- In
*Freedom Fighters (2003)*, stealth is crucial in earlier missions, and mission descriptions typically warn you to stay out of Soviet floodlights, but with a large enough squad and some good weaponry, you can easily just charge straight through enemy defenses.
- Most shooting levels in the James Bond game
*Everything or Nothing* are like this. It is almost always possible to complete the levels all-guns-blazing, but it's often very punishing on the highest difficulty setting. You do carry silenced and non-lethal weapons, however, and you also have a few EMP grenades which can disable security cameras and alarm systems. Sneaky actions, such as disabling the alarms or killing the guards so it seems like an accident, often give you "Bond Moments" which unlock extra content.
-
*Gears of War* 2 DLC campaign add on "Road to Ruin" gave you the choice between using stealth or going in all guns blazing. There's an achievement for successfully completing the stealth element.
- In
*Second Sight*, the very broad selection of Psychic Powers available to the main character means you always have the option of sneaking through a level vs. running through with guns blazing, though there are points where only one or the other is feasible. The game keeps a "morality" statistic and humanises some of the mooks in order to encourage stealth via Videogame Caring Potential.
-
*007: From Russia with Love* strongly encourages use of stealth in many missions. Bond is by no means invincible and it's frequently easier to watch Mooks' patrol patterns so you can take them down silently than trying to run-and-gun your way through the on-foot levels. You also get more points towards your level ranking for hand-to-hand kills and Bond Focus shots than for run-and-gun. The latter is possible, though, and the vehicle levels are more of a "blast everything in sight" type deal.
- The third chapter of
*Max Payne 3* has several rooms where you can either directly engage the enemy, or wait in hiding until they leave.
-
*Ghost Recon: Future Soldier* offers higher scores for sync-shots, neck-snaps, and stealth kills, but they're not necessary except for a few short no-alarm segments. And even then, unsuppressed weapons can be used stealthily by ensuring no one is left alive to sound the alarm.
- In
*Transformers: Fall of Cybertron*, chapters where you control Cliffjumper and Starscream might *encourage* stealth due to their particular special ability being an Invisibility Cloak and certain chapter-exclusive enemies whose only gimmick is becoming much more powerful and aggressive the moment they spot you, but it's by no means mandatory. If you're so inclined, you can go into these situations with guns blazing, which actually isn't out of character for Cliffjumper. It's entirely possible to charge into even these stealth-preferable fights head on and win, and the game still provides plenty of ammo pickups in these levels to keep things fair.
- In
*Vanquish*'s monorail Sniping Mission, stealth is not mandatory, but you get two achievements for remaining undetected.
-
*Sniper Elite 4* is mostly a stealth game, but shoot-outs are usually survivable on lower difficulties. They also only attract *nearby* enemies to your position, not every enemy on the map.
- Many missions in
*Warframe* reward stealthy approach in the form of extra affinity awarded for performing back stabs on enemies, but chances are likely that your loadout will let you eliminate entire platoons in the blink of an eye without much trouble. You can disregard caution even in Spy missions, where tripping the vault's security will still give you up to a whole minute to get into the databank, just remember that you may then have to eliminate more enemies to keep the word from getting out.
-
*Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas*:
- When infiltrating Area 69, you're told to sneak past the soldiers on the surface level, head to a control tower to open the gate to the base interior some distance away from the tower, and then enter that gate. The problem is, it's
*much* easier to just kill any soldier in your way, ignore the gate (which becomes impossible to open once you're detected), and bust through an air vent near the gate. Even if the outside part is completed stealthily, the base goes to max alert after CJ is inside and stealth is thrown out the window anyway, so it's no loss.
- This happens many times in this game. Earlier on, you have to infiltrate a Vietnamese boat, and a bit later, a dam. The only time where stealth is strongly advised is when you must infiltrate an aircraft carrier: getting seen will make soldiers run to the stationed jet fighters and flee with them before you can steal one, thus failing the mission.
- In
*Grand Theft Auto V*, some missions allow the player to take out enemies silently with silenced weapons and melee takedowns. Special mention goes to ||kidnapping Devin Weston in Ending C||: if you go in loud, he'll be hiding in a trunk, but if you reach him without alerting the guards, he'll be calmly sunning himself-though he'll still freak out and climb into the trunk when he sees you.
- In the mission
*Gator's Yacht* in Driv3r it's possible to destroy the yacht without a shootout by killing the guards with the silenced pistol.
-
*Red Faction: Guerrilla* technically has a stealth system; for instance, certain weapons will take out a guard without alerting others. Good luck getting anywhere with this, though. There are only a handful of missions where you can stay undetected for long, and the EDF will jump to yellow alert at the slightest provocation. The Badlands Liberation mission really rubs it in — the commander tells you to get as far as possible unnoticed, but you are *guaranteed* to be spotted as soon as you enter the base.
-
*Watch_Dogs*: In most missions you can either sneak in, hack whatever you need to hack, and sneak out; or ready your grenades and your biggest assault rifle, find some cover, and waste everyone.
- Some Geocaching members use stealth, others think it only attracts more attention.
-
*XCOM 2* has a "concealment" system wherein when a mission begins, the aliens are unaware of your presence. Upon firing a weapon or wandering into an alien's detection radius, concealment breaks and the aliens will come down on you. While concealment is always temporary and you are within your rights to simply dash in guns-blazing, the game encourages you to set up ambushes first, so that when you do break concealment, you can gun down and weaken enemies as they react to your presence.
- World War II submarines. They quite regularly attacked by surface. While this was normally by night, sometimes it was by day.
- Modern stealth aircraft are only stealthy when limited to using weapons that can fit in their internal bays. Typically this is only a basic load of air-to-air missiles. For ground strike missions all manner of ordinance can be fitted on attachable external pylons at the expense of the small radar signature. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OptionalStealth |
Oracle - TV Tropes
Oracle may refer to:
If a direct wick has led you here, please correct the link so that it points to the corresponding article. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Oracle |
Optional Sexual Encounter - TV Tropes
In certain games, particularly computer RPGs, the player character will be able to engage in sexual encounters with NPCs. These often have no discernible in-game effect, and since you (usually) do not get to see anything interesting (owing to censorship), these do not actually qualify as sex scenes. These scenes are usually only good for self-imposed challenges of the "gotta screw them all" variety.
If expanded to a full-blown Romance Arc with a party member, this becomes a Romance Sidequest. If it increases your abilities, that's a Level-Up at Intimacy 5. If the encounter details every graphic moment by making it interactive, you've also got yourself a Hot Coffee Minigame. Contrast with Deus Sex Machina, in which a required sexual encounter is awkwardly crammed in somewhere it barely fits.
## Examples:
- In
*Overlord* if you get your mistress's approval level high enough, she will invite you into the bedchamber. The doors shut behind you and you hear her moan as the entire tower shakes. In the sequel, you can not only convince your multiple mistresses to do so, you can even get them in a Foursome.
- Surprisingly,
*Cave Story* has an implied sexual encounter as an Easter Egg. The first time you go to Chako's House, you have the option of sleeping in her bed to recover life. When you wake up, Chako is sleeping in the bed, and you have her lipstick in your inventory. Note that the protagonist is a *robot* and Chako is a purple bunny.. dog.. thing.
- This is Bowdlerized in the 3DS version. The player still gets her lipstick if he sleeps in Chako's bed, but when they wake up, she'll be sleeping on the floor; Presumably, she had nowhere else to sleep with you in her bed.
-
*Fahrenheit* a.k.a. *Indigo Prophecy* has two: between Tyler and his girlfriend Sam (||you have to use the "heart" action on her right after Carla calls Tyler in the scene Sam is first introduced; this is so easy that you don't get to see anything||) and between Lucas and his ex-girlfriend Tiffany (||this one is a bit trickier: when she comes to pick up her stuff, you must talk a bit about herself, offer her a drink, and at all costs avoid trying to kiss her or going to pick her stuff right away; if you do that right, she'd ask you to play guitar for her, and if you succeed even in that, you win; yeah, winning a woman's heart ain't easy but in this case, you'll be actually allowed to participate in the process||), in addition to one mandatory sex scene (||between Lucas and Carla||). No wonder the uncut version of this game got an AO rating in the US.
- The protagonist of the PC game
*Secrets of da Vinci: The Forbidden Manuscript* has to charm the game's only female character into letting him into her private rooms, so he can acquire some necessary information for his quest. If he makes her like him enough, he gets invited to spend the night with her. The "slumber party" is entirely optional, but it does actually affect the game's ending in a small, story-relevant way. (It doesn't change whether or not he succeeds in the rest of his mission.)
- In the video game adaptation of
*I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream*, Ted can gain access to a needed room by sleeping with a chambermaid. ||However, the resident witch of the house will use this against you later. After attempting to trick you with a seduction of her own, no less.||
-
*I-0* by Adam Cadre (billed as "the 'jailbait on the interstate' game") can be completed without screwing your way through every NPC you encounter.
- Depending on your choices, it is possible for this to happen to Ethan Mars and Madison Paige in
*Heavy Rain*. Bonus in that not only do you get to see what is going on, but the whole scene is completely interactive.
- In
*Sunless Sea*, you can initiate secret sexual liaisons with certain officers on your ship. This has the in-game benefit of reducing Terror but if you already have a sweetheart at home, there's a chance said sweetheart will find out about your infidelity and leave you.
- In
*Blackout*, one of the visitable locations is a brothel by the name of New Orleans down by the dock district, and the player can choose to have a session with any of the four prostitutes employed there. There is even an extra layer to the "optional" part, as each of them gives the player a choice between "sex" or "conversation", so it is possible to actually interact with them in other manners than just having intercourse.
- In
*Duel Savior Destiny* if you trigger the right scenes with Dahlia and win a few fights, you can stumble across one of these with her. While it cuts to black in the Bleached Underpants version, it's still pretty clear what happened.
-
*Me (2017)*: Touching "Sex", which doesn't have to be done, turns the whole game upside down for a moment.
- In
*Nethack*, the player's character has the option of engaging in risky encounters with Succubi and Incubi. The character can gain (or lose) constitution, wisdom, health, energy, or experience. Players occasionally seek out gender-benders for their characters in order to match the available demons. The sexual encounter can also be *non*-optional if the "foocubus" supernaturally seduces the character and strips off his/her armour while the character is in the middle of deadly hand-to-hand combat. Or trying to cross a lake with a pair of water-walking boots.
- In
*Elona*, you can prostitute yourself to any neutral NPC who is drunk (and you can get any NPC drunk simply by handing them a bottle of booze). It'll give a small hit to your Karma Meter and has the chance of giving you an STD, but it's an easy way to make money. If you marry someone and are sleepy, you can also "make a gene", which lets you restart the game with most of the items you are currently carrying.
-
*Danchi Zuma no Yuuwaku*, released in 1983, was the earliest RPG H-Game and possibly the first RPG to feature graphically explicit sexual encounters.
- The
*Dragon Knight* series of RPG H-Games featured graphically explicit sexual encounters and is possibly the Trope Maker for Eastern RPGs.
-
*The Witcher*:
- In the first game, the protagonist, Geralt, can have sexual encounters with a wide variety of women, including a princess, a dryad, a vampire, and a minor goddess. While we do not get to see the action, the game displays drawings of whoever Geralt went to bed with. In the uncensored version, most of these include exposed breasts.
- In the sequels, the sex scenes are animated and don't shy away from nudity, and while the second game still cut away for most of the action, the third installment really doesn't hide much.
- Sexual encounters are implied in several
*Dragon Quest* games.
- In the early
*Dragon Quest* games, particularly *Dragon Quest III*, there are girls who offer the player character a "Puff Puff", implied to be a sexual encounter. It, however, turns out to be her giving you a massage where her burly dad is instead doing it.
- In
*Dragon Quest I*, after rescuing the princess, you have to carry her back to the king. If you sleep at the inn while still carrying her, the innkeeper's farewell dialogue will change. This can rachet up to Refuge in Audacity if you take a young woman who wants to tag along with you from Tantegel Town while holding the Princess in your arms to the inn, and since the message is the same with either of them separately, the game all but states "you slept with two women at once!"
- In
*Dragon Quest V*, the player has a choice over which girl the protagonist should marry, after which a sexual encounter is implied with the bride of choice, though only one of them, Nera, makes sexual encounter references.
- By the way, one should take note that the sexual encounter in
*Dragon Quest V*, (The Nintendo DS Remake) is not exactly "optional" but it is in fact required. Because the game won't let you progress until you've gotten married, and then if you marry any one of the other eligible brides instead of Bianca, you don't have to go back to the Roundbeck Inn in order to get a cutscene implying sex. Because apparently either Nera or Debora (depending on who you married) had already had sexual intercourse, with you,(the player character) on her wedding night, the evening before she decided to become your traveling companion spouse.
- Subverted in
*Dragon Quest VIII*, where you can go to a seedy establishment and see an attractive young woman for some... "Puff-Puff". She blindfolds your character... then squishes a pair of *Slimes* against your head.
- A similar case occurs in
*Dragon Quest IX* in an optional quest, except this time the young woman in question uses *sheep's asses*!
- The Running Gag of the Optional Sexual Encounter also carried over to
*Final Fantasy XIV* during the Crossover event with *Dragon Quest X*. In that game, it's implied you are going to be smothered by a bunch of women wearing skimpy fleece coats... only instead they hold up fluffy monsters and smother you with *them* instead.
- Since
*3D Dot Game Heroes* is essentially a massive Shout-Out to early 8-bit games, some of the situations from Dragon Quest make a cameo appearance: You get a trophy ("Have a Nice Night?") for stopping to rest at the inn during the short window between rescuing the princess and taking her back to the castle, and "Puff Puff" is revealed to be merely a platonic massage ||administered by an elderly gentleman||.
-
*Fallout*:
- In
*Fallout* male player characters can have encounters with female NPCs, but there is no benefit for doing so. Female player characters can actually get in-game benefit by asking for money first when they are propositioned. Occurrences include: saving the prostitute in Junktown (do not kill the hostage taker), the female caravan Kari owner in the Hub (she gives you Buffout and Mentats, sometimes stims), and females have an option at the former church (now the Master's lair) with a guard. Occasionally the prostitute rescue may also cause (via occasional glitch?) a lesbian encounter, but normally it's not supposed to. All these scenes consist solely of the screen briefly fading to black.
-
*Fallout 2*:
- One of the "encounters" in the game ends with you getting caught in the act. Your only options are to run for your life (leaving all of your equipment lying on the bedroom floor, you were naked after all), fast-talking your way out of it (if your Intelligence is high), or being forced into a marriage. What's more depending on your preference in "companions" this could be either hetero- or homosexual marriage.
- Players of both sexes can act in porn for financial reward, and a male PC sleeping with the wife or daughter of a mafia boss can influence the ending for the town of New Reno.
- There's also an, ahh, encounter, a result of a lost bet to a burly Super Mutant and, uhm, resulting in the player waking up the next morning with a ball gag in their inventory, with a description along the lines of "If you know what this is, you don't need a description. If you don't know, you don't want to."
- The non-violent way of getting Vic to join your party involved getting radio parts so Vic can fix a radio for them, and then paying them $1,000 to their leader, Metzger. Unless you're female, in which case you can sleep with him and pay $500. At that point in the game, $500 is pretty useful. Fortunately, you can save all $1000 as well as your dignity (did we mention that Metzger is the boss of a child slavery ring?) by just dropping some explosives on the floor and locking Metzger in the room with them.
- You can buy sexual services for the party members (the fee is much higher for servicing ghouls and Super Mutants, by the way). Buying said services for Super Mutant Marcus leads to a dialogue revealing some alarming things about ||Super Mutants being fertile||... Fallout Bible says Marcus was joking, though.
-
*Fallout: New Vegas*:
- Female characters with the Black Widow perk get the option of going to bed with Benny. Doing so results in a fade to black with some amusing lines delivered by him, and you get the option of killing him silently in his sleep. This is arguably the easiest way of getting rid of him and retrieving the MacGuffin he took from your character.
- There are several others hidden throughout the game, with both men and women. Most of them give you the well-rested perk. Which means 10% more exp.
- As usual, the player can hire the services of various sex workers. One possible option is to hire a ghoul prostitute. Then there's the Courier's reaction when hiring (or testing) the sexbot... Mojave sex is weird.
-
*Fallout 4* allows you to have a Love Interest or several, unlike previous games. In addition, you also have the opportunity to seduce a synthetic lounge singer and a Vault-dwelling Robobrain. However, Holly at the Slog averts this due to all four dialogue options claiming you're still grieving over your husband/wife moments after flirting with her even if you've screwed everyone you could before meeting her.
-
*Wasteland* features a sexy three-legged hooker. If you sleep with her, you get...desert herpes.
- In the first chapter (excluding Prelude) in the first
*Neverwinter Nights* game, you have the option of going to a brothel to, um...spend some time with a courtesan or (if you're male) two. You even get some experience points (and a little sidequest from one of them, if you're male) from them after the session. Needless to say, the screen only fades to black when it starts and shows both participants in their skivvies afterwards.
- The
*Neverwinter Nights* hall-of-fame user-created module *A Dance with Rogues* is notorious for using this trope extensively.
- The
*The Bastard of Kosigan* module series (male characters only, for story reasons) also includes several optional sexual encounters. In one case the woman disappears as soon as you leave the area and doesn't show up again until the ending sequence, and in another case, you can invite the woman to join your party, but she never references your experience again. With the red-headed peasant you have the option of coming back during the siege to rescue her from the French, implying that she will be important in the as-yet untranslated fifth module; Yannia does comment on your experience together later on; and the Author Avatar that shows up in the prologue scenes to give plot exposition has no relevance to the story and doesn't even seem like the same person in her two appearances (in the first you can seduce her, in the second you are limited to flirting). Curiously, the only major female character who you can't have sex with is your character's first lover (not counting the French lord's daughter and the ugly daughter of the Duke of Burgundy), though you do get a rather thorough make-out scene with her if you choose the right dialogue options.
- Many of the sex scenes are cleverly designed to be quite different depending on how handsome your character is. The mercenary in the forest outside of Cologne is rather... eager... if you have a high Charisma score, but it plays out more like a rape scene if you have a low Charisma.
- Subverted with Delilah the halfling; although it
*looks* like an Optional Sexual Encounter, it's actually ||a ruse to get you to take your armour off so she can kill you||.
-
*Knights of the Old Republic* will allow the player character to accept "a massage" (off-screen) from slaves belonging to a crime lord. The PC can even rate the quality of said massage afterward. The encounter is heterosexual only — approaching a slave of the same gender earns a polite hint to try someone else. Later you can get an implied kiss from other characters.
-
*Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords* is much more sexual than the first game. As a male, you can train with Handmaiden, who insists that you and her fight with no armor. There's also a female gambler who invites you to a "card game", but only if the PC is male. If not, your friend scoundrel will take over.
- In
*Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura*, it is possible to throw away money on prostitutes for no benefit whatsoever (other than a screen fade). Doing errands for the brothel mistress will result in male characters being offered nookie as payment, while a female character can choose between cash and lesbian nookie. There is also a scene in which the player character can seduce a widow as an alternate means of getting a Plot Coupon, and a female character will be barred from a men's only club and must secure permission to enter from the owner (a sleazy gnome) either by bribing with cash or going to bed with him. (Alternately, you can pickpocket the little bastard for the permission slip. Or kill him and take it off his corpse.)
- If you have the stats to back it up, you can threaten to kill him with your bare hands, and he'll fold.
- There is one point where an optional sexual encounter will avoid battles; The Baroness-type Dark Elf leader will graciously let you slip out peacefully in exchange for some companionship.
- And if the player's so inclined, in lieu of the prostitutes, there's also a sheep in the back room...
- There is also one quest for a temple where, when you succeed, the priestess asks you if you want to join the congregation in celebration of you fixing stuff. If you say yes, she gives you something to drink, the screen fades to black and you wake up in your undies, with the screen filled with the "congregation" similarly dressed... and the indication you have one hell of a hangover...
- If you're carrying the sacred statue when you talk to her, she'll be very hot for you and offer to "teach you in the ways of the goddess", regardless of your gender, and you can do it as many times as you like until you give her the statue. That thing sure packs some power.
- If you talked to Virgil beforehand, he makes it clear what the celebration will entail. It seems you're just in time for an annual ritual.
-
*Ultima VII Part II Serpent Isle* has a plot-mandated event in which a wizardess wants to bed the player character, even if the player character is a woman. Earlier there is an optional event in which you can go to bed with an NPC and after the first time they will reward you with a moderately useful item: a fur cloak that is needed as protection from cold later in the game (but ||will get you in big trouble later on when you meet the sentient creatures that are skinned to make them||). Strangely enough, the Naked Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Cheat Room (yes, this is a real place in Serpent Isle) doesn't include any.
- In the mandatory one, the player is allowed to go willingly or staunchly refuse. If you continue to refuse enough times, you
*can* escape the sexual encounter, but not before being stripped naked by magic, ||which doesn't work out too well when the would-be rapist's lover and ruler of the city shows up and accuses you of stealing his woman.||
- These scenes are also notable for NOT fading to black, or at least not until everything that's there to be seen has been. Then again, the game's pretty low-res.
- In
*Ultima VII: The Black Gate*, you can woo Nastassia in Cove and eventually win her heart by finding out what happened to her father. However, even though you can engage in passionate kissing, and she becomes obviously aroused (in the dialogue) by being near you, and despite the fact that everyone else in Cove are paired-off lovers, you can never become intimate with her. However, *you can get it on with the prostitutes in Buccaneer's Den all you want!* Doing the latter *does* have an in-game effect, as there's a unicorn who will run away from you if your character is no longer a virgin.
- Similarly, in
*Ultima VI: The False Prophet* there are two prostitutes (one of each gender) posing as gypsies that you can proposition if you guess their true profession. Both prostitutes will sleep with a PC of any gender. Going whoring does affect your Karma Meter, though. They also don't care about species either, which means Sherry the Mouse can get laid by a human.
- In the
*Divine Divinity* series:
-
*Divine Divinity* allows you to sleep with prostitutes (of either sex); the first time gains you extra experience points. As does the second if you ask for the "special treatment".
- Parodied in
*Divinity: Original Sin*. The town you enter in Lucilla Forest has a man and a woman offering what seems to be sexual services, even trying to make it seem like you are going to role-play during sex. Cue them instead taking out a book of fairy tales and reading from it when you go into the inn room with them.
- In
*Divinity: Original Sin II*, the player character can go to bed with a Lizard Folk High-Class Call Girl (or boy, their choice). The player can choose to Comically Miss the Point of the escort's roleplaying. If they go through with it, when they're undressed and basking in the afterglow, enforcers show up to rob the PC.
- The culmination of the romance paths in
*Baldur's Gate II* is the chance to sleep with your paramour (though, in at least one case, doing so is a bad idea). There is also a mod that adds a number of one-off sexual encounters.
- Interestingly, if the player character is male,
*Baldur's Gate II* also features a (nearly) mandatory sexual encounter - while your party is attempting to infiltrate a Drow city, a Drow female will order the PC to sleep with her. If you refuse her, the whole city will turn hostile. Saying yes will upset any NPCs you may have been wooing, but has no other repercussions. There are ways to bluff your way out of having to sleep with her: you can ||convince her you're a eunuch or afflicted by a curse that prevents you from becoming intimate, that you made a vow of celibacy to Lolth, or that a priestess from another city already has you tagged||.
- In the expansion pack
*Throne of Bhaal* it is possible to have sex with a prostitute if you are playing as a male character. Doing so will cause an immediate end to romances with Aerie or Jaheira. Viconia, however, will not break up with you and will comment that there's no way a common prostitute can compare to her.
-
*Fable*:
-
*Fable*: The encounters are presented with the screen going black and your sex partner saying some humorous things and moaning in a cockney accent. "You're so norty!" There's even a sidequest that lets you become a crossdressing prostitute, and a Demon Door that only opens for a Hero who Really Gets Around.
-
*Fable II* lets you run sexually amok through Albion, sleeping with anyone and everyone if you so desire (with the exception of people that are not into you, like guys that are straight not sleeping with other guys). However, for every unprotected encounter, you can get an STD...that does nothing, apparently, because your heroic awesomeness won't let it. You can even get married and have kids. ||But if you do, then they *all get killed* at the end of the game.||
- Of course, doing this can provide for some... interesting results. Fable 2, for whatever reason, considers getting pregnant/getting your mate pregnant... an STD.
- Parodied in
*Steambot Chronicles*, at the end of a date, the player can have "hot chocolate" if the date went well enough.
- One of the options you can choose results in the normal fade to black once you've made your move... followed by an "Oh no you don't" and the sound of an overeager player character getting a good talking-to.
-
*Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines*, it's possible to have sex with Jeanette, the vampire co-owner of the bar The Asylum, but it's very difficult to do so - and a vampire that enjoys sex in the Old World of Darkness is supposed to be insane anyways (Jeanette, as with all vampires of her bloodline (Malkavians), definitely qualifies). You also have to give up getting the best ending to a particular quest. ("Best" meaning most XP. Whether getting more XP or a fade to black with some sound effects is "best" is your call.)
- Additionally, if the player character is female and of certain clans, she can avoid a side quest by having sex with Romero, the ghoul guarding the cemetery in Hollywood. Again, this actually loses you XP and rewards.
- The prostitutes and blood dolls may count; for them, the Kiss
*is* sex, even if for you it's just feeding.
-
*Superhero League of Hoboken* allows the members of the party to visit brothels. Such an experience raises their, well, experience.
-
*Mass Effect*:
-
*Mass Effect* plays this straight with your (male or female) lead character able to court either a human crew member of the opposite sex or a monogendered (but female-looking) alien. Following the romance subplot leads to a 30-second cutscene showing mild sexual images, near the end of a 20-hour game. There is also an opportunity to engage in a sexual encounter with a second member of the aforementioned genderless alien species, if one expresses disappointment with the more mundane gift she offers in return for helping her. This was enough to enrage the Moral Guardians who, naturally, never played the game. This eventually became so bad that the game itself got more advertisement when being decried as a completely pornographic game rather than the epic space opera it is. Fortunately, this was turned down when the sequel came out.
- In
*Mass Effect 2*, if Shepard is male, he has the option to have casual sex with Jack, after which she wants nothing to do with him. (In contrast, if Shepard turns her down but then spends time earning her trust, it turns into a Romance Sidequest, one of the six possible in the game.)
-
*Mass Effect 3* allows both male and female Shepards to get an "exclusive" with Intrepid Reporter Diana Allers if they show an interest in her. Unlike the typical Romance Sidequest, Allers is treated as more of a fling and other characters can be pursued with no hard feelings. If you sleep with her while in a relationship with Liara though, the latter will dump you the next time you talk to her.
-
*Planescape: Torment*:
- There are prostitutes that fit this role, but more importantly, allow Morte to raise his taunt skill by bantering with them. One such prostitute
*is* willing to do... *something* with Morte. It's not shown and it doesn't have any game effect, but when Morte returns he's described as looking happy and bearing lipstick marks. (For the uninitiated, Morte is a floating skull.)
- The game also has a very large brothel, which turns out to service
*intellectual* lusts instead, and is run by a chaste succubus. The Nameless One can (optionally) get service from practically all of its prostitutes, which involves from learning to play strategy boardgames, to political debates, to swapping fables, to having abuse heaped at you (sending Morte to see the insult specialist will, again, raise his taunting skill).
- One encounter in which the Nameless One can be bathed and scented (reducing his characteristic embalmed smell and raising his Charisma stat) can also be done by Morte. Afterwards, he returns with a coating of scented wax, buffed to a high shine, meaning he's just paid someone to... polish his bone.
-
*Shin Megami Tensei*:
- In
*Shin Megami Tensei if...*, the hero can do naughty things with a succubus if there are no female party members. The succubus will have to offer first, though. The hero has to make her hot through battle conversation first.
- In
*Persona 3*, three female members in your party (plus two girls that aren't in your party) will spend the night with the male lead if their social link is maxed out. This is just the icing on the cake as it also gives you awesome personas to smash your enemy with. But it is tricky to pull off a triple play though and requires a rigid schedule.
- Additionally, in
*FES* you can date and, near the end of the game, make it with Elizabeth. Mostly it's just for fun, but it's really amusing nevertheless.
- The PSP re-release gives the same option to the female protagonist with two of her male teammates and with Elizabeth's younger brother Theodore - although instead of occurring automatically in the last rank of the Social Link, they are bonus scenes available
*after* completing the S.Link.
- And just to make you (and, undoubtedly, the protagonist) feel more awesome, in case you don't know, both Elizabeth and Theodore are in fact extremely powerful Humanoid Abominations who might or might not exist between dream and reality in the collective subconscious. Some fans theorize that they represent the Anima and the Animus, but this just makes things Squicky.
- And you can do it again with most of your female social links/Confidants in
*Persona 4* and *Persona 5*. That said, the sex in the *Persona* series is mostly only implied.
- Shows up
*all over the place* in *Dragon Age*, where going through with the Optional Sexual Encounter is (usually) the only way to "officially" confirm a relationship with your love interest.
-
*The Bard's Tale* has a newer version after you deal with a couple of rats in a bar, depending on if you are a nice guy or not. The barmaid will spend the night with you or leave you in a cold cellar for the evening.
- In
*Alpha Protocol*, Mike can potentially sleep with Mina, Scarlett, or Madison, if he has a strong positive relationship with them. SIE is also an option, if Mike chooses her as his handler for the final mission, where she'll break into the medical bay to release Mike. And then she'll let him out of his restraints, too. After spending a little while taking advantage of the fact that he's in restraints, if you follow.
- In
*Dex*, the titular protagonist can pay for one whenever she visits the *Aphrodite* brothel. In fact, the first dialogue option when talking to the establishment's owner is "I would like a closed room with a man in it." There's another prostitute that can be slept with, though she's not affiliated with Aphrodite.
- Parodied in
*Fragile Hearts*, where you can ask the Item Shop owner in Orin "Do you sell condoms?". He says yes, and Fergus breaks the fourth wall and directly tells the player that they've found a secret sexual encounter between him and Haddy... only to get hit painfully by her and then mocked by Gulliver.
- In the freeware
*Sore Losers*, two such options are available in the Eastern Slums, where there's both a dedicated brothel and a flat where two bunny-suited prostitutes work on their own. Both will restore all health and MP, just like a stay at an inn, and Markus will even comment "This is better than a night's sleep" when he's done. Plus, going to the flat is actually cheaper than just staying at an inn.
- In
*Cyberpunk 2077* V (who can be played as male or female) can hire male and female prostitutes (called "joytoys" in-game) as well as hook up with Meredith Stout, a Militech agent, regardless of gender.
-
*Amorous Adventures* is a mod for *The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim* which adds lots of quests adding sexual encounters with NPCs from the unmodded game. The romance quests are closely interconnected with Vanilla quests. Some of the sexual encounters are completely optional, some others are required to progress the new quests. The Bleached Underpants version only fades to black with a quick text description of your encounters, while there's more explicit versions that work alongside with third-party sex animation mods.
-
*The Sims*:
-
*The Sims 2* allows you to create a Sim whose life goal is to have sex with as many Sims as possible. The sex is called "WooHoo" and the way it plays has the two Sims go under the covers and you see lumps of movements take place. Cartoonish sounds like "meow" and "honk honk" being expressed keep it from being sexy. There are patches to fix that, however.
-
*The Sims 3*, said cartoonish sounds are toned down, and the Sims do giggle and moan contentedly. It's still not all that sexy, though.
- Same goes for the "Love Tub". We also get to see various limbs flying out of the tub every now and again. (How do they breathe while doing... all that?)
- Players who want to get a look at the sexy by pausing the game and maneuvering the camera under the covers (or using a cheat to remove the covers period) will discover that the joke is on them — those energetic lumps are created by alarming boneless contortions that have nothing to do with sex as we understand it.
-
*Harvest Moon: Back to Nature* and *Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town* have "special dates" that you can have with the potential bride of your choice, by giving the Harvest Goddess gifts for ten straight days. You'll immediately get a scene at the Hot Spring with the girl of your choice, where you and she "spend some time together". If you're already married, you'll just get some Relaxation Tea Leaves.
-
*Summertime Saga*: Many of the routes outside the main storyline are entirely dependent on whether the MC decides to pursue a relationship with those characters. Out of more than 50 possible partners, his encounters with Maria, Tina, Josephine, Iwanka, and Melonia are pretty much the only ones that are required to advance the main story. Bedding the teachers is also a requirement for completing their courses with the highest grade possible.
- The turn-based strategy game
*Centurion: Defender of Rome*, a Spiritual Successor to Cinemaware games like *Defender of the Crown*, allowed the player to attempt to seduce Cleopatra if certain conditions were met.
-
*Defender of the Crown* - when you rescue a Damsel in Distress
-
*Agarest Senki*:
- If you married the girl of your choice, you will be treated to a CG where the girl you had sex with is wrapped with nothing more then sheets. This is called Soul Breeding apparently.
- In the same game, there are a few moments in which the main character can have very implied sex with one of the options before actually marrying. In the first generation, it's Luna, who will tackle you into her bed if you accompany her to go shopping. In the third generation, after she recuperates from a sudden illness, Faina and Thoma will also have a scene similar to that.
- The sequel brings the old Soul Breed System back with a new twist if your relationship with your chosen one is bad enough, she will still bear your child but it will be heavily implied you raped her to make the heir as the scene is rather dark with ominous music to it.
-
*Star Control II* offers an optional encounter with Talana, commander of the Syreen race. The screen cuts to black and you're able to pick from some rather amusing Dialogue Tree choices.
-
*Jagged Alliance 2* has one. In San Mona, the local Wretched Hive of Scum and Villany, a quest involves freeing a girl from forced prostitution. The easiest way is ||just paying the pimp madame for an hour, stealing the key, and sneaking out the back door. ||If you get lost on the way to the target, you may end up in the room of another hooker, which results in a fade to black, a sound effect, and your mercenary ending up outside the brothel. This happens regardless of who is doing it.
- At the end of Hagino's route in
*Canvas 2*, you have the option of going drinking with the previously reviled Shie. If you choose to go, your relationship is mostly repaired and Hiroki nurses a hidden affection for her, but still ends up with Hagino.
- In
*Crescendo (JP)*, you don't *have* to aim for the sex scenes to go for the good endings. In fact, sometimes directly going for the h-options will get you **the bad end** instead. (Like ||sleeping with Yuka for sex only.||)
- In
*Daughter for Dessert*, every sex scene that doesnt involve Amanda (and one at the end that does) can actually be avoided by making certain choices.
- In
*Double Homework*, the only sexual encounter thats actually mandatory is the threesome between the protagonist, Johanna, and Tamara in the penultimate chapter. The rest can be avoided (though the other protagonist/Johanna and protagonist/Tamara ones are either/or).
- Similarly, one of the
*Katawa Shoujo* routes (|| Shizune||'s) will give Hisao the option of sleeping or not with a certain girl ||Shiina aka Misha||. ||And if you accept, you're *cheating on Shizune with her best friend*, which locks you into her route's bad ending.|| Noticeable in that this is the *only* sex scene in the game that abides by the trope; all the others are mandatory, in as much as you can skip the scene itself but the sex will still happen in-story.
- In
*Melody*, the vast majority of sex scenes can actually be avoided by making certain choices.
- In the sapphic werewolf interactive novel,
*Moonrise*, the player can have sex with all, none, or some of the three love interests.
-
*Queen at Arms* has these with the assorted potential love interests. One of them has two, with the second one being a case of Making Love in All the Wrong Places. Another has the gentleman in question promptly lose interest when he realizes that his Ho Yay with protagonist Marcus (who is really a girl) isn't Ho Yay at all.
-
*The Town with No Name* gives you the opportunity of going upstairs in the saloon to sleep with a prostitute ||for what seems like days||, but only if you've bathed beforehand.
-
*Yandere I Love You So I Want To Kill You* has various choices that include this. The Jerkass protagonist, Subaru, hopes to have as much sex as he can and the player can choose to give that sex or deprive him of that. However, if you noticed the title for this novel, you should know that no matter what, things will not end well for Subaru.
- In the
*Grand Theft Auto* games, encounters with prostitutes actually do have a benefit: they regenerate the player's health beyond the normal maximum limit.
- Rather than fade to black, the car just bounces with the camera at such an angle as to obscure the player's vision of the naughtiness (if the player is driving a convertible the health bar fills up instantly and the prostitute immediately leaves the vehicle). However, by switching to the first-person view and activating the rear view one can see the characters sitting motionless, perfectly clothed, and behaving themselves.
- Additionally,
*GTA: San Andreas* used it as a way to increase your Relationship Meter with a girlfriend. But only once it got to a certain point already (except for Millie, who was..less choosy in certain regards).
-
*San Andreas* also had the Pimping Side Quest, which when completed caused prostitutes to give you money while in your, ahem, employ. And then, of course, there was "Hot Coffee"...
- Which they "corrected" in
*GTA IV* by sticking to sounds during those scenes, but in turn, took the prostitution scenes to a whole new level. Let's just say it's gone far beyond the "bouncing cars" from the *GTA III* trilogy - with a variety of animations depending on the "service" you buy.
-
*Grand Theft Auto V* has various strippers you can charm into sleeping with you. Rather than actually dating them, you simply try to touch them while making sure you don't get caught by the bouncers. Doing this successfully results in the stripper inviting your character to her place, the in-game time advances a few hours and you're back outside, shortly followed by getting an SMS with a suggestive selfie from your new booty call chick.
- Similar to
*IV*, picking up hookers in *V* comes with explicit animations that leave nothing to imagination (although there's no nudity involved), and the free camera makes it very easy to watch every second of it. Sex with hookers also counts as physical activity that slightly improves your character's stamina stat. Uniquely, hiring hookers as one specific protagonist, Michael, has some minor impact on the story because he's a family man whose wife hates his sleeping around, and the matter will come up a couple times during his sessions with his shrink as well.
-
*Saints Row 2* has this as well with Ho-ing Diversions located in Red Light Districts where you have sex with hookers or other guys if you are a girl. You see nothing though, though quitting the diversion will give you "You should be ashamed" rather than "Diversion cancelled". It is as if they want to rub salt in *GTA*'s wounds.
- In
*Saints Row IV*, you can "romance" all of your crew members with a press of a button. This includes the resident Robot Buddy. The only exceptions to this rule are Keith David (who politely blows you off) and Benjamin King (from whom the Boss just wants an autograph). They're all Played for Laughs and so ham-fisted that it's more humorous than sexy, except for maybe Shaundi and ||Johnny|| who, given their history with the Boss, manages to be actually touching. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OptionalSexualEncounter |
Loose Canon - TV Tropes
This material is separated from the main continuity, usually in the form of special episodes, a Non-Serial Movie, or even Bonus Material. It's not out of canonicity, but it's not treated as if it was fully in canonicity either. Its continuity status is not quite accepted, and not quite rejected. None of this will be referenced in the canon, but it will not be contradicted outright either. In other words, it's a standalone episode.
As opposed to the Canon Discontinuity which was explicitly removed from canonicity later, this "Optional Continuity" implicitly was not firmly tied into canonicity to begin with. Unlike Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, it's not just a random throwaway gag that pops up unexpectedly only to sink forever, it's a complete piece of continuity not thrown away, but still set aside. While it cannot participate in overarching storylines, it serves to highlight characters or setting that
*do* belong to the canonical continuity without interrupting the main story flow with expositions, up to becoming dedicated Exposition Bonus Material.
If the events are not inconsequential, such an episode may contain Reset Button, Or Was It a Dream? or Perspective Flip to Unreliable Narrator, forming a weakened link with the Canon. If every installment in a franchise is Loose Canon, then you get Negative Continuity. If the main continuity or Word of God eventually acknowledges this material as canonical despite previously labeling it as this, then you have a case of Ret-Canon. Compare Broad Strokes, where specific bits from a previous story are accepted as canonical in later installments. Unrelated to Cowboy Cop.
Related to Schrödinger's Canon, where the material
*is* meant to be canonical to some extent, but is frequently at odds with the actual canon because it's not really made by the author or some other reason.
## Examples:
- The
*UFO Kamen Yakisoban* ads, game, and movie don't outright contradict each other for the most part, but since the ads are short and the game and movie are standalone stories, it doesn't really matter.
- The
*Bleach* anime: While the Bount, Forest of the Menos, and several other filler arcs do fit in to the anime's timeline where they're set and the former is even referenced in later episodes, "The New Captain Shūsuke Amagai" and "Zanpakutō Unknown Tales" arcs are separated from the anime's main continuity and the ambiguous place of the former in the timeline is even lampshaded. Despite not being referenced after their conclusions, they are not removed from the anime's continuity either.
-
*Case Closed* has an ongoing spin-off manga series called *Detective Conan Special.* It's not drawn by the original creator (hence Off-Model being the norms) And while it starts off relatively close to the source materials. Eventually, it moves away from that and now doing its own thing with story and characters. As such, it has no bearing on the main series in any capacity. note : However, two cases from *Special* were adapted into the anime series. And the fact Conan hate raisins originated from this spin-off.
- The anime also features original episodes wrote by the team. While they are not part of the manga canon. Later original episodes might have a call-back to an earlier one. Some are a direct sequel, even!
-
*Darker than Black*'s OVA is a Deconstructive Parody of the series... with a Reset Button at the end.
-
*Dragon Ball*:
- The franchise has the core manga by Akira Toriyama, which all other works are inherently connected to that expand the story without contradicting the manga (even the anime can be considered this with the amount it expands on things). However many of these extra stories contradict
*each other*, and it's simply impossible to avoid Continuity Snarl without keeping Loose Canon in mind for all of them.
- The Non-Serial Movie
* Dragon Ball Z: Super Android 13!* creates Androids 13, 14 and 15, which never appeared in the manga besides a small nod about them being unfinished.
-
*Dragon Ball: Plan to Eradicate the Saiyans* and *Dragon Ball GT* depict the wars between the Tuffles and the Saiyans led by King Vegeta, which doesn't really contradict the main series as the Tuffles are never referenced by name beyond the Saiyans taking over their planet.
- The fighting game
*Dragon Ball FighterZ* introduces the character of Android 21, who is based on Android 16's human counterpart's mother. Not only is this the first material to state 16 is based on Gero's son, but Android 21's human counterpart doesn't contradict anything about Doctor Gero, although the relationship between them is vague.
- The mobile game
*Dragon Ball Legends* introduces Shallot, an ancient Saiyan wearing an armor similar to what the Saiyans wore before Freeza took over Planet Vegeta. While the events of the game cannot have happened, Shallot himself and his attire don't contradict the series.
- The
*Evillious Chronicles* franchise has four comedy bonus stories that were e-mailed with the *Waltz of Evil* databook, each of them too self-referencing to actually be considered canonical. Even so, nothing contradicts that the events of the stories happened and fans tend to take the world-building assertions in them as true.
- A tie-in game for
*Neon Genesis Evangelion* was promoted as containing secret answers that explained the often-obscure worldbuilding of the series. At the time, it was promoted as being overseen by the director of the series, Hideaki Anno. However, this is pretty uncharacteristic for a guy like Anno, who generally balks at the idea of giving solid answers one way or the other. While the worldbuilding isn't really contradicted by the series proper or its remakes, it also is so divorced from the main story that it might as well not exist.
-
*Pokémon: The Series*:
- Many of the movies — while a few of them are shown to be part of the canon, one wonders how the Victini movies would fit in, due to them being the same movie, but with different twists.
- The 2006
*Mastermind of Mirage Pokémon* special is a more straightforward example. It was made by a different studio than the main anime, debuted in the U.S. before Japan, and features some discrepancies from the main series. For example, it shows Pikachu using Volt Tackle when he had not yet learned the attack in the dub (although this may simply mean that the special takes place sometime after he learned it), and gives Professor Oak a Dragonite which is never mentioned in the main series.
- The
*Getting Back on Your Hooves* sidestory "Another Happy Mother's Day" is said to be this by Word of God, being one valid possibility as to the fate of ||Checker Monarch||. Ironically, it's actually a Recursive Fanfiction written by Alexwarlorn, the writer of the below *Pony POV Series*, the two authors being good friends.
-
*The New Adventures of Invader Zim* has the spinoff *New Adventures: Mature Edition*. It's loosely set in the same universe as the main series, but the human characters have been aged up, and Negative Continuity is in play, as opposed to the solider continuity of the main series.
-
*Pony POV Series*:
- The series has several chapters which Word of God has specifically said are optional for readers to consider canonical or not, depending on their personal preference. This includes Luna's sidestory and the "Battle Pros" chapter. The former is referenced somewhat in the actual canon, but never truly confirmed.
- Then there's ||Pinkie Pie||'s Side Story, detailing ||the end of the G3 universe through her witnessing the Cosmic Retcon that must be done or the universe ends||. Word of God has pretty much left it up to the readers rather it's a prequel, a non-canonical standalone story, or just a fever dream of ||Pinkie Pie||.
- The three live-action
*The Fairly OddParents!* TV movies, *A Fairly Odd Movie: Grow Up, Timmy Turner!*, *A Fairly Odd Christmas*, and *A Fairly Odd Summer*, have this distinction when it comes to the series proper for reasons such as depicting Tootie as the only potential love interest Timmy ever had, Sparky not being present (not even after the character was introduced in the series proper), and most of all, contradicting the Distant Finale of *Channel Chasers*, especially since ||the ending of the third movie has Timmy turn into a fairy||.
- In
*Star Wars*, the films contain elements that are expanded on in the *Star Wars Expanded Universe*, and previously, in *Star Wars Legends*. To some, only the films count, but there are appearances of EU elements like Aurra Sing in *The Phantom Menace*, Dash Rendar's *Outrider* in the Special Edition of *A New Hope*, and C-3PO's red arm in *The Force Awakens*, explained in the comic *Star Wars Special: C-3PO*. Further, the All There in the Manual details of aliens, ships and technology suggests the supplementary materials count unless they are contradicted by the films. *Solo* adapts plot points from *The Han Solo Trilogy*, but changes other details, and goes out of its way to re-introduce elements from the Legends continuity into the new EU. Much of the Legends material that was set thousands of years prior to the movies (and thus distant enough to not be of much risk of contradiction by any of the new canon content) is implied to be at least partially canon. For example, the "Qel-Droma Epics" are a set of stories that encompass the events of the *Tales of the Jedi* comic books, but in-universe scholars debate how much of the stories are true and how much are embellishments. Characters such as Empress Teta, Sith Lord Naga Sadow, the Krath, Jedi-turned-Sith-turned-Jedi-again Ulic Qel-Droma and Jedi-turned-Sith Exar Kun and events like the Unification Wars, Great Hyperspace War and Great Sith War are all canon, but whether and how much the details differ from the Legends version is unclear. Darth Revan from the *Knights of the Old Republic* video game is also verified to be canon, though whether the rest of the franchise (including the ongoing MMORPG *Star Wars: The Old Republic*) will be reincorporated into canon is similarly uncertain.
-
*The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant* has *Gilden-Fire*, a novella consisting of material cut from *The Illearth War*. It gives information about the Haruchai (the people that the Bloodguard come from) which is found nowhere else in the books. However, the details of the storyline don't quite mesh with the version of events given in *The Illearth War*.
-
*Discworld*:
- The
*Fine Structure* story "Marooned" is Optional Canon by Word of God. A number of details, mostly Alternate Character Interpretation on the Big Good, are left to the opinion of the reader.
-
*Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes* expands on the human element of the *Five Nights at Freddy's* universe, yet at the same time, it is its own universe. It is this book where the Purple Guy's real name was established as William Afton. The book also introduced Henry, the creator of the animatronics, and his daughter Charlie, with the catch that Henry was a Posthumous Character in the book, while in the games, it is instead Charlie who died in the backstory.
- Elements of lore introduced by the movies and video games are considered canonical to the
*Harry Potter* series by some — as long as they don't contradict elements from higher "tiers" of canonicity, namely the books themselves and Word of God. Creatures like the Valcores or the Troll of Nadroj have yet to come up in expressly canonical media, but neither has their existence been jossed.
- Psalm 151: Canon, Apocryphal, waste of paper? Depends on if you're Jewish, Roman Catholic, or Protestant.
note : And apocryphal is closer to the idea of the trope; read it if you want, but be prepared for evidence towards one of the other two options.
- To the extent that
*Doctor Who* has a continuity at all — given that it's a show about Time Travel that allows for changing the timeline, the show's writers generally don't tend to be strict about keeping entirely consistent with the show's whole history — the Doctor Who Expanded Universe is treated in this manner. Several characters, events and settings have been introduced in the Expanded Universe and later given the Ret-Canon treatment. One interesting example is the episode "Boom Town" including a brief reference to the Doctor and Rose visiting the planet Justicia, which happened in a New Series Adventures novel released only two weeks before the episode aired.
- The
*Lost* tie-in books and video game aren't canonical (except for the Incident Room in the game...) but they don't interfere with canonicity by involving background characters and just mentioning the canonical events as happening elsewhere. (The one trip-up spot here is really the part right before the end of the video game where you have to ||save Jack and Kate from the Others||. There's no reason why *that* wouldn't come up again in the series...)
- After the release of
*Avengers: Endgame,* it became unclear if *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.* and other Marvel Cinematic Universe shows not released for Disney Plus remained canonical. *Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.*'s sixth and seventh seasons appear to directly contradict the timeline established by *Endgame,* and Coulson's death is mentioned in *Loki.* In addition, all non-Disney Plus MCU shows are listed under Disney Plus's *Marvel Legacy* banner, next to the likes of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy and the Fox *X-Men* movies.
- The third-season
*The West Wing* episode "Isaac and Ishmael" was specifically intended to be canonically vague — it opens with the actors telling us not to worry about where it fits into the show's chronology (which is wise, given that it falls in the middle of a cliffhanger and its resolution), but no one ever actually says that it isn't canonical.
-
*Battletech* has a rather intricate multilayered approach to its canon, of which two levels are relevant to this trope:
- Apocrypha, mostly licensed material (like the animated series and the
*MechWarrior* games) whose events are accepted as Broad Strokes canon even if their specific portrayals aren't, unless otherwise contradicted in canon sources.
- Canon Rumors, urban legends, conspiracy theories, and other stories that exist in-universe as unproven rumors, many of which involve the secret dealings of ComStar or the mysteries of the Deep Periphery beyond known space.
- The novel
*Betrayal of Ideals*, which depicts the destruction of Clan Wolverine, also ends up falling into this. It's acknowledged in-universe that the official story that the Clans tell of the demise of the Wolverines is very self-serving, but the novel itself goes heavy in the other direction and depicts events from a very pro-Wolverine bias (as well as contradicting some out-of-character sources of information by depicting the Wolverines as developing some technologies that were supposed to have already been widespread among the Clans by then).
-
*Exalted*:
- Adamant Caste Alchemicals were optional in first edition, but were made full canon from second edition onwards.
- Third edition has three optional Exalted types, the Umbral Exalted, the Hearteaters, and the Dream-Souled. While they get basic writeups in the
*Exigents* appendix, laying out their themes, concepts and backstories, and giving sufficient detail on their Charmsets for homebrew, the rest of the line does not assume their existence, unlike the other Exalted. In the *Essence* companion, the Umbrals and Dream-Souled get playable writeups, and the Hearteaters get an antagonist writeup, but they're still considered optional.
- In the early days of
*Magic: The Gathering*, a number tie-in novels were published by HarperPrism and a comic series was published by Armada. When the Weatherlight saga began and Wizards of the Coast started its own novel line, the continuity was revised (this is commonly referred to as "The Revision"). Any material in the old publications is considered Canonical unless new material directly contradicts it.
-
*Warhammer* and *Warhammer 40,000* have this for almost everything. Major events get retconned all the time, and it's up to individual writers what they consider canonical for their story. Due to the sheer size of the setting and suspect in-universe sources of background info (which is generally presented as propaganda for one faction or another, making its reliability conveniently dubious) things they don't like can usually just be ignored and left ambiguous.
-
*The Drowsy Chaperone*: In-Universe, Man-in-Chair never elaborates on the actors playing George and Trix. However, the booklet that comes with the 2006 Cast Recording contains fake liner notes from the record of the Show Within a Show, naming both of them.
- The
*Batman: Arkham Series* has this with both *Batman: Arkham Unhinged* comics that tie into *Batman: Arkham City* and the self-titled it in comics to *Batman: Arkham Knight*, with many of the comic stories clashing with the events of the games.
-
*Dead or Alive 4* introduced a *Halo* Spartan, Nicole-458, as a bonus character. Given one is contemporary and the other is set in the 26th century, making her non-canonical could already be easy. But she was created in close collaboration with Bungie (specially as Tecmo wanted Master Chief himself, before Bungie told them an original character could do away with the protagonist's storyline restrictions), so the response from the *Halo* side is that there is a Nicole among the Spartans, only her time travelling to go hand-in-hand against busty fighters is certainly not canonical.
- By and large,
*Devil May Cry 2*'s impact on the *Devil May Cry* franchise's canon has been kept to the barest of minimums. Prior to the timeline re-arrangement around *Devil May Cry 5*'s release, *DMC2* was stated to have been set long after the events of *Devil May Cry 4* in such a way that it was deliberately kept out of any ongoing story arcs at the time. Capcom then reslotted *DMC2* between *DMC1* and *DMC4*, but even so, it still has no relevance to the latter game's plot anyway. *DMC5* reuses or recalls significant plot threads touched on in *DMC1*, *DMC3* and *DMC4* but nothing much from this game aside from minor references (the only major relevance of *DMC2* in anything related to *DMC5* isn't found in the latter game itself, but in its *Before the Nightmare* prequel novel).
-
*The Elder Scrolls* series has this in the form of "Obscure Texts", supplementary items written by the series' developers and former developers. They're essentially treated as canonical by most of the fanbase (or at least the equivalent of the series' famous in-universe Unreliable Canon), but Bethesda has no official stance either way. Most prolific is former developer Michael Kirkbride, who still does some freelance work for the series. Most of what he writes about are the more obscure aspects of universe's cosmology which don't get expanded on in the games, as well as lore figures the games never touch upon or that Bethesda is simply finished with (like Vivec). As of *Skyrim*, some of the concepts in his works have been officially referenced in game (the idea of "kalpas," Ysgramor and his 500 companions, and some of the motivations of the Thalmor), moving them to Canon Immigrant status.
- The
*Final Fantasy VII Remake* storylines in *Mobius Final Fantasy* are presumably somewhat canonical, as they are written by Kazushige Nojima and provide background information about the story and characters that are certainly not contradicted in *Remake* itself. However, the idea of Midgar and Nibelheim being relocated to an entirely different planet so Cloud can hang out with a faerie does seem outside of the context of the *FFVII* setting and tone.
-
*Half-Life*:
-
*Half-Life: Opposing Force* (note that the expansions were made by a different company than original producers Valve) introduced the main character (marine Adrian Shepard) who proved quite popular among the fanbase, and the mysterious "Race X" from another, unknown world who happened to arrive at Black Mesa during the events of *Half-Life* and made a weak attempt to conquer Earth. Their canonicity is pretty much a gray area: it was never completely exiled from canonicity, but they did not appear in the series again. Same goes for *Blue Shift*; though Barney Calhoun made his way into *Half-Life 2*, the supporting characters (Dr. Rosenberg) and the exact events are semi-canonical at best. *Decay* is of even further dubiousness, partly due to its obscurity.
- Several of the security guards in
*Half-Life*, in the opening before the resonance cascade sets off the game, offer to buy Gordon Freeman a beer sometime later. While Barney Calhoun appears in *Blue Shift*, he comments in *Half-Life 2* that he still owes Gordon that beer. Calhoun never directly encounters Freeman during the course of *Blue Shift* (he only catches Freeman passing by in a tram at the beginning and witnessing him being dragged away by Marines after he's been captured at the end), though it is conceivable that many guards (perhaps even all guards) owe Gordon Freeman a beer for some reason or other.
- The only detail from expansions that the writer of
*Half-Life*, Marc Laidlaw, has explicitly declared canonical is Black Mesa's nuclear destruction in *Opposing Force*'s ending.
- The whole
*Kirby* series is essentially treated this way; there are ongoing character arcs and plot threads, but the specifics of what happened in each game aren't entirely concrete so as to avoid constraining the potential for future stories. This especially applies to the extra modes like *Kirby: Planet Robobot*'s Meta Knightmare Returns; said mode is a For Want of a Nail scenario where Kirby never wakes up from his nap at the beginning of the game and Meta Knight fights the Haltmann Works Company instead. Modes like this may not be the "canon" telling of their stories, but can be considered canon elements that *could* have happened if things played out differently, and affect later installments accordingly.
- It really isn't clear if
*Mega Man X: Command Mission* is canonical to the rest of the *Mega Man X* series. Zero's ending in *Mega Man X6* establishes that he was set to be asleep for 102 years, presumably leading into the *Mega Man Zero* series, thus making those games set in 22XX — the same year that *Command Mission* supposedly takes place. Statements by Capcom imply that *Command Mission* is simply non-canonical; however, given the vague continuity placement of *Mega Man X7* and *Mega Man X8*, which were released after the epilogue scene in *X6*, it is possible that *X7* and *X8* are *also* non-canonical and thus free to lead into *Command Mission* (though this is unlikely, as Word of God claims that the *X6* epilogue is a Distant Finale after the events of the entire *X* series). Fans typically either treat *Command Mission* as an Alternate Continuity Gaiden Game set sometime after *X7* or try to find a way to fit it into the timeline after the events of *X8*, which is a bit difficult considering ||*X8* features both a plot hook involving the Big Bad injuring Axl while embedding something in his cracked Power Crystal and an unlockable armor for Axl in said Big Bad's colors (leading many to believe this was setting up a Grand Theft Me situation for a future title), whereas Axl looks no worse for the wear in *Command Mission*||.
-
*Metal Gear*:
-
*Metal Gear Solid Mobile* hits the Reset Button at the end by erasing Snake's memory so it doesn't interfere with canonicity (though that doesn't explain why Otacon doesn't remember any of the events either). It doesn't help that it's so hard to get hold of that it's virtually a Missing Episode.
-
*In the Darkness of Shadow Moses* and *The Shocking Conspiracy Behind Shadow Moses*, in-universe backstory documents included with *Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty*, were both intended to be canonical at the time, but have been ignored for convenience (particularly the plot point regarding Metal Gear possessing only a dummy warhead, the background information about "the real Naomi" who went missing in the Middle East and the fate of the main Naomi). That said, not much is specifically contradicted between the games and the books and some of the things that are contradicted are likely intentional. The stuff that isn't contradicted (like the background details of Nastasha and Ames' relationship) is presumably canonical.
- Some of the "Snake Tales" shorts included with
*Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance* — the stories are certainly not part of the main continuity, but some fill in background information that is probably canonical:
- "Confidential Legacy" is the most obvious one — the story about Meryl working with Gurlukovich is definitely non-canonical, but it also goes into a lot of detail about Meryl's family situation which is regarded as canonical, naming Meryl's legal father for the first time and delving into his military position and job. It also contains the only real explanation thus far for why Snake and Meryl are not a couple in
*Metal Gear Solid 2*.
- "Big Shell Evil" shows Snake demonstrating a photographic memory talent to memorise a long computer password. He never actually uses this ability in the canon, but there is still a very sad Call-Back to it in
*Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots* in a sequence where the player may have him forget a computer password, demonstrating he has lost this ability. In addition to this, it elaborates on Snake and Otacon's friendship circumstances and interpersonal quirks, along with "External Gazer".
- "Dead Man Whispers" fills in a lot of detail about Vamp and Scott Dolph's relationship. The canon has Snake mention in an optional radio conversation that "rumour has it" that they were lovers. "Dead Man Whispers" makes it very clear that they both deeply loved each other, as Vamp is shown to sacrifice himself in order to protect Dolph. It also gives some characterisation to Jackson, the original leader of Dead Cell and Fortune's husband, and goes into detail about what exactly the financial corruption scandal he was involved in was.
- "External Gazer" is a goofy Crack Fic about Philanthropy fighting a Kaiju, but explains details about Philanthropy's living situation and Mei Ling's role in the organisation.
-
*Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance* is generally seen as this in relation to the mainline entries. Hideo Kojima has gone on record to say that if he had more control over the project, he would've handled the story differently. That being said, the game is set at the tail-end of the timeline and explores how the war economy would have continued even after the fall of SOP. References to events from previous games like *Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty* are made but never contradicted, so there's nothing stopping fans from accepting it as canon anyways.
-
*Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops*, not being made by Kojima, is canonical only insofar as it doesn't contradict anything else.
-
*Metal Gear: Ghost Babel* adds some detail to Big Boss's backstory (such as his student Augustine Eguabon) that was presumably supposed to be canonical at the time, and gives a lot of background information and worldbuilding to Galzburg/Gindra, the country where Outer Heaven was located.
- Meryl's actual parentage, being the result of an affair between her mother and her supposed uncle Colonel Campbell, is only directly stated in the non-canonical bad ending of
*Metal Gear Solid* where she dies, but that revelation forms a major crux of both of their involvements in *Metal Gear Solid 4*.
-
*Monster Hunter* has the Ancient Civilization which is features sparingly in the games themselves. Instead most information comes from published books which contain concept art that didn't reach the games, making their canonical status uncertain. The books detail that the *Monster Hunter* world is a post-apocalyptic setting after the Ancients triggered a war with *all* of the Elder Dragons due to their vile behavior; modern Hunters are descendants of their superhuman soldiers from that war. Of particular note is the Equal Dragon Weapon which is largely considered to be the least likely to achieve canonical status.
- The
*Pokémon* spin-off duology of *Pokémon Colosseum* and *Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness*, developed by Genius Sonority instead of Game Freak, has this status in the main series's canon. While the main series titles have progressively established that *all* of the games take place in a sort of multiverse (the Hoenn region in *Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire* canonically exists in its own reality separate from the one in the 3DS remakes, *Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire*), the Orre region is the only region not named anywhere in-text in any of the main games (Pokémon traded from Orre are labeled vaguely as arriving "from a distant land") and no other story elements of the duology (such as Shadow Pokémon) are ever mentioned. That certain big names in Game Freak have reportedly spoken disfavorably of the games (claiming they don't match the "vision" of the series as a whole) seems to suggest that they're deliberately ignored.
- The
*Puyo Puyo* series has a lot of small stories — both in the various games, as well as in the novels and Audio Adaptation — that aren't necessarily relevant to the overarching plot, but can come into play again at any time when it comes to the Character Development of the cast or minor plot points being developed.
- In the
*Ratchet & Clank* franchise, this is how Insomniac Games treats the games not made by them, specifically *Going Mobile*, *Size Matters*, *Secret Agent Clank* and *Before the Nexus*. While they fortunately haven't contradicted anything thus far, they aren't seen as being very important to the story at large and are never referenced.
-
*Resident Evil*:
- The games tend to treat the spin-off games like the
*Survivor* series and the *Outbreak* series as this, with the main games making little nods to them without directly acknowledging that the events of those games occured. *Resident Evil 7: Biohazard* would later place the events of *Outbreak* into definitive canon, as players can find a newspaper article written by one character from that duology note : Alyssa Ashcroft that explicitly features a Continuity Nod to what they experienced, though there's no word on if anyone else survived besides them. *Resident Evil 2 (Remake)* also mentions a NPC from the *Outbreak* games note : Rita Phillips, albeit in a manner that makes it unclear if they're currently alive.
- The two
*Chronicles* games feature scenarios that are condensed versions of the first five games in the main series, depicting them in Broad Strokes, while also featuring two original scenarios. The main series, in turn, depicts these two original scenarios as Loose Canon.
-
*RuneScape* has some Spin Off novels which are loose canon due to the inconsistencies it has with the game. Some of the events of the novels have been referenced in the game and one of the main characters has also shown up in the game. They officially are cannon except where contradicted by the game.
- The Sierra adventure games may include lore from tie-in novels, magazine articles, hint books, spin-offs such as Hoyle, and various reality-breaking easter eggs and joke references from other games. And whether or not the sequels to the games made by other creators are canonical depends on one's point of view.
- According to Ken Eva of Sega Europe,
*Sonic the Hedgehog* as a whole currently runs on this trope, as he's stated that the canon is in flux and what's canonical and what isn't can and has changed at a moment's notice. Basically, the canon is whatever they need it to be at the time.
- The
*Light* trilogy in relation to *Steven Universe*. The games don't contradict any canonicity established by the show and could easily be canonical but by that same token, they don't affect the show's plot at all and the endings for all three games pretty much write out any and all the new characters. You could watch the show without ever playing the games and not miss anything plot important.
- In the
*Tales Series*, the *Tales of Fandom* games are treated this way, at least by the parts of their audience that don't speak Japanese, due to No Export for You. Details may gradually trickle through the fandoms as Fan Translations are made, but since these can be unreliable, most fanfic writers consider them optional at best.
- It is somewhat unclearly stated whether the
*Team Fortress 2* tie-in comic *Loose Canon* is in fact loose canon or not. Later comics and in-game updates build off of this comic as though it was canonical, so it's only an example of In Name Only.
-
*Tekken 7* introduces Akuma of *Street Fighter* fame into the series canon, where he plays an integral part in the story by fighting and trying to kill Heihachi and Kazuya at the behest of Kazumi Mishima, the late wife of Heihachi and Kazuya's mother. He fights them both at different points in the game's Story Mode, and while his impact on the story is minimal and the outcome of their battles indicates no clear victor, each fight plays a key part in the narrative: Akuma's encounter with Heihachi is what clues him and Kazuya in on Kazumi's intention, and his later fight with Kazuya was part of Heihachi's plan to force him to activate his Devil form and discredit him in the public's eye. At the same time, however, there is no indication that Akuma *had* to be in the story, as his role could be filled just as easily by any other fighter.
- The
*World of Mana* games have no explicitly shared world or timeline, despite recurring themes such as being set in a world with a Mana Tree.
-
*Rain: The Animated Series*: The skits and shorts are mostly separate from the comic's main continuity, but appear to take place before, and after the comics main story.
-
*RWBY*: Certain franchise works are designed to compliment the canon of the main show without being part of it, including expansion novels such as *RWBY: After the Fall*, defictionalised works like *RWBY Fairytales Of Remnant*, and the canon-adjacent spin-off *RWBY: Ice Queendom*. The soundtrack also includes feature songs with lyrics that hint at character motives and future plot, sometimes incorporated as Image Songs and Leit Motifs, but which might not be word-for-word accurate to the detail of what's happening in the show due to symbolism and artistic licence.
- In
*El Goonish Shive*, according to the FAQ page EGS:NP stories "generally don't have continuity unless referred to in a later story, and aren't a part of the main storyline unless referred to in the story section." This means unless they involve things that obviously would not fit in continuity (like gratuitous Fourth Wall breaking) or explicitly say they are out of continuity (the Goonmanji storyline is a prime example) the EGS:NP storylines can be considered Optional Canon. This was later changed when the author went back and officially declared which NP stories were canonical (via adding a picture of Grace dressed as a pirate while firing a cannon to the Author's Notes on the first page of each story).
- The
*Gunnerkrigg Court* bonus pages at the end of every chapter represent two different varieties. Some of the pages just show brief scenes which are officially canonical, but are rarely ever mentioned again. Other pages feature a white-haired girl named Tea who pops in to describe background details to the audience. The contents of her exposition are canonical, but Tea has yet to appear in the comic proper, and she has interacted with a cartoon representation of Tom Siddell (a character that the real Mr Siddell insists is non-canonical).
- After
*Homestuck* ran an intermission featuring the Midnight Crew from *Problem Sleuth*, one member of the *MS Paint Adventures* forums began a forum-based adventure serving as a prequel to the intermission and starring the Midnight Crew's rival gang, the Felt. Although the author was eventually forced to cancel it due to accusations of forcing his fan fiction into canonicity, it was generally seen as this, especially due to the author getting permission from Andrew Hussie to use plot points and character designs that hadn't yet been featured in the main comic, and it was even given a Shout-Out by having Hussie slip a necklace resembling one worn by an Original Character from the forum adventure into the actual intermission. Andrew eventually declared it to be non-canonical, however.
- Lampshaded in
*The Order of the Stick:*
**Haley:**
You told me once that you had skill ranks in Profession (chef), right? So cook some stew quick, we grab ourselves a pair of incapacitated warrior-types and scoot out of here.
**Belkar:**
First of all, I told you that in one of the
*Dragon Magazine*
comics, so I'm not even sure that's the same continuity.
-
*Questionable Content* has a handful of characters who show up only in filler strips that the author writes when he doesn't have time to do a regular strip. However, he did write a multi-part New Year's comic with them, and one of them had a cameo in the comic proper. Oh, and there was also the birthday comic.
-
*ReBoot: Code of Honor*'s status in *ReBoot* canonicity is unclear. It was written entirely by a fan without any input from *ReBoot*'s creators, but was officially commissioned and hosted by Rainmaker Entertainment. Furthermore, no other *ReBoot* material has ever resolved Season Four's cliffhanger ending. *ReBoot: The Guardian Code* is an In Name Only Sequel Series that has nothing to do with the original series' story whatsoever. Even the now-canceled movie trilogy that was announced when *Code of Honor* was being written was to going to be a Soft Reboot itself, so it wouldn't have resolved the cliffhanger either.
-
*Slapdash Application of Verbiage* alternates between regular comics and "Tales of Dubious Canonicity", pieced together from previously-drawn artwork. Whether the events and dialogue of these comics have any bearing on the plot or characterization in the main comic is unclear.
-
*Sluggy Freelance*
- The "Meanwhile in..." Guest Strip series by Ian McDonald was defined as "mostly cannon" by Pete Abrams when asked, meaning not every detail was absolutely guaranteed to fit canon. Anyway, it was always written so that all the various things that happened in it didn't affect the main storyline happening elsewhere, even when they got pretty crazy and consequential. When the Dimension of Pain became active in the main story again in "That Which Redeems", it had already had a Reset Button applied after the guest stories, which then moved elsewhere and to other characters.
- The "Torg Potter" parodies are canon but written so that they don't affect the main story and can be skipped. Pete practically apologises when he has a character use the same spell as in them in the main story. This has the ironic consequence that the return of You-Probably-Don't-Know-Who, which should have been the most consequential event in the Torg Potter storylines, has no ramifications as
*Sluggy* doesn't return to that series of parodies at least for many years.
- A lot of guest stories are written like they want to be this, though they aren't usually given canon status by Word of God, and might not really fit canon. A good example is "The Sluggite Koan", which is set during previously unseen moments during "That Which Redeems" and even ties to real-world events from around the same time, complete with a Refugee from TV Land plot connecting the story and real-world events. In spite of being so elaborately combined with existing material, this story strongly arguably contradicts canon because Bun-bun is given Medium Awareness on the basis that he has had it (only) during Filler Strips. Anyway, it's not confirmed to be canon. One of the few guest strips that is are the "Justine Kasich" stories by Pete's daughter, which involve entirely new characters in the same world.
-
*Unwinder's Tall Comics*:
- The Rant below page 32 specified that "It's not
*Tall Comics* canon, but it IS *Marmaduke* canon." *[sic]* But fallout from the events of that page pop up again thirty pages later, anyway.
- Page 97 gives information about the in-universe authors of
*Powerup Comics*. The rant below is quick to point out that this shouldn't be taken as absolute canon for *Powerup Comics*: "I mean, I consider it canon personally, and it's definitely *Tall Comics* canon that these are the real people behind *Powerup Comics*, but at the same time, I don't want to invalidate any fan theories about *Powerup*." *[sic]*
-
*Back for the Future* is loose canon for the *Back to the Future* trilogy. The video doesn't even have an entry over on Futurepedia, the Continuity Cavalcade makes it feel almost like a parody at times, and it was made as a promo for a charity auction. But it was clearly designed to fit into BTTF canonicity right before Doc picks up Marty at the end of *Part I*, it features Christopher Lloyd reprising his role as Doc Brown, it has executive producer credits for Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, and it was directed by trilogy producer Frank Marshall.
-
*I Love Bees* seems to exist as this relative to the rest of the *Halo*-verse; elements of it have been incorporated into subsequent *Halo* media (including the games), but several other aspects, most noticeably the existence of a *second* class of Spartan-IIs, heavily contradict the rest of canon. This is probably because the ARG wasn't even meant be canonical when it still was ongoing, which caused a lot of complications later on when Bungie and 343 Industries decided to change their minds and "embrace it as canon".
- The SCP Foundation as a whole is one huge loose canon made up of many smaller canons connected together and sharing the same setting. This is because SCP is written by many different authors who may just as easily ignore each other's writing or incorporate it into their own stories. Readers are encouraged to decide for themselves what is canonical, which is called "headcanon." For example most of the pages listed as "Joke SCPs" are actually not even meant to be taken as being canonical but many readers and even some writers take some of them as being canonical anyway. This is also partly justified since a lot of it is told by Unreliable Narrators, and due to usage of Alternate Universes, alternate timelines, Reset Buttons and Multiple Choice Pasts.
-
*Æon Flux* likely has the loosest canon *ever*. The only things that stay the same between each episode are Aeon, Trevor, the weird future setting and Aeon failing to accomplish her mission. A graphic novel tie-in did explain the backstory, but who knows if anything about that is canonical? Even Aeon and Trevor's relationship is deliberately kept ambiguous; one short has Trevor killing Aeon, another has him giving her a mission.
-
*Batman and Harley Quinn* was created by Bruce Timm, co-creator of the DC Animated Universe; it's done in the style of *The New Batman Adventures* and more or less fits its continuity. When asked if it was part of the DCAU, Timm responded that *he* thinks it is, but he doesn't know his bosses' opinion.
- This is for the most part how
*Kung Fu Panda* animated spinoffs work: they are officially not canon, but generally do not contradict the events of the movies. However, they do contradict each other, like for instance the Emperor of China almost never sharing the same species or personality. One series might also vaguely reference a character from another, such as Bunnidharma from *Paws of Destiny* talking about Ke-Pa, who's a *Legends of Awesomeness* exclusive villain, making it very unclear how much continuity they're really supposed to share. Some elements in one spinoff can also transition to another spinoff while still not being able to gel with each other continuity-wise, such as *Paws of Destiny* officially calling Po the Dragon *Master*. Po being called the "Dragon Master" makes its way to *The Dragon Knight* while Xiao being Empress doesn't.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*:
- The
*Equestria Girls* Spin-Off material in relation with the main series. While the first few films explicitly take place after certain canonical moments note : The first film takes place just after the third season, the second after season four, and the third explicitly overlaps with the events of the season five finale, none of the events that happen in this part of G4 continuity are ever brought up to any degree in the main series. The closest acknowledgments this parallel universe has received are two brief appearances of Flash Sentry's Equestrian counterpart in the show's fourth season, a season seven flashback depicting the villains of the second EqG film being banished from Equestria via magic portal, and a background cameo of *EqG* "villain-turned-hero protagonist" Sunset Shimmer in the show's Distant Finale. According to the series' directors, both works are canonical to each other, but only *FiM* events will have any effect on *EG* and not vice versa to avoid Continuity Lock-Out. The comic books do provide some more supplemental details, including mini-issues dedicated to the backstories of characters like Sunset.
- Speaking of the comics, the comic book spin-off of the show is also of ambiguous continuity. Very little of what happens in the comics is referenced in the show, leaving it ambiguous whether the events of the comics are considered to have happened. The comics team stated that the comic is considered canonical until the cartoon says otherwise. Meanwhile, series director Jim Miller took a much more ambiguous "everything is canonical until it isn't and nothing is canonical until it is" stance, later explaining in a post-series interview that they were never kept updated on anything regarding the comics.
-
*Friendship Is Magic* also has some chapter books and picture books aimed at younger readers than the comic that are ambiguously canonical, though they began being referenced sparingly once the writer of said books joined the show's writing staff in Season 5.
-
*Scooby-Doo*:
-
*Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated* ends leading into *Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!*, turning out to be a Stealth Prequel. The direct-to-video movies released in 2010 and beyond may or may not take place after *Mystery Incorporated*, as *Mystery Incorporated* never confirms or denies that Velma has any siblings that don't live in Crystal Cove with her, Velma's mother is said to be doting not unlike her *Mystery Incorporated* counterpart, and the Mystery Machine is the same model used from the show as well as having a license plate from Crystal Cove. On the other hand, in one of the movies, Daphne makes a big deal out of her realizing her feelings for Fred, despite their romance being a major part of their story in *Mystery Incorporated*.
-
*Frankencreepy* makes a Take That! to viewers concerned with continuity, where a character gets arrested for complaining about the Series Continuity Errors that would arise if you were to put these movies and *Mystery Incorporated* in the same canon. Just have fun with it, folks.
-
*The Simpsons*:
- The
*Treehouse of Horror* episodes are explicitly non-canonical, due to certain factors. However, certain elements of the episodes, such as the German exchange student Uter Zorker (debuted in "Terror at 5½ Feet" from the fourth episode) and the Lard Lad Donuts franchise (debuted in "Attack of the 50 FT Eyesores" from the sixth episode) have appeared in the main episodes themselves, and there's no stopping others (like Sherri and Terri having older twin brothers in "Treehouse of Horror XXVII") from doing the same. Of course, some elements are just as susceptible to Schrödinger's Canon (in the *28 Days Later* parody from "Treehouse of Horror XX", Marge is reluctant to kill a Muncherified Helen Lovejoy because she's Lisa's godmother, but "The Changing of the Guardian", a standard episode of the show made three seasons later, revolves around Homer and Marge appointing guardians for their children after surviving a life-endangering situation).
- Unlike the show's Whole Episode Flashback scenarios, which strive to retain a continuity, Flash Forward episodes don't fall into a timeline and tend to contradict each other, partly due to developments within the series' present being reflected in the future (for example, the death of Ned Flanders' wife Maude, who's shown alive in the first Flash Forward "Lisa's Wedding"). While, originally, these episodes tended to have an Unreliable Narrator framing device, starting with "Holidays of Future Passed" they simply speak for themselves without either integrating directly into canon or going directly against it. While several of these episodes have elements of continuity between them (most notably "Days of Future Future" as an intentional Sequel Episode to "Holidays of Future Passed"), they largely stand on their own.
-
*Star Wars*:
-
*Star Wars: The Clone Wars* is canonical for the *Star Wars Expanded Universe*, while the old Expanded Universe, *Star Wars Legends*, is stated to no longer be canonical. Still, there are plenty of elements still being used from the old EU, including the Nightsisters.
-
*LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures* has been described as "canon paraphrase"; think a kid reenacting things through their toys. The specifics of each episode are likely non-canonical, but the basic events do have some degree of canonization. The Freemaker family, their reprogrammed battle droid R0-GR, and the Hutt crime lord Graballa all explicitly exist in canon, though it's unclear whether the canon version of Rowan is Force-sensitive like in the cartoon and it's extremely unlikely that the Sith assassin Naare and the Kyber Saber exist at all in canon.
-
*Zuko's Story* is a tie-in Prequel comic to *The Last Airbender*, the live-action film adaptation of *Avatar: The Last Airbender*. However, the writers went out of their way to incorporate details from the animated series. Except for Zuko and Iroh being drawn as their movie counterparts, the story would fit right in with the animated series, which was in fact the authors' intent. There is however no word on whether the series considers it to be canonical. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OptionalCanon |
Oracular Head - TV Tropes
A preserved head or skull that can speak on its own, usually to answer questions of a divinatory nature.
As a trope, it is at least Older Than Feudalism — it goes back to the Greek myth of Orpheus's singing head.
A common variation in medieval lore was the Brazen Head, which could answer any question and make oracular pronouncements. The Brazen Head crops up in the stories surrounding many medieval magicians, including Roger Bacon and Faust.
See also Losing Your Head and Brain in a Jar for other cases of living beheaded creatures. If it comes down to just being a skull, it starts to overlap with Dem Bones.
## Examples:
-
*Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann*: ||Lordgenome|| gets his head resurrected and hooked to life support by post-Time Skip ||Rossiu||, who wants to regain full access to his knowledge this way.
-
*Texhnolyze*: Subverted with ||Ran||, who ends up in this state but refuses to divine anything to ||Kano||.
-
*Azrael*: The Order of St Dumas had a brazen head that was supposedly St Dumas himself, preserved to share his wisdom. Which was mostly spewing misogyny at Sister Lilhy and telling Az how useless he was. A marginally more useful version appears in the *Legends of the Dead Earth* annual, where it's just called the Oracle.
-
*Kingdom Come*: Deadman has a talking skull head.
-
*Marvel 1602*: Clea brings the heroes Doctor Strange's severed head in a brandy barrel. However, being dead means that Strange can now tell our heroes stuff that he couldn't while alive.
-
*Marvel Zombies*: Deadpool has been reduced to a Headpool, who is now the regular Deadpool's sidekick.
-
*The Sandman (1989)* has Orpheus (from the Greek myths), Morpheus' son, an oracle and disembodied head. In one arc his father comes to consult him as ||Destruction's anti-tracking wards could only be penetrated by a member of the family. In exchange, he is finally allowed to die||.
-
*Valhalla*: The decapitated but still-living head of Mimir is a recurring side character; he's a bit of a grouch and Odin's eternal chess partner. In most of the stories he tends to win the chess games (or is about to), although Odin frequently cheats.
-
*Top of the Line (Editor-Bug)*:
- At the end of the SIR Unit tournament, ||MiMi is reduced to just a head after GIR destroys the rest of her with his Ultimate Duty Mode||.
- GIR is blown apart by MiMi's BFG in
*The Rematch*, leaving only his head remaining intact and functional afterwards. He stays like that for the rest of the story.
-
*Choose Your Own Adventure*: In *Return to Brookmere*, the protagonist has a necklace with a talking amulet in the form of a dragon's head.
-
*Discworld*:
-
*Don Quixote*: Subverted. Don Antonio Moreno tricks Quixote into thinking he has one of these, when really it's just his nephew speaking through a tube that leads into the head.
-
*The Dresden Files*: Bob is a spirit of air and intellect bound into a skull. He is bound to serve the owner of his vessel, and currently serves Harry as a functionally limitless repository of historical and arcane knowledge.
-
*Heads*: Disembodied heads are kept alive against their will for use as living computers.
-
*Journey to Chaos*: Eric finds a talking skull while raiding the lair of an ancient mage. ||It is the animated remains of his fellow Dengel Disciple, an otherworlder nicknamed "Asuna" who remembers all of Dengel's research.||
-
*The Last Unicorn*: A skull tells the main characters how to find the Red Bull's lair. This was changed to an entire skeleton for the movie, probably to make for more interesting animation.
-
*The Magic Goes Away*: The necromancer Wavyhill has cast immortality spells on himself. However, that backfires when his body is hacked up and all that is left is his skull, which, due to his magic, he is trapped in and can talk.
-
*Magic, Inc.*: An African sorcerer consults the Shrunken Head of his grandfather.
-
*The Master Of All Desires*: The titular character is one of these — it's a severed head in an ornate box that has the ability to see the future (making later historical references that mystify the other characters, it being set in the 16th century).
-
*Myth Adventures*: In *Myth Fortunes*, the living crystal ball of the Golden Hoard manifests as a female head of whatever species she's currently addressing, much like the Haunted Mansion example under 'Theme Parks'.
-
*Neuromancer*: Inverted. An ornate head is found inside the Tessier-Ashpool complex, to which the password needs to be spoken to allow Neuromancer and Wintermute to merge into the first true AI.
-
*Piranesi*: In the gradually revealed backstory, a wannabe-magician turns out to have consulted the head of ||an ancient druid in a museum|| to acquire crucial knowledge.
-
*The Shattered World*: Pandrogas has a talking brazen head mounted over his laboratory's door as a security device.
-
*The Skull of Truth*: The protagonist finds an oracular skull named Yorick in The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday.
-
*A Song of Ice and Fire*: Ser Clarence Crabb, a folkloric hero of Cracklaw Point, is said to have been in the habit of decapitating dead foes and taking their heads with him, which his wife could then reanimate. He filled his castle, the Whispers, with the living heads of pirates, lords, wizards, knights and at least one king, which gave him counsel and constantly whispered to one another.
-
*Soulsmith Trilogy*: Ronny Dillon creates a Brazen Head through a combination of mechanics and magic.
-
*That Hideous Strength*: The NICE have the severed head of an executed criminal attached to a machine that keeps it alive and lets it speak. But it turns out it's not the original owner who's using it...
-
*Wyrms*: This can be the fate of anyone who dies while part of the royal court to preserve their ability to give advice. Their heads are removed upon death and placed in a preservative solution, along with small insectoids that latch on to the head's severed nerve endings, along with an air bladder to facilitate speech. The insectoids are able to stimulate the brain, inducing anything from pain to pleasure to an intense need to go to the bathroom, providing incentive to speak the truth to those who ask questions of the head. This happens to the protagonist's father and is how she forces him to finally disclose the secrets he's kept from her all his life. Tellingly, it's said that a former Emperor used to subject his ex-concubines to this and put them in his bedroom.
-
*The Dresden Files*: Bob is a human ghost who "lives" in a skull and comes out when Harry needs his to plumb his considerable arcane knowledge... or whenever he feels like it.
-
*Power Rangers*:
- Zordon, the franchise's original mentor figure. He's actually a humanoid being communicating from a pocket dimension Rita stuck him in, but we only ever see him outside his prison in the Non-Serial Movie. When he's released from the prison at the beginning of
*Turbo*, he apparently *becomes* the floating head for real. Unfortunately, this makes it easier for the bad guys to imprison him during *Space*.
- Zordon's pupil from
*Megaforce*, Gosei, is this also but has taken the form of a Tiki head.
-
*Doctor Who*:
- The Face of Boe, a billions-year old giant-head-in-a-jar. No one knows how he's lived so long - unless ||he really is Captain Jack Harkness|| - but he's had a very long time to gather knowledge and wisdom.
- Additionally, the head of Dorium technically fits this, although he doesn't exactly have much of the characterization (i.e., he has his head wired to surf the internet, and complains of boredom the instant you remove him from a wifi hot-spot).
- In "The Time of the Doctor," the Doctor has obtained the head of a Cyberman which he uses as a databank.
- The
*Night Gallery* episode "Logoda's Heads" featured as its antagonist the witch doctor Logoda who had the power to make a bunch of Shrunken Heads tell him their secrets. British authorities accuse him of murdering an explorer but are unable to find enough evidence against him. A local young woman who knows that he is guilty takes matters into her own hands ||by revealing that she is an even more powerful witch doctor who can make the shrunken heads *kill*, after Logoda's body was torn apart off-screen. The episode ends with the camera zooming in on the heads and the traces of blood and flesh on their teeth...||
- Celtic Mythology: The Celtic god-hero Bran the Blessed, whose severed head continued to speak after his death and, according to one legend, is still buried under the Tower of London.
- Greek Mythology: Orpheus lost his head to a ravening pack of Maenads, and continued to sing for a while afterwards.
- Norse Mythology: Mimir was originally the guardian of the Well of Knowledge, and supposedly all-knowing - after he got himself decapitated, Odin had his head preserved with special herbs and rune-magic, to serve as his adviser. Unfortunately, he's a bit of a prick and makes Odin pull one of his own eyes out.
-
*Call of Cthulhu* supplement *The Asylum and Other Tales*, adventure "The Auction". A magical Brass Head could animate and answer questions if it were covered with burning blood. It was a trap: it contained a Servitor of the Outer Gods which would try to trick the user into releasing it.
-
*Dungeons & Dragons*:
- The
*Planescape* campaign setting features Mimir: 'Living' encyclopaedias that take the form of floating, animate skulls and recite any knowledge they contain on demand. Mimirs are magical constructs and typically not sentient in and by themselves (this varies depending on the creator and the Mimir's intended use, however, and sentient Mimir do exist).
- The bugbear deity Hruggek sends omens to his followers via this trope, and is known to keep a large collection of severed heads that plead endlessly for mercy. Rumor has it that each head can also mentally influence members of its original race via
*suggestion*, or utter *power word* spells, if Hruggek commands it.
- A demilich is a lich that has grown so powerful and ancient, and spent so much time mentally exploring other worlds rather than within its body, that its remains have dwindled and decayed to nothing but a skull. Which
*eats souls*.
- One type of druj, a powerful class of undead creatures from CD&D, takes the form of a skull.
-
*GURPS: Fantasy* features the mythological Orpheus, who still has access to powerful magic.
-
*Hunter: The Vigil* gives us the Aegis Kai Doru and their most prized possession, the living head of John the Baptist. It's implied in some places that the Aegis Kai Doru went through a period of decapitating *any* prophet they heard of in hopes of adding more living heads to their collection; this actually *worked* a couple of times, but the failure rate was enough to make them stop.
-
*Ironclaw*:
- The announcement for the Second Edition directly mentions "the brazen head" towards the end, referring to the designer/publisher.
- In-universe, Phelan legend has Finias (presumably a lupine fusion of Orpheus and Bran the Blessed), a bard who was decapitated by a gang of his paramours' jealous husbands and whose severed head continued to sing. The people took this as an omen and built a city on the location, burying his head under the royal hall. Sometime later a queen of the tribe they founded famously sought counsel from the head.
- The witches use an apparition of an armed head to tell the future to Macbeth.
- Robert Greene's play
*Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay* dramatizes the legend of the Brazen Head.
- Madame Leota, of
*The Haunted Mansion* at the Disney parks, is a particularly ironic case, as she's a ghostly spirit medium who appears as a head inside her own crystal ball, rather than a human gazing into it to see.
-
*Avernum* had the Xian Skull, a skull that would randomly talk while carried around in the party's inventory.
- Baphomet from
*Drowned God: Conspiracy of the Ages* is a rare modern work that depicts him as the older idea of being a head rather than the more popular 19th-century hermaphrodite satyr created by Eliphas Levi. In this game's backstory, Baphomet was able to have the testimony of Osiris's murder that groups like The Knights Templar and The Priory of Sion passed down through the generations.
- In
*The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind* expansion, Bloodmoon, ||a guy sends you to find his friend, who's an oracle. The friend, it turns out, is a skull.||
- The Brazen Head of the Vault Dweller appears in a humorous Easter Egg in
*Fallout 2*. It's a huge stone head like the ones at the village. You have to "argue" with him (read say "are to" to his "are not") for twelve hours for him to concede that you are the Chosen One. He gives you a chunk of rock as a parting gift and tells you to get lost. If your Steal skill is less than 95% and you try to snag a few more he dishes out 14,000 hit points of damage and instantly vaporizes you.
"Damn tourists..."
- In
*God of War (PS4)* Mimir is decapitated by Kratos, at his own request, as he's trapped in a tree when first encountered, and then revived and carried around to provide advice and commentary.
- Gerry of
*Graveyard Keeper* is this as a talking skull, though he's a particularly ineffective one as he barely has any useful information due to having amnesia, sends you off on trips to get alcohol for him, and drives you to do terrible things like cutting off flesh from the corpses you autopsy and selling it for money.
-
*Kingdom of Loathing* has a number of examples:
- The Detective Skull is an off-hand item that gives a vague estimate of the remaining HP of a monster. There's also a joke item called the Defective Skull, which gives useless "information" like "I deduce that this monster is one jive turkey" or "I deduce that this monster has approximately eleventy-seven hojillion hit points."
- A side quest in Little Canadia has a Shrunken Head that guides you through a maze in a direct Shout-Out to
*Secret of Monkey Island*.
- A revamp of the Naughty Sorceress quest in January 2015 included a floating skull named Frank who gave adventurers advice on how to get through the many tricks and traps of the Sorceress's tower; the Tower had previously been a serious case of Guide Dang It! for new players.
-
*Monkey Island*:
-
*The Secret of Monkey Island* has a severed navigator's head that leads you through the Bloody Bowels of Hell.
- The third and fourth instalments include Murray, a talking skull left behind after Guybrush destroys the rest of his skeletal body. He's necessary to the plot in the third game, but just a cameo in the fourth.
-
*Myth: The Fallen Lords* had a talking, severed head show up in the cutscenes, serving as an adviser to the sorcerer-generals in charge of the war against Balor. Turns out that ||the head is more interested in sowing chaos and discord among the good guys then actually helping them win.|| Given the amount of stuff that was based on Celtic lore, he's probably based on the aforementioned Bran. The prequel established that ||the head is actually from a previous incarnation of the Big Bad||.
- Subverted in
*Nox*. Talking to a recently-deceased mook's skull results in the skull responding, "I'm dead, I can't hear you."
- Morte the sentient Mimir from
*Planescape: Torment* (see Tabletop Games), who looks even more skull-like than other Mimir. ||Mainly, this is because Morte ultimately turns out *not* to be a Mimir, but a piece of the Pillar of Skulls from the first layer of Hell||. Morte doesn't just talk, he snarks and jibes and is pretty much 'alive' in every sense of the world but the purely physical one.
- Bonehead, one of the most memorable characters in the
*Quest for Glory* series (and that's saying something), was - as his name suggests - a skull of this nature, one of many skulls surrounding the hut of Baba Yaga. One of the few things he *doesn't* complain about is not having Eye Beams like his boneheaded kinsmen, apparently considering sentience a valid trade-off.
- Postie Pete in
*RuneScape*, a talking skull that delivers letters to NPCs. Also one of the Holiday items was a severed Zombie head that you could hold and talk to.
-
*Stellaris* has the mummified Head of Zarqlan, an alien prophet whose tomb you can excavate with the *Ancient Relics* expansion. The head never talks to *you*, but any Holy Guardians in your galaxy will see your possession of it as proof that you are Zarqlan's chosen and grant you permission to settle their Holy Worlds, and will even periodically gift you fleets of their advanced warships.
- Urien's ending in
*Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike* has this with Urien looking down at the head of Gill, the series' Big Bad and his older brother.
-
*Too Human*, being a Cyberpunk adaptation of Norse Mythology has Mimir as the Aesir corporation's data decryption and information specialist, he's not much for field work though seeing how last time only his head came back.
-
*Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus* contains one prime example where ||William Blazkowicz's|| head is kept preserved in a jar developed by Set. It remains there a short time until it can ||be reattached to the headless body of a captured Nazi||.
- In the "Rise of the Funsnake" story arc of
*Oglaf* Morag The Immortal gets her head bitten off by the Funsnake. She can still talk, but only if somebody blows air up her neck.
- The Party God from
*Adventure Time*.
-
*Futurama* is known for having contemporary celebrities appear in the show as heads preserved in jars and fully animated.
- Tarakudo, the Big Bad of
*Jackie Chan Adventures* season 4 ||until he gets a body in the season finale.||
-
*The Simpsons*: in Bart Gets Famous, Kitty Carlisles head appears in a floating ball
-
*Transformers: Animated*: Megatron spends all of Season 1 as one due to damage sustained in the pilot movie. He gets his body back in the season finale.
- This is how Moses is portrayed in
*South Park*, parodying the design of the MCP from *TRON*. A Running Gag is Moses stammering at a question he doesn't know the answer to. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OracularHead |
Opposite Tropes - TV Tropes
Here is a place to note the tropes which are opposites of one another.
See also the Canonical List of Subtle Trope Distinctions, Trope Grid (which covers when there's more than one possible Opposite Trope), Distaff Counterpart for a list of tropes with gender counterparts (male vs female), and Evil Counterpart for a list of tropes with moral counterparts (good vs evil).
Sub-Trope of Inverted Trope.
## Opposite tropes:
- 100% Completion vs. Minimalist Run: Win the game by collecting everything vs. Win the game by collecting nothing.
- Abusive Parents vs. Good Parents: Parent is cruel to their kids vs. parent is great with their kids.
- Accidental Innuendo vs. Innocent Innuendo: A statement which sounds suggestive by accident vs. a statement which sounds suggestive but is completely innocent.
- Accidental Murder vs. Creating Life Is Unforeseen: Accidentally causing death vs. accidentally causing life.
- Accidental Nightmare Fuel vs. Nightmare Retardant: Not meant to be scary but is vs. meant to be scary but isn't.
- Acoustic License vs. I Can't Hear You: Hearing vs. not hearing something when something loud is happening.
- Acrofatic vs. Glacier Waif: A big guy you'd expect to be the Mighty Glacier (or Stone Wall) is actually the Fragile Speedster (or a Lightning Bruiser) vs. a small girl you'd expect to be the Fragile Speedster (or Glass Cannon) is actually the Mighty Glacier (or Stone Wall).
- Action-Based Mission vs. Stealth-Based Mission: A mission involving violence in a game with little violence vs. a mission involving stealth in a game with little stealth.
- Action Girl vs. Damsel in Distress: A woman or girl who does action stuff vs. a woman or girl who
*other people* need to do action stuff to save.
- Action Hero vs. Non-Action Guy: Someone who fights to solve problems vs. someone who doesn't.
- Actionized Adaptation vs. Pacified Adaptation: An adaptation features more action vs. an adaptation features less action.
- Actually Pretty Funny / Played for Laughs vs. Dude, Not Funny!: The joke was at someone's expense but they found it funny anyway/there is a joke, vs. topics that are
*too* serious to be jokes.
- A-Cup Angst vs. Big-Breast Pride: Character is ashamed of having small breasts vs. character is proud of having big breasts.
- A-Cup Angst vs. D-Cup Distress: Character is upset about having small breasts vs. character is upset about having big breasts. Contrast to D-Cup Distress vs. Petite Pride
- A-Cup Angst vs. Petite Pride: Grief vs. pride about having small breasts.
- Adaptational Attractiveness vs. Adaptational Ugliness: An unattractive character becomes more attractive in an adaptation vs. an attractive character becomes less attractive in an adaptation.
- Adaptational Badass vs. Adaptational Wimp: Character is made stronger in adaptation vs. character is made weaker in adaptation.
- Adaptational Comic Relief vs. Adaptational Seriousness: A character becomes goofier in an adaptation vs. a character becomes more serious in an adaptation.
- Adaptational Heroism vs. Adaptational Villainy: A villainous character becomes a hero in another adaptation vs. a heroic character becomes a villain in another adaptation.
- Adaptational Jerkass vs. Adaptational Nice Guy: A Nice Guy character becomes a Jerkass in another adaptation vs. a Jerkass character becomes a Nice Guy in another adaptation.
- Adaptational Modesty vs. Adaptational Skimpiness: A character's costume is less revealing in the adaptation vs. a character's costume is more revealing in the adaptation.
- Adaptation Expansion vs. Compressed Adaptation: Adaptation Expansion takes a short work (e.g. a poem) and fleshes it out in to a larger piece (e.g. a movie). Compressed Adaptation takes a work with a lot of history and/or development and condensed down to fill a specific amount of time (e.g. an adaptation of a 50+ year old comic book in to a two and a half hour movie).
- Adults Are Useless vs. Reasonable Authority Figure: Adult characters are useless vs. adult characters are helpful.
- Advancing Boss of Doom vs. "Get Back Here!" Boss: The boss chases after you vs. you chase after the boss.
- Adventure Rebuff vs. Refusal of the Call: Someone is told not to help vs. someone refuses to help.
- Affably Evil vs. Good is Not Nice: Evil character who's nice vs. good character who isn't.
- After Boss Recovery vs. Suspicious Videogame Generosity: With an After Boss Recovery, upon winning (or, if the boss is a Hopeless Boss Fight) you get a ton of recovery items. With Suspicious Videogame Generosity, the game starts throwing very powerful and/or useful items at you (potion that will heal you or a teammate completely, items that resore magic points); it's the game's (and game developer's) way of warning you that there is a horrifically bad boss or challenging area close by, so you'd better save and make sure you use all the items being given to you.
- Agent Mulder vs. Agent Scully: Believer vs. skeptic.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot vs. Benevolent A.I.: Artificial Intelligence goes rogue and becomes evil vs. Artificial Intelligence that just wants to help its creators or do the job it was designed to do.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg vs. Defiant to the End or Face Death with Dignity: Character facing death who pleads their would-be killer for mercy vs. character facing death who is fearless or even mocking and insulting to their would-be killer.
- The Alcoholic vs. The Teetotaler: Drinks a lot vs. doesn't drink.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy vs. Drunken Master: Character is incompetent when drunk vs. character who gets even more competent when drunk.
- Aliens Are Bastards vs. Innocent Aliens: Mean aliens vs. nice aliens.
- Allergic to Evil vs. Good Hurts Evil: Good guys are hurt by evil vs. bad guys are hurt by good.
- Allergic to Routine vs. Creature of Habit: Hates routine vs. loves it.
- All-American Face vs. Foreign Wrestling Heel: A patriotic wrestler that the fans love vs. a foreign wrestler that the fans hate.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys vs. Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A female character interested in men with 'bad attitude' vs. a female character interested in males with 'good attitude'.
- All Myths Are True vs. Arbitrary Skepticism: Believing in all myths vs. picking and choosing which myths are real.
- All Part of the Show vs. You Just Ruined the Shot: An outrageous act is not part of the performance or is part of the performance.
- All-Star Cast vs. Amateur Cast: The show has famous people in the cast vs. the show has unknown people in the cast.
- Almost Dead Guy vs. Not Quite Dead (or Only Mostly Dead): Someone stays long enough to indulge information before dying vs. turning out to still be alive.
- Alpha Bitch vs. Fallen Princess: A popular jerk vs. an unpopular former jerk.
- Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome vs. Reed Richards Is Useless: Heroic character who uses awesome technology and money to change the world for the better vs. one that keeps their toys to themselves becayse Status Quo Is God.
- Aluminium Christmas Trees vs. Reality Is Unrealistic: Something which exists in Real Life is assumed to be fictional vs. something which is fictional is assumed to be real.
- Always Chaotic Evil vs. Always Lawful Good: A race is always villainous vs. always heroic.
- Amazon Chaser vs. No Guy Wants an Amazon: A guy is in love with or is repulsed by a strong woman.
- Americans Hate Tingle vs. Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Hate vs. love of a series outside its country of origin.
- Amoral Attorney vs Crusading Lawyer: A lawyer who is morally evil vs. a lawyer who is morally good.
- Ancient Conspiracy vs. Ancient Tradition: A malevolent ancient organization vs. a benevolent ancient organization. (However, they might overlap.)
- And the Fandom Rejoiced vs. Tainted by the Preview: Optimism vs. pessimism over an upcoming work after any pre-release announcement.
- And Then John Was a Zombie vs. Tomato in the Mirror: And Then John Was a Zombie is when a character is turned into something bad at the end. Tomato in the Mirror is when the character turns out to have been the bad thing all along.
- And You Thought It Was a Game vs. And You Thought It Was Real: A character believes that a real situation is fake vs. a character believes that a fake situation is real.
- Angst? What Angst? vs. Wangst: Character whines a lot less than you think they should vs. character whines too much.
- Animals Hate Him vs. Friend to All Living Things: Animals hate someone vs. animals like someone.
- Anticlimax Boss vs. Climax Boss: A boss that's easy to beat despite its story importance vs. a boss that matches its story importance as far as difficulty.
- Anticlimax Boss vs. Boss in Mook Clothing: A boss is easier to beat than expected vs. a mook is harder to beat than expected.
- Anti-Hero vs. Anti-Villain: A hero who lacks the qualities of a hero vs. a villain who lacks the qualities of a villain.
- Anti-Hero vs. Ideal Hero: A hero who lacks moral uprightness vs. a hero who doesn't.
- Anti-Hero vs. The Hero: A hero who lacks the qualities of a hero vs. a straight-laced protagonist.
- The Anti-Nihilist vs. Straw Nihilist: "Life has no meaning...because it's up to us to give it one." vs. "Life has no meaning!"
- Anti-Sue vs. Common Mary Sue Traits: Character is a Mary Sue or Marty Stu but doesn't have common traits of one/has rare traits of one, vs. character has traits common amongst Mary Sues and Marty Stus and may or may not be one themselves.
- Anyone Can Die vs. Red Shirt: Important character gets killed off vs. only nameless extras get killed off.
- Ape Shall Never Kill Ape vs. In Your Nature to Destroy Yourselves: A race refuses to kill members of its own or exclusively kills members of its own.
- Apologizes a Lot vs. The Unapologetic: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." vs "I never apologize!"
- Appeal to Novelty vs. Appeal to Tradition: The new way is how we should do things vs. the old way is how we should do things
- Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy vs. Martial Pacifist: A martial artist who isn't afraid to use violence but has no discipline vs. a martial artist who is disciplined but refuses to use violence.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking vs. Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Mundane item in a list of horrible ones vs. horrible item in a list of mundane ones.
- Artificial Brilliance vs. Artificial Stupidity: The extremes of videogame AI.
- As Long as There Is Evil vs. As Long as There Is One Man: Evil or good will always persist.
- Ascended Demon vs. Fallen Angel: A demon becomes a heroic being vs. an angel becomes evil
- Ascended Fanon vs. Jossed: A fan theory that later gets confirmed by the Word of God ... or not.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence vs. Dragged Off to Hell: Someone leaves Earth by going up to Heaven or getting dragged down to Hell.
- Asshole Victim vs. Sympathetic Murderer: A murdered person who was unsympathetic vs. a killer who has redeeming qualities.
- Ass Kicks You vs. Literal Ass-Kicking: Attacking
*with* the buttocks vs. attacking the buttocks
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever vs. Incredible Shrinking Man: Character grows vs. character shrinks
- Author's Saving Throw vs. Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Attempting to fix/get rid of a perceived problem or The Scrappy vs. retooling the offending element to make it better.
- Avoid the Dreaded G Rating vs. Getting Crap Past the Radar: Blatantly putting in adult humor vs. sneaking it in.
- Avoid the Dreaded G Rating vs. Rated M for Money: Using non-family-friendly things to avoid being marketed exclusively to children vs. shamelessly going for adult audiences.
- Awesome, but Impractical vs. Boring, but Practical: It looks cool but has too many drawbacks vs. it looks boring but it's able to do the job effectively
- Awesome McCoolname vs. Atrocious Alias: A character has a cool name vs. a character has an embarrassing name
- Back from the Dead vs. Killed Off for Real: A character dies and comes back to life vs. a character dies and doesn't.
- Bad-Guy Bar vs. Good-Guy Bar: A bar where the villains or heroes hang out.
- Bad Liar vs. Consummate Liar: Character is a terrible vs. skilled liar.
- Badass Army vs. Red Shirt Army: Army of extremely strong and capable fighters vs. army of striplings who die in droves.
- Badass Decay vs. Took a Level in Badass: Originally badass character becomes less so over time vs. originally non-badass character becoming more so over time.
- Badass in Distress vs. Damsel in Distress: A captured person that is a capable combatant vs. a defenseless civilian.
- Badass Pacifist vs. Blood Knight: Character is badass for not liking to fight vs. character is badass for liking to fight.
- Bait-and-Switch Credits vs. Spoiler Opening: The opening credits are lying about something in the show vs. revealing a future plot point.
- Balance Buff vs. Nerf: Something is made more powerful in order to make a game more balanced vs. something is made less powerful in order to make a game more balanced.
- Bears Are Bad News vs. Beary Friendly / Beary Funny: A bear who is dangerous and hostile vs. a bear who is amiable or amusing.
- Beautiful All Along vs Ugly All Along: Physically attractive or unattractive but hiding that fact.
- Beauty Equals Goodness vs. Evil Is Sexy: Not always opposites in a technical sense, and in fact is usually played at the same time. Often, the attractiveness of a good person is usually in a modest, almost innocent and "classy" way, while an attractive Evil person is in a more primal, overt, and lustful way.
- Because Destiny Says So vs. Screw Destiny: Fate vs. free will.
- Because You Were Nice to Me vs. Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Betraying someone because the opposing side treated them well vs. the original side treated them badly.
- Be Careful What You Wish For vs. Wish-Fulfillment: Dream turning into a nightmare vs. dream coming true.
- Beige Prose vs. Purple Prose: Too little vs. too many words
- Being Evil Sucks vs. Being Good Sucks: Villainy or heroism is not fun.
- Belief Makes You Stupid vs. Hollywood Atheist: Believing in the supernatural makes you stupid vs.
*not* believing in the supernatural makes you stupid.
- Berserk Button vs Kindness Button: Doing something that makes a character angry vs. doing something that makes a character pleasant.
- Best Beer Ever vs. A Tankard of Moose Urine: Really good beer vs. really bad beer.
- Betrayal by Offspring vs Parental Betrayal: Children betraying their own parents vs. parents betraying their own children.
- Better as Friends vs. Just Friends: Romantic relationship becoming platonic vs. platonic relationship becoming romantic
- Big Bad vs. Big Good: The ultimate villain vs. the ultimate hero.
- Big-Breast Pride vs D-Cup Distress: Pride vs grief about having big breasts
- Big-Breast Pride vs Petite Pride: Both being buxom and havind flat chest have their assets.
- Big "NO!" vs. Big "YES!": Shouting, "No!" vs. shouting, "Yes!".
- Big "NO!" vs. Little "No": Saying no loudly vs. quietly.
- Big Sleep vs. Dies Wide Open: Dies with closed eyes vs. dies with open eyes
- Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head vs. Flowery Insults: Overly short and blunt insults vs. overly long and eloquent insults.
- Big "WHAT?!" vs. Flat "What": Saying "what" loudly vs. in a monotone
- Bile Fascination vs. Hype Aversion: Bile Fascination is a peculiar attraction to a really bad work because of all of the negative buzz surrounding it. Hype Aversion is intentionally avoiding a product because everyone and their mother loves to talk about how great it is.
- Birds of a Feather vs. Opposites Attract: Partners are extremely similar vs. partners aren't similar at all.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing vs. Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Major Jerkass behind Nice Guy facade vs. guy who shows openly both his nice guy and jerkass persona.
- Black-and-Gray Morality vs. White-and-Grey Morality: A moral setting where there are bad guys and no obvious good guys vs. a moral setting where there are good guys and no clear-cut bad guys.
- Black-and-White Morality vs. Grey-and-Gray Morality: Unambiguously good heroes & unambiguously evil villains versus morally ambiguous heroes and villains.
- Blackface vs. White Like Me: Person pretends to be black and embodies negative stereotypes of black people vs. person pretends to be white and embodies negative stereotypes of white people.
- Black Like Me vs. White Like Me: A white person pretends to be black or a black person pretends to be white.
- Blessed with Suck vs. Cursed with Awesome: Good powers with a negative side vs. bad powers with a positive side.
- Blinded by the Light vs. Harmless Luminescence: Opposite ends of how harmful light is, to eyes.
- Bloodless Carnage vs. High-Pressure Blood: No blood at all vs. an unrealistically-high amount of blood.
- Blown Across the Room vs. Law of Inverse Recoil: Gunshots with way too much recoil vs. gunshots with no recoil.
- Bonus Space vs. Whammy: A good space on a game show's game board vs. a bad space on a game show's game board (usually one that takes away all of your money).
- Book Dumb vs. Geek: Incompetent in academics but competent in other areas vs. competent in academics but incompetent in other areas.
- Booze-Based Buff vs. Intoxication Mechanic: The player character in a video consuming alcohol gives them a tactical advantage in gameplay vs. gives them a disadvantage.
- Break Them by Talking vs. "No More Holding Back" Speech or Heroism Motive Speech: A villain deconstructs the hero's motives for fighting and tries to exploit his psychological weaknesses, versus a hero who deconstructs his motives for fighting and then reaffirms his will to surmount them.
- Breakable Weapons vs. Unbreakable Weapons: Weapons that do or do not break.
- Breakout Character vs. Shoo Out the New Guy: The Ensemble Dark Horse or Unpopular Popular Character gets a bigger role due to fan reaction vs. The Scrappy or Creator's Pet gets a smaller role due to fan reaction.
- Breather Boss vs. That One Boss: A boss that is easy vs. difficult to beat.
- Breather Episode vs. Wham Episode: An episode that is light vs. heavy on plot. (TROPER GENERAL'S WARNING: putting these back-to-back can induce Mood Whiplash)
- Breather Episode vs. Very Special Episode: An episode meant to be entertaining in a lighthearted way vs. an episode meant to be educational in a serious way.
- Breather Episode vs. Unexpectedly Dark Episode: The work takes a more lighthearted tone than usual vs. the work takes a more serious tone than usual.
- Breath Weapon vs. Fartillery: An attack from the mouth vs. an attack from the... other end.
- Bring My Brown Pants vs. Stress Vomit: Fear makes something come out one end or the other.
- Broad Strokes vs. Fan Wank — the former is the ultimate in Doylist interpretation, while the latter is the ultimate in Watsonian interpretation.
- Brought Down to Normal vs. "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Character temporarily loses an amazing trait vs. character temporarily gains one.
- Buffy Speak vs. Spock Speak: Simplistic dialogue vs. technical dialogue.
- Bullying the Disabled vs. Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery: Bullying a disabled person vs. a person with a disability using their disability as an excuse to why they can be mean.
- Bury Your Gays vs. Preserve Your Gays: The gay character dies vs. the gay character doesn't die.
- But Now I Must Go vs. I Choose to Stay: Choosing to leave or stay at a critical juncture.
- Butch Lesbian vs. Lipstick Lesbian: Lesbian women are either manly or very stereotypically effeminate.
- Butt-Monkey vs. Karma Houdini: Someone is very unlucky vs. someone gets away with everything.
- Butt-Monkey vs. Mary Sue: A character who fails at pretty much everything versus a character who succeeds at pretty much everything. The opposite-ness can be explored further: People hate the Mary Sue played straight, but love to laugh at the Butt-Monkey played straight. Inversely, people love to laugh at an exaggerated Mary Sue (Parody Sue or 30-Sue Pileup) but hates yanking the dog's chain that comes about when you exaggerate the Butt-Monkey.
- Buy or Get Lost vs. Friendly Shopkeeper: A shopkeeper who's impatient vs. one who's very welcoming.
- Bystander Syndrome vs. Chronic Hero Syndrome: Ignoring those in need of help vs. rushing to help everyone
- Cain and Abel vs. Sibling Team: Siblings that try to kill each other vs. siblings that help each other.
- Camp Gay vs. Manly Gay: Gay men are either effeminate or very stereotypically manly.
- Camp Straight vs. Straight Gay: Straight man with stereotypical Camp Gay traits included vs. gay man with no stereotypical gay traits.
- Canon (or Word of God) vs. Fanon: The writers made it up vs. the viewers did.
- Canonical List of Subtle Trope Distinctions vs. Opposite Tropes: Lists of similar vs. dissimilar tropes.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin' vs. Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': Someone that keeps getting in trouble vs. someone that can't get in trouble.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin' vs. Karma Houdini: Someone always gets in trouble vs. never gets in trouble.
- Can't Hold His Liquor vs. Never Gets Drunk: Someone gets drunk easily vs. someone can't get drunk.
- Card-Carrying Villain vs. Knight Templar: Proud of being a villain vs. the villain is convinced he's the hero.
- Care-Bear Stare vs. Mind Rape: A mental attack that is pleasant vs. unpleasant.
- Career Resurrection vs. Creator Killer or Star-Derailing Role: A role that rebuilds or destroys a creator's career.
- Casanova Wannabe vs. Kavorka Man (or Even the Guys Want Him): An attractive person that wants attention from the opposite sex but fails vs. an unattractive person that gets attention from the opposite sex vs. a person that's so attractive that members of the same gender are attracted to them.
- Cassandra Truth vs. Sarcastic Confession: Someone tells the truth properly but no one believes them vs. someone deliberately hides the truth via a snide tone of voice.
- Cast Incest vs. Incestuous Casting: Actors who play relatives dating vs. actual relatives playing lovers.
- Casting a Shadow vs. Light 'em Up: Darkness-based Elemental Powers vs. light-based ones.
- Cast of Snowflakes vs. Only Six Faces: Everyone looks distinct vs. everyone looks similar.
- Category Traitor vs. You Are a Credit to Your Race: Condemning someone from one's own race vs. praising an individual from a so-called "enemy" race.
- Celibate Hero and Ethical Slut vs. Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: A good character who refuses to have sex until they're married vs. a good character who happens to be sexually active vs. an evil character who shuns sex while struggling with their sexuality.
- Celibate Hero vs. Unholy Matrimony: Single aromantic hero vs. a villainous couple.
- Cerebus Syndrome vs Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: A story starts as innocent, funny, and with no sense in its established narrative to turn in a tragical, serious, and with clear consequences in its development vs. a story starts tragical, serious, and with clear consequences in its development to turn in an innocent, funny and with no sense in its established narrative.
- Character Alignment tropes tend to be constructed so as to yield opposite pairs — as seen in the most commonly used system:
- Cheerful Child vs. Creepy Child: A kid meant to be cute vs. a kid meant to scare you.
- Cheerful Child vs. Troubled Child: A kid in good spirits vs. a kid who has issues.
- Chewing the Scenery vs. Dull Surprise: Overacting vs. underacting.
- The Chew Toy vs. The Woobie: Seeing him suffer makes you laugh vs. seeing him suffer makes you go "aww".
- Chickification vs. Xenafication: A woman becomes less or more of an Action Girl over time.
- Chummy Commies vs. Dirty Communists: The Reds are our allies against our current Number 1 enemies vs. the Reds are our Number 1 enemies.
- City Mouse vs. Country Mouse: Someone from the city isn't used to living in the country vs. someone from the country isn't used to living in the city.
- City Noir vs. Shining City: Both in terms of visuals and character, one city is horrible to live in while the other is clean and awesome (think, Gotham City vs. Metropolis).
- City of Adventure vs. Nothing Exciting Ever Happens Here: A city that is full of excitement vs. a city that is full of boredom.
- Clarke's Third Law vs. Magic Versus Science: Magic is indistinguishable from science vs. magic and science are diametrically opposed forces.
- Clones Are People, Too vs. Expendable Clone: Clones are treated like people or garbage.
- Close-Range Combatant vs. Long-Range Fighter: A fighter that fights exclusively up close vs. far away.
- Cluster F-Bomb vs. Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Profanity-laden dialogue vs. mild curse words that aren't actual curses.
- Cluster F-Bomb vs. Precision F-Strike: Many curse words vs. one curse word out of nowhere.
- Cold Snap vs. Heat Wave: Unseasonably cold weather vs. unseasonably hot weather.
- College Is "High School, Part 2" vs. Elaborate University High: The work treats college like high school vs. the work's high school is big and complex enough to be like a college.
- Comically Cross-Eyed vs. Fish Eyes: Eyes which deviate inwards vs. eyes which deviate outwards.
- Com Mons vs. Olympus Mons: wimpy summon monsters vs. godlike summon monsters
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong vs. Peer Pressure Makes You Evil (or Blithe Spirit): The minority opinion is considered to be wrong by the writers vs. the majority opinion is considered to be wrong by the writers vs. the minority opinion convinces the majority opinion to agree with them.
- Complete Monster vs. Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Purely evil vs. purely good
- Complete Monster vs. Ideal Hero: The ultimate ends of the morality scale.
- Compliment Backfire vs. Insult Backfire: A compliment is taken as an insult vs. an insult is taken as a compliment
- Confidence Building Scheme vs. Confidence Sabotage: Trying to build up someones confidence vs. trying to make someone feel less confident.
- Continuing is Painful vs. Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: You can continue playing after you die but with a serious penalty that almost makes it not worth it, vs. death or failure that practically doesn't mean anything.
- Cool Shades vs. Nerd Glasses (although nerds can be cool too)
- Corrupt Church vs. Saintly Church: A church that is malevolent vs. a church that is benevolent.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive vs. Uncle Pennybags: A businessman that is malevolent vs. a businessman that is benevolent.
- Corruption by a Minor vs. Corruption of a Minor: A child tricking an adult into committing a crime vs. an adult tricking a child into committing a crime.
- Could Have Been Messy vs. Good Thing You Can Heal: Bringing up how bad an injury could have been vs. showing the injury but healing it soon afterwards.
- Cowardly Lion (or The So-Called Coward) vs. Miles Gloriosus: Apparent coward, actual hero. vs. apparent hero, actual coward.
- Crack Fic vs. Original Flavour: Fanfiction which makes no sense vs. one that makes perfect sense.
- Crapsack World vs. Utopia: In the Crapsack World, life is pointless and everything sucks. In Utopia, everything and everyone is perfect.
- Creator Breakdown vs. Creator Recovery: A creator's work becoming Darker and Edgier as a result of personal problems vs. a creator's work becoming Lighter and Softer as a result of personal happiness.
- Creator's Pet vs. Take That, Scrappy!: The creators of a work fluffing up a hated character vs. them making fun of him/her/it.
- Creator's Pet vs. They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: A character the audience hates gets too much screentime vs. a character the audience likes doesn't get enough screentime.
- Creator's Pet vs. Unpopular Popular Character: Character only the author seems to like vs. character only the fans seem to like.
- Creepy Blue Eyes vs. Innocent Blue Eyes: Blue eyes are creepy vs. cute.
- Creepy Child vs. Psychopathic Manchild: Child who acts adult-like in an unsettling way vs. adult who acts child-like in an unsettling way.
- Creepy Cleanliness vs. Uncleanliness Is Next to Ungodliness: Cleanliness vs. dirtiness is creepy
- Creepy Crossdresser vs. Wholesome Crossdresser: A crossdresser is unsavory vs. a crossdresser is a perfectly fine person.
- Creepy High-Pitched Voice vs. Evil Sounds Deep: Overly high-pitched voices are evil vs. overly deep voices are evil.
- Crippling Overspecialization vs. Master of None: Someone who specializes in one thing at the cost of everything else or someone who can do anything but isn't good at any one thing.
- Cruel Elephant vs. Honorable Elephant: Elephants are mean-spirited vs. elephants are noble.
- Cruel Mercy vs. Cruel to Be Kind: Sparing someone to make them suffer vs. harming someone to help them survive
- Cruel Mercy vs. Mercy Kill: Sparing someone to make them suffer vs. killing someone to end their suffering
- Crutch Character vs. Magikarp Power: A video game character that gets weaker over time vs. a video game character that gets stronger over time.
- Cuddle Bug/No Sense of Personal Space vs. Hates Being Touched: Character likes touching/getting too close to people vs. character does not like people touching/getting too close to them.
- Cue the Rain vs. Cue the Sun: The rain means things are getting bad vs. the sun means things are getting good.
- Cue the Sun vs. Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Death: The sun rises to signify something good vs. clouds cover up the sun to signify something bad.
- Cute Ghost Girl vs. Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: A ghost girl that is meant to be cute vs. a ghost girl that is meant to be scary.
- Cute Witch/Hot Witch vs. Wicked Witch: The witch is an adorable little girl (or a more mature woman who happens to be a knockout beauty) vs. the classic witch, old and possibly monstrous.
- Cutscene Incompetence vs. Cutscene Power to the Max: A video game character is weaker or stronger in the cutscenes than in the gameplay.
- Cutting Off the Branches vs. Third-Option Adaptation: One of the endings is canon vs. a new ending is made up.
- Cyberpunk vs. Raygun Gothic: A dystopian high-tech future vs. an optimistic low-tech future.
- The Cynic vs. The Idealist: Pessimism vs. optimism
- Damsel in Distress vs. Damsel out of Distress: A damsel that has to be saved by outside forces vs. a damsel that can save herself.
- Damsel in Distress vs. Distressed Dude: A woman/girl vs. a man/boy is in danger.
- Damsel Scrappy vs. The Woobie: A Butt-Monkey, Chew Toy, or Damsel in Distress you despise vs. sympathize with.
- Darker and Edgier vs. Lighter and Softer: A work gets more or less mature and serious over time.
- Dark Fic vs. W.A.F.F.: A serious fanfiction vs. a cute fanfiction.
- Dark Is Evil vs. Dark Is Not Evil: Something/somebody has spooky traits and is evil vs. something/somebody has spooky traits but isn't evil.
- Dark Is Evil vs. Light Is Good: Something with dark traits and is actively malevolent vs. something with light traits and is actively benevolent.
- Dark Is Evil vs. Light Is Not Good: Something evil has dark vs. light traits.
- Dark Is Not Evil vs Light Is Good: Something good has dark vs. light traits.
- Dark Is Not Evil vs. Light Is Not Good: Something seems spooky and ominous but genuinely good vs. something seems benign and friendly but is actually evil.
- Dark Magical Girl vs. Magical Girl: A magical girl with a troubled past vs. a non-troubled past.
- Deathbringer the Adorable vs. Fluffy the Terrible: Cute monster with vicious-sounding name vs vicious monster with a cute-sounding name.
- DecemberDecember Romance vs. MayDecember Romance vs. Puppy Love: a couple made up of old characters vs. a couple made of a younger character and an older one vs. a couple made up of young characters
- Deconstruction vs. Reconstruction (or Affectionate Parody): A trope is picked apart for its lack of realism, is changed to fit a more realistic setting, or is played for laughs in a respectful way.?
- Defictionalisation vs. Product Placement: A fictional item becomes real vs. a real item is included in a fictional work.
- Definitely Just a Cold vs. Playing Sick: A sick character pretends they're not sick or only have a minor illness vs. a healthy character pretends to be sick.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance vs. Politically Correct History: Deliberately depicting regressive or offensive views for the sake of historical accuracy vs. deliberately downplaying/omitting regressive or offensive views even if it doesn't make sense for the time period
- Denied Parody vs. Parody Retcon: Something that seems like a parody but isn't vs. a handwave of a work's faults as a parody.
- Depraved Bisexual vs. No Love for the Wicked: Being willing to have sex with anyone makes you villainous vs. lack of desire to have sex with anyone makes you villainous.
- Description Cut vs. I Resemble That Remark!: Saying someone will do something before cutting to them doing the opposite vs. reacting to a criticism in a way that proves it right.
- Designated Hero vs. Designated Villain: Someone who acts evil but is meant to be the hero vs. someone who acts good but is meant to be the villain.
- Designated Love Interest vs. Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading: Romantic relationship accidentally comes off as platonic vs. platonic relationship accidentally comes off as romantic.
- Dethroning Moment of Suck vs. Moment of Awesome: A series' low point vs. a series' high point
- Deus ex Machina vs. Diabolus ex Machina: Out-of-nowhere win for the good guys vs. out-of-nowhere win for the bad guys.
- Deus Sex Machina vs. Virgin Power: A Deus Sex Machina is a power that requires you-know-what to be triggered. A Virgin Power is some sort of ability of Applied Phlebotinum that relies on the user abstaining from you-know-what.
- Devious Dolphins vs. Friendly, Playful Dolphin/Heroic Dolphin: Dolphins are evil and violent vs. dolphins are fun and helpful.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat vs. Dudley Do-Right Stops to Help: A villain stops when victory is at hand to do something evil vs. a hero stops his quest to do something good.
- Diegetic Switch vs. Left the Background Music On: Music switches from being diegetic to being a non-diegetic soundtrack, versus music that the audience assumed to be non-diegetic being revealed to be diegetic.
- Digital Piracy Is Evil vs. Information Wants to Be Free: Villains engaging in digital piracy vs. heroes engaging in digital piracy.
- Dirty Coward vs. Lovable Coward: Someone is nervy and evil vs. someone is nervy and good.
- Disneyfication vs. Grimmification: Making an adaptation more child-friendly than the original vs. making a story more adult-oriented than the original.
- Disowned Parent vs. I Have No Son!: A child disowns a parent vs. a parent disowns their child.
- Disproportionate Retribution vs. Disproportionate Reward: Getting punished heavily for a slight offense vs. getting rewarded heavily for a mild good deed.
- Distracted by the Sexy vs. Not Distracted by the Sexy or Ignore the Fanservice: Someone is distracted by sexual attraction vs. someone is acting traditionally sexy but another person doesn't pay attention.
- The Ditz vs. The Smart Guy: A dumb character vs. a smart one.
- The Ditz vs. TV Genius: A stereotypical dumb character vs. a stereotypical smart one.
- Ditzy Genius vs. Genius Ditz: A genius who's really bad at one thing vs. a ditz who is really good at one thing.
- Divided States of America vs. Expanded States of America: America splits into territories or expands into other countries.
- Does Not Like Spam vs. Trademark Favorite Food: Someone hates vs. loves a food.
- Doing in the Scientist vs. Doing In the Wizard: Retconning something that had a scientific explanation into having a magical one vs. retconning something that had a magical explanation into having a scientific one.
- Doing In the Wizard vs. A Wizard Did It: explaining a seemingly impossible event in detail vs. hand waving it away as "just magic"
- Down the Rabbit Hole vs. Up the Real Rabbit Hole: Someone escaping to a fantasy world and accepting it vs. someone going to a fantasy world and saying that theirs is the real world.
- Downer Ending vs. Happy Ending: The ending is sad vs. happy.
- Draco in Leather Pants vs. Ron the Death Eater: Both are character interpretation tropes. Draco in Leather Pants occurs when a character's flaws are downplayed and their virtues are promoted by a fan to make a character more appealing to them. Ron the Death Eater downplays a character's good traits, often exposing and exaggerating their flaws to pave the way for the fan's One True Pairing or because they simply dislike the character.
- Dragon Rider vs. Shoulder-Sized Dragon: People riding dragons vs. dragons sitting on people.
- Dragons Are Demonic vs. Dragons Are Divine: Dragons as evil and destructive vs. dragons as majestic and benevolent.
- Dramatic Irony vs. Tomato Surprise: The audience is aware of important information that the characters are not privy to, leading to a dramatic reveal vs. The characters are aware of important information that the audience is not privy to, leading to a dramatic reveal.
- Dream Team vs. Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The best of the best vs. the best they had on hand at the time.
- Dry Docking vs. Shipping: A fanfiction where an Official Couple is no longer a couple vs. a fanfiction that pairs characters up (maybe Platonic Life-Partners becoming a couple).
- Dug Too Deep vs. Journey to the Sky: Embarking on a travel that takes the character too deep beneath the surface vs. embarking on a travel that takes the character too far above the surface. Though not necessarily a hard rule, the former usually leads to a horrifying discovery (Hell, a Sealed Evil in a Can, a very dangerous geological phenomenon, etc.), while the latter usually leads to a wonderful discovery (a Floating Continent, Garden of Eden, outer space, etc.)
- Dumb Is Good/Good Is Dumb vs. Good Is Not Dumb: Being stupid or lacking wisdom with a friendly demeanor vs. being the opposite of stupid and unwise.
- Dumbass No More vs. Took a Level in Dumbass: A dumb character becoming smart vs. a smart character becoming dumb.
- Dump Stat vs. One Stat to Rule Them All: A stat that can be ignored vs. a stat that can be entirely focused on.
- Dystopia vs. Utopia: A Crapsack World with serious sociopolitical issues vs. an ideal world.
- Easily Forgiven vs. Reformed, but Rejected: A character does something bad and others forgive him without any repercussions vs. a character who is reformed, but others refuse to believe it.
- Easy-Mode Mockery vs. Hard Mode Perks: Penalties for playing a game on an easy difficulty level vs. bonuses for playing the same game on a harder difficulty level.
- The Eeyore vs. The Pollyanna: The Eeyore always sees the proverbial glass half-empty, while The Pollyanna is eternally optimistic about their circumstances in life.
- Egomaniac Hunter vs. Great White Hunter: Jerkass or villainous hunter vs. Nice Guy or heroic hunter.
- Elite Army vs. Zerg Rush/We Have Reserves: A small army of particularly powerful warriors vs. a massive army of Cannon Fodder.
- Embodiment of Vice vs. Embodiment of Virtue: The personification of a bad trait vs. a good trait.
- Emotionless Girl vs. Genki Girl: A woman expresses no enthusiasm vs. a woman expresses a lot of enthusiasm
- Enclosed Extraterrestrials vs Exposed Extraterrestrials: Aliens that are completely covered up vs. naked aliens.
- Encounter Bait vs. Encounter Repellant: Increasing vs. decreasing the frequency of Random Encounters in a Role-Playing Game with an item or spell.
- Endless Daytime vs. The Night That Never Ends: A place where it's always daytime vs. a place where it's never daytime.
- Enjoy The Story, Skip The Game vs. Play the Game, Skip the Story: A game with a good story but bad gameplay vs. a game with good gameplay but a bad story.
- Ensemble Dark Horse vs. The Scrappy or Creator's Pet: The Ensemble Dark Horse is a character who gains an unexpected amount of popularity with an audience despite having a not-so-big role. The Scrappy is a character who becomes unexpectedly rejected by the fandom, for being considered annoying and/or unlikeable. If The Scrappy becomes prominent in a story and the audience still doesn't embrace the character, then that character is a Creator's Pet.
- Escalating War vs. Zany Scheme Chicken: A series of revenge plots that escalate over time vs. a series of schemes that get more ridiculous over time.
- Everybody Knew Already vs. Thought They Knew Already: Thinking people don't know something when they actually do vs. thinking people do know something when they actually don't.
- Everybody Lives vs. "Everybody Dies" Ending: In an Everybody Lives scenario, all of the main characters survive to the very end. In an "Everybody Dies" Ending, a large portion of the cast/all of the cast are killed off.
- Everyone Is Bi vs. No Bisexuals: All the characters are bi vs. none of the characters are bi.
- Everyone's in the Loop vs. Poor Communication Kills: Characters are updated on important information vs. characters are not told or updated about important information.
- Evil All Along vs. Good All Along: Morally wrong or right but hiding that fact.
- Evil Chancellor vs. The Good Chancellor: A villainous advisor vs. a heroic advisor.
- Eviler than Thou vs. Holier Than Thou: Eviler than Thou vs. Even Evil Has Standards
- Evil Feels Good vs. Good Feels Good: Doing bad things or good things feels good.
- Evil Is Cool vs. This Is Your Brain on Evil: Doing bad things makes you look more or less impressive.
- Evil Is Burning Hot vs. Evil Is Deathly Cold: Bad guys hang out in a hot area vs. bad guys hang out in a cold area.
- Evil Luddite vs. Nature Hero: Bad guy who (sometimes) loathes technology vs. good person who eschews technology to be in touch with the natural world.
- The Evil Prince vs. Knight in Shining Armor: A villainous royal vs. a heroic champion.
- Evil Reactionary vs. Good Old Ways: Villainous character who opposes social progress based on dated beliefs and/or interests vs. good-hearted character who dresses and/or behaves in an old-fashioned way.
- Evil Reactionary vs. The Revolution Will Not Be Civilised: Villainous character who opposes social progress vs. villainous character who demands social change regardless of the harm it causes to others.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin vs. Never Trust a Title: The title explains everything exactly vs. the title lies
- Exceeded the Goal vs. Gone Horribly Right: Exceeding a goal has positive, or at the very least neutral, results vs. exceeding a goal has negative results.
- Executive Meddling vs. Protection from Editors: Executives giving (often unwanted) input in a work vs. only the author deciding the direction of the story.
- Express Delivery vs. Longest Pregnancy Ever: A unusually short (full-term) pregnancy vs. an unusually long one.
- Extreme Omnivore vs. Picky Eater: A person who will eat just about anything vs. a person who is very selective about their food.
- Gag Penis vs. Teeny Weenie: A large vs. a small penis.
- Game-Breaker vs. Joke Character (or Joke Item): A character or item that makes the game a joke vs. a character or item that is intentionally bad as a joke.
- Gargle Blaster vs. Klatchian Coffee: A drink that gets you instantly and insanely drunk or sober.
- Genius Ditz vs. Modern Major General: An incompetent character who's good at one thing
note : or *some* things vs. a competent character who is good at most of his jobs except for one of 'em.
- Genius Programming vs. Idiot Programming: The opposite extremes of programming expertise.
- Genre Blindness vs. Genre Savvy: A character that is unaware or aware of the genre they're a part of.
- Gentle Giant vs. The Napoleon: A Gentle Giant is a character who looks big and menacing, but actually has a kind and softer side. The Napoleon looks small and non-threatening, but is very dangerous,
*especially* if you should make fun of his/her height.
- Gentleman and a Scholar vs. Insufferable Imbecile: A Nice Guy with an intellectual inclination vs. a rude, argumentative and likely violent idiot.
- George Jetson Job Security vs. Ultimate Job Security: Always getting fired vs. never getting fired.
- Get It Over With vs. Scheherezade Gambit: Pleading for someone to kill them vs. pleading for someone to let them live.
- Get Thee to a Nunnery vs. Have a Gay Old Time: A word that gets less or more raunchy over time.
- Ghibli Hills vs. Mordor: Lush, colorful landscape vs. dark, frightening landscape. See also Scenery Porn vs. Scenery Gorn.
- Giant Mook vs. Mini Mook: Big enemy vs. little enemy.
- Girls Have Cooties vs. Puppy Love: Children of opposite genders that shy away from or fall in love with each other.
- Girly Girl vs. Tomboy: A female character with feminine traits vs. a female character with masculine traits.
- Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex vs. Pre-Climax Climax: Sex after surviving a dangerous event vs. sex right before a dangerous event.
- Glass Cannon vs Stone Wall: Can dish out damage and move fast but is easy to defeat vs. can't dish out damage or move fast but can tank hits.
- A God Am I vs. A God I Am Not: A mortal believes they're god out of madness, vs. a god-like being refusing the label of god to stay sane.
- God Guise vs. God in Human Form: A human that pretends to be a god vs. a god that pretends to be a human.
- God Is Evil vs. Satan Is Good: The Christian God portrayed as a villain vs. the Devil portrayed as a hero.
- God-Mode Sue vs. The Load: "Why are we even here? He can do everything!" vs. "Why is this guy even here? He can't do anything!"
- Good Is Dumb vs. Good Is Not Dumb: The heroes are dumb or smart.
- Good-Times Montage vs. Sad-Times Montage: A montage showing fun vs. depression.
- Gory Discretion Shot vs. Sexy Discretion Shot: You don't want to see it versus you want to see it.
- Go, Ye Heroes, Go and Die vs. Rousing Speech: Motivational speech that... isn't vs. motivational speech that works.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language vs. Surprisingly Good Foreign Langauge: Bad or good use of foreign languages.
- Grey Rain of Depression vs. Happy Rain: Rain indicates that someone is sad vs. rain makes someone happy.
- Growing the Beard vs. Jumping the Shark: Growing the Beard is a moment when a particular show or series reaches a point where everything gets better. Jumping the Shark is when it hits a new low, and everything is perceived to get
*worse* from then on.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold vs. White Hair, Black Heart: Good character with light hair vs. evil character with light hair.
- Hair-Raising Hare vs. Righteous Rabbit: Rabbits or hares depicted as violent and frightening vs. rabbits or hares depicted as cute and heroic.
- Hands-Off Parenting vs. Helicopter Parents: Parents aren't involved in raising their kids vs. parents are too involved in raising their kids.
- Handsome Lech vs. Kavorka Man: A handsome Casanova Wannabe vs. an unattractive Casanova.
- Happiness Tropes vs. Sadness Tropes: Tropes about happiness vs. sadness
- Harmless Villain vs. Villain Sue: A villain that can't do anything vs. a villain that is very overpowered.
- Harsher in Hindsight vs. Hilarious in Hindsight: Something funny seems serious looking back vs. something that isn't funny seems funny looking back.
- Hate Plague vs. Love Is in the Air: A virus that causes people to get angry with vs. fall in love with each other.
- He's Dead, Jim vs. He's Okay: A character announcing that someone is dead vs. a character announcing that someone is alright.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power vs. What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: An unconventional superpower is considered to be great or useless.
- Heartwarming Moments vs. Nightmare Fuel: Something that's touching vs. something that's terrifying.
- Herbivores Are Friendly vs. Predators Are Mean: Animals who don't eat meat are passive vs. animals who eat meat are aggressive.
- Herbivores Are Friendly vs. Xenophobic Herbivore: Plant-eaters are kind to others vs. plant eaters are mistrustful and prejudiced against others.
- The Hermit vs. Hates Being Alone: A character who enjoys being alone vs a character who hates being alone.
- Hero Ball vs. Villain Ball: Hero does something dumb vs. villain does something dumb.
- Heroes Act, Villains Hinder vs. Villains Act, Heroes React: The heroes are the active party vs. the villains are the active party.
- Hero Antagonist vs. Villain Protagonist: An antagonist with good traits vs. a protagonist with evil traits.
- Heroes' Frontier Step vs. Moral Event Horizon: A character's first step into noble heroism or irredeemable villainy.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath vs. Psychopathic Manchild: A mentally ill comedic hero vs. a mentally ill scary villain.
- Hero Protagonist vs. Villain Antagonist: A protagonist with good traits vs. an antagonist with evil traits.
- Heroic Seductress vs. The Vamp: Heroine who uses sex for good vs. Villainess who uses sex for evil
- "The Hero Sucks" Song vs. "The Villain Sucks" Song: A song insulting a hero vs a song insulting a villain.
- Hero with Bad Publicity vs. Villain with Good Publicity: A hero is hated by the public vs a villain who isn't.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners vs. Like Brother and Sister: Very close same-sex friends vs. Very close opposite-sex friends
- Hiding the Handicap vs. Obfuscating Disability: A disabled character tries to hide the fact that they're disabled vs. A non-disabled character pretending that they are.
- High Heel Hurt vs. High-Heel Power: Wearing high heel shoes weakens or strengthens the wearer.
- High Fantasy vs. Low Fantasy: High Fantasy is a world wildly different from ours, with widespread magic use and fantastical elements and epic scale conflict (massive wars, the rise and fall of nations, gods walking the earth, the very real threat of The End of the World as We Know It). Low Fantasy might not look too different from our world, magic and monsters are very rare if not non-existent, and scale tends to be down to a single hero or a small group and their trials and tribulations rather than what affects the entire world.
- Historical Hero Upgrade vs. Historical Villain Upgrade: A historical figure is made to be more good or evil than they were in real life.
- Hive Mind vs. Split Personality: One mind in many bodies vs. many minds in one body.
- Hobbes Was Right vs. Rousseau Was Right: People are naturally awful until they're dictated by a higher power vs. people are naturally innocent until they suffer negative circumstances.
- Hollywood Homely vs. Informed Attractiveness: Character isn't as unattractive as the show would have you believe vs. character isn't as attractive as the show would have you believe.
- Hollywood Spelling vs My Nayme Is: Names are standardized vs. names are spelled eccentrically.
- Honest Advisor vs. Yes-Man: An advisor that speaks their mind vs. an advisor that sucks up to their leader.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold vs. Predatory Prostitute: A heroic sex worker vs. a villainous sex worker.
- Hopeless Boss Fight vs. Zero-Effort Boss: A boss fight you can't win vs. a boss fight you can't lose.
- Home Sweet Home vs. In Harm's Way: Wanting to stay home instead of go on a journey vs. putting yourself in danger to avoid getting bored.
- Hostile Weather vs. Weather Saves the Day: Weather conditions are inconvenient or harmful vs. weather conditions are beneficial.
- Hotter and Sexier vs. Tamer and Chaster: A character or work gets more or less sexually charged as they go on.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl vs. Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: The man is much larger than the woman or the woman is much larger than the man.
- Humans Are Bastards vs. Humans Are Good and Humans Are Special: Humans are inherently evil or heroic or special.
- Humans Are Diplomats vs. Humans Are Warriors: Humans are peaceful vs. humans are warlike or violent.
- Humans Are Special vs. Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Humans are significant or insignificant as far as the rest of the universe is concerned.
- Hysterical Woman vs. Women Are Wiser: An irrational female character vs. a wise female character.
- I Am Not Spock vs. I Am Not Leonard Nimoy:An actor/actress is known for being the face of a certain character/s vs. a character/s is/are known for being portrayed for a certain actor/actress.
- I Always Wanted to Say That vs. You Just Had to Say It: The speaker says what they have always wanted to say vs. the recipient chides the speaker for saying what they said.
- Indecisive Parody vs. Redundant Parody: The parody accidentally copies the tone of the original vs. the parody accidentally copies the jokes of the original.
- I Need a Freaking Drink vs. No More for Me: A character thinks they need to drink vs. a character thinks they need to
*not* drink.
- Instant Home Delivery vs. Product Delivery Ordeal: A package is sent to someone instantaneously without any difficulty vs. a package is sent to someone with great difficulty and effort.
- Idiot Ball vs. Smart Ball: Unnatural act of idiocy vs. unnatural act of competence
- Idle Rich vs. Non-Idle Rich: Rich people who don't do anything vs. rich people who actually do things.
- If I Can't Have You
vs. I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: A spurned lover can't give up the one they failed at a relationship with or allows them to be with the one they truly love.
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him! vs. Kill Him Already!: Someone who doesn't want the hero to kill the villain vs. someone who does.
- If Jesus, Then Aliens vs. No Such Thing as Space Jesus: Everything paranormal exists including gods vs. the only powerful beings are aliens.
- I Just Want to Be Normal vs. I Just Want to Be Special: Someone with superpowers who wants to be a normal person vs. a normal person who wants to have superpowers.
- I Just Want to Have Friends vs. I Work Alone: Someone who wants friends vs. someone who works solo by choice.
- I Like Those Odds vs. Never Tell Me the Odds!: Someone who likes hearing about their chances vs. someone who doesn't.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy vs. Improbable Aiming Skills: At the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy, a character (usually a bad guy) is incapable of hitting the broad side of a barn...at point blank range. With Improbable Aiming Skills, a character can hit just about anything with a firearm in ways that shouldn't be humanly possible.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes vs. Rummage Sale Reject: Cool clothes that would not exist in real life vs. shoddy clothes that would exist in real life.
- I Am X, Son of Y vs. You're Not My Father: Proudly declare vs disown their parentage
- Inadequate Inheritor vs. Turn Out Like His Father: Failure to turn out like your father despite all pressure to do so vs. failure to not turn out like your father despite all pressure to do so.
- Infinite Supplies vs. Perpetual Poverty: A character that is always rich vs. poor.
- Instant Death Bullet vs. Only a Flesh Wound: A wound that instantly kills someone vs. a wound that someone brushes off as minor.
- Insufferable Genius vs. Kindhearted Simpleton: A smart character who is mean vs a dumb character who is nice.
- Insufferable Imbecile vs. Kindhearted Simpleton: An dumb character who is a bozo that is stupidly rude or mean vs. a dumb character who is warm-hearted, open-hearted, and nice.
- Insult of Endearment vs. Terms of Endangerment: Rude nicknames being used by friends vs. kind nicknames being used by enemies or at least insincere people.
- In Touch with His Feminine Side vs. Tomboy: A male character has feminine traits vs a female character who has masculine traits.
- In-Universe Game Clock vs. Take Your Time Game time flows constantly vs. game time flows only when the plot requires it.
- Iron Woobie vs. Sympathetic Sue: A character that the audience feels sorry for but takes their issues in stride vs. a poorly written character meant for the audience to feel pity for.
- It's All My Fault vs. Never My Fault: Believing that it's your fault despite it isn't vs. blaming others when it really is your fault.
- It's Popular, Now It Sucks! vs. Quality by Popular Vote: A work that is hated or loved for its popularity.
- It's Probably Nothing vs. Throwing the Distraction: Guards ignore an accidental sound made by an intruder vs. guards are distracted by a deliberate sound made by an intruder.
- It's the Same, Now It Sucks! vs. They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: A work staying the same or changing is brought up as a negative.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy vs. Murder the Hypotenuse: A character allows their failed lover to move on with someone else or tries to kill them.
- I Was Just Joking vs. My God, You Are Serious!: The speaker admits they are joking or serious.
- I Was Quite a Looker vs. Silver Fox: Elderly characters who were once more attractive than they are currently vs. Elderly characters who retain their outer beauty well into their old age.
- I Was Quite the Looker vs. She Is All Grown Up: Someone who got less or more attractive over time.
- It Will Never Catch On vs. This Is Going to Be Huge: Something expected to fail succeeds like crazy vs. something expected to be a smash-hit turns out to be a flop. Hilarious in Hindsight applies to both tropes.
- Iyashikei vs. Utsuge: Visual Novels that give you a Warm and Fuzzy Feeling vs. Visual Novels that
make you cry yourself to sleep. Particularly notable in that the terms translate to "healing" and "depressing", respectively.
**will**
- Jaded Washout vs. Small Name, Big Ego: A loser who used to be influential vs. a loser who thinks they are influential.
- Jerkass vs. Nice Guy: Someone is mean vs. someone is nice.
- Jumped at the Call vs. Refusal of the Call: Wanting to do something heroic at the first opportunity vs. refusing to do anything heroic.
- Jumping the Gender Barrier vs. Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Falling in love with or being repulsed by someone who switched genders.
- Karma Houdini vs. Laser-Guided Karma or Karmic Death: Little to no punishment for bad deeds vs. apropos punishment.
- Keep Away vs. MacGuffin Delivery Service: Two parties work together to keep the MacGuffin away from the heroes vs. the MacGuffin switches hands between the parties often.
- Kick the Dog vs. Pet the Dog: Showing that a bad guy is bad vs. showing that a bad guy isn't all that bad.
- Kick the Dog vs. What You Are in the Dark: Showing villainy in public vs. showing heroism in private.
- Kiddie Kid vs. Wise Beyond Their Years: A teen, pre-teen or child who acts more immature than their usual age vs. a pre-teen or child who acts mature.
- Kiss-Kiss-Slap vs. Slap-Slap-Kiss: "I love you! ... I hate you!" vs. "I hate you! ... I love you!"
- Krav Maga vs. Le Parkour: A martial art based solely on disarming and defeating your opponent, and a martial art based solely on avoiding/escaping conflict in the first place.
- Kneel Before Frodo vs. Kneel Before Zod: Decided to kneel before a hero vs. forced to kneel before a villain
- The Lad-ette vs. Proper Lady: Woman lacking in feminine grace vs. woman full of feminine grace.
- Large Ham vs. The Stoic: Expresses heaps of emotion vs. expresses no emotion.
- Late Export for You vs. Short Run in Peru: The work gets dubbed in other countries much later or earlier than its home country.
- Legacy Immortality vs. My Grandson, Myself: Successive mentors and students pretend to be the same immortal person over a long period of time vs. an immortal or long-lived character tries to evade detection by pretending to be their own descendant.
- Leslie Nielsen Syndrome vs. Tom Hanks Syndrome: An actor mainly known for dramatic roles transitions to mainly comedic roles vs. an actor mainly known for comedic roles transitions to mainly dramatic roles.
- Let Me Get This Straight... vs What Is Going On?: Summarizing an explanation vs. demanding an explanation.
- Let's Get Dangerous! vs. Not-So-Harmless Villain: low-key hero becoming powerful vs. low-key villain becoming powerful.
- Let's Split Up, Gang! vs. Never Split the Party: Splitting into teams vs. sticking together as one group.
- Lie Back and Think of England vs. Think Unsexy Thoughts: Character doesn't enjoy sex but has to have it, so thinks pleasant thoughts as a distraction vs. character enjoys sex but can't have it at that moment (or wants to prolong it), so thinks unpleasant thoughts as a distraction.
- Life Imitates Art vs. Truth in Television: Something happens in fiction before real life vs. something happens in real life before fiction.
- Light Is Good vs. Light Is Not Good: Traits stereotypically associated with positivity are good vs. are evil.
- Lima Syndrome vs. Stockholm Syndrome: Captor develops feelings for prisoner vs. prisoner develops feelings for captor
- Limited Wardrobe vs. Unlimited Wardrobe: Character never changes their clothes vs. character keeps changing their clothes
- Living Forever Is Awesome vs. Who Wants to Live Forever?: Living forever is fun vs. living forever sucks.
- The Loins Sleep Tonight vs. Raging Stiffie: Guy wants an erection and can't get one vs. guy doesn't want an erection and has one.
- Loner-Turned-Friend vs. Used to Be More Social: An antisocial character that becomes more social vs. a social character that becomes more antisocial.
- Long-Runners vs. Short-Runners: Franchises that have been around for a long time vs. franchises that ended very soon after they began.
- Lost in Medias Res vs. Prolonged Prologue: Too little exposition in the beginning vs. too much exposition at expence of action in the beginning.
- Lower-Class Lout vs. Upper-Class Twit, The Upper Crass and Aristocrats Are Evil: A negative stereotype of the working class vs. a negative stereotype of the upper class.
- Luke, I Am Your Father vs. Luke, You Are My Father: A parent reveals their parentage to their child vs. a child reveals their parentage to their parent.
- Macekre vs. Woolseyism: A Macekre is a loose translation of a work that barely resembles its source material. A Woolseyism is a translation of a work that maintains the spirit of the original work, while still making it palatable for its intended audience.
- Macabre Moth Motif / Moth Menace vs. Pretty Butterflies: Moths or butterflies are sinister or dangerous vs moths or butterflies are harmless and beautiful.
- Made of Iron vs. Made of Plasticine: Character is unrealistically hard to injure vs. character is unrealistically easy to injure.
- Made Out to Be a Jerkass vs. Punished for Sympathy: Being branded as a bad person for fighting off a bad person vs being branded as a bad person for being nice to a bad person.
- Mad Scientist vs. Science Hero: A nutty, evil scientist vs. a level-headed, heroic scientist.
- Mage Born of Muggles vs. Muggle Born of Mages: A superpowered person with normal parents vs. a normal person with superpowered parents.
- Magically Inept Fighter vs. Squishy Wizard: A physical fighter who can't use magic vs. a magical fighter who can't take physical hits well.
- Magic and Science vs. Swords and Guns. The brains of fantasy and science-fiction, respectively, versus the brawns of said genres.
- The Magic Comes Back vs. The Magic Goes Away: Magic returns to or fades away from a setting.
- Magic Knight vs. Squishy Wizard: A character who fights with both magic and weapons vs. a character who fights with only magic.
- Magic Skirt vs. Marilyn Maneuver: A woman's skirt never goes up in the air vs. a woman's skirt goes up in the air.
- Magic Skirt vs. Panty Shot: A woman's undies don't show vs. they do.
- Magnificent Bastard vs. Smug Snake: While a Magnificent Bastard can sometimes pull off ridiculously complicated plans and get people to do what he/she wants and still come out smelling like a rose, the Smug Snake only
*thinks* they can, and often comes across as a deluded Jerkass.
- Major Injury Underreaction vs. Minor Injury Overreaction: Someone reacts well to a large wound or reacts poorly to a superficial wound.
- Make Wrong What Once Went Right vs. Set Right What Once Went Wrong: A time traveler that uses their gifts for evil or good.
- Manchild vs. Wise Beyond Their Years: An adult who acts immature vs. a pre-teen or child who acts mature.
- Maniac Monkeys vs. Silly Simian: Monkeys and apes portrayed as evil vs. monkeys and apes portrayed as funny.
- The McCoy vs. The Spock: Someone who follows emotions vs. someone who follows logic.
- Mechanical Lifeforms vs. Organic Technology: Machines that are alive vs. technology made from biological matter.
- Men Are Better Than Women vs. Women Are Wiser: Men are smarter than women vs. women are smarter than men.
- Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales vs. Offending the Creator's Own: Members of a specific social group enjoying a work by outsiders despite what might be considered stereotypical depictions, vs. members of a social group getting offended by their portrayal in a work by a creator who is actually in that group.
- Mighty Whitey vs. Token White: The one white guy in the setting is the most powerful one or just a normal person.
- Modesty Shorts vs. Zettai Ryouiki: Clothes cover the upper part of the leg below the skirt vs. clothes emphasize it.
- Mook Chivalry vs. Zerg Rush: Mooks attacking one at a time vs. mooks attacking all at once
- Monster Clown vs. Non-Ironic Clown: The clown is terrifying and dangerous vs. clown who is whimsical and fun to be around.
- Monstrosity Equals Weakness vs. Power-Upgrading Deformation: Being more monstrous making you less dangerous vs. more powerful.
- More Hero than Thou vs. Who Will Bell the Cat?: Characters strive to do the dangerous deed vs. characters retreat on learning that they might personally have to do the deed.
- Most Annoying Sound vs. Most Wonderful Sound: The audience hates a sound vs. the audience likes a sound.
- Motor Mouth vs. The Quiet One: A character who talks a lot vs. a character who doesn't.
- Mundane Made Awesome vs. Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Something normal treated as cool vs. something cool treated as normal.
- Muggle Power vs. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Normal people feel the need to speak out against superheroes or superheroes are responsible for normal people.
- My Country, Right or Wrong vs. My Country Tis of Thee That I Sting: Fighting for or supporting your country of origin regardless of perceived or real wrongs vs. Self-Deprecation and rage aimed at own nationality.
- My Girl Is a Slut vs. My Girl Is Not a Slut: On one hand you have the usual "woman who dares to have sex = whore" and its contrary, a woman who isn't put down or insulted for having an active sex-life but rather sought after
*because* of that.
- My Beloved Smother vs. When You Coming Home, Dad?: Parents that do nothing but control their children vs. parents that never have time for their children.
- Sanity Slippage vs. Sanity Strengthening: A character loses their mind or becomes more sane over the course of the story.
- Sarcasm Mode vs. Sincerity Mode: Irony vs. honesty.
- Save the Villain vs. Villainous Rescue: The hero saves the villain vs. the villain saves the hero.
- Scary Black Man vs. Intimidating White Presence: Black men freak out white characters vs. white characters freak out black characters.
- Science Hero/Science Is Good vs. Science Is Bad: Heroes use science vs. villains use science.
- Screw the Money, I Have Rules! vs. Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Turning down money due to moral standards vs. using wealth to break rules.
- Secret Chaser vs. Secret-Keeper: Someone wanting to know a secret vs. someone who finds out a secret.
- Sequelitis vs. Surprisingly Improved Sequel: A sequel that is worse or better than the original.
- Seven Deadly Sins vs. Seven Heavenly Virtues: Representations of the biblical sins vs. the biblical virtues.
- Sex Is Evil vs. Sex Is Good: Sex is considered to be morally wrong or right.
- Sheathe Your Sword or Talking the Monster to Death vs. Violence is the Only Option: Defeating that same opponent through pacifism or a Rousing Speech vs. defeating an opponent with violence.
- She Cleans Up Nicely vs. Unkempt Beauty: character is dolled up to look sexy vs. character looking sexy even without fancy clothes.
- Shout-Out vs. Take That!: A positive reference to another work vs. a negative reference to another work.
- Silence Is Golden vs. Speech-Centric Work: A story gives primary focus to the visuals vs. a story that gives primary focus to the dialogues
- Shut Up, Hannibal! vs. Shut Up, Kirk!: The hero tells the villain to shut up vs. the villain tells the hero to shut up.
- Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers! vs. Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Being cynical gets the character called out vs. being idealistic gets the character called out.
- A Simple Plan vs. Zany Scheme: A simple plan that gets more complicated over time vs. a plan that is convoluted from the get-go.
- Slut-Shaming vs Virgin-Shaming: Shaming someone for being sexually active vs. shaming someone for not having sex.
- The Snark Knight vs. Stepford Smiler: A character that freely snarks at everything and is negative vs. a character that hides their true self behind a mask of positivity.
- So Bad, It's Good vs. So Bad, It's Horrible: A work that is entertaining despite its bad quality vs. a work that is so bad that it's not entertaining.
- So Bad, It's Horrible vs. So Cool, It's Awesome: A work that is low vs. high in quality, critical reviews, and audience reception.
- So Proud of You vs. Why Couldn't You Be Different?: A parent is proud of or dismissive of their child.
- Spanner in the Works vs. Unwitting Pawn: A hero accidentally/surprisingly stops villain's Evil Plan vs. a hero accidentally/surprisingly helps it.
- Special Effect Failure vs. Visual Effects of Awesome: Special effects that are bad or good.
- The Squad vs. Command Roster: The frontline soldiers fighting and dying on the battlefield, compared to the commanding officers issuing orders to said soldiers at home base.
- Squee vs. Squick: reaction to something favorable vs. reaction to something repulsive
- Stable Time Loop vs. Temporal Paradox: Time travel is consistent or inconsistent due to dimensional interference.
- Standard Sci-Fi Army vs. Standard Sci-Fi Fleet: The former being reserved for ground combat, the latter being reserved for space combat.
- Star-Derailing Role vs. Star-Making Role: The role that breaked or made an actor's career.
- Stoic Woobie vs. Wangst or Emo: A character that the audience feels sorry for who keeps up a poker face vs. a character that the audience doesn't feel sorry for due to how whiny they are.
- Stone Soup vs. Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup: A character's eccentricities force people to work together vs. people working together causes the project to fail.
- Strawman Emotional vs. Straw Vulcan: A stereotypical emotional character vs. a stereotypical logical character.
- Strawman Emotional
*and* Straw Vulcan vs. Emotions vs. Stoicism: Stereotypes of emotions and logic vs. conflicts between emotions and logic.
- Super Robots vs. Real Robots: Humongous Mecha that can bend and break the laws of physics, versus those that abide to said laws of physics at all times.
- Surprisingly Happy Ending vs. Sudden Downer Ending: An apparently sad ending is turned into a happy one vs. An apparently happy ending is turned into a sad one.
- Sympathy for the Devil vs. Sympathy for the Hero: A hero feels sympathetic towards the villain vs. a villain feels sympathetic towards the hero.
## Examples of "opposite number" series: | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OppositeTropes |
Orcus on His Throne - TV Tropes
"
*Sorry, Kimmie. The Supreme One always delegates.*
"
Deep in Mordor, at the top of the Evil Tower of Ominousness, the Evil Overlord awaits. He has his Legion of Doom, the Artifact of Doom, and any other Doomy Dooms of Doom you can think of. His power is vast and he is poised to strike and destroy all we hold dear at any moment.
Any moment now.
Aaaaaany moment...
No? Okay, never mind. Looks like we have a case of Orcus on His Throne. A villain with great power and the potential to wipe out the Forces of Good turns out to be an awfully retiring sort. Sure, they're out there somewhere being evil, probably oppressing someone else, but they don't actually seem to do much; they just sit about resting on their laurels or at most maintaining an active training regimen, waiting for the heroes to come and overthrow them. One wonders how they ever mustered the ambition to climb to their position of power in the first place.
Named for a line in the Third Edition
*Dungeons & Dragons* Manual of the Planes, where it mentioned that Orcus, the lord of the undead, might once more be on his throne, one bony hand clutching his terrible rod. The original justification for this was based on the way *D&D* works; by not having Orcus (or any other given major villain) actively doing anything, but prepared to strike out against the forces of good, the dungeon masters who were buying the source books and playing the game could have the villains do whatever they wanted or needed them to do for their custom-built campaigns.
Relatedly, this is a very common trope in Video Games, where the villain waits passively in their throne room while the hero is leveling up, killing increasing tiers of their minions, Storming the Castle, occupying each base and methodically foiling their plans. If the Big Bad is coming, why not just wait and prepare yourself? But if the Big Bad is sitting by their Lava Pit of Doom, for whatever reason, just waiting for the Hero to arrive, then of course the Hero has to make their way all the way there.
In the villain's defense, maintaining order in one's domain can be a really time-consuming task, what with all those Rebel Scum, stupid henchmen, backstabbing lieutenants, and the other daily tasks an Evil Overlord has to face every day. And any tactician will endorse the benefits of a fortified position surrounded by your most powerful servants. Then again, what kind of Evil Overlord doesn't take the time to smell the roses, pillage a village, and give a hero a good Final Boss Preview every once in a while? They deserve a little "me" time, too!
The Big Bad might also be spending all their time offscreen searching for a Plot Coupon (Lost Superweapon, Artifact of Doom, etc.) that would render conventional means of conquest unnecessary. Why waste time and effort commanding the Legion of Doom when you could conquer/corrupt/destroy the kingdom/world/galaxy with the push of a button? Still, it's easier to send their minions out to do this instead, which is probably another reason they never have to leave the castle. In the case of a Non-Action Big Bad, the villain acts like this because personally, they
*don't* have power, or at least not the sort that would be useful in direct combat, and they primarily work through their subordinates. It could also be that the hero is already doing something the villain wants, so why interrupt the enemy when they're making a mistake?
Villainous counterpart to Take Your Time. Compare Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering. Contrast Royals Who Actually Do Something and Frontline General. The opposite of this is Risking the King. Not to be confused with — though principally very similar to—Greater-Scope Villain. See also The Pawns Go First for when the Big Bad chooses to let their minions fight a particular battle for a while before intervening, or Villain No Longer Idle for when Orcus gets
*off* his throne. Similar to Offstage Villainy, where we only know the villain is evil because the author says so; with Orcus On His Throne, we only know the villain is *dangerous* because the author says so. May lead to It's Personal with the Dragon, since if the Big Bad is spending all his time offscreen seemingly doing nothing, then his enforcers who are doing the work may become the target of the hero's ire. Can be justified if it's a Dark Lord on Life Support. Lazy Dragon is sister trope unique to literal dragons. Can also overlap with Unknown Rival if the villain simply isn't aware of the heroes for some reason.
For narrative purposes, an author may deliberately write his archvillain in this way. A Big Bad that is defeated by the heroes in every episode will lose its dramatic effectiveness.
This is not to be confused with Sealed Evil in a Can, where an abomination, demon king, or other powerful villain is not interfering because it has been sealed away (or "mostly" sealed away).
## Example subpages:
<!—index—>
<!—/index—>
## Other examples:
- In
*Happy Heroes*, the Commander of Planet Gray gives Big M. and Little M. their orders through their television (or other device) from the comfort of his chair and is never seen getting off of the chair to do much else.
-
*Apocalypse*: It's sometimes been pointed out that with his massive power, Apocalypse should've been able to take over the world personally long before the modern era (since his powers emerged back in Ancient Egypt). However, he's generally been content with observing and provoking conflict behind the scenes (when he isn't in hibernation). This can be justified by his Social Darwinist worldview.
-
*The Clone Saga*: Norman Osborn was introduced very late in the game. He doesn't even enter the picture until all of his subordinates have been snuffed out, apart from the Scriers (who later came to his rescue after he was captured by Spider-man). He explains that he'd been living sumptuously in Europe and rubbing elbows with the Scriers, spending years gradually usurping the organization and converting it into a tool for personal revenge.
- Darkseid from The DCU, despite being a major Big Bad who ruled an entire planet with an iron fist, had access to incredibly advanced technology, and possessed divine powers that could smite just about anything in the universe, didn't get around to committing much actual villainy (outside of the original New Gods series anyway). Justified by his obsession with the "Anti-life Equation", a formula that removes the free will of anyone that hears it. In
*Final Crisis*, when ||he finally has a chance to use the Equation, he immediately enslaves the population of Earth, has his son Orion killed, launches a campaign to subdue the Earth's remaining heroes, and nearly conquers the Multiverse.||
- In
*Fables*, Mr. Dark originally comes to Earth to wreak revenge on the Fables who he thinks have abused his power. But after he discovers they have fled their New York place of residence, he decides to build his domain there and wait for the Fables to come looking for him. However, this trope is subverted in ||issue #100. After Frau Totenkinder has learned how to Box him, she comes to New York to face Mr. Dark and almost defeats him but not quite. This near-defeat makes Mr. Dark finally abandon his throne and come after the Fables, who are forced to flee Earth altogether.||
- Subverted in
*Hellboy*. The Osiris Club is a fraternal order that is supposedly "waiting for the right moment" to seize control of the Oghru Jahad and rule the world... but they've done nothing of importance for so long that most of the other players in the occult underworld consider them a Brotherhood of Funny Hats. ||They were *literally* waiting for the right moment - the minute the Apocalypse begins, they reveal *they actually have a working ritual to bind the Oghru Jahad*. The only thing stopping them from conquering the planet is that they didn't plan far enough ahead to stop the heroes from undermining said ritual.||
- The Kingpin is a street-level version of this trope. He can and has fought the likes of Daredevil and Captain America but prefers to keep the illusion that he is a legitimate businessman (or at least a fat mob boss) and has his mooks do much of the fighting. When it comes time to throw down, however, it turns out that all that weight is pure muscle and despite his size, he is a skilled and even agile martial artist.
-
*Judge Dredd*: Judge Death in the *Fall of Deadworld* storyline. Whenever he shows up elsewhere, he's always The Brute since he likes to "dispense justice" personally, but in *Fall* he has an army to command and doesn't leave his HQ.
-
*The Korvac Saga*: The titular villain does not take an active role during the story outside of killing the Collector; he mostly stays at his luxury house and uses his omnipotent powers to avoid detection.
- The Big Bad of
*Loki: Agent of Asgard*, ||Old!Loki||, who has Story-Breaker Power, and the benefits of foreknowledge, but no real inclination to use it for anything more than trolling. For a long time, they were quite content to kick back in their cell. The explanation for this is that ||Old Loki|| is a time traveller and when they actually mess with the present they could very well derail it into something else or even better.
-
*Raptors*: Don Miguel Y Certa, the master of the vampire order, doesn't really play an active role in the day-to-day politics of vampirekind and lets the Council of Vampires bother with such things, instead contenting himself with feasting on the food his servants bring him. In total, he makes about three appearances in the entire comic.
-
*Sinestro Corps War*: Superboy-Prime sits on the Moon watching Earth for much of the conflict. When he finally gets involved, he does whatever he wants including punking his own teammates. The only reason Sinestro picked Superboy-Prime as a teammate, plus two other Omnicidal Maniacs, at all, was that he knew they'd eventually try to kill each other but not before advancing their own plans by hurting their mutual enemies.
- Empress Gandelo spends most of
*The Killers of Krypton* storyline doing nothing but sending her minions after Supergirl and complaining when they are unable to kill her as they were instructed to.
- The Goblin King in the
*Superior Spider-Man* saga is this, acting behind the scenes and building up his army but not actively attacking Spidey in any meaningful way. It isn't until the final arc, "Goblin Nation", that he finally does something. And he does it in a *big way*.
- In Simon Furman's
*The Transformers Megaseries*, Nova Prime and the other Dead Universe inhabitants need to eventually kill Optimus Prime for their evil plan to work. However, Nova hangs back and works behind the scenes through agents in Real Space instead of using his immense power to easily do so. This is because Dead Universe inhabitants can only survive for brief periods outside of it, so he doesn't want to risk ruining the plan to take out a single enemy. ||Except that's just what Nova tells his henchmen to avoid looking weak. In reality, he could easily kill Optimus and be back within the time limit, but he's scared that if he faces the guy directly then the Dead Universe will see Optimus as a better physical avatar and abandon Nova in favor of possessing Prime's body. When the two finally fight by necessity that's exactly what almost happens.||
-
*Ultimate Galactus Trilogy*: Yahn Rgg sends killbots and soldiers to attack, but he does not do much of anything by himself. By the time the heroes get to him, he has locked himself into an escape pod, ready to start the self-destruct behind him.
- Guthrum from
*The Ballad of the White Horse*, as a result of his Fatal Flaw being Despair. He's sufficiently tired and certain of victory that he doesn't bother even raising his eyes to the battle until his army's already routed.
- Justified in
*The Belgariad*. Torak, the Big Bad of the *Belgariad*, was critically wounded in the backstory, and literally cannot rise until the appointed time. Averted in the sequel series the *Malloreon* though; Zandramas keeps busy, continually attempting to sabotage the Child of Light's efforts. The heroic B-team even unknowingly runs into her at one point, whereupon they watch her eat one of her rivals for Big Bad status alive.
- In the
*Bridge Of D Arnath* quartet, this is true for ||two of|| the Lords of Zhev'na. Notole and Parven almost never leave their fortress; the former can usually be found conducting research in her library or building powerful artifacts, and the latter in his war room telepathically coordinating Zhev'na's armies. ||Averted by the third Lord, Ziddari, who is prone to getting out and about gathering intelligence and undermining the Lords' enemies; he's actually nicknamed "the Exile" because he spends so much of his time away from Zhev'na in various guises||.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Blackout*: Due to his large number of vampire enforcers, it has been a long time since Moses "Reet" Weldon needed to do his own fighting and dirty work (his right-hand man hasn't even seen his Game Face in a decade). Consequently, he is out-of-shape and highly outmatched during his battle against Spike.
- Justified in
*The Candy Shop War*. Magicians cannot leave their lairs without instantly reverting to their true ages, so they have to work through minions and apprentices.
- Lloyd Alexander's
*The Chronicles of Prydain*. Arawn, despite being the "Death Lord", works primarily through proxies like The Horned King, Morgant, Magg, Achren, and Pryderi and leaves Annuvin just once to steal ||Dyrnwyn||. It's Justified, and even borders on Reconstruction, in that Arawn can be killed if he leaves Annuvin and takes a mortal shape, and would rather not risk his own life when he has a horde of deathless Cauldron Born to go out and do the dirty work. Further, while he *is* willing and able to fight if he needs to, Arawn is more of a trickster who gets what he wants through manipulation and guile and his actual offensive power isn't really anything special, which gets proven in the finale when ||he takes to the field personally for the first time when his hand is forced
and promptly dies in battle. He puts up an *okay* fight before going down, but you can really tell just why exactly he was delegating to minions up until now||.
- Lord Foul the Despiser from the
*Chronicles of Thomas Covenant* almost never leaves his lair (though where exactly said lair *is* varies depending on the current sub-series); Word of God notes that he does his best work through proxies. Basically, Foul's not the kind of guy who just *kills* you, he manipulates events long-term so you end up killing *yourself* for him. His chief minions, the three Ravers, on the other hand, are disturbingly good at showing up *exactly* when they're least convenient.
- High Lord Kalarus, a major villain in the middle three books of
*Codex Alera*, develops a bad case of this is book four, *Captain's Fury*, despite having been a highly active and proactive villain in the previous two volumes. ||Completely justified. He survived the fight he got into with Bernard and Amara at the end of the previous volume, in which they dropped him out of a high-speed mid-air chase directly into a dense forest, and its strongly implied he was no longer in good enough physical shape to be getting out and about under his own power.||
- The Crimson King in
*The Dark Tower*. Until Roland and his gunslingers destroy Algul Siento, Randall Flagg is either fleeing the gunslinger or trying to frustrate his plans, but the King does nothing. Then when the King *does* get off his throne, it's only to run to the titular Dark Tower, where he is then trapped and can only attempt to frustrate Roland's attempted entry.
- In the
*Discworld* novel *Sourcery* we learn that Unseen University was more or less created to invoke the trope because "the plural of wizard is war". The university exists to give wizards something to do other than trying to kill each other, or at least *structure* the killing to reduce collateral damage. Wizards are forbidden to marry (and are implied to be bound to chastity) because the eighth son of an eighth son is a wizard, but the eighth son of the eighth son of an eighth son is a Sourcerer with access to magic as far beyond wizards as wizards are beyond, say, CMOT Dibbler. Sourcerers eventually fall into Orcus-on-his-throne-itude because reality pretty much reshapes itself around their whims so they don't *have* to do anything, and those that aren't killed by their peers wind up just getting bored and going ... elsewhere.
- Otha of
*The Elenium* is a literal and justified example — he's a The Caligula who lives for excess and has been around for millennia (and was never terribly bright on top of that). The end result is that while he's the most powerful sorcerer who's ever lived and The Emperor of half the continent, he's physically too fat to even stand up and *has* to rely on minions if he wants to accomplish anything. Of course, the real main villains of that series are the God of Evil who Otha worships and the Magnificent Bastard who acts as The Dragon anyway.
-
*Empire of the East*:
- At first it's more a case of "Orcus Stuck In His Prison Cell", since the demon- Orcus himself!- was tricked into confinement millennia ago. Then once the Big Bad has finally decided to summon him (and discovered that Orcus, rather than just another demon you can force to serve you, is actually the Biggest Bad there is), Orcus takes an active role in the final battle of the story, attacking his enemy Ardneh.
- The other Big Bad of the series, Emperor John Ominor, is quite happy to remain in his capital for the first two books and let his agents deal with La Résistance. This is quite sensible, however, since Ominor has an entire empire to manage, with rebellions and insurgencies going on in many places at once, with the rebellion in the West not being obviously more serious than any other until the third volume. Once the West has made clear that it is the primary threat to the empire, Ominor takes personal command of the armies fighting the West.
- In Isaac Asimov's novel
*Foundation and Empire*, it turns out the Galactic Empire has become this, thanks to psychohistory. A strong Emperor cannot allow strong subjects (who will certainly depose him instead). A weak Emperor will be deposed by strong subjects. And, a strong Emperor can't get involved on the galaxy's fringes (where the nascent Foundation is) since civil war will draw him back home.
- In
*Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix*, Voldemort puts world conquest on the back burner for a year while he tries to get hold of the prophecy. Averted from the end of that book onwards, however: though of course most of the "grunt" work goes through his minions, Voldemort starts kicking ass ||after he is revealed to the wizarding world|| and doesn't stop (notably, tracking down and killing a few witches and wizards his Death Eaters might find troublesome, like ||Amelia Bones||). The only times he gets "lazy" are when he's a powerless ghost and when there's a job he has a good reason to avoid doing. In the case of *Order of the Phoenix*, this is also justified: since Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge is running a smear campaign against Dumbledore and Harry as part of his Head-in-the-Sand Management, Voldemort decides it is within his best interest to allow Fudge to weaken his enemies.
- In
*The Hunger Games*, Thresh is probably the best example of this. He's the largest and strongest of all the tributes but spends most of the Games waiting in a wheat field and living off of the food that he finds there. ||But then his district partner Rue dies, which finally forces Thresh to go on the offensive and hunt down the remaining Career tributes.||
- Galbatorix from the
*Inheritance Cycle* spends forty years preoccupied with ||his Eldunarya, which he has to break and control to use the full power of||. His unwillingness to fight the Varden directly is lampshaded in the second book when La Résistance leader Nasuada reflects that "Galbatorix's pride" is the best defense that she has against him. It's commonly accepted that should he ever decide to ride out on his dragon to crush them there's nothing anyone could do about it. It's suggested in the third book that Galbatorix is inactive because of ||his obsession to find the name of the Ancient Language which would grant him near omnipotence.|| The fourth book reveals that this is ||correct. He gets defeated because of his failure to account for the possibility of Eragon having learned an even greater secret: the ability to use raw, untamed magic *without* language.|| Of course the book offers no real explanation why he continuously sends out armies and agents to battle the rebels rather than easily dealing with them himself and then returning to his work.
- J. R. R. Tolkien does this with most of his villains in his
*Legendarium*, but only towards the ends of their careers, in keeping with his theme of deliberate Villain Decay and The Dark Side Will Make You Forget, with smart people with real goals turning to evil but evil itself corrupting them and gradually turning them into cardboard cutouts. Together with this, they start out going out and kicking ass by themselves, but eventually become throne-bound.
- Morgoth fights Tulkas personally at the dawn of time, and later personally destroys the Two Trees and steals the Silmarils. He also personally handles the corruption of the first Men. But after he's been beaten by Tulkas, then nearly killed by Ungoliant, he becomes something of a coward. The last time he appears in public is when he duels the elvenking Fingolfin, who leaves him severely wounded and unable to heal. In the War of Wrath, he flees into the deepest of his mines and begs for pardon rather than fighting the Valar.
- Sauron is actually a subversion, if you look at his life story in chronological order. In the First Age he is a powerful, active Enemy, at least until he's defeated by Huan the elvish hound - after that he flees and hides for the rest of the First Age. In the Second Age, he takes an active role in forging the Rings of Power and personally corrupts the Numenoreans. However, he loses a
*lot* of his power in the fall of Numenor, and after his defeat by the Last Alliance (and the loss of the One Ring that holds much of his power), he becomes an Evil Cripple, able to watch events and influence events with his will, but unable to actually *do* anything.
- Although he's the weakest of the three Enemy warlords, Saruman manages to avert this, staying active until his death. Even just days before his fall from power, he's still leaving Isengard on occasion. After his armies and Isengard are destroyed, he leaves Orthanc, travels to the Shire, and tries to ruin it with his ruffians.
- Smaug zig-zags around this as well. In his youth, he fought some great battles and won the prizes every dragon desires — a big pile of treasure and a secluded lair in which to sit upon it. Having succeeded in this goal, he mostly just lies around and sleeps, to the point where he hasn't even been seen in decades. That said, he flies to deliver some immediate retaliation when someone is stupid enough to provoke him.
- Lampshaded in
*The Return of the King* by Denethor, who comments that all great lords rule and fight by using others as their weapon. That is why he sends his sons to fight and die for him. He predicts that Sauron will only appear for the final battle when all else has been conquered.
- Fulbert from
*Malevil* sits in his fortified manor in La Roque. He tricked the villagers into letting him keep the food and weapons, there isn't much they can do but suffer his abuse and cruelty. For the most part, he is content to live a lazy life of post-Apocalypse "decadence" at the expense of others. He also takes no real action against Malevil itself, ||until the end when he convinces a rogue military commander who captured La Roque that the castle would make a better base of operations.||
- The Autarch from
*Masks of Aygrima* is only seen outside his palace once (aside from the prologue) and never leaves the capital city.
- The Lord Ruler from
*Mistborn* seems to have a bad case of this, hanging around in his palace and not exerting himself even when his whole capital is going up in flames. ||Justified because he's a borderline Physical God so powerful the rebellion was never a threat to him at all. The Sequel Series show just how absurdly powerful Compounding a single metal is, and he has the ability to do so with ALL of the metals. He could easily put down an entire army of regular Allomancers himself, and has historically allowed his minions to fight among themselves or get killed in revolts for a while before acting, just to remind them why they needed him.||
- In the
*Rainbow Magic* series, most of the time, Jack Frost is content to dispatch his goblins to retrieve or protect the artifacts. It's only when they fail at the tasks repeatedly that he goes to do something himself. This is played for drama in the movie, where the fact that he does this while the snowman army does all the work makes them turn on him.
- In
*Septimus Heap*, DomDaniel spends his day sleeping on a throne on the *Vengeance* while Jenna and Boy 412 are stealthily going around on his ship.
-
*Shannara*: Uhl Belk from *The Druid of Shannara* literally cannot move from where he stands note : Belk can move around when he really wants to — such as when he went to steal the Black Elfstone — but being, after all, the *Stone* King, it's against his nature to do so except in dire need, but his son slowly pushes the boundaries of the domain every day.
-
*Star Wars Legends*: Supreme Overlord Shimrra from the *New Jedi Order* is like this, though it doesn't stop him from playing politics in his court and having an impact on the plot in that matter. ||Probably also justified in that Onimi can't let Shimrra get too far away from him for long without risking his Mind Control slipping.||
-
*Sunshine*: While vampires grow Stronger with Age, they also grow more vulnerable to light in proportion to the total amount of evil they have committed over the course of their undead existence. As such, the ancient "master vampires" are astonishingly powerful but cannot tolerate even moonlight or starlight (some can't even *speak words* related to light) and must work through younger (and thus weaker) minion vampires whose karmic debt is still light enough to let them go out under moon and stars. It's noted that part of the reason the book's Big Bad is trying to get rid of Constance is that his Vegetarian Vampire ways allow him a very high level of mobility for a vampire of his age and power, and the masters are worried about his example catching on.
-
*The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign*: Very much averted; the Big Bad, ||The White Queen||, is active in every single volume. The only reason ||the Queen|| doesn't immediately curb-stomp the main character Kyousuke is ||because she's in love with him, and considers it fun to let him win||. In the afterword of the first volume, the author even notes that this is one of the main themes of the series.
-
*The Vagrant* (first book of *The Vagrant Trilogy*): Heroic version. After Gamma fell, the remaining members of the Seven retreated to the Shining City to mourn, leaving the infernals to rampage unchecked across the land. If they banded together and fought back, they could drive them off easily. ||Even mostly dead, Gamma manages to kill the Uncivil and the Usurper with the tiniest remnant of her power left behind in her corrupted Knight-Commander||.
- Zig-zagged in Michelle West's High Fantasy saga (sub-series
*The Sacred Hunt*, *The Sun Sword* and *The House War*). The overall Myth Arc is kicked off in the first series with the reveal that Allasakar, local God of Evil and Big Bad is *not* on his throne in the Hells, raising the question "Where is he and what's he up to?" Turns out Allasakar and his demons are gearing up to invade the mortal world. Then played straight in the second series; ||Allasakar made it over, but the heroes of the first series managed to frustrate his plans somewhat and weaken his power. He spends most of this series hanging out in his new stronghold in the mortal world, bringing more demons over and playing chessmaster from the shadows without personally involving himself until he knows he's ready.||
-
*Worlds of Shadow*: Shadow. For most of the series, Shadow's exact nature is not even known to the heroes and never leaves the palace. Though some monsters are sent out to stop the heroes, Shadow never just intervenes to crush them personally. It turns out that ||she|| is bored and doesn't view them as a threat, concentrating on conquering another universe, with ||her|| power on the world of Faerie basically absolute, so this is not surprising.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*:
- The Mayor did precious little villainy, even counting what he delegated to his minions or Dragon; hell, the second Dragon came to
*him* looking for work. Being a Non-Action Big Bad limits his options, and by the time the heroes even know he's a villain he's already unkillable and just needs to wait for the time of Ascension, but this doesn't explain why he did nothing about the Master or Angelus, given their plans would have severely wrecked his plans.
- Glory was like this in the fifth season. She was powerful enough to kill Buffy easily, but she spent most of the season hanging around her penthouse and sending ineffective minions out to do her work for her. In her defense, she was established as not being mentally all that stable (she needed to eat people's sanity on a regular basis just to maintain any sort of coherent thought) and it's implied that Ben is the dominant of the two beings for most of the season, so Glory was
*unable* to come out to play most of the time. Only by the last few episodes of the season is she able to come out for more than a few hours before her energy was depleted, and she spent that time being much more proactive.
- ||The First Evil|| was like this in the seventh season. The entire season is spent warning, warning, warning that eventually an army of uber-vampires will arise to destroy the world, but it never actually happens. Finally, in the last episode... they
**still** don't arise. Buffy and the potential slayers decide they're simply tired of waiting for them to attack and go attack them instead. In its case, being Made of Evil means it has no physical form, and *must* rely on its minions to actually do things.
-
*Daredevil (2015)*: Wilson Fisk heavily insulates himself from his criminal dealings on the street, his underlings primarily speaking only to James Wesley. To the point that before he makes himself a public figure, it's impossible for Matt to find anything on him, and even harder is finding a witness who took a direct order from Fisk. And the only times Fisk personally dirties his own hands rather than have someone else do it for him are when he's really pissed off. In Season 3, Fisk is technically under FBI house arrest, so he spends the entire season confined to a Midtown penthouse under the guard of FBI agents who are secretly in his pocket. It's those agents, Dex especially, who do the brunt of his dirty work for him.
-
*Game of Thrones*:
- While Tywin and his bannermen are out fighting the war in Seasons 2/3 and Tyrion and Cersei are scheming for power in King's Landing, Joffrey does nothing except abuse peasants and engage in emotional abuse of Sansa. Justified because:
- He's certainly not a warrior, no matter how he may posture, is a terrible battlefield commander, and is too stupid to be a schemer like the rest of his family.
- Leaving King's Landing
*would* be political suicide, as it would be easy for another aspirant to the crown to take control of the region in his absence. As pointed out by Tywin, the only (other) reason Joffrey is considered more than a "claimant" to the Iron Throne is that he physically sits on it.
- For all his talk about "I take what is mine", Balon hasn't actually left Pyke in his campaign to conquer the North. So far only his children have done any actual fighting and conquering.
- Arthur Petrelli from
*Heroes* gained practically godlike power in the first few episodes he appeared in. After that, he spent most of his time sitting in his base, drawing pretty pictures and sending out his incompetent minions occasionally. You'd think an unkillable guy with power over time and space could be a bit more proactive. Admittedly he thought he already had everything he needed for his master plan, and when he found out that he was lacking the last component of the formula for the Super Serum he wanted to make... he and the rest of the cast were Brought Down to Normal that same episode, so he couldn't use his powers to get it.
- While
*Kamen Rider* doesn't do this trope much due to how their villains are structured, they do fall for this trope occasionally, though these reasons are justified.
-
*Kamen Rider Fourze* has the Big Bad not do anything while his loyal Horoscopes do the work for him. Justified because he doesn't really care if they live or die, provided that their Switch is intact so that ||he can invoke the Dark Nebula||. Though it's only when it gets close to the end ||after he mortally wounds his dragon when he realizes the latter's double life|| that he manages to kick the heroes' asses.
-
*Kamen Rider Wizard* subverts this trope. The Wiseman can actually just zap away the mana from Haruto *on his throne* (really, it's a stone bed thing but still), ensuring he won't be defeated easily. He still sits on his throne and lets his mooks do the work for him, but ||he does do stuff when he's the White Wizard.||
-
*Kamen Rider Dragon Knight*: Despite having all the means to get things done in a short time and with little effort, Xaviax prefers to scheme and recruit people to fight for him rather than get his hands dirty. He runs out of proxies eventually and his love for power and theatrics finally come to bite him when toying with the protagonists gives them enough time to recover and prepare a counterattack.
-
*Power Rangers* in general has Big Bads who subscribe to this trope. Sometimes they have a reason for this; other times, however, they're content to sit around and berate their underlings' continual failures until the final five episodes or so. The villain division of labor being such that the Big Bad doesn't go out and punch things like a common Mook every single week (and thus lose street cred by being seen defeated over and over and over.) Rather, it's the Big Bad's job to run the operation, coming up with plans, while The Dragon is there when you need someone to keep the Rangers distracted while the Monster of the Week kicks puppies and the Putty Patrol isn't enough. A Non-Action Big Bad like Lord Zedd or Venjix who runs the operation competently, casts the occasional spell or builds the occasional weapon, and shows you now and again just why the minions are so loyal/terrified/both, but leaves the fisticuffs to the season's Goldar type isn't necessarily an unimpressive one. However, you've got a few villains whose stated badassery is never proven and they do nothing until the final episode, where their admittedly impressive combat powers still make them seem like "really strong monster of the week" rather than "Diabolical Mastermind and author of everyone's troubles." And that's how a red light on a pole can be the franchise's *most* competent villain and an incredibly powerful fighter like Xandred can be the franchise's *least.*
- Lord Zedd from
*Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers* is one of the most egregious examples of this; he's been shown to be capable of clobbering Tommy with little effort but spends most of his time sending ineffective minions after the rangers and yelling at everybody.
-
*Power Rangers Operation Overdrive* had Flurious, the smartest and most powerful of the four competing factions of enemies attacking the Rangers that season. After being a major threat in the first three episodes, he spends the next 27 lazing around in his arctic base, letting the other villains do all the work. It isn't until the finale that he swoops in and attempts to make a grab for victory.
- Lothor from
*Power Rangers Ninja Storm* is indeed *very* powerful, just not quite powerful *enough* to carry out his ultimate plan, so he deliberately plays up this trope ||and sending monsters and generals to their deaths just to fill up the abyss of evil so he can absorb that power once it overflows.||
- Justified in the case of Venjix of
*Power Rangers RPM*, a computer virus inhabiting a hard-drive cylinder. Once he builds a robot body, he starts to have a more active role.
- Master Xandred of
*Power Rangers Samurai*. He has a good reason for staying in the lair (he'd dry out and die in minutes if he crossed over to the human world) and he gets more active later, but in the early episodes he didn't even do any scheming; he just spent most of his time saying "Yeah, do whatever; I need some medicine for this freakin' headache." The first time he enters the human world he dries up rather quickly forcing him to return to the Sanzu River, but he was able to get around this by absorbing Dayu becoming half-human and not dry up like last time. Still, aside from his two fight scenes (the Grand Finale basically being a really long fight scene), he's still not very active after leaving his lair.
-
*Power Rangers in Space* has the Ultimate Alliance of Evil, composed of every one of the series villains. All they ever seemed to do was throw parties for themselves. Even Astronoma, who took command of assaulting Earth, played this role, however, she did participate in battle against the Rangers more often than her predecessors. That being said, they shook it off with a vengeance in the series finale, where they launched a coordinated assault on the entire universe. They defeated the Rangers and all their allies very quickly, ||and required a Dying Moment of Awesome from Zordon to lose.||
- Dark Specter might be the worst example of this in the series. He's portrayed as the The Man Behind the Man for all of the Zordon-era villains (Rita, Zedd, The Machine Empire, Divatox, Astronema, etc.). Sadly, he never once fights the Power Rangers, and he never
*does anything* other than give orders/make idle threats, and spends the entire season being unknowingly plotted against by his subordinates. In Part 1 of the Grand Finale, he's killed by The Starscream, though to his credit he at least takes him down too.
- In a somewhat literal example, the Big Bad of
*Power Rangers Megaforce*, Emperor Mavro, is confronted by the Red and Silver Rangers and considers them so beneath his attention that he actually sits down and claims that he can beat them without standing up. He then proceeds to deliver an almost effortless smackdown to the heroes without standing up.
- This applies to almost half of all the Big Bads in
*Super Sentai*, *Power Rangers*' parent show; they spend most of their screen time in the show in their throne, sitting like living furniture, and only get off their asses in the Grand Finale to fight the heroes in giant form.
- Star King Bazoo, the Big Bad of
*Dengeki Sentai Changeman*, at least has a justification for staying on his throne: ||he's just buying time until his real form arrives and allows him to destroy Earth.||
- Great Professor Bias of
*Choujuu Sentai Liveman* is another justified example. As his generals are all effectively his students, Bias lets them take turns handling the Evil Plan each episode and stays back in the Brain Base to grade them on their performances.
- The Gorma Emperor of
*Gosei Sentai Dairanger* is a lazy Manchild who spends almost all of his time playing with toys. He hardly does anything in the story besides one time he takes action to resurrect a single minion he particularly liked even though he probably could have revived far more. There is no real reason why he never bothers to fight the rangers himself since he is as powerful as all the rangers combined. ||It later turns out that the Gorma Emperor had died a long time ago and been replaced by a duplicate made of clay. The duplicate may have had its personality altered to make him easier to manipulate.||
- Daimaou of
*Ninja Sentai Kakuranger* has a good reason for usually not fighting himself. While he is the most powerful villain in the show, by the time he is revived, the rangers are already strong enough that they are capable of defeating him, and they actually do beat him several times when he takes to the battlefield, and only survives due to being tough enough to only be wounded by attacks that would kill any other monster.
- Dark Spectre's counterpart, Javious from
*Denji Sentai Megaranger*, also competes for the title of most inactive Big Bad ever. Despite being powerful enough that he could easily wipe out his generals in an instant if he ever found out they betrayed him, he barely even gives commands and lets generals do whatever they want. He ends up being killed by his traitorous generals before the rangers ever even learn that he exists. After his death however, it is revealed that he had a reason for never fighting himself. It turns out that he actually was a Genius Loci, the consciousness the Neziregia dimension, and so it was not possible for him to leave.
-
*Operation Overdrive*'s Flurious seems to be in keeping with *GoGo Sentai Boukenger*, in which Gajah (the villain Flurious essentially replaced) mostly winds up hanging back, only really doing anything of significance after one of the other factions has one of their plans fail, in at least one case using the flaming wreckage of the failed plan as the foundation for his own. This ends up proving to his benefit however as he ultimately outlasts all the other members of the Big Bad Ensemble and becomes the Final Boss.
- You know what we said about Master Xandred above? His
*Samurai Sentai Shinkenger* counterpart, Chimatsuri Dokoku, is the same, only he's not taking medicine — that's *sake* and he spends all his time drinking himself into a stupor instead of commanding his minions, *without* the excuse of constant pain from the previous generation's attempt at permanently sealing him.
- Another lazy villain is Ginis of
*Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger*. He spends most of the series drinking and sitting on his throne, which, very fittingly, is actually part of his body. He is content to watch his minions fight for him for most of the series because his main motivation is entertainment and he doesn't care if his minions win or lose. It turns out however that his power is greatly reduced outside of his ship and it is eventually revealed that he acts like this because he is deeply ashamed of his origin and is doing everything he can to make everyone see him as a superior life form.
- Dogranio Yabun kickstarted the events of
*Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger* by declaring his intention of retiring and letting whoever conquers the Earth be his successor. As such, him fighting *or* planning would defeat the purpose of the whole exercise. But after watching countless members of this criminal syndicate be defeated by the heroes, he began to have serious doubts about his original plan. ||After his right-hand man Destra falls in combat, Dogranio finally to take matters into his own hands. Sadly for him, those years of sitting on his ass and letting his Collection powers do all the work has left him aged and out of practice. Once all his Collection pieces are removed, his remaining might, while still nothing to sneeze at, isn't enough to stave off defeat from the Patrangers. To top it all, unlike all the main Super Sentai villains series, Dogranio was not killed by the heroes after his final defeat but he received A Fate Worse Than Death: he was imprisoned in an underground maximum-security cell for the rest of his, presumably very long, lifespan.||
- Boccowaus from
*Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger* spends most of the series as just a face and an arm sticking out of the wall. While he apparently is powerful and feared, he doesn't take to the battlefield himself because he can only move around on tracks in his base. Mostly he just gives orders and pounds on the ground when he is mad. It isn't until he is completely fed up with his minions failing and finds out that the rangers are spying on him that he decides to power himself up into a form that can move freely. During his transformation into his battle form it is revealed that the giant wall wasn't his real body and his real form inside is tiny until he powers up.
- In
*The Wire*, drug lord Avon Barksdale plays with this trope. The justification is that if he never touches drugs, money, or guns, and he doesn't meet with his underlings in the field, he becomes difficult to prosecute. Until Jimmy McNulty stirs up a crusade against him, most police have never even heard of him, and they have a very difficult time digging up any intel or even a physical description. In contrast, Stringer Bell does and says plenty in the course of running the gang, though he is likewise very careful about it. A lampshade is hung on it in the scene where D'Angelo teaches his dealers the rules of chess; they liken Avon to the king and Stringer to the queen. After Avon returns from prison in Season 3, he wants to war with Marlo Stanfield and lead personally but gets resistance from his colleagues and Stringer, who aren't eager to risk the king.
- Egyptian Mythology: Ra of all people. He pretty much sits on his solar barge while every other god does their work against Apep and other demons, and has his enemies slaughtered before his throne.
- Even though he is the main antagonist in
*Destroy the Godmodder*, the titular Godmodder doesn't actually do stuff that often. Usually he either summons entities or blocks attacks. Averted in 2, where the Godmodder's DPS was often enough to wipe out the entire Anti-Godmodder entity list if the players didn't support them or summon new ones.
-
*CthulhuTech*:
- Hastur. Sure, the Rapine Storm does all of his dirty work, but if a Great Old One — even a weakened one — actually entered the Mêlée à Trois himself, it would be over very quickly. It's implied that he's actually
*unable* to leave his domain on the Plateau of Leng, but he's an Eldritch Abomination, so it's hard to say for certain.
- Nyarlathotep assumed a human form and runs a Mega-Corp which secretly helps almost every cult in the setting. He could probably drive a small country mad all by himself, but for some reason he lets his secret network of cultists do all the heavy lifting.
-
*Dungeons & Dragons*: Happens an awful lot when the writers need to fit in fair challenges for lower-level players that are still suitably epic, need to leave options open for DMs to use the character, or both. Though to be fair, they usually offer some sort of justification or Hand Wave, such as the entity being kept busy by other matters, stuck in a can somewhere, or being on a different plane of existence entirely.
- Orcus, of course, through most of his history. Justified, in that not only is he in an Evil Versus Evil war with various other Demon Lords, but also with the Fallen Devils as well. Back in First and Second Edition however he was a real terror; first he died, then he came back from the dead, terrorized the planes, killed a bunch of gods nobody cares about, and died again. He hasn't been the same since his second resurrection. In 4th Edition, Orcus is fully statted out for combat in the Monster Manual. Clearly he's gotten a bit more active if he needs epic-level heroes to face him. What's more, he's not only the most powerful monster in that book, but he got himself put on the cover.
- Asmodeus' was badly wounded during his fall from heaven, so his avatar can't go far from the hells for long periods of time, and he is enough of a Magnificent Bastard that he doesn't have to leave hell to be the dangerous creature in the multiverse. 4e offers another justification for Asmodeus; Hell is his prison and he can't leave. It's worth noting that he wasn't imprisoned there to protect the mortal world from him, but to protect the other gods from him. He became a god through deicide, and the other gods are scared shitless of him (and potential copycats).
- Orcus' arch-rival Demogorgon tends to do the same thing. His excuse is that he considers the wars with devils and other demons a necessary annoyance, and his true interest is researching the nature of the Abyss. For the record? Demogorgon is said canonically to be more powerful than Orcus, and at least in some versions, was the demonic equivalent of Asmodeus himself.
- Many, many Darklords in the
*Ravenloft* setting. The most extreme example is Soth, who spent decades literally just sitting on his throne because he didn't care anymore. It has been theorized that the Dark Powers let him escape Ravenloft because he ceased to be of any interest, in contrast to Darklords like Strahd, Drakov, or Azalin whose existence is a constant cycle of Yank the Dog's Chain. Ironically, the original *Ravenloft* module completely defied this trope — the vampire lord Strahd has spies looking out for you when you invade his castle, and if he knows where you are and you linger too long in one area, he *will* attack you and try to kill you rather than wait for you to find him, and on top of that the game randomises where the final battle with him is supposed to take place so rather than finding him on his throne, you have no idea when and where you will run into him. He'll also have multiple social interactions with the party long before then, safe in the knowledge they're no real threat to him.
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*Eberron*: Used as a consistent part of the setting. Every major power, good or evil, has *some* reason not to just send out their strongest people out conquering. The big limiting factor is the Draconic Prophecy, a constantly changing series of Either/Or Prophecies. The demons of the Lords of Dust are all completely immortal and many of them could fight armies by themselves, but they only want to release the Overlords—and the only way to do that is through very specific manipulation of the Prophecy. They can't just start a war to release the Rage of War, they need to start a war in Aundair using a disinherited prince of a dead nation who murders his aunt. That has to be set up very carefully through agents, and *stopping* it likewise requires mortal agents. This was an intentional design choice, as the point of the setting is "Eberron needs heroes."
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*Forgotten Realms* has Larloch, a lich archmage of unsurpassed power who's spent 2000 years accumulating magical artifacts and undead servants, including dozens of lesser liches. He prefers to spend his time doing research in the depths of Warlock's Crypt, only occasionally acting to secure interesting magic items or information... or to unleash sixty liches on a nearby town to see what happens.
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*Exalted*: The Deathlords once unleashed the Great Contagion, a plague that wiped out 90% of all life in Creation. Then they did nothing but plot for millennia. Somewhat justified, in that their Neverborn masters really hate failure and have dolled out some nasty punishments already; if one of them's going to come up with a fiendish plan to destroy Creation, they're going to make damn sure it *works* first. Additionally, they all want to be the one to destroy the world themselves, which means they spend a lot of time keeping an eye on each other to make sure no one else gets the glory. (Some treatments, such as Eye and Seven Despairs, or the Lover have been presented as being more interested in the distractions and satisfactions of existence, and have strayed from the path of seeking Oblivion as anything other than lip service.) This, more than any other reason, is likely why the Neverborn have deliberately set about having the Death Lords unknowingly train their own replacements (that being the Abyssal Exalted).
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*Magic: The Gathering*:
- Oloro, Ageless Ascetic sits in his chair, in the Command Zone, gaining you life, all game long. Most decks that play Oloro consider
*casting* him very low on their priorities list, especially as it leaves his signature life gain ability more vulnerable to being taken out of play.
- Nicol Bolas does a lot of prep work but during the
*War of the Spark* itself is so confident in his plan and contemptuous of his opposition that he spends the entire invasion sitting on his throne, occasionally giving an order to a minion, mostly ignoring his enemies and never focusing his immense magical might upon them. Ironically the one time he acts directly before the end, intervening to save Liliana Vess (presumably simply to spare himself the bother of commanding his Eternals personally) ||it ends up backfiring as Liliana betrays him and uses the Dreadhorde's God-Eternals to strip him of his power.|| It's especially glaring because in his previous appearance in *Hour of Devastation*, he had personally handed the Gatewatch a humiliatingly one-sided beatdown even though he was clearly Just Toying with Them purely for the joy of it.
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*In Nomine*:
- God comes across like this. His hand will appear in small ways through Divine Intervention, but He's not taking the field personally till Armageddon — he's only communicated with angels at all twice since the Fall.
- Lucifer, meanwhile, plays with the trope. He is quite active both in Infernal Interventions and in maintaining Hell's hierarchy, but he doesn't personally involve himself in the fight against Heaven — he spends more time judging his inferiors' success instead. Nonetheless, he can pop up whenever he wants — even if he just happens to wander by and open a stuck door for demons (though this should only happen in a more comedic campaign). He also sometimes speaks to angels and is rarely openly hostile toward them (though that doesn't mean that that angel isn't now in very serious trouble).
- The Superiors from both sides to varying degrees. Yves, Archangel of Destiny, Kronos, Demon Prince of Fate, or Malphas, Demon Prince of Factions, prefer to work through others.
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*Pathfinder*:
- This tends to happen to liches. Powerful evil spellcasters who have achieved immortality, and thus have all the time in the world to discover even
*more* powerful magic, along with the additional powers their undead state grants? They should be ruling the world, right? While it's true that many start out with Evil Overlord ambitions, as the centuries pass the concerns of the mortal world matter less and less to them. Lacking the need to eat and sleep, they spend all their time on their research, until even that bores them, and a creeping lethargy sets in. Eventually they may cease to function entirely and become barely sapient (though incredibly powerful) *demi*liches.
- In the description of Wormsmaw in
*Undead Unleashed*, the legendary undead warlord Erum-Hel is found sitting on his throne in the depths of his fortress, waiting for the intruders to come to him and ignoring their progress through his lair until they do.
- Kevoth-Kul, the Black Sovereign of Numeria, is a justified example of this trope. He's a powerful and dangerous barbarian king who conquered the throne of Starfall by force, but these days he never leaves his palace because the
*real* power in Starfall, the Technic League, keep him drugged and distracted so they can run the show. The game's second edition reveals that after the Technic League's destruction in *Iron Gods*, he becomes a much more proactive and effective ruler.
- Justified for the Dethroned of
*Princess: The Hopeful*. Despite being the most powerful of the Darkness's servants, Dethroned are so consumed by their own despair and self-loathing that, left to themselves, they simply remain in the Dark World, endlessly reliving the events that stripped them of their Belief. And since any lesser creature of Darkness who gets too close to a Dethroned risks being subsumed into the Dethroned's self-flagellation, Darkspawn rarely seek to awaken a Dethroned save in extreme circumstances.
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*Warhammer 40,000*:
- Of the daemon Primarchs only a handful have left their daemonworlds and attacked the Imperium on a regular basis. Mostly because they don't actually give a crap about the Imperium anymore; they have godlike powers and rule entire worlds that are shaped according to their whims, so they have very little reason to leave their homes and go kick some mortals around. Angron, the most active, is a bit different as he exists to kill things, and mortals are more fun to kill than demons (as demons can't truly die). And it takes an enormous amount of energy to actually summon them to the physical world... and every time poor Magnus the Red ventures out, the Space Wolves stab him in the eye. This goes double Lorgar and Fulgrim. Every other daemon-primarch assaulted the Imperium at least once. Lorgar has spent the last ten thousand years meditating on the nature of Chaos, while the Word Bearers are ruled by his lieutenants. Fulgrim left his legion shortly after Horus Heresy and even the Emperor's Children can't find him. The Emperor's Children no longer have any kind of unified command structure after that incident with World Eaters, Kharn and a flamethrower.
- Thanks to Twin Switch antics, it's ambiguous as to whether Alpharius is alive, whether his twin brother Omegon is alive, or whether they're both alive. Whatever the answer is, they haven't been heard of in ten thousand years.
- The Emperor is effectively sustained by life support on his throne and has been for ten millennia. He's
*less* of a villain, but this is WH40K we're talking about.
- The Chaos Gods, when they aren't stuck in their literally eternal Enemy Civil War, rely on their daemons and mortal followers to cause havoc in the Materium. In their case, they're just
**so** powerful that they physically can't manifest in or influence the Materium in any way. Their ultimate goal is to permanently merge the Materium and Immaterium, which would give them free rein over everything.
- Fanon interpretations strike Khorne particularly hard with this trope, referring to him as a particularly lazy slob who won't simply stand up and start spilling some blood himself. This is partly due to the "SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE" part of the infamous warcry, which leads to interpreting him as really loving that throne too much to leave it, and because every other god seems to be doing
*something* in their wait: Tzeentch keeps weaving plan after plan, Slaanesh spends time murderfucking Eldar souls for eternity, and Nurgle continually brews new plagues, and even if he were fully idle at least his domain justifies it. Khorne, whose domain would expect more activity than any of the other three, does nothing of the sort, and apparently all he does is watch his servants fight everyone forever, with only the occasional gift to a powerful warrior. Thus, as impressive as his servants are, the God himself ends up coming off as less of an unstoppable force of violence and more of a "paraplegic sociopath".
- Asdrubael Vect, ruler of the Dark Eldar, is an
*in-game example*. His model is a floating open-topped tank, which he's had a throne installed on, and while there are rules for him leaving the vehicle he's very expensive, so doesn't get to go out in person much. In the lore, he's The Chessmaster and Evil Overlord, so it's justified that he doesn't get stuck in all that often.
- Ilya from
*Fate/stay night*. Her Berserker is the strongest of the servants currently participating in the Holy Grail War and she's an extremely powerful magus on top of it — but besides her first appearance in which she almost effortlessly subdues both Shirou and Rin combined, she never takes another offensive action afterwards, in any of the three routes, despite how that she could probably flatten all the other participants ||except for Kotomine and Gilgamesh||. This is probably because ||she is the vessel for the Holy Grail, which takes over her body when it activates, so she has no reason to even try.||
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*Red vs. Blue*:
- The Director of Project Freelancer and the man behind all the atrocities said operation committed, never directly confronts the heroes, even when they storm his hideout, he just lets his ||army of robot Agent Texas doppelgangers|| deal with them. ||Justified, as he is revealed to have become a washed-up shell of his former self by the time the series gets to him, who's
*ready to kill himself* by the time Agent Carolina and Church finale confront him face to face.||
- ||The Chairman|| spends almost all three seasons of the Chorus arc sitting in his heavily guarded flagship,
*far* away from the real action and leaves all the dirty work to his Co-Dragons Locus and ||Felix|| and their army of Space Pirates. ||Subverted in the finale of season thirteen, after The Blood Gulch Crew exposes his corruption to The Federation and he has nothing left to lose, The Chairman personally flies his ship to Chorus with an army of Humongous Mecha and the remainder of his infantry, in an attempt to take the BGC and as many of the people on Chorus with him as possible.||
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*RWBY*: Salem prefers to work from the shadows and let subordinates act in her stead, as it enables her to turn humanity against itself and leave them pointing fingers at each other instead of her. She directs her forces remotely from the remnants of the Domain of Darkness. ||After she learns in Volume 6 that her subordinates failed to obtain the Relic of Knowledge, which is being carried to Atlas by a newly reincarnated Ozpin, Salem decides to personally take action, crafting an aerial Grimm army and leading the attack on Atlas. In Volume 8, she is temporarily taken out by a Fantastic Nuke from Oscar, in a one-shot explosion from Ozpin's cane, just long enough for the kingdom's people to be evacuated to Vacuo.||
- Fire-Human, from the
*Water-Human* series, spends the entire series sitting on his throne and playing Nintendo DS games. When The Hero is captured and delivered to his fortress, he just sends the captors away because he's too busy playing, and never realizes whom they brought.
- In
*Adventurers!!*, Khrima is frequently shown waiting like this. Sometimes he gets impatient when Karn's out Level Grinding instead of advancing the plot, and wishes he'd brought a Game Boy or something. He's occasionally shown researching lasers or playing Scrabble or something. Subverting this forms the basis of a short arc: Khrima says he's tired of waiting for the heroes to do stuff, and along with one of his lieutenants, decides to go steal a mini-Cosmic Keystone to use as a water cooler.
- Emperor Kreedor from
*Dubious Company*. Throughout the story he has personally done NOTHING to carry out his evil plans, instead relying on his elite squad of goons to carry out his goals. In the meantime, the only things Kreedor can be counted on to do are issue orders, yell at his minions, and call out every so often for whatever bit of pampering he wants to undergo next. Even gaining immense, world-threatening godlike powers has done nothing to convince him to actually get off his throne and actually *do* something.
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*El Goonish Shive* has Lord Tedd, an evil alternate-dimensional version of one of the main characters who hasn't made any significant actions since his introduction (although it is later learned that he did ||create the Goo Monster that the first story arc was centered around||).
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*Homestuck*:
- The Black Queen doesn't really do much except sit on her throne and make Jack Noir wear silly outfits. ||Subverted later on, as Jack completely shakes the game up as soon as he kills her and takes her power and has shown no signs of stopping||. It is implied that the Royalty in Sburb are limited in what they can do till certain conditions are met as it is part of a "game". Jack in the B1 universe and DD and the Condesce in the B2 universe demonstrate just how broken the game can be if the royals start acting Genre Savvy.
- Subverted with Lord English, who doesn't enter the story until fairly late in the comic, but not because he's just sitting around. ||He has to prepare everything so that he can even enter the universe in the first place and has been manipulating nearly everyone since the very beginning to do so. When he finally
*does* make his presence known he more than makes up for sitting around.|| It also turns out that he's been part of the story from the very start ||observing everyone through the eyes of his Soul Jar, Lil' Cal.||
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*The Order of the Stick*:
- When Xykon is first introduced he appears to be this, sitting down in his lair waiting for the heroes to arrive (and watching them on his crystal ball, with picture-in-picture for when the party gets split up). However, after his defeat, he becomes a
*much* more proactive villain. But then he goes back to warming the seat on his throne (in a manner of speaking; he's a bone-cold lich) after ||conquering Azure City||. He explicitly states that even crafting magical items takes up only 8 hours of his day, and, for lack of anything else to do, he has taken to offbeat torture of his prisoner, forcing gladiatorial sport on his slaves, and has developed a liking for Zombie Gladiators. Xykon states in *Start of Darkness* that, with the immortality of lichdom, time is on his side, and he can afford to dilly-dally as much as he wants.
- Later subverted when it's revealed that Redcloak manipulated Xykon to spend more time in the city they'd conquered since Redcloak was trying to turn it into a new goblin city-state and needed time to get it to where it could handle Redcloak being gone. Xykon eventually gets sick of waiting after his favorite prisoner to torture is broken out and forces Redcloak to get ready to leave to get going on the rest of their quest for the gates.
- Subverted again when they arrive at the desert gate. Xykon is furious to see that the heroes beat them there and the gate is destroyed and decides to just kill the whole party then and there. However, The Monster in the Darkness recognizes the party as friends of his friend O'Chul and tricks Xykon into letting them live and hurrying on to the next gate instead.
- Nale sees his father Tarquin as an example of this and resents him for it. He doesn't understand why his father is content to spend his dwindling days in the lap of luxury when he has the resources and skill to conquer the world and rule it forever. Although from Tarquin's point of view, it's entirely reasonable, as he's a very active Chessmaster ||who is actually constantly expanding and reinforcing his empire through an elaborate continent-wide campaign of manipulation.||
- Played for Laughs in the
*The Perry Bible Fellowship* comic "Zuthulus [sic] Resurrection".
- In
*Sluggy Freelance* the Dimension of Pain demons were a recurring threat for several years, had their own B-Side Comics for a while, and became major antagonists during the "That Which Redeems" storyline. Yet the Demon King, the guy who's in charge of the dimension and bosses Horribus around barely appears, and actually seems barely interested in or even aware of the demons' actions. That is until Torg interrupts him on the toilet.
- Justified in
*Swords*: The demon king fell into depression after being stabbed with the Boredsword, which is still embedded in his chest.
- In
*Tower of God*, Jahad, the King of the Tower, is gradually revealed to be more and more of an evil ruler, but in the meantime, all he himself does is hibernate or something. You have to look in the background material to know even this, and that there are people called the Three Lords who rule in his stead. ||Until he becomes aware of the protagonist's existence, and the heroes are suddenly faced with a whole army division sent just to get them.||
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*The Witch's Throne*: The Witch, even though she has enough powers to destroy all living things, waits atop her throne to fight the four warriors from the prophecy.
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*The Wotch*. Melleck Xaos pretty much subscribes to this philosophy. When he does bother doing anything, it's usually to banter with his minions or create some new Fallen. The few times he *does* get involved in a fight he usually stomps a mudhole in his enemies. Furthermore, it's revealed early in the story that one of Xaos' few limitations is that ||he can't escape the dimension he rules due to a powerful curse. He spends most of his time either sending his minions to "test" the Wotch or hunting down the artifacts that will allow him to circumvent his imprisonment.||
- In the
*Metamor Keep* storyverse, Nasoj is quite content to just bide his time instead of making another attempt to destroy the keep and conquer the midlands. However, zig-zagged in that there is one arc dedicated to him assaulting the keep.
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*Avatar: The Last Airbender*: Fire Lord Ozai filled out this trope to a tee for two and a half seasons. "You must defeat the Fire Lord before he takes over the world" was the mantra. In the last season, he makes up for it, however. Word of God comments that he was designed this way from the start, saying the first villain they designed for the show was Ozai and that they imagined him "leading from the comfort of his own throne" up until the end.
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*Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2* has Eris in the finale—though it's justified in that she *has* to stay on the throne or she won't gain the power to spin merillia.
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*The Bots Master*: Corrupt Corporate Executive Leon Lewis Paradim, despite being the Big Bad, has his Co-Dragons Dr. Hiss and Lady Frenzy deal with the heroes rather than doing things himself, to the point where he appears in fewer episodes than they do.
- In
*Castlevania (2017)*, Dracula spends a year gathering forces for the extermination of humanity. But when it comes time to actually execute the war, he seems surprisingly disinterested and just delegates everything to his generals. Even some of those generals begin to question his inaction, seeing him as having become a senile old man who's no longer fit to lead.
- Darkseid in the DC Animated Universe is a bit more active than his comics counterpart, but he's still pretty passive for an evil alien tyrant. This is justified in that after his first attack on Earth it was under the protection of New Genesis. The final episode of
*Justice League Unlimited* has Darkseid coming back from the dead and so angry that he's decided being passive is for wimps. He immediately decides to invade Earth, and when an aide reminds him that New Genesis will retaliate, Darkseid tells him that's where he's going next after he's done turning Earth into rubble.
- Zordrak of
*The Dreamstone* is a gargantuan Eldritch Abomination who could probably trample the Land Of Dreams under his foot, let alone with any of his dark spells (such as the power to place his spirit into another being). For some reason however his duties rarely exceed sitting on his throne and chewing out his far less fearsome mooks, the Urpneys, who he instead charges with the duty of stealing the title MacGuffin the large majority of the time. There was at least one case when his throne was equipped with a jet engine; he Curb Stomped the good guys, they Summoned a Bigger Fish — an entire living planet — the two engaged in a Beam-O-War, which Zordak was winning... then the good guys pulled the plug on that engine.
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*Fangbone!*: Despite his status as the setting's most powerful and dangerous Evil Sorcerer, Big Bad Venomous Drool pretty much never leaves his fortress and prefers to just send monsters after Fangbone and Bill to get his magic toe back from them. This is more justified than others however as Drool's magical power is severely diminished due to his missing toe, so he actually poses far less of a threat to the heroes than he normally would. ||Additionally, the finale reveals his powers are linked to Skullbania itself, so if comes to Earth, he becomes completely powerless.||
- The Queen of the Crowns in
*Galaxy Rangers* rarely leaves her well-appointed palaces, instead making use of Slaverlords, paid mercenaries, and Mooks to do much of the heavy lifting. Justified by the fact that she *does* have an Empire to run and that her palaces have the necessary equipment to mash her enemies down for Life Energy. Why waste time going to them when you can trick your enemies into coming to you?
- Van Kleiss of
*Generator Rex*, though with good reason: his powers only work if he is in contact with his native soil of Abysus. Most of his plans involve him trying to avert this somehow, with varying degrees of success. As long as his powers are active (or he has some plan in the background that will *get* his powers active), he's perfectly willing to leave home to fight the good guys directly. After Van Kleiss ||got a new powerset that doesn't tie him to Abysuss||, he became quite the Mobile Menace, helped out by how one of his minions has impressive teleportation powers.
- The Sorceress from
*He-Man and the Masters of the Universe* has formidable magic that could help He-Man in his fight against Skeletor. However, she is unable to leave Castle Greyskull without transforming into a hawk.
- Inspector Gadget's foe Dr. Claw is the
*embodiment* of this. The closest Gadget *ever* got to a face-to-face confrontation was the opening sequence of the show (and even then, it was a booby trap left by the villain). Other than that, Claw didn't seem to leave his dark control room or his fancy limousine for even a minute, where he directed the actions of his minions remotely, keeping the good guys — and the viewers — from even seeing his face.
- In
*Kim Possible*, Shego does this during her stint as The Supreme One during *A Sitch in Time*.
- Mr. Selatcia of
*Metalocalypse* is notorious for always ordering his secret tribunal to wait and observe Dethklok without interfering... despite how the tribunal's stated purpose is to get rid of Dethklok. Eventually this annoys two of his underlings so much that they begin secretly attempting to murder the band. When Selatica finds out, he is VERY unhappy. Selatica's plans require Dethklok to be alive, and the real reason he's leading the tribunal is to *prevent them* from carrying out their mission.
- Hawk Moth of
*Miraculous Ladybug*, despite being the Big Bad, never confronts the heroes directly and just stays hidden in his secret lair. This is because his Miraculous is the Moth Brooch, which is used to grant powers to *others* while also making them his brainwashed servants. Therefore he just finds civilians who are suffering to turn them into supervillains in a deal to get revenge. Since Hawk Moth can keep creating minions over and over again at no cost to himself, there's no real need for him to personally risk himself in the field. Also, he has a Secret Identity as ||rich businessman and fashion designer Gabriel Agreste|| and needs to protect his secret and never do risky moves. Furthermore, one episode implies that he simply lacks the stamina to actually face the heroes in one-on-one combat, though that turns out to be untrue later on.
- He usually never left home in his civilian identity as well, but changed his mind and went back to appearing in public without his villain costume.
- In the second episode of Season 2, through Loophole Abuse he uses his power
*on himself*, to give him another set of powers and costume, goes to cause mayhem, and gets defeated by the heroes with no problem, because they were close to finding out his secret identity, so he creates a Second Super-Identity to hide suspicion by pretending he is another victim of Hawk Moth.
- In the Season 2 finale, Hawk Moth finally leaves his hideout and appears in public, because he managed to boost his own power to make an army of supervillains made from his previous victims, and is an advantage, which was his ultimate plan, even when the whole army is defeated, it's shown that he can fight against the heroes on his own.
- In Season 3, finally he leaves his hideout in the Hawk Moth costume and without a plan because he needed to save his right-hand woman Mayura from getting defeated and captured by the heroes after she recklessly tried to confront them without talking to him. Not only does he genuinely care for her, but if he didn't save her, he would lose a Miraculous, and Mayura being unmasked would risk his own identity since without costumes, she is ||his secretary.||
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*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*'s premiere for its third season portrays King Sombra in this way during the flashback to his oppressive rule over the Crystal Empire. This case is more justified than most considering his 0% Approval Rating; all of his subjects are kept enslaved by him and his Black Magic, with no army of mooks to shoulder the grunt work for him.
- This is averted in one of the potential Bad Futures shown in the season five finale, where he personally leads an army of Slave Mooks in a long and brutal war with Equestria. Averted again in season nine opening two-parter, where the resurrected King Sombra, lacking any army of his own, marches on the Crystal Empire and Equestria himself and starts tearing through everything while brainwashing ponies left and right to serve as his minions.
- When Grogar shows up in the final season he does nothing
*but* bark orders at his Legion of Doom from their headquarters. ||Justified as Grogar is actually Discord in disguise pulling a False Flag Operation to trick the villains into attacking Equestria to give Twilight Sparkle a confidence boost||.
- Emperor Belos from
*The Owl House* rarely leaves his palace, partially due to suffering from a rare affliction that he's trying to cure. ||At least until "Hollow Mind" revealed that the actual reason is that he is a Witch Hunter with a genocidal hatred for witches, thereby indicating that he stays in his castle to have as little interaction with the witches and demons of the Boiling Isles as possible.||
- In
*Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures*, Betrayus is this. Losing his body and being reduced to Sealed Evil in a Can seems to have made him really lazy. Despite having powerful Playing with Fire abilities, he just sits on his throne watching his minions on TV. He says it's his *job* to do so! The fact that he's *terrified* of the thought of Pac eating him and spitting out his eyeballs helps.
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*Samurai Jack*:
- Jack's sword is the only thing that can kill or even hurt Aku, so he mostly hides in his lair and sends minions out to do his dirty work, and he only ever attacks Jack personally if Aku has some advantage he's sure will let him win. By the time of season five, Aku hasn't even been seen outside of his lair in years. He destroyed all the time portals, so there's no reason to confront Jack and risk being killed by his sword (he didn't know that Jack lost the sword during their last confrontation).
- Even before Jack came back on the scene Aku was having minions created to do work for him, minions just as mortal as he is not. One of them speculates that the work was too slow when he did it on his own. Given the scope of Aku's powers and the total Lack of Empathy he has for his minions, it's also possible he just gets bored of doing all the killing himself.
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*She-Ra and the Princesses of Power*:
- Hordak, who delegates his minions to go conquer the world for him while he rests on his throne... partly because he's spending most of his time building new minions, but mostly ||because he's Secretly Dying, and needs to stay within easy reach of his laboratory if he's to keep himself alive, and also because hes working on portal technology that will let him return to the side of his master, Horde Prime. Hes a busy man. He does strap a BFG to his arm and begin leading from the front in Season 4, some time after his armor gets an upgrade to its life support, but this happens mostly off-screen.||
- In season 5, ||Horde Prime is an interesting subversion. While he really does spend the whole season on the throne of his space station, sending clones, robots, and mind-controlled Etherians to do all his dirty work, his ability to perform a Villain Override on any of his minions allows him to personally menace the heroes anyways. Justified in that he himself seems to have no powers or abilities suitable for combat; he's already in the most useful place he can be.||
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*Steven Universe* has Blue and White Diamond. Blue is too caught up mourning the assassination of Pink to lead, and White never leaves her throne room/ship, instead having White Pearl act as her voice in all matters.
- On
*Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!*, Skeleton King spends the entire first season never leaving his throne aboard his fortress/ship, the Citadel of Bone. Justified, as we find out he's linked to the place and literally *can't* leave. After its destruction at the start of Season 2, however, it's averted, as he's now free to move about and be more active.
- General Mudula fills this role in
*Sym-Bionic Titan*, sending monsters and mooks after the protagonists but not bothering to go after them personally. However, it's quite justified since he's too busy managing his new empire and crushing rebellions to be bothered to chase after three measly enemies, regardless of how important they are.
-
*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)*: For all his faults, Shredder does *not* have this problem. Krang, on the other hand, does. While a couple of episodes show he's more than capable of fighting physically, he rarely leaves the control room of the Technodrome, letting Shredder and the "gruesome twosome" do the dirty work.
- Mumm-Ra, in the original
*ThunderCats (1985)*, rarely leaves his citadel, except when powered up into Mumm-Ra the Everliving, and even then he can't bear to spend much time away from it. Justified when it turns out that the "Ancient Spirits of Evil" are either bound by unbreakable arcane laws or else major-league jerkasses; they will grant the power that Mumm-Ra uses to become Mumm-Ra the Everliving to *anyone* who stands in the mystical chamber and invokes them in the proper manner. As proven when *Snarf* does so and becomes "Snarf-Ra the Everliving". Also, Mumm-Ra cannot survive outside of his coffin for more than 24 hours.
- In the
*The Transformers* episode "Triple Takeover", Blitzwing makes a football stadium his new headquarters and has the Constructicons build a giant highway maze around it. He then gets the Autobots' attention by firing into the city. He then waits in the stadium for the Autobots to come to him, occasionally sending the Constructicons into the maze to deal with them. By the time they finally reach him, they're exhausted and injured, and he casually tramples them and makes a throne from their bodies.
- During the second season of
*Transformers: Animated*, Megatron could have left the underground base of operations he'd set up any time he wanted, and there was no one on Earth who could stand in his way. But Earth didn't interest him, nor did going out of his way to kick around a lowly Autobot repair crew. In fact, Megatron stayed in not because he was taking it easy, but because he had a project in the works that he intended to use to bypass Cybertron's defenses, and it kept him too busy to go out.
- Emperor Zarkon in
*Voltron: Legendary Defender* doesn't bother personally chasing down Team Voltron despite being immensely powerful even without his army backing him up. Justified, as he's managing an empire and doesn't really have time to run off after a single group of enemies. Further he's not exactly worried about being unable to find the heroes, as ||he used to be the Black Lion's paladin and still has some connection to it, allowing him to figure out where the team is anytime he wants.|| Further he would actually prefer it if the team *did* get past his minions and reach him since that would give him a chance to ||reclaim control of the Black Lion; while he wouldn't be able to form Voltron, neither would the heroes which, combined with the Black Lion's power, would be a pretty good consolation prize.||
- Averted with his son Lotor, who's much more proactive.
- Lord Darkar in
*Winx Club* is initially active, nearly killing Aisha and freeing the Trix, but he then spends the rest of the time scheming in his castle and operating through minions.
- Prince Phobos of
*W.I.T.C.H.*. This becomes a plot point in the second season finale. ||The Guardians are trying to lure him to a place that will rob his powers if he enters, but he throws a wrench in that plan by simply being too lazy—or as Raythar puts it, "doesn't want to muss his hair"—to leave his throne room until his forces are victorious.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrcusOnHerThrone |
Or Are You Just Happy to See Me? - TV Tropes
*"Yeah. That is a gun in my pants. But that doesn't mean I'm *
**not** happy to see you..."
Bob is a private detective. He's sitting in his office and waiting to meet his client, Alice. Bob has never met Alice in person before; he's only spoken to her on the phone. He has seen a picture of her before and, well, he
likes what he sees. The door to his office opens and he stands up. In walks Alice. Alice is extremely beautiful in a Gaussian Girl or Head-Turning Beauty sort of way. Bob tries to keep his excitement down at meeting this gorgeous woman and tries to remain all business. Alice, however, is all too aware of the sort of effect she has on men. Noticing the look on Bob's face — and Bob's
*pants* — she offers a sweet, sultry smile, and says, "Why, detective, is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
A clever Stock Phrase originating from early Hollywood sex symbol Mae West in which one character asks another if they have an erection while suggesting a less risqué reason for the other character to have a bulge in their pants. It has now become a common innuendo usually uttered by flirty women (or, occasionally, men). It's been said so much in media that subversions are more common; something besides an erection
*is* in their pants.
While the specific line just happens to be from Mae West, this one is arguably Older Than Feudalism:
**Herald:**
I am a herald, of course, I swear I am, and I come from Sparta about making peace.
**Magistrate:**
But look, you are hiding a lance under your clothes, surely.
See also Something Else Also Rises, Double Entendre, That's What She Said. For when it really
*is* a gun in their pocket, see Trouser Space or Phallic Weapon.
## Examples
- Inverted in the second volume of
*The Kindaichi Case Files*: Miyuki, wearing a low-cut dress, crouches down in front of Kindaichi, giving him a good look at her cleavage. As she stands up, she notices his reaction and scolds him for keeping stuff in his suit pockets.
- After Sechs gets a male body in
*Battle Angel Alita: Last Order*, the team's Deckman servant greets him with this line.
- Done in the infamous
*Code Geass* swimsuit Picture Drama. Cornelia's bodyguards Guilford and Darlton are standing watch as Cornelia and Euphemia try on swimsuits, with a lot of suggestive dialog. Immediately afterwards, we see Guilford looking down as he asks Darlton if that's really the best place to store his handgun (we later see that he's in a Speedo).
- In episode 8 of the
*Shakugan no Shana* parody *Shakugan no Shana-tan*, Wilhelmina and Margery are recast as prostitutes in a brothel Sabrac visits. Margery gets excited at how "large" he is down there, but he says it is the .44 Magnum in his pants.
- A variation from
*Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?*
**Hooker:** I could break your heart for $50. **Metallo:** *(Rips open shirt to reveal a grappling hook where his heart should be)* I doubt it.
-
*Cable & Deadpool*:
- An issue of DC Comics' series
*Young Justice* featured Superboy, Robin, and Impulse at a Halloween party. A cheerleader flirts with Robin asking if he has a Batarang in his pocket, or if he's just happy to see her. He responses "Um, I'm happy to see everyone here..."
- In
*Top 10*, after getting knocked into Dust Devil, Jackie Phantom says "That had better be a derringer in your pocket," to which Dust Devil replies, looking insulted, "Derringer?"
- In
*Universe X*, Venom (Mayday Parker) and dad Spidey are out of the fight with a gigantic Absorbing Man due to being hopelessly outclassed (he's taken on the attributes of *Manhattan itself* and is taller than the city skyline), so Spidey coaches her on one-liners "to make everyone think we have a plan". She finishes up with "Is that the Chrysler Building in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Everyone glares at them for making light of the catastrophe, and Peter responds with "Damn. We're in *that* much trouble?"
- Inverted variation in
*Soeur Marie-Therese*:
**Camille:** *(Not wearing any pants)* I'm so happy to see you! **Marie-Therese:** Yes, I've noticed.
- When Black Canary and Zatanna see Justice League action figures in a toy store, Zatanna teases her friend by making the Black Canary and Green Arrow action figures talk to each other in cheesy porn movie dialogue. In particular, "Black Canary" uses "Is that an arrow in your quiver or are you just happy to see me."
- Once, Robin (Dick Grayson) and Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), were trapped in a safe by Crazy Quilt. Due to how close they were together, and Dick's attraction to her, Barbara asks, or hopes, if it's his belt that's touching her leg. Him standing awkwardly as Batman saves them suggests it wasn't.
- In the
*Canardo* story: *The Girl who Dreamt of the Horizon*, a seductive lady thinks Canardo is getting "excited", but he says he just has a revolver in his pocket. After they're interrupted by a motorcycle gang's attack, she is surprised to find out he wasn't kidding.
- No, it never does occur in
*Harry Potter*, but as Makani demonstrates, it should have.
- Mai said it concerning a Lightforce Sword in
*Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series*.
- Inverted and subverted in the same line in
*Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: The Abridged Series*.
**Alexis**: Is that an erection in your pocket or are you just a tennis ball?
- This seems to be a theme in
*Doctor Who* fanfiction; of course, the potential unconventional uses for sonic screwdrivers don't really help.
- Subverted with this picture of The Joker.
- Parodied in
*Kyon: Big Damn Hero*, after ||Kyon gets a new phone/PDA made from Ryouko's leftover data||. Whilst the phone was still in his hand, this was said:
**Tsuruya**: Is that the end of the world in your hand or are you just happy to see us?
- This◊
*Star Trek* drawing.
- In the
*Death Note* fic *Fever Dreams*:
**Light:** You're hard. **L** (thinking): No, I'm not. That's just the gun in my pocket.
- In
*Nocturnal* Dumbledore tells Ron a story of which this is the Orphaned Punchline.
**Dumbledore:**
so then the Countess asked, "Is that your wand, Albus, or are you just happy to see me?"
- This
*Star Wars* parody *Attack of the Lightsabers* goes way overboard on the "Is that a lightsaber in your pocket
" jokes.
- Mara Jade uses the line on Luke in
*FIreworks of The Soul Series* vignette "Jedi Luke-Meet Dancer Arica".
- In a fanfiction of
*Star Trek: Enterprise* entitled "Confusion", Malcolm says to Hoshi, "Is that your universal translator or are you just glad to see me?". The only trouble is, Hoshi's a woman, both in the fanfiction and in the series, so that joke doesn't really make much sense.
-
*Return of the King*:
**Bellatrix:** Your majesty, is that a snake in your pants? Or are you just excited to see me?
-
*A Possible Encounter for a Phantom*: At dinner, Kim accidentally falls on Danny. She feels something poking her and Danny confirms it's his pen. Later, the two are trapped in a box and, after she moves a bit while pressing on Danny, Kim feels something poking in her thigh. She hopes it's his pen again. It isn't.
- Sonic cosplaying as Link finds Blaze cosplaying as Tyrus Flare: "Is that a hook shot in your tunic or are you just happy to see me?"
- This bit of fan art from
*Hero: The Guardian Smurf*, in which the floppy part of Hero's hat stands upright when Smurfette is around him.
-
*Searching For The Power*:
**Ginny:** Is that your wand or are you just happy to see me?
- "Is that a pistol in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?", supposedly said by Mae West at the railway station in Los Angeles upon her return from Chicago, when a Los Angeles police officer was assigned to escort her home in 1936. She delivered the line on film to George Hamilton in her last movie,
*Sextette* (1978).
-
*It's Pat!*: When asked if Pat has a banana in a pocket, or are you just happy to see me, Pat simply whips out a banana and says "I, uh, have a banana in my pocket."
-
*Who Framed Roger Rabbit*: When Eddie is rather obviously hiding Roger underneath his trenchcoat, Dolores sarcastically asks "Is that a rabbit in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" Eddie immediately asks her to "cut the comedy".
-
*Ace Ventura: Pet Detective* uses a variation on this as a plot point. When Lois Einhorn pushes herself onto Ace to seduce him, he mutters "Your gun is digging into my hip." As he's later heard crying in the shower, it *wasn't* a gun: Einhorn is actually Ray Finkle, a psychotic (male) football player who had heaps of plastic surgery to disguise himself as part of an elaborate revenge scheme against Dan Marino. Ace is none too thrilled when he reaches this conclusion.
- From
*The Pirate Movie*: "Is that a knife in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?" It turned out to be a knife that the pirate threw into the wall before demonstrating that he was indeed glad to see her.
- Used in
*Blazing Saddles* by Lily von Shtup, unsurprisingly. "Is that a ten-gallon hat, or are you just enjoying the show?" note : One deleted gag (which Mel Brooks *himself* felt was too vulgar) would have subverted the joke of Lily discovering the truth about Bart's people "being gifted" when he interrupts her moans of "Oh, it is twue!" with "I hate to disappoint you, ma'am, but you're sucking on my arm."
-
*America's Sweethearts*: During a dream sequence, we get this conversation between the ex-sweethearts: "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" "Actually, it's a gun." [shoots her repeatedly]
- Done in the Eddie Murphy remake of
*The Nutty Professor*, by the main character's Jerkass alter ego.
[
*hugging older woman from behind*] "Is that a test tube in my pocket, or am I just happy to see you?"
- Used for Homoerotic Subtext in
*The Big Red One*. Two soldiers are sleeping close to each other.
"Zeff, quit pockin' me with your rifle."
"That's not my rifle, Johnson."
- In
*The Chaperone*, Triple H's character hugs a man, then says in disgust, "That had *better* be your fanny pack."
- In
*Machete*, the naked woman in the opening feels Machete's pants and asks, "What is this *long*, *hard* thing?" He answers, "My machete." It is.
-
*Red 2*. A Korean hitman is shooting at Frank Moss and Marvin Boggs with a mini-Gatling gun. Frank hugs the pavement as vehicles are chewed to pieces around him, only to find Marvin clutching him tightly for equally ineffectual cover.
**Frank:** Marvin, is that a stick of dynamite in your pocket? **Marvin:** Yeah, but I'm saving it for an emergency. **Frank:** Well, this is kinda an emergency, isn't it?
- Done without the line in
*Hotel!* Paul McGann's character is seen with a gigantic bulge in his itty bitty bicycle shorts; it turns out to be a chain lock for his bicycle.
- An awkward moment for Nick in
*Youth in Revolt*. He sits on Sheeni while rubbing some suncream on her back.
**Sheeni**: Hm, you get turned on easily. [Nick freezes] Don't stop, Nick. It's only natural. Girls are fortunate in that it doesn't show. [As he continues] For all the world knows, my vagina could be moist with desire as we speak.
- In
*Ted*, when John and Lori are getting intimate at one point, she coyly asks if he has a Flash Gordon laser gun in his pocket. Turns out he does. She laughs and they continue.
-
*Get Smart*: In an alternate take of the rooftop fight with Dalip, there's a bit more dialogue when Max lands facedown on Agent 99:
**Agent 99**: Max, I thought you lost your gun.
**Max**: ...I have to go.
- Later, when Max lands on top of Agent 23:
**23**: Is that your gun, Max?
**Max**: No, it's my penis!
- In the scifi B-Movie
*Legion (1998)*, the protagonist overpowers his guards and bursts into a darkened room waving a pistol. The room is empty as we hear a woman sniggering, "Is that a gun or is he just happy to see me?" The lights then come on to reveal a row of male and female prisoners lined up waiting for him to join their ranks for *The Dirty Dozen* IN SPACE!
-
*Pistolera*: When Angel is being released from prison, one of the guards grabs her and pins her up against the wall. She responds by wrapping her legs around his waist, and then remarks that it had better a knife in his pocket.
- In
*Free Guy*, when Millie lands on Guy's lap:
**Millie**
: Is that a Glock in your pocket?
**Guy**
: No.
**Millie**
: What?
**Guy**
: Its two Glocks.
[Millie smiles and takes the Glocks.]
**Guy**
: Oh!
-
*Discworld* has the old Troll pickup line, mentioned in *Moving Pictures*, "Is that the legendary Sceptre of Magma who was King of the Mountain, Smiter of Thousands, Yea, Even Tens of Thousands, Ruler of the Golden River, Master of the Bridges, Delver in Dark Places, Crusher of Many Enemies *takes a breath* in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?" The line is thankfully a lot more snappy in the original trollish.
-
*Dragaera*: Cawti, visiting Vlad Taltos in his bedroom, noticed a bulge in the blanket and asked, "Is that a knife in your hand, or are you happy to see me?" Vlad answered truthfully, "Both."
- In a moment that's a beautiful microcosm of the
*Dresden Files* series of as a whole, Elaine, Harry's former girlfriend that he spent most of his life thinking he'd killed, returns suddenly with a "Hello Harry, is that a wand in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" Magic, noir mystery, Harry being a nerd, and Jim Butcher's fantastic sense of humor, all in one line.
- An innocent variation in
*Animorphs*: Morphing is a painless process, so Rachel is surprised when she starts feeling pain during the process of going from seagull to human.
There was a pain in my back and I had this jolt of fear. Was I feeling the morphing itself? The Andalite morphing technology keeps that from happening, but was it failing somehow? The pain was pretty severe, like the pressure of a... well, of a knee being driven into my back.
"Jake, do you have your knee in—"
-
*The Bronze Horsemen* by Paullina Simons. When Captain Belov decides to consummate his marriage to Tatiana, the following dialogue occurs.
-
*The Detachment*. Dox releases a teenaged girl they're holding hostage and is uncomfortable with how much he enjoys being hugged by her in gratitude. There's a gun tucked into his front waistband, so he thinks that it will do as an appropriate metaphor.
- In
*'Allo 'Allo!*, René gets alarmed while smooching an Action Girl from the Communist resistance group.
**Rene:** What is that I feel between us?
- A subversion from
*Scrubs*
**Gift Shop Girl:** Is that a roll of quarters in your pocket, or are you just having a really good time? **J.D.:** Actually it *is* a roll of quarters. *(takes it out and shrugs awkwardly)* Laundry day
-
*The X-Files*:
- A deleted scene from the episode "Home" has the subversion when it's really an object in his pocket. Taken from the scene where the duo is doing an autopsy on a dead infant in an impossibly tiny bathroom (the "dead infant" part probably explains why the exchange was cut), Scully stops suddenly and looks at Mulder incredulously, who is behind her.
**Mulder:** That's my penlight. **Scully:** Really? I thought a longstanding curiosity had just been satisfied.
- In the episode "Hollywood A.D.", the on-screen adaptations of Mulder and Scully have a moment. They roll into a coffin together, and Scully asks whether it's his flashlight or if he's just happy with their position. The joke is further extended when the movie Scully tells Mulder she's in love with A.D. Skinner. When asked by Mulder what Skinner has that he doesn't, Scully answers "bigger flashlight".
**Movie Scully:** Is that your flashlight, Mulder, or are you just happy to be laying on top of me? **Movie Mulder:** My flashlight.
- In the episode "Roadrunners", Agent Doggett phones in a lead on the local cult that kidnapped Scully, explaining "I just talked to a guy with a gun in his pocket — and I don't mean he was happy to see me!"
-
*Pee-wee's Playhouse* substituted "wrench", and had Miss Yvonne say it to Carlos. He had a wrench, obviously.
- Lord Flasheart does this to himself in series two of
*Blackadder*. "Nursie! I like it firm and fruity. Am I pleased to see you, or did I just put a CANOE in my pocket?!".
- Used in
*Pushing Daisies*, though without the exact line. After ||Olive kissed Ned|| in a previous episode, Olive tries to make light of the awkwardness between them. When they bump against each other, she says "This is...what it is, isn't it? Unless that's not a rolling pin under your apron." Ned, of course, reaches under his apron and produces a rolling pin. Olive is *quite* the optimist, it seems.
- There is an episode of
*Stargate SG-1* where Carter and O'Neill are laying together for warmth. It's purely a joke on O'Neill's part since he's half-dead at this point and Carter wasn't feeling anything but drawing his attention to something else she'd noticed.
**Carter:** Uh, sir? **O'Neill:** It's my sidearm, I swear.
-
*Spin City*:
**Caitlin:** You're enjoying this, aren't you? **Mike:** What? No. **Caitlin:** Then what's that pressing against me? **Mike:** It's a cross wrench. **Caitlin:** I don't care what you call it, just pull it back. **Mike:** *(produces cross wrench)* It's a cross wrench. **Caitlin:** Well, what's that? **Mike:** OK, maybe I'm enjoying this a little.
- Happens beautifully in the
*The Office (US)*, when Pam hugs Michael after he stands up for her.
**Pam:**' Do you have something in your pocket? *(long, awkward pause)* **Michael:** A Chunky. *(takes Chunky candy bar out of his pocket)*
-
*The Thin Blue Line*: PC Maggie Habib is getting into character for an entrapment operation, and uses the line on PC Kevin Goody—a naive manchild-type character with a crush on her. Melting in embarrassment, he replies "Actually, it's a Mars Bar"
- In the
*3rd Rock from the Sun* episode "Why Dickie Can't Teach", Harry enters an executive meeting with a salami in one of his pockets (long story) and someone asks him if that's a salami in his pocket. He, of course, replies, "Nah, I'm just happy to see ya."
- In
*Robin Hood* TV series:
**Marion:** Why Robin, is that Sir Guy's sword in your scabbard? **Robin:** No, I'm just happy to see you!
- Referenced in the finale of
*The Detectives:*
"Um, no, actually, it's my inhaler."
-
*NCIS*. Ziva accidentally falls on top of McGee while inspecting a robot car.
**Ziva:** That had better be your handcuffs.
-
*White Collar*, after a female suspect searches Neal very *thoroughly* for bugs:
**Agent Lauren Cruz:** What is that? She making sure that's not a gun in his pocket?
- Subversion in
*Comedy Inc*.
**Woman**: Is that a gun in your pocket or are you happy to see me? **Man**: Both. *Shoots her*
- Lampshaded slightly in the series
*Alien Nation*; a neighbor of Detective Matt Sikes gives him a plate of poached trout for dinner, in gratitude for an act of kindness that Matt didn't remember performing. He then visits Newcomer neighbor (and inevitable romantic interest) Cathy, who greets him teasingly at the door; "Well, Matt, is that a fish in your hand or am I happy to see you...no, that didn't come out right."
- Subverted in an episode of the short-lived series
*The Commish*. In a dream episode set in an old crime-noir setting, the main character pulls a gun out of his pocket to which, the Femme Fatale responds, "That was a gun? I thought you were just happy to see me!".
- Happens in
*Bones* when Booth and the title character go to a strip club, and the woman that they're questioning gives Booth a lap dance. He insists, "That's my gun." He does, however, send Bones away at the end of the scene.
- Played with in
*Supernatural*.
**Dean:** Oh God, please let that be a rifle. **Jo:** (holding a gun to his back) No, I'm just really happy to see you.
-
*Sherlock*:
- In the climactic scene of the first season finale:
**Moriarty:** Is that a British Army Browning L9A1 in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me? **Sherlock:** *[aims the gun at him]* Both.
- In the series three finale, Charles Magnussen's men frisk both Sherlock and John before their first meeting. Sherlock assumes they needn't bother with John, only to see he's carrying both a switchblade and a tire iron (having visited a drug den on a case earlier — he took the knife off someone who threatened him).
**John:** *[to the guard]* Doesn't mean I'm *not* pleased to see you.
- Used once again in the 2015/2016 New Year's Special, with two different euphemisms.
**Moriarty:** It's a dangerous habit, to finger a loaded firearm in the pocket of one's dressing gown. Or are you just pleased to see me? **Sherlock:** You'll forgive me for taking precautions.
- On one episode of the mock talk show
*Night Stand With Dick Dietrich,* two guests were competing for a free plastic surgery; a woman with a huge nose and a man with a tiny penis. Over the course of the show, they fell in love and decided they didn't need the surgery. As they embraced for the first time...
**Woman:** Hey, is that a roll of pennies in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? **Man:** Well, I am happy to see you, but
(takes coins out of his pocket) yeah, it's just a roll of pennies.
-
*Married... with Children* played with this trope at least twice.
- Peg once asked Al if that was money in your pocket or if he was happy to see her. She then realized it had to be money.
- Kelly once had to play the role of Madame Curie and assumed she was some hooker but Bud quickly explained who Madame Curie was. The mistake wasn't mentioned during the rest of the episode but was referenced to when Kelly's version of Madame Curie asked somebody if that was radium in his pocket or if he was happy to see her.
-
*Lois & Clark*: At the two-part finale of Season 1, Lex Luthor bought Kryptonite from a dealer who tried to kill him to get the money and keep the Kryptonite. After the dealer and Lex's hired double killed each other, Luthor reclaimed the Kryptonite and searched the dealer's pockets for the Kryptonite, asking if there was Kryptonite inside them or if he was happy to see Luthor.
- Subverted in
*The Golden Girls*: Blanche Devereaux asks one of the men at the local bar this. Turns out he really *is* carrying a gun in his pocket.
- Parodied in
*Time Gentlemen Please*:
**Janet:** Is that a spanner in your pocket, or do you just have a six-inch metallic penis?
- On
*Game of Thrones*, Jon and Ygritte have to snuggle for warmth when they sleep. The next morning they are both surprised by Jon's reaction.
**Ygritte:** Did you pull a knife on me during the night?
- On
*Glee* Sam and Blaine hug it out after Sam tells Blaine that he's fine with his crush on him. Then Sam asks if what he's feeling is a roll of breath mints in Blaine's pants. It was.
- On the British sketch show
*Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder*, there was a skit involving gay Nazi Ueberbombfuehrur Horst Schwul arresting an American soldier (played by John Barrowman) who had just parachuted into the German's camp. They quickly take a liking to each other, which leads to this exchange:
**American Soldier:** Is that a Luger in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me? **Horst Schwul:**
both!
- Referenced on
*Arrow*. Because he's obsessed with tracking down the Arrow, Roy Harper steals a radio from the police station, which starts squawking in the middle of his date with Thea Queen.
**Thea**: *(alarmed)* Do you have a police radio in your pocket? **Roy**: No, I'm just happy to see you.
- In
*The New Statesman* Alan poses as a terrorist hijacking a plane after one of his schemes backfires, and takes the Sexy Stewardess hostage. As he gives orders she says "do what he says, he's got a gun pressing into my back!" One of his hands is around her neck, the other is holding a grenade.
- In
*Crazy Ex-Girlfriend*, Rebecca tries to have a one-night stand and sings "Sex with a Stranger," which includes the line, "Is that a gun?! Oh thank God, its just your penis."
-
*Upstart Crow*: In "If You Prick Me, Do I Not Bleed?", Kit says that a woman accused him of hiding a baguette in his tights, but it was a misunderstanding and he was just glad to see her.
-
*In Living Color!*: During one of The Head Detective skits when Head was Disguised in Drag, he asks the mobster he's trying to seduce "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you Pee-Wee Herman?"
-
*My Left Nut*: Rachael mistakes the bulge in Mick's pants with him having a Raging Stiffie, and because it's so big she also thinks he has Gag Penis. The real reason is because his testicle is swollen.
-
*CSI: NY*: Flack and Stella interview a suspect whom they know from surveillance video has a green handkerchief, which they think was used to suffocate a victim. Flack asks the man, "What's that bulge in your pocket? And don't get cute!" The guy pulls out the hankie and gives it to them.
- Pet Shop Boys use a variant of this in "Pandemonium" to imply the subject
err
likes wild parties:
Is this a riot, or are you just pleased to see me?
Why aren't we holding hands and talking sweet?
- This line appears in a Britney Spears song called "Kill The Lights": "Is that money in your pocket or are you happy to see me?"
- "Bullet" by Jessie James.
Be careful what you wish for, you get what you see
Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
- A well-loved 1970s Swedish revue number, "Vad har du i fickan, Jan?"
note : What's that in your pocket, Jan [male name in Swedish]? has the performers dancing the tango. The male sings the verses about how he loves to dance close embrace style tango, but always gets this strange question—then the female takes over the refrain, which is her speculating about what he might have in his pocket, namely a giant banana, a rolled-up poster, a baguette, one of Tarzan's liana vines, a hefty tulip, or maybe a live swan?
- Eminem's "Key (Skit)" is a really stupid freestyled song in which Slim bellows some stuff in an accent starting with "
*Is that a key in your pocket or are you just happy to see the hot chicks that are here for me and only me!*"
- Parodied in the
*I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue* take-off of *Alice in Wonderland*, *Humph in Wonderland*: "Is that a piano, or are you just *unbelievably* pleased to see me?"
-
*Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me*: In 2006 Adam Felber's knack for guessing the setups in the panel questions he got was a running gag (collected in a Clip Show segment under "Is Adam Felber Psychic?"), in this case leading inevitably to the trope punchline.
**Peter Sagal:** Adam, a Florida man was arrested for shoplifting after he tried unsuccessfully to hide what in his shorts? **Adam Felber:** This is one of those questions where you want me to embarrass myself by saying something like "sausage", and the answer is in fact "sausage." **Peter:** Yes, it was a 12-inch-long pepperoni. **Adam:** Yeah. *(laughter)* **Peter:** Rodney A. Covington's partially concealed sausage attracted the attention *(Adam laughs loudly)* of the manager of the Cash and Carry Convenience Store. Covington explained that he had put the meat into his shorts because he had hurt his hand, you see, and couldn't carry a shopping basket. The manager then noticed the pound of pepper-jack cheese in Covington's hip pocket and called the cops. **Adam:** You know, if you're a criminal out there, just imagine the headline before you commit the crime. If you can't do the headline, don't commit the crime. **Peter:** What the did the manager say? "Are you going to pay for that, or are you just happy to see me?"
- The stage play
*Lost in Yonkers* reveals that Uncle Louie does keep a gun in his pocket. He says that the ladies think it's something else when they dance real close.
- From the second
*Bottom Live* stage show, as Richie and Eddie, in prison, rehearse for Richie's forthcoming encounter with the jail's Mister Big:
**Richie**: Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you pleased to see me? **Eddie**: Why, it's... [pulls out gun] A gun! **Richie**: My, it is a whopper, isn't i— *FUCKING HELL EDDIE THAT'S A GUN!*
-
*The Pee-wee Herman Show on Broadway*: When all the lights go out, Pee-Wee begins searching for his flashlight with his friends, and we can only the characters By the Lights of Their Eyes. The flashlight in question is unquestionably Conkey's... thing.
**Pee-Wee:**
Oh, here's my flashlight! Ha-ha! Hm, I can't find the button.
**Conkey:**
That's not a fl-fl-fl-fl-flashlight, Pee-Wee!
**Pee-Wee:**
Oh! Sorry, Conkey.
- Older Than Feudalism: In
*Lysistrata*, the magistrate has the following line:
*But look, you are hiding a lance under your clothes, surely.*
- Used in
*Monkey Island*: "Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see us?" The hero had just stolen a banana from these guys. They weren't pleased.
- Also in the PS3 version of
*Tales of Monkey Island*, one of the bronze trophies obtained in Chapter 1 (when Guybrush sees the effects of the Pox of LeChuck on the inhabitants) is labeled, "Is That a Pox on Your Face, or Are You Just Angry to See Me?"
- In
*Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis* when a completely dark room is entered, the "Look" command is replaced with "Touch". Indy can "touch" Sophia to which she'll respond with "Is that a ship rib in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?". (Indiana does have a ship rib in his inventory)
- Both
*Civilization 3* and *4* give us this line from Catherine the Great, parodying the usual depictions of her as a sex-hungry slut:
"Is that a treaty in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
- Walking up to female villagers you saved in
*Overlord* may cause them to say: "Is that a pumpkin in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
- Used in one of the
*Gex* games: "Is that a lightsaber, or are you just happy to see me?"
-
*Final Fantasy XII* has a sidequest NPC use this line:
"Pardon me, Bhadra. Is that a bottle of Bhujerban Madhu in your pocket, or are you
it is?"
- The description for the Pocket Pal Portable Terminal in
*Space Quest IV* says "Say. Is that a complete workstation in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?".
- Played with in
*Uncharted 2: Among Thieves* with the following exchange, said while he's carrying her with her legs wrapped around him:
**Chloe:** Is that an ancient Tibetan ritual dagger in your pocket? **Drake:** Maybe I'm just happy to see you.
- In the
*Ultimate Spider-Man (2005)* video game, upon seeing R.H.I.N.O., Spidey will *attempt* this.
**Spider-Man:** Hey, is that a horn on your head or are you just
happy
to see
I'm so scared I can't even finish my lame joke.
- Used in the 2009 game
*Bionic Commando* along with another trope at the beginning of a boss fight.
**Spencer:** Whoa, is that a long health bar, or are you just happy to see me?
- Reading a shirt in
*NetHack* may yield the following message:
"Is that Mjollnir in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
- One of the female Blood Elf /flirt emotes from
*World of Warcraft*
"Is that a mana wyrm in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
- Used in
*Team Fortress 2*, in the description for the "Itsy Bitsy Spyer".
"Is that a miniature Spy in your pocket, or are you just happy to OH GOD STOP HITTING ME!"
- A variant of this appears in
*Blade Runner*, courtesy of Bullet Bob:
**Bullet Bob:** Is that a .45 blaster under your coat, or are you just happy to be here?
-
*Styx: Shards of Darkness*: One of the belittling lines that Styx uses when you die goes like this:
*"Dead again? Is that your controller in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?"*
- In
*True Crime: Streets of LA* during a scene at a strip club:
**Stripper: Is that a gun in your pants?**
'''Nick: No, I'm just happy to see you!"
- In
*Baldur's Gate*, one of the lines that can come up when speaking with a courtesan:
**Courtesan:** I don't much care if you're happy to see me, as long as that's a pouch of coins.
- When talking to Willy in the streets of
*Thimbleweed Park*, either of the FBI agents will ask him what that thing is in his pocket (wallet) upon which Willy replies that he may just be happy to see them.
- In the manual for
*Whacked!*, Ms. Fanservice Lucy is introduced with "Is that a controller in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
- In the hird episode of
*The Brian & Jill Show*, Brian uses the trope word-for-word in a game of "No Apparent Reason" as a clue to try and get the players to guess 'Banana.' Answers given included "whale sperm", "a pickle", "a roll of quarters", and "gum" before someone finally guessed it.
- In an IGN review of WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010 for PlayStation Portable, the subtitle under the review header says, "Is that John Cena in your pocket or are you just happy to see us?"
- In the Game Revolution review of
*Armored Core 2: Another Age*, the subtitle under the review header says, "Is that an EWM-NAP-02 Napalm Missile in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"
- One of The Nostalgia Critic's "Top 15 David Bowie Dick Jokes" in his review of
*Labyrinth*:
*Is that Gonzo's nose in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?*
-
*The Agony Booth*: Hilariously inverted in their review of *Mitchell*, there's a scene at one point where he's going to meet a girl and his hiding a gun, which falls out of his pants and onto the ground. The caption for the screencap says "Okay, so I guess youre not happy to see me.
-
*Futurama*: Amy to Kif: "Is that your camouflage reflex or are you just happy to see me?"
- Played with (and then immediately lampshaded) in
*Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil* (while Lucy is stealing supplies from a dildo factory).
- Played with once in
*Family Guy*: Cleveland once begins with "Is that a banana in your pocket," but ends it with "or an erection in your pocket?", essentially explaining the joke before it's finished.
- In
*The Simpsons*, Lovejoy's wife hugs her husband and asks "Is that a train in your pocket or are you happy to see me?" He replies, "Both".
- Comes up occasionally in Archer.
- From
*The Venture Bros.*:
**Shore Leave**
: This isn't my gun; it's an indication of how excited I am to be doing this.
*This*
is my gun. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrAreYouJustHappyToSeeMe |
Tsundere - TV Tropes
The Japanese term
*tsundere* refers to an outwardly violent character who "runs hot and cold", alternating between two distinct moods: tsuntsun ( *aloof* or *irritable*) and deredere ( *lovestruck*).
The term was originally used to describe characters who began with a harsh outgoing personality, but slowly revealed a soft and vulnerable interior over time, which made this a plot trope as much as it is a character trope. Over the years the character archetype has become flanderized, and is now generically associated with a character who flips between the two emotional states at the slightest provocation, and usually at a specific person rather than a general sociability problem. The former is usually referred as Classic Tsundere and the latter as Modern Tsundere. A tsundere, especially a classic one, is usually a Tomboy with a Girly Streak.
The tsuntsun can range from the cold "silent treatment" to the hotheaded "kindergartener who pushes you into the sandbox." The reasons behind a Tsundere's behavior vary widely, but usually boil down to the conflict between their feelings of affection towards a love interest, and their reaction to having those feelings. Though in most examples the reason has something to do with a Madonna-Whore Complex or at least a fear of Slut-Shaming.
The Tsundere stock characterization is very popular with writers of Romantic Comedy because the conflicts between the two personality facets can be easily utilized to generate both drama and comedy. It also acts as a source of Wish-Fulfillment: specifically, the idea that every independent, hardened and just plain jerkish love interest (male or female) has a squishy emotional center that will embrace you after you crack the outer shell. Can be entirely Played for Laughs by pairing the Flanderized version with The Stoic or the Cloud Cuckoo Lander. Either both parties can't admit their feelings for a bittersweet tale that might end with a Dying Declaration of Love or all of the Tsundere's shenanigans are completely unnecessary.
Almost all example of tsunderes are female, but very rarely you'll run into a male one who similarly can't admit their feelings to themselves.
Tsundere can be divided into two main categories, depending on their default mood:
See also the Analysis page for more detailed information on common "strategies" employed by Tsundere characters, and other, related topics. This site has an explanation on the appeal of the Tsundere character.
A common way of showing that a Tsundere has mellowed or has had her heart won over by the Love Interest is to have her shift from Harsh to Sweet. If her motivations are inquired, she will often engage in a Suspiciously Specific Denial, complete with a Luminescent Blush and total evasion of eye contact (cue the squeaks of Moe).
Tsunderes are also rife material for a deconstruction depending on the love interest's response. Should they not be able to read between the lines to discern their feelings or simply not have the patience, they may just regard the tsundere as rude and/or a bully and distance themselves accordingly. In some cases, the love interest
*is* aware, but has to decide if consigning themselves to dealing with the tsundere's less agreeable side regularly is worth the trouble — and they could very well decide that it isn't. This is why tsundere characters can be difficult to write without presenting them as a straight Jerkass; hurling abuse at a love interest (even in jest) typically isn't the most coherent way for someone to voice their feelings, and the fallout if the love interest has had enough of it can run the gamut from a Jerkass Realization all the way to Ship Sinking if left unchecked. Sometimes it can even leave viewers scratching their heads if they get together after all, despite their relationship having no indication that it won't be abusive or vitriolic.
When paired with a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, together they produce Belligerent Sexual Tension. If done poorly, the result is an Unintentionally Unsympathetic Jerk Sue. Compare with Well, Excuse Me, Princess!, Jerkass, Jerk with a Heart of Gold, and Bruiser with a Soft Center. Contrast with Sour Outside, Sad Inside, which shares the spiky exterior but has depression and self-doubt rather than kindness hiding underneath. When Flanderized tends to overlap with Mood-Swinger. Also see Don't You Dare Pity Me! and Anger Born of Worry; both of them likely actions with this character type. The more benevolent examples are very likely to be Good is Not Nice (or anti-heroes). Aloof Ally may show the same hot-and-cold behavior but for differing reasons. Because of their low tolerance for stupidity, they are always Enraged by Idiocy. These character types can fit both variants of Jerkass to One (for the first variant, they only act harsh with their love interest while is gentle with everyone else, and for the second variant, they act harsher with their love interest more than they are with others.) Tsunderes, especially the first type, are often The Unapologetic; if they warm up to their love interest, don't expect them to apologize for their hostile behavior towards them.
Please do not confuse this trope with a Mood-Swinger, who flips between
*all* the emotional states (not just tsuntsun and deredere) and is more of an inherent mental problem encompassing more than just their romantic life. Also don't confuse with Playing Hard to Get, where a love interest *deliberately* chooses not to reciprocate her pursuer's interest until she's sure he's hooked, or Unknowingly in Love, where a character is unaware of their own romantic feelings.
While male examples do exist, the tsundere is more likely to be female and interested in a male protagonist. This is likely due to the Unfortunate Implications of a male love interest constantly deriding and insulting a heroine because of his unspoken feelings for her. Male love interests with tsundere-like traits are more likely to have mutual Belligerent Sexual Tension with a girl equally as tsundere as he is, or act aloof and detached as more of a Kuudere type character.
Psychologically, tsundere-like behavior could be an example of "splitting", a maladaptive coping mechanism (and a feature of many personality disorders, including Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder wherein a person alternately idealizes and undervalues others, including potential romantic partners).
This trope is Older Than Dirt, dating back to at least ancient Mesopotamia.
Now comes with a Self-Demonstrating page.
<!—index—> | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Oranyan |
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich - TV Tropes
*"You know what? He forgot his latte."*
The characters order something arbitrary like salad or coffee, have a conversation, and then leave before ever touching their order. You will likely not notice this unless you happen to be very hungry when it happens; then it will drive you up the wall.
This also applies when a character gets a snack or something to drink, but you barely see them touch/eat it.
This is due to The Law of Conservation of Detail, as diners and restaurants are great places to stage a conversation between characters, but their eating isn't relevant to the plot. Of course, depending on the scene, it's possible all the eating simply takes place off-camera. If there's a cut, and the food has been eaten afterwards, then that doesn't count for this trope. It's particularly infuriating in works that also employ Food Porn.
Live-action shows also have another problem to contend with: food spoils easier in studio lighting. Therefore, most of the food used is a prop, unless characters are specifically meant to eat it. Equally obviously, if a scene requires multiple takes (which includes shooting from more than one angle), you don't want the actors to be forced to continually stuff their faces, only to have to make them a brand-new sandwich for the next take. Requiring the actors to eat the food can also create continuity problems in the event of retakes or editing (
*Skins* in particular has been mocked for a scene where a sandwich changes state every time the camera angle does). And if the actor were to have a big enough portion of food in their mouth, it might make dialogue harder to hear.
A variant of this trope is in a cop drama where two officers are drinking coffee while parked and see a car speeding past; as hot coffee is not something you want flying about during a chase, said coffee goes out the windows.
See also Forgets to Eat, Late for School.
Contrast Enemy Eats Your Lunch and The Snack Is More Interesting, where one party pointedly ignores the other in favor of eating, in order to aggravate them. Also see Lost Food Grievance, for when wasting food is acknowledged in-universe. Not related to They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot or They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character.
## Examples
- This is actually enforced in alcoholic adverts; one of the many limitations in many countries is that no alcohol must be consumed during the advert. Once you notice this you'll never stop. Subverted in one such commercial where Neil Patrick Harris steps just off-camera so he can (audibly) enjoy his beer.
- Played straight in Liberty Mutual Insurance's pie eating contest advert. The very moment the contest starts, a flock of seagulls arrive and terrorize the three participants, and they are too panicked to take the pies with them as they run away.
- Subverted in
*Naruto*. When Sasuke goes out to look for Naruto one morning in the Land of Waves arc, Sakura calls after him, saying that he hasn't touched his breakfast, but then looks and sees that he's already eaten without her noticing it.
- The characters in
*Negima! Magister Negi Magi* tend to take their meals at the Chao Bao Zi or Starbooks. We rarely see them actually eat there (in vol. 3, the group has just ordered a round of coffees they left at the table).
- Played with in
*Monster*, in which the characters *do* comment on Tenma's tendency to leave his food untouched.
- In the
*Lupin III* franchise, Zenigata is so obsessed with chasing Lupin, while eating at a cafe, if he notices Lupin and the gang, he leaves his food behind to chase after them.
- In
*Super Dimension Fortress Macross*, Kakizaki is ordered to sortie right before he was about to eat his steak. It's ||Foreshadowing he is going to die in the upcoming battle.||
- A major part of Sanji's backstory in
*One Piece* was this. On the ship he served on, his fellow cooks would always eat the leftovers the customers didn't bother to finish, complaining of this very trope. Sanji just found it unsanitary and would throw them away instead. However when Zeff and he were later stranded on a rock formation with no way down and only limited food, Sanji realized why they did it; when you're out at sea, food is scarce and you gotta make every crumb count. Needless to say, he took the lesson to heart, with wasting food becoming a *massive* Berserk Button for him.
- Juna's difficulty with fast food (particularly burgers) in
*Earth Maiden Arjuna* is a frequent subject, played for drama.
- During the Mythyrian Numbers Arc of
*Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL*, Yuma, Shark, and Kaito find a temple on top of a mountain where the Number they seek should be; while there, Yuma is quickly drawn to a pot of delicious-smelling soup cooking, only for an angry old man — Jinlon — to storm out and hit him with a cane, accusing him of trying to steal his lunch. However, when Jinlon realizes that Kaito is a Dragon user and Kaito realizes that Jinlon is the guardian of the Number, Jinlon quickly decides to duel him, disregarding his lunch completely. ||(Of course, Jinlon likely doesn't need to eat at all; when defeated, he is revealed to be the spirit of the Number itself, and vanishes as Kaito claims the card.)||
- There's a comic where Wolverine and Captain America meet in a little diner to exchange information, and Wolverine mentions that the place has great pie. The waitress shows up, and since Cap isn't bothering with the secret identity stuff — his hood/mask is down, but he's got his scalemail under an open jacket — she recognizes him, is impressed, and they talk a bit, then she gets their orders and bustles off. Wolverine scornfully says that Cap probably hasn't paid for a meal since he revealed his secret identity to the world. Before the food arrives there's some kind of alarm and both heroes run out of the diner, Cap throwing down several dollar bills as he does so.
*Then*, as Wolverine's about to flag down a car, he scolds Cap about taking the time to pay for food they never got to eat. Cap, being Cap, ignores this.
-
*X-Men*:
- Mercury regularly visits a local cafe and orders coffee even though she doesn't (and can't) drink it since her mutation transformed her into a piece of sapient living metal. She explains to X-23 that she likes the warmth of the coffee and more importantly, doing something normal like going out for coffee helps her feel normal.
- Wolverine ends up doing this once. After spending weeks in the Canadian wilderness while being pursued by the vampire Bloodscream and the cyborg Cylla, he manages to reach a small town and immediately heads for the diner and orders a pile of burgers. He eats several before finding out that his motorcycle, which he had left at some gas station, has been delivered there. Then he runs out of the diner, throwing down enough money to cover the bill as he does so.
- In
*Life With Archie: The Married Life* Issue #36, Archie orders a chocolate soda for himself, Betty and Veronica at Jughead's Chocklit Shoppe in the after-party, and he, Jughead and Reggie have a conversation while they wait. But as soon as the girls arrive with Kevin Keller and his husband, Clay Walker, something unexpected happens: ||It is discovered that Wendell, the man doing the dishes, is the gunman whom Agent Mitchell and his team have been pursuing, who now drops the dishes and points his gun at Kevin to Archie's surprise. With a Big "NO!", Archie jumps into the fray while knocking his chocolate soda on the table... right before he takes the bullet for Kevin and dies after Wendell is apprehended. The bitter irony is that while everyone mourns his death, the scene makes a final cut to the spilled chocolate soda on the table... the soda he never even got to drink with Betty or Veronica while he was still alive, with only one straw in the ice cream and the other two separated from the cup. They Wasted a Perfectly Good Soda, indeed.||
- In
*The Sandman (1989)*, when Dream and Delirium finally reunite with their estranged brother Destruction, he has prepared a lavish dinner for them to enjoy. However, during their conversation they end up not even tasting it which Destruction wryly notes. Destruction's attempts to create things such as the meal always go to waste in a similar manner. Not that it stops him from trying.
- In one
*Pearls Before Swine* strip, Pig tells Rat about a "prank" he just pulled: going to a fast food restaurant's drive-thru, paying more than his meal was worth, then driving off without the food.
- In
*The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World*, a young bard singing "Norwegian Wood" passes the four while they're dispiritedly walking and munching on fast food. The four have a delayed reaction a few seconds later; their food goes flying as they turn and race after him. John throws away a whole bag of sandwiches, which he regrets a few hours later.
- At the start of
*In This World and the Next*, Harry Potter and Hermione meet with the latter's parents, who are rather upset with her for erasing their memories of her. The Grangers serve dinner, but the meal is instantly forgotten about as a tense discussion about Hermione's decision begins. At the end, Hermione's father suggests that they talk about this tomorrow, "and we might actually get to eat some food."
- Barbie movies:
- Happened a couple of times in
*Barbie & The Diamond Castle*. The heroines sing for their supper at a restaurant, supposedly starving, yet leave when mildly harassed by a pair of Lounge Lizard twins, without even touching their food.
- Same in
*Barbie: Princess Charm School*. When Blair, Isla and Hadley leave their table after lunch at the cafeteria, their plates are still *completely* full and untouched.
- In Beavis And Butthead Do The Universe after the duo learn they have white privilege they go around stealing peoples lunches, they only take a few bites out of the burgers before throwing them away, and Beavis takes a whole cake and throws it in the garbage after eating a few handfuls, and earlier they waste a lot of the dozens of nachos they order at the hotel.
- Downplayed with
*Beauty and the Beast* as the castle staff performs a humongous production number about serving Belle dinner; unless she was eating it every time the camera cut away, she only gets to taste a couple dishes with her finger and eat the cherry off the top of a pie. It's sort of an unspoken rule in many musicals that you should just pretend the songs aren't part of the actual story. So either we're seeing the staff trot out all these dishes in front of Belle as they sing a grandiloquent, choreographed number about hospitality while in reality she's enjoying a quiet, satisfying meal as the staff wait in attendance, or Belle tried some samples during the performance, then had a proper meal afterwards.
-
*Coraline*:
- The Other Mother prepares a feast for Coraline, but she only takes one bite out of a chicken leg before it's replaced with a cake, of which she doesn't eat any, either. May be intentional, though, as the food in the other world is probably all fake.
- A later scene shows a big meal left on the table for Coraline. We don't see how much of it she ate, but she ate at least some of it and burped.
- There's another meal Coraline doesn't eat any of, and some popcorn, and a disgusting meal in the real world. However, the fact that Other Father is the only one to eat any of this is Foreshadowing to his true nature.
- In
*The Chipmunk Adventure*, a Running Gag has Theodore ordering food, only to be pulled away for some reason before he can eat it.
- In the
*Lilo & Stitch* franchise, the fat tourist never gets to eat his ice cream.
- In
*Pinocchio*, while at Pleasure Island Pinocchio and Lampwick are seen eating an ice cream cone and a pie and a whole turkey respectively, once they discover the tent for "The Rough House" (where boys go to fight) they toss the food away after only a few bites each, probably thinking they would get more later since everything was free.
- Remy of
*Ratatouille* cooked at least three different dishes in the first half hour of the movie yet always got interrupted trying to eat them. Indeed, it's only well after then that he gets to eat anything at all, when Linguini notices he looks dazed and gives him a piece of cheese.
-
*The Emperor's New Groove*:
- After turning Kuzco into a llama, Yzma orders Kronk to take him out of the city and kill him. Kronk complains that they haven't eaten anything yet and manages to convinces Yzma to take dessert and a cup of coffee.
- Played straight when Kuzco and Pacha go to the restaurant: Kuzco and Yzma simultaneously order meals but Pacha forces Kuzco to leave when he notices Yzma, telling the restaurant staff that it's her birthday so that they'll distract her by singing a birthday song to her. At least Yzma leaves the restaurant with a slice of cake.
-
*Alice's Adventures in Wonderland*
- During the Mad Tea Party, Alice is always offered some tea, but something always prevents her from drinking any.
- Despite attending a banquet in her honor in the sequel, Alice still doesn't get to eat - as soon as a dish is placed before her she's formally introduced to it, at which point it would be rude to eat it (and the food's quickly taken away after the introduction in any event).
- Deliberately played straight with Anne Rice's
*The Vampire Lestat*. The title character states that he does this deliberately with tea and coffee because he likes the way the warm beverage feels. Naturally, being a vampire, he can't actually drink it anyway, so it's always wasted.
- Same thing happens in Christopher Moore's
*Bloodsucking Fiends*. Jody, a newly-turned vampire, has realized her body will automatically reject food and drink. So when she has dinner with Tommy, she only orders a coffee and just spends the meal "contemplating" it.
- In
*Flowers for Algernon*, Charlie pays for a meal without eating it after seeing how the restaurant treats a slow busboy.
-
*All-American Girl* has Sam, who is such a picky eater that she only really enjoys eating hamburgers, the dark meat from turkey or PB&J sandwiches. When she gets invited to dinner at the White House with the president's family, she avoids eating majority of the food by arranging it into neat, artistic piles to create the illusion of having eaten and throwing several pieces into her napkin.
- This happens all the time in
*American Psycho*. A lot of the action takes place in high-class restaurants, where course after course is brought and usually left untouched. This is used to emphasize the extremely materialistic and wasteful natures of the characters.
- In
*Twilight*, Bella learns that the Cullens buy lunch every day to put up appearances of being human, and then toss them out. She even watches Alice dump her entire lunch uneaten. Why the vampires bother is a mystery, since it's a lot more conspicuous to throw away completely uneaten lunches every day than to simply not eat one and let onlookers assume you've already eaten or plan to eat later.
- Near the end of Neil Gaiman's
*The Graveyard Book*, we see Silas — whose exact nature is strongly hinted at, but never specified — and Bod in a restaurant together. Bod has pizza; Silas orders a green salad which he pushes around with his fork, and a glass of water with which he moistens his lips.
- In "Ms. Midshipwoman Harrington" there's a scene where several of Honor's senior officers look on in wonder as she builds a rather impressive sandwich to fuel her overclocked Heavyworlder metabolism — that she gets to take one bite from before the general quarters alarm sounds, sending them all rushing off to their action stations, and leaving the sandwich dumped on the floor.
- In the Saki story "The Chaplet", a gourmet chef watches in horror as this happens to
*his entire meal* because of a violinist playing a popular tune. ||He loses it when the violinist starts an encore, dragging him offstage and drowning him in a soup tureen.||
- The
*Robotech* novelization milked this for all it was worth, giving a nearly Food Porn-ish description of the steak dinner ||Ben Dixon|| leaves behind as he heads out ||on his final sortie||. He even tells it "I'll be right back!"
- The emergency worker version of this is discussed in one book of
*The Bobbsey Twins* where Freddie and Flossie are Playing House and, right after Flossie puts "dinner" on he table, Freddie declares that there's a fire and, as a fireman, he needs to toss the dinner out the window so he can go to the fire.
- In the first
*Gaunt's Ghosts* novel, the General in overall command of the theater had a samovar of recaff large enough that he could have given a cup to every single soldier under his command. In his first scene, he takes a sip from one cup, declares that it's gone stale, and orders the entire samovar dumped out and refilled with a fresh batch. The soldier that goes off to fulfill this order actually spits in disgust at the General as soon as he's out of sight.
- One 90s children's photo book, by Scholastic, was about a fire station. The firefighters make a delicious-looking meal of spaghetti and meatballs. They sit down, and then they get an alert. But it's okay, they leave the dog to guard it.
- In the Dean Koontz novel
*Darkfall*, Jack Dawson and Rebecca Chandler spend a good amount of time in the latter's kitchen making roast beef sandwiches and soup, but then stop halfway through to go have sex. Even after sex, they never get a chance to return to the food because first Rebecca ||tells Jack about her Dark and Troubled Past||, and then they have sex *again*, and *then* bad guy Baba Lavelle ||sends a poltergeist to trash the room For the Evulz||. By the time they're ||rushing off to save Jack's kids Penny and Davey, who Lavelle had threatened||, the sandwiches and soup are forgotten about.
- A couple of more literal examples occur earlier in the book. Mafia thug Ross Morant is making sandwiches for himself and his boss when he gets attacked by demonic little goblin things sent by Lavelle. Although his death isn't explicitly described, the condition of the corpse is described later on as being "in a mess of blood, mayonnaise and salami." Penny Dawson also packs her little brother Davey a big lunch, includng oatmeal cookies, but the critters get into Davey's lunchbox at school and tear everything apart, rendering it (at least in Davey's opinion) inedible.
- Justified in
*A Tree Grows in Brooklyn*. The mother, son, and daughter in the desperately poor Nolan family allow themselves one cup of coffee per day as a treat. Daughter Francie loves the warmth and smell of her coffee, but not the taste. Rather than someone else drinking the coffee or telling her she can no longer waste good coffee and money, the family understands Francie's daily coffee as a rare small pleasure they can afford and let her pour it down the sink when it grows cold.
- In the historical novel
*Rise to Rebellion*, while King George III is discussing the Boston Tea Party with General Gage, the king asks for some tea, which a servant promptly brings him. Then the king continues his discussion without touching the teacup, until he notices that it has gone cold, so he asks for some tea, and the servant brings him a fresh cup while taking the untouched cup away. As General Gage leaves, the king asks for a third cup of tea to replace the second cup, which he had not once tasted. Gage only notes this in terms of how diligent and efficient the servants are to be able to fulfill the king's wishes literally at a moment's notice, rather than the waste of always having a kettle on in case the king gets thirsty, and the king not bothering to actually drink what they serve him.
-
*Dragnet* had this happen, occasionally. In "The Big Dance," Ben Romero, Firday's partner, managed to cook the best Spanish omelet that he had ever made, but duty calls.
- This is common for vampires in both
*Vampire: The Masquerade* and *Vampire: The Requiem*. Vampiric digestive systems can only process blood, so they can't eat at formal events. Part of the Masquerade is learning the slight-of-hand needed to keep people from noticing you never eat — and a suggestion for botching a social roll in *Vampire: The Masquerade* was for the other guests to realize exactly that.
- At least in
*Vampire: The Masquerade*, some vampires have the ability to keep human food down for a couple hours, though they would eventually have to vomit it back up. Some Nosferatu with this ability even managed to weaponize it by projectile vomiting on their enemies.
- One story has the vampire narrator mentioning a disgusting alcoholic beverage called a Rusty Nail that the mayor's ghoul servant favors. Later on the ghoul becomes a vampire himself. The narrator still pours him a Rusty Nail when he arrives, as a sentimental gesture, so he can hold it and still feel human.
- At least one Bloodline is based entirely on having the power to eat and drink.
- In the British comedy sketch
*Dinner for One*, the butler James serves her mistress Miss Sophie a plate of Mulligatawny soup, chicken, North Sea haddock, and finally some fruit, all of which comes with an appropriate wine. All this goes so fast on stage, however, that Miss Sophie barely gets to eat anything, and James carries most of it away again (and sends some of it flying when he trips over the tiger hat). Also, Miss Sophie doesn't drink nearly as much as James, but then again, drinking half as much as James may already be hazardous, for a 90-year-old lady no less.
-
*Street Scene* has a tragic variation. Mrs. Maurrant tells Mr. Buchanan she'll make some chicken soup for his wife, who just gave birth the previous night. A while after this, she lets Sankey come up to her apartment, and when her husband arrives home unexpectedly early he shoots them both. A policeman investigating the murders smells the chicken still cooking and turns the stove off.
-
*Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls*: The opening cinematic has Komaru Naegi sitting down to breakfast in her Gilded Cage when she hears someone at the door and thinks it's a rescue party. It turns out to be a killer Monokuma robot, and in all the excitement she completely forgets about her meal.
- In
*Dragon Quest XI*, if you do a Party Talk with Serena immediately after sailing from Gondolia, you'll hear about how she was about to eat the last of the Gondolian cakes she had bought when it was suddenly snatched away by a seagull.
- One of the abandoned houses in
*Eternal Evil* still have plenty of food lying around, from loaves of bread to pizza to a nearby pan still cooking with oil, but since everyone in the area's a zombie the food's untouched.
- Subverted in one mission in
*Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas*, which has you go to a drive-thru restaurant, only to be attacked by Ballas after you've got your food. This doesn't stop Big Smoke from enjoying his food instead of shooting at them ||since he's also working with them.||
- When you first meet Zaalbar in
*Knights of the Old Republic*, he's waiting for his food to get in. Mission orders him to come stand up for her when she gets bullied by a couple of Black Vulkars. Zaalbar complains about how his food just showed up, but does it anyway. Then, after a brief conversation with the main character, Mission tells Zaalbar they're leaving. When Zaalbar complains that he *still* hasn't gotten to eat his food yet, Mission just brushes him off and says they'll get something to eat at the Hidden Bek base.
- In
*The Sims* series, serving a group meal will always result in 8 or so servings, no matter how many people actually live in the house. Leftover food WILL need to be thrown away before it goes bad. Fortunately, one of the later expansions for *The Sims 2* allows you to put the leftover food in the fridge and eat it later. In *The Sims 3*, if food gets thrown out before it spoils, the Sim responsible will end up feeling bad about wasting food.
-
*Paper Dolls* have the Yin Mansion's Master Bedroom with a lavish feast spread out, including a whole roast suckling pig, plates of assorted snacks, and several kinds of pastries, but entirely untouched. The food is meant for appeasing the spirits (based on Far Eastern Asian ancestral worship) after all.
- In
*Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh*, after ||Bob's murder||, Tom Ravell buys his coworkers drinks at the Dreaming Tree. Except everybody else besides Curtis Craig leaves before he comes back with four glasses of beer.
- In
*Resident Evil 6*, during both the opening and ending cutscenes of Chris' campaign, the same dish (steak with potatoes and veggies) ends up being partially eaten before the one eating it gets up and leaves.
- In
*Return to Castle Wolfenstein*, you quite often end up interrupting nazis (especially officers) while they've got piping hot meals on their tables. This is to your advantage, for both In-Universe and gameplay reasons.
- The first stage of
*Slaps and Beans* opens with the two main characters, Bud and Terence, cooking beans in a pan on an outdoor fire before they're interrupted by some mooks. Trying to simply enjoy their meal, one of the mooks kicks the pan over, leading to a fight (using the pan as a Frying Pan of Doom) but after the first stage Bud then complains their meal is ruined.
- One stage in
*Troublemaker* sees you on a dinner date with your girlfriend, Sophia, after defeating one of the bosses, Gian, but your meal is interrupted when Gian's underlings challenges you. Ever the gentleman, you tell the thugs to take it outside, and halfway through the battle Gian arrives, and turns out to be a Graceful Loser who's oblivious that his minions are after you, ordering them to leave. You then part with Gian on good terms, but there's no indication you or Sophia finished your meals.
- In the manual comic for
*Syd of Valis*, Yuko is the middle of eating pudding for lunch when she hears the urgent voice of her late friend Reiko, and has to set out on her new adventure without finishing her pudding.
- At one point in
*Undertale* Sans takes you to Grillby's for a burger which you never get to eat. If you talk to Grillby after the conversation, he remarks "your food is probably cold by now".
- In
*Megatokyo*, this is done repeatedly with Miho Tohya's food, which fueled speculation about what exactly she *is*. It was practically a reveal when she was first shown to actually take a bite of something, six years into the comic's run.
- It's equally strange that Ping—who is a robot with a literally photographic memory—doesn't notice Miho's untouched cake, but Piro (the notoriously oblivious) does.
-
*Dead Winter*: Monday and Liz meet while Liz is still a waitress, but Monday spots some of his adversaries outside and disappears without eating...or paying. Liz eventually gets payback.
- During a peace negotiation in
*Drowtales* Zala'ess offers Quain'tana a bottle of high-quality liquor, which Quain proceeds to pour on the ground to make a point, something Zala immediately lampshades by lamenting that with everything going on they probably won't see such quality hooch again for quite a while.
- In
*El Goonish Shive*, Sarah orders an ice cream sundae, Elliot joins her, they talk about their relationship, and she leaves without eating it (it's strongly implied that Elliot leaves without eating it either).
- The SCP Foundation has SCP-2076, a phenomenon where posters appear across Illinois, appearing to be some publicity campaign preaching Meaningless Meaningful Words or just Blatant Lies that readers take at face value. One example said that "feeding" cardboard boxes with baked potatoes helped endangered Golden Lion Tamarins, but when people filled those boxes, all the potatoes ever did was
*rot*, with no effect on any tamarins' survival rates.
- In the
*Caillou* The Grownup episode "Caillou Goes On A Date" after he scares off his date by acting like a bratty manchild, he goes home and picks up a pizza because she left because he threw a fit about not wanting to eat anything on the menu at the restaurant, when he tells his parents that she left, his dad tells him she left because he's a whiny, petulant, brat who throws temper tantrums, he throws the pizza on the floor without eating any of it and retreats to his room.
- Three episodes of
*DEATH BATTLE!* are caused by this trope. In Leonardo vs. Red Ranger Jason, Jason accidentally bumps into Leo when the latter is eating a pizza, causing him to drop it. In Genos vs War Machine, Rhodey is trying to enjoy a cup of coffee while flying when a shockwave from one of Genos' attacks blowing up a mountain causes him to spill it. In Beerus vs. Sailor Galaxia Beerus confronts Galaxia because when she blew up Earth she also inadvertantly vaporised the God of Destruction's ice cream along with it.
- A fourth episode features this trope; Agumon's sitting there peacefully roasting a marshmallow over a campfire when Red's attempt at capturing him makes him drop it. Agumon's not happy about this, but the actual fight doesn't start until Tai shows up, at which point Red seems to treat it as a battle between Pokemon trainers.
- A similar instance of this also happens in a
*DBX* matchup between Ben Tennyson and Danny Phantom where in both endings, a slice of pizza that Danny and Ben were fighting over ends up ruined anyway.
- Fat TV's video "Joker Kitchen - Crazy Hamburger" has The Joker assemble a gigantic hamburger using ingredients from around the world. When he's finished, he says he's going to eat the hamburger, only to ||throw it into a nearby river||.
-
*The Simpsons*:
- In the Thanksgiving Episode, it is both played straight out loud and averted in a home-based example. Mr. Burns is seated in front of a spread for easily a dozen people or more, yet only has a few slices of turkey since he's saving room for Smithers' pumpkin pie.
- In "Lisa's Pony", after letting Lisa down, Homer orders her a "Mount Bellyache" at the ice cream parlor, a sundae so
*enormous* that the clerk has to bring it to their table with a wheelbarrow. But Lisa is so upset, she only eats one bite of it.
- From the "Mr. and Mrs. Simpson" segment of "Treehouse of Horror XVIII", while Homer and Marge are aiming weapons at each other (with Marge having pulled hers out of a pie):
- In the
*Futurama* episode "Roswell That Ends Well", Fry and his suppose-to-be-Grandfather order a coffee and meal respectively from Fry's will-be-Grandma, but after panicking over the potential hazards inherent in the diner Fry and co. run out before ever receiving their order. Notable for showing the will-be-Grandma's upset reaction to this.
- Subverted in the intro to
*The Real Ghostbusters*. Winston gets the call to action and rushes off, leaving the burger he was about to eat, which Slimer gobbles up.
- Happens occasionally in the later seasons of
*Daria* at the local pizza place, due to ||Daria stealing Tom from Jane||. This leads to arguing and untouched pizza. On one occasion, Daria is left sitting there alone and depressed. She takes her drink and pours it on top of her pizza, having clearly lost her appetite.
- Occasionally happens in
*Code Lyoko*. Most notably, the heroes sometimes order coffee from the machine and end up throwing it away due to an emergency. Odd doesn't like this, though, and once spends a whole episode complaining that he didn't have time to eat.
- Happens in the Opening Credits of
*The Real Ghostbusters*. Winston is shown about to enjoy a burger when the alarm rings, and he drops it to get to work. However, the burger doesn't go completely to waste: Slimer gobbles it up.
- In
*Bob's Burgers*, Bob talks a bank robber down to giving himself up on the condition that he goes to Bob's restaurant across the street and tries one of his burgers. After awkwardly maneuvering a huddle of hostages across the road, the guy has about one small bite of a burger, does a lot of talking, and then makes a run for it.
- Tex Avery's 1936 Warner Bros. cartoon
*Page Miss Glory* has a scene of an obese man demanding service, followed by three waiters rushing and piling food on the man's table. The man takes just a bite out of an olive and leaves.
- There is an odd case of this in a Cartoon Network original
*Droopy* short "Thanks a Latte": The Wolf refuses to give brewster Droopy a tip, so Droopy starts doing his usual "The Cat Came Back" shtick, suddenly appearing every time the Wolf tries to stay far, far away from him. Eventually, Droopy annoys the Wolf into submission and he pays Droopy with lots of money before jumping out through an airplane toilet. Droopy interprets the Wolf's action as this trope, as he left his latte behind while retreating.
- Subverted in an early episode of
*Young Justice* where Batman and Superman are having a talk about Superboy after ordering some dessert. After Bats tells Supes that the kid needs his father, Superman angrily storms out... but then tells the waitress that he'll take the pie to go.
- In the
*King of the Hill* episode "Raise the Steaks" Hank has made a submarine sandwich from the meat he got from the organic market, but before he has a chance to enjoy it he is interrupted by a phone call from the hippies who run the store and leaves it behind.
- Once per Episode in
*Detective Bogey*, the Mexican restaurant owner will cook a tortilla on the house for his pal police commissioner, only for the latter to leave in an emergency, prompting the former to eat the tortilla himself.
-
*Steven Universe*:
- In the episode "Together Breakfast", Steven went through a series of complicated events to get the rest of the Crystal Gems to eat his stack of waffles together, culminating in said food turning into a monster. At the end of the episode, after defeating the waffle monster, the gang makes an identical stack of waffles, and when they finally sit down to eat it... they change their minds and decide to order pizza instead because the new waffle stack reminded them too much of their fight with the previous one. As they put it, "it did try to kill us."
- The episode "Catch and Release" averts this, as Amethyst just eats her entire pizza (including the box) in one bite before jumping into action.
- "Storm in the Room" gives a lot of screen time to a bowl of mac & cheese that Steven prepares while home alone. Due to his discomfort with a painting of his mother on the wall, Steven decides to eat his food outside, only for a storm to immediately hit, with his macaroni getting rained on and acquiring some leaves. He then winds up disregarding his now-ruined meal and entering his room in the Crystal Temple to search for answers about his mother. After he returns, he is too distraught to eat, and the episode ends with Greg and the gems returning home with a pizza that Greg goes so far as to place on top of the macaroni bowl.
- "What's Your Problem" has a scene in which Steven and Amethyst sit down to share a pizza heaped with "literally
*all* the toppings", while talking about various important things. They only eat a small amount of their pizza before leaving the restaurant.
- Rather cruel example in the "Titans East" episode of
*Teen Titans (2003)*. Cyborg rewards his new team, the titular Titans East, by making spaghetti with his *delicious* looking sauce made with beef, pork, and chicken. Unfortunately, Brother Blood chooses this exact moment to activate the latent Manchurian Agent programming he planted in the Titans East, forcing Cyborg to *throw* the spaghetti aside in his attempt to restrain them.
- Two rather harsh examples of wasting food occur in the
*Justice League* episode "The Brave and the Bold". At the beginning of the episode, Flash is flirting with two girls, with enough food for ten people (given how high his metabolism is, he always eats like that). However, duty calls, and he has to leave it unfinished to stop a runaway truck. Later, he orders about twenty hamburgers from a vendor, but again is called to heroics when Solovar steals a car, leaving them uneaten.
- In the
*Gravity Falls* episode "Love God", two characters order some chili fries at a local diner. The food gets spiked with a Love Potion; they each eat one fry, fall hopelessly in love, and leave without eating the rest. Admittedly, magical interference is a better justification than in most cases, but it's still a little sad.
- Done in
*Garfield and Friends* of all places. In the episode " *Nighty Nightmare*", as Garfield eats the lasagna, the national guard says the Grand Canyon was being filled with chicken gumbo in case Garfield wanted soup. That's never mentioned again.
- Its successor show,
*The Garfield Show*, also did this sometimes. For example, in "Garfception", Garfield's dream starts with Jon making Garfield infinite lasagna. He eats some lasagna, but most of it isn't eaten as he gets interrupted by everything being fine for him, which is especially weird because Garfield loves lasagna. His nightmare starts with Jon having made lots of food that had raisins (in this case, it's justified). Also, in "Furry Tales Part 2", the ending song shows Garfield and Odie getting some food, and then it shows everybody dancing, with the food on the table completely full and untouched(or maybe it's just a time skip).
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic* provides a literal sandwich case in The Ticket Master; Twilight Sparkle, who never gets to eat anything throughout the episode, is given a sandwich at the cafe, yet it starts raining but Rainbow Dash keeps the clouds over open in favor of getting the only extra ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala. Twilight strictly asks Rainbow to close up the cloud immediately. She does so, and Twilight gets rained on...just when she is about to eat her sandwich. To top it all off, throughout Twilights entire conversation with Rainbow, she never takes one bite of the sandwich as she talks to her.
- In
*The Flintstones* episode "The Swimming Pool", Wilma serves Fred a sandwich and a drink while he's relaxing at the pool. Barney then shows up to practice spear fishing, but accidentally spears Fred's innertube instead. Barney grabs Fred's food and drink just as Fred falls into the water, comments, "No use wasting the lunch," and eats the sandwich.
- In
*Miraculous Ladybug*, Plagg is often about to eat some cheese when Adrien forces him to transform. Of course, Plagg is either about to eat cheese or eating cheese in just about every scene he shows up in.
- Often in
*South Park* in cafeteria scenes the boys are interrupted by something before they can finish their lunch, on one occasion Cartman quickly eats his food before he leaves, and on another occasion Kyle throws away his untouched food after an argument with Cartman.
- Incidentally, can easily be Truth in Television for business meetings and interviews held during a meal. You never want to get caught with your mouth full of food when asked a question, you can't eat hurriedly (not proper), and you can't hold up everyone else while you finish the current course. Very painful if you were brought up believing that throwing away food was one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
- Fortunately, today's increasingly casual business world means it's no longer uncommon for bosses or clients to say "Alright, now let's
*eat*" once the important stuff is finished.
- Office lunch presentations often include meals provided by the person presenting (who usually works for a different company and is trying to sell something). The presenter invariably brings too much food and some of it usually gets thrown out (or sometimes gets left in the break room, where people who didn't attend the presentation eat it). There's also a second problem for the presenter: often The Snack Is More Interesting and most people present aren't paying all that much attention to the presentation.
- This happens all the time. It's called breakfast and a clock.
- If you're in a job that requires you to be 'on duty' your entire shift, such as police officer, security guards, firefighters, etc., you're gonna be this trope. That said, the police do have radio codes that indicate "Out of Service - Meal (Give Location)", such as a 10-63 in the NYPD, or 10-7M in many California police agencies.
- A common trick among Basic Training instructors in the US military is to declare "You're done eating when I'm done eating" while their recruit trainees file into the mess hall. The instructor will then pick up something small, like an apple, and start to eat it. This causes the recruits to rush through their meal and very often leave half of it on their trays.
- Similarly, requiring trainees to finish eating at the same time. If one guy finishes eating first, everybody else has to grab their trays and leave. If the table that sat down before yours finishes,
*you* are finished as well. This forces trainees to be aware of each other's actions and work as a team. Or it causes the one out-of-touch member of the team to be hated and singled out by the others.
- You have about 20 minutes from the minute something gets into your stomach to when your brain tells you you're full. If you're a slow eater or just pile on at an all-you-can-eat place, this may happen. Fortunately, some buffets allow you to take some food to-go at an additional cost, subverting the trope.
- According to folklore, Gavrilo Princip, the man whose assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand helped spark World War I, retreated to a Sarajevo cafe after his group's first attempt to kill the archduke resulted in them blowing up the wrong car, and was in the middle of eating a sandwich when the car containing the archduke and his wife suddenly happened to drive past, having taken a wrong turn on a trip to a local hospital to visit the victims of the earlier bombing. Princip quickly abandoned his sandwich, went outside and fatally shot the archduke and his wife — and considering he was arrested within moments, it's a fairly good bet that he did
*not* have the chance to go back and finish his sandwich. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrderingWastage |
Orange/Blue Contrast - TV Tropes
*"All of *Castlevania *'s level palettes incorporated orange in some way. And often incorporated shades of blue, which is orange's complement. A.k.a., it makes orange 'pop out'. It made everything really pop in general, and the game felt alive."*
We'll start off with a little warning: after you finish reading this article, this color combination will be everywhere you look. It will follow you around and constantly haunt you. Thankfully for most people, this effect fades after a few days.
Basic complementary color theory states that two contrasting colors "pop" when put together, so the natural technique is to color films to have a strong, contrasting palette. The one thing you will almost always have in a film is people. Human skin runs from pale pinkish yellow to dark brown, all of which are shades of orange. The color that contrasts best with orange is blue. So you turn up the shadows to the cyan end and the highlights to the orange.
While other pairs of complementary colors
*are* associated with specific concepts, fiery orange and cool blue are strongly associated with *opposing* concepts fire and ice, earth and sky, land and sea, dawn and dusk, invested humanism vs. elegant indifference, good old fashioned explosions vs. futuristic science stuff (and the obligatory Good Colors, Evil Colors contrast). It's a trope because it's used on purpose, and it does something. Especially in theater, orange and blue are sometimes referred to as amber and teal in this context.
Early two-color (red and green) Technicolor (1916-1935) rendered
*everything* in teal and orange. In the hands of adept art and costume designers, the results could be striking (e.g., 1930's *King of Jazz* or 1932's *Doctor X*). Potentially jarring to modern audiences is early filmmakers' custom of making most of the movie in black and white, then switching to color for one scene or reel (e.g., 1928's *The Wedding March* or 1933's *The Vampire Bat*). With the introduction of three-color Technicolor in 1934, enabling a greater variety of color, blue and orange palettes ceased to be a technological limitation.
In the modern context, this trope has gone beyond simple colour grading and into set and costume design for the grading later. For example, a room might have blue walls and a brown cabinet with an amber lamp while the female lead is in a yellow dress, all of which can be color-graded to create the Orange/Blue Contrast. If the female lead has orange hair, expect the male lead to often wear blue clothing to contrast with it. If you wish to die of alcohol poisoning, take a shot every time the set and costume design dovetail to force the contrast.
Games have also picked up on this trend. A discussion of the coloring trends especially in orange as they pertain to comics can be read read here.
Additionally, using orange and blue is generally the best option to cater to the colorblind when color is essential, especially in video games. As orange is predominantly red, with a little bit of green, and blue is, well blue (cyan also has a lot of green), people unable to register one color can still pick up the contrast using the remaining colors.
Subtrope of Mood Lighting and sister trope to Unnaturally Blue Lighting and Warm Place, Warm Lighting, as well as a very specific and common form of Color Contrast and Color Wash. Not to be confused with Blue-and-Orange Morality (even when it overlaps with Good Colors, Evil Colors, as in
*TRON: Legacy*). Ties in with Hollywood Darkness, which is usually blue or teal, and often accompanies a Fire/Ice Duo.
Has a vague resemblance to the Loudness War common in music; in both cases, something is pushed up a notch in post-production, removing all subtlety from the sound or picture. Can be a factor in Digital Destruction. See also Red/Green Contrast and Yellow/Purple Contrast.
## Examples:
- In a 2018 Australian fashion promo video, the female model's attire is an orange dress and an orange hat, whereas the two male models (Trekkies would recognize the black-haired one as Evan Evagora, the model-turned-actor who portrayed Elnor on
*Star Trek: Picard*) are garbed in blue suits.
- Proto, the mascot of Protegent, is Whyatt/Super Why recoloured into this colour scheme.
- Studio GoHands —
*Mardock Scramble*, *K* — does this with a mix of blue/green/orange. Sometimes this appears more bleak than attention-getting, which works well in a post-apocalyptic setting.
-
*Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann*:
- Kamina's design incorporates this. His iconic Cool Shades are orange or red depending on the light, his Badass Cape is red with an orange flame pattern, even his eyes and skin tone have hints of orange in them. This contrasts with his blue hair and tattoos.
- The story begins deep underground, where the colors are almost entirely various shades of grey. As the protagonists break through to the surface at the end of the first episode, the evening skyscape is colored half-blue half-orange.
- In Parallel Works 8, the first shots of the world are heavily orange, while it finishes as blue.
-
*Dragon Ball*:
- The Turtle School gi, most famously worn by Goku, fits this color scheme: orange overshirt and pants with blue undershirt, wristbands, and shoes. In the original
*Dragon Ball* anime, it was red and black rather than orange and blue, but in the switch to *Dragon Ball Z* it shifts to the modern colour scheme. Additionally, it contrasts with his first gi and his *Dragon Ball GT* gi, both of which are blue. note : As for the manga itself, the colour scheme differs from the anime because Toriyama wasn't sure what colour Goku's starting gi was. This resulted in the anime going with blue based on what little coloured chapters existed at the time, while the modern Full Colour print uses orange to fit with Toriyama's modern intent.
- Heck, this trope even applies to the colours Goku and his rival Vegeta wear (orange and blue respectively). As for Vegeta himself, he has long been associated with blue undersuits and armour with a yellow trim.
- The fight between Goku and Frieza in
*Resurrection "F"* turns into this — Frieza's new Golden Super Mode has a fiery orange aura, while Goku's new form has a Heavenly Blue aura.
- In the Moro arc, this applies to Goku and Moros Battle Auras during their battle on earth, with Gokus Ultra Instinct Sign being blue and Moros being orange.
- This is
*Naruto*'s original color scheme. After the Time Skip, he swaps the blue for black, which then becomes his default look. Deliberately invoked as the author based the colour scheme off of Goku's from *Dragon Ball* and since Sasuke is Naruto's rival, he wears blue just like Vegeta.
- In
*Toriko*, this is the titular characters main colors with his clothes being orange, with his blue hair going along with it as well along with his dark blue shirt and boots.
- Twins Amiboshi and Suboshi in
*Fushigi Yuugi*. Calm and mature Amiboshi wears blue, while his hot-headed, emotional twin Suboshi wears orange.
- The Digi-Destineds, Taichi "Tai" Kamiya (Taichi Yagami) and Yamato "Matt" Ishida" (Yamato Ishida) in
*Digimon Adventure*, are The Leader and The Lancer and have their crests and crest empowered digivices colored orange and blue respectively. Tai's Digimon, Agumon, has orange skin and blue stripes in Champion and Ultimate form.
- In
*Romeo X Juliet*, Romeo and those aligned with the Montagues are colored cool blues, greens, and violets, while Juliet and the Capulet sympathizers are warm oranges, reds, and browns.
-
*Digimon Data Squad*: Marcus and Thomas's respective Digivices and battle auras are orange and blue. Appropriate, as they are expies of the aforementioned Tai and Matt. Like Tai, Marcus's Agumon has orange skin and blue stripes in Champion and Ultimate form. Marcus is a Hot-Blooded street fighter while Thomas is The Strategist.
-
*Weathering With You*: After Hina clears the sky for the fireworks festival, one of the following shots has a blue-lit NTT DoCoMo Tower in the foreground and an orange-red lit Tokyo Tower in the background.
-
*Ride Your Wave*: Masaaki Yuasa intentionally used orange and blue to define the color contrasts between fire and water. Also, the film's two leads, Hinako and Minato, are often colored orange and blue respectively.
-
*Aggretsuko*: Retsuko is an orange-furred red panda (likely representing her fiery temper, determination to do her best at work without letting her coworkers annoy her, and love of metal music) who wears a blue uniform (likely representing the calm, friendly personality she has when someone isn't pissing her off).
- In
*Asteroid in Love*, the Color Motifs of Mira and Ao are these two, in that order, which fits their status as an Energetic and Soft-Spoken Duo, also in that order.
- The Duel Gundam has this going on in
*Mobile Suit Gundam SEED*, its main body is mostly blue and light grey, with orange for its forehead gem and chest vents. With the Assault Shroud equipped, it gains an additional shade of blue, as well as more orange on its missile pod, chest armor, leg thrusters, and other bits of armor.
- Downplayed in
*Futari wa Pretty Cure*: The energetic, athletic Nagisa/Cure Black has orange hair, while the intelligent, demure Honoka/Cure White has dark blue hair.
- Alexandre Cabanel's
*The Fallen Angel*: The primary hues of the painting are orange and blue. The former is in Lucifer's ginger hair, cream-colored skin (notably orange on the torso), and red-rimmed, teary eyes; plus some small orange touches in his blackening wings. To a lesser extent, a bluish orange is present in some of the background angel's clothes and hair. Blue, on the other hand, is present in the overall lighting and shading of the painting, background elements due to atmospherical distortion, some angel's clothes, and Lucifer's eyes and wings. The contrast is somewhat downplayed but still very noticeable.
- The Czech photographer and traveller Jiří Kolbaba took an amazing series of photographs in Namibia, some of which illustrate this trope wonderfully. See one of his gorgeous pictures from a part of the Namib desert called Sossusvlei here.◊
-
*The Persistence of Memory*: Two prominent colors in the painting, showing its heightened take on reality. The landscape and one of the clocks is orange, while the water and the other clocks are tinted blue. It was inspired by the Catalan seaside.
-
*The Scream (Munch)*: In most of the versions of the painting, the bright and unnatural orange of the sunset contrasts with the deep blue of the water below the dock, helping it become a very striking image.
-
*Lamput*: Lamput, the main character, is orange while Fat Doc and Slim Doc, the villains, are a dark shade of gray-blue.
- Pongdybory of
*Noonbory and the Super 7* has blue skin and wears an orange beanie.
-
*Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf*:
- Done with some of the logos. For example, the
*Flying Island: The Sky Adventure* logo has the title in orange and the subtitle in blue.
- The blue, bell-adorned neck ornament worn by Weslie, the hero, is a contrast to the orange beret worn by Wolffy, the villain.
- The colorists at DC Comics in the early Eighties seem to have really loved the color orange, especially on the Superman titles.
- The Thing has orange, rocky skin, and is commonly depicted as wearing his blue Fantastic Four uniform. He also has blue eyes.
-
*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*: Leonardo is the leader and eldest of the turtles and wears a blue mask. Michaelangelo is the youngest and wears an orange mask.
- Deathstroke's classic costume is blue and orange.
- Taskmaster, whose role in Marvel is similar to Deathstroke's, also wears a blue and orange costume, with some white added. The similarities may be because both characters were designed by the same artist.
- The author of
*Old West* has made a cover that features downwards from above an orange sunsetting sky over the town of Mud, a blue lake situated next to the town and a dark cave.
- In
*Powdered Gold and Pottery*, Shouto's hero costume incorporates soft blue and orange colors to symbolize his ice and fire powers. Its pastel shades are also meant to contrast sharply with how Endeavor wears dark, bold colors.
-
*Aladdin*: Most scenes feature both blue and orange prominently. Even the main characters have blue/orange contrasts in their outfits.
-
*The Adventures of Tintin (2011)* has this prominently on the poster.
- The Blu-Ray "restoration" of
*Fantasia* uses this, most prominently in the "Night On Bald Mountain" sequence, where everything that was originally black is now blue.
- This poster◊ for
*Brave*, with the orange being Merida's hair, and the blue being the Will-o'-the-Wisps and the fog.
- Marlin (orange clownfish) and Dory (blue regal tang) from
*Finding Nemo*.
-
*Atlantis: The Lost Empire*:
- The blue of the ocean contrasts against the orange light from the submarine's windows.
- Orange fire in torches contrasting against the overall blue of Atlantis.
- During an underwater chase sequence, the torpedo explosions are rendered in orange to pop against the blue ocean.
-
*My Little Pony: Equestria Girls*:
- In the first movie, the then-Big Bad Sunset Shimmer is a primarily orange and red character with some yellow hues. The main heroine Twilight Sparkle, on the other hand, is colored lavender, violet, and blue.
- In
*Rainbow Rocks*, the Dazzlings have the contrast between themselves — the lead Adagio Dazzle is yellow/orange, while her bandmates Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk are in teal and purple color schemes.
-
*Forgotten Friendship* has Sunset Shimmer (again) and Trixie Lulamoon, who have sharply contrasting colors, with Sunset's red-and-yellow hair, amber skin, orange top, and maroon skirt compared with Trixie's white hair, pale blue skin, dark blue clothes and purple skirt. This emphasizes their differences and complementary aspects when standing side-by-side.
- In
*Turning Red*, the 4*Town boys all wears orange shirts (a colour no other character is associated with) with blue jeans, each styled to match their personality (ex. jokester Aaron T. has overalls with one strap unbuckled, athlete Aaron Z. has a tank top and cut jeans to replicate a basketball uniform, etc.)
- Orange-furred Nick and blue-clothed Judy from
*Zootopia*.
- One of the posters for
*Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Dunk for Future* uses this to contrast Team Defenders, shown in blue at the top of the poster, and Team Tiger, shown in orange at the bottom.
-
*Adam & Paul*: The scene where Adam and Paul wander around high on heroin has orange streetlights contrasting with blue shadows.
-
*Ad Astra*: At the Lima station, there are multiple shots contrasting blue and yellow lighting. In at least one scene, this contrasts the coldness and isolation of space with humanity and human connection.
-
*Australia*: The Scenery Porn. The Australian Outback is bright orange and sandy desert contrasted with deep, cloudless blue sky. Plus the orange tinting on the human characters and often-appearing dark blue lighting.
-
*Blade Runner*:
-
*The Final Cut* features this in almost every scene. It's part of its distinctive visual style.
- The original cuts with the proper color timing had their fair share of orange-and-blue, some 15-20 years before it became commonplace.
- The sequel
*Blade Runner 2049* follows through with this tradition with its poster artwork and in the film itself with uses of strong orange palettes (particularly in Las Vegas) and moody blues at night.
-
*Darkman*: The poster of this Sam Raimi film is something of a predecessor of this tend in movie posters. The blue comes from the nighttime sky and the light of a helicopter flying overhead, and the orange from the blazing fire to the right.
-
*Divergent*:
- In
*Divergent*, the orange is dominant during the fear simulations, with blue in the background. This is reversed at the test, where blue is dominant and orange is in the background.
- In
*The Divergent Series: Insurgent*, Jeanine's control room is made up of various shades of blue. The controls on the screen are orange.
-
*The Divergent Series: Allegiant*, does a similar thing where the screens of many of the machines are blue, and the text appears in orange.
- Found throughout
*The Double*. It's more obvious in some scenes than others, such as the ones in the photocopy room, where the lighting is exclusively blue and orange.
-
*Drive (2011)*. In the opening sequence, the only colours (with the exception of the pink title) are the blue and orange coming from the lighting in Los Angeles at night.
-
*The Fly (1986)* has an obvious example — the text and graphics on the telepod-controlling computer are blue and/or orange on a black background — but the colors are subtly, extensively used in conjunction with light and shadow elsewhere. In the early going, Veronica's editor/ex-lover Stathis, who is a Clingy Jealous Guy, is associated with shadows and orange lighting (i.e. her finding him taking a shower in her apartment). Scientist Seth, her new and true love, gets light and blue tones. But then Seth makes a Tragic Mistake that results in a Slow Transformation *and* Split-Personality Takeover. He becomes associated with orange/shadow and his decaying human skin takes on a rusty reddish-orange shade. Come the final 20 minutes (which take place at night) blue comes from the lighting and Veronica's blue dress, and as Stathis becomes a Hero Antagonist he gets a blue-gray sweater. The extremes are pushed as Seth's final "Brundlefly" form emerges and ||Stathis shoots out the cables connecting Ronnie's telepod to the others, followed by the botched teleportation destroying part of a pod||, leaving the entire loft a blue-suffused scene as smoke fills it. As with *The Empire Strikes Back*, this film predates most uses of the trope by a good two decades. David Cronenberg historian William Beard's commentary track on the 2019 Blu-Ray goes into thorough detail on the film's use of color.
- The posters and DVD covers of
*G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra* give a very blatant contrast, having the Joes stand in a blue background, while the Cobra stands in an orange/yellow background.
-
*Godzilla vs. Kong*: Most of the film's posters and promos, and ultimately the film's opening sequence, tend to invoke this contrast by directly aligning the titular Titans with either color palette, creating a clear contrast in images which feature both Titans. Godzilla is aligned with a greenish-blue palette reflecting his aquatic elemental alignment, and Kong is aligned with a reddish-orange (or alternatively earthy-brown) palette, reflecting his earthy elemental alignment. The color alignments furthermore reflect that in this film, Kong is the more human-aligned Titan who's more focused on what's in front of him, whereas Godzilla is the more ruthless Titan who's ultimately more focused on the bigger picture.
-
*The Hobbit*:
- In
*Hollow Man*, invisibility serum is blue and counterserum is orange. Also, in thermal vision living organisms are mostly orange/red and the environment is mostly blue.
-
*Hot Tub Time Machine* has a deep teal and orange tint.
- Most of
*Hugo* is like this, not just from the lighting and color grade, but from the source set and costume design being almost exclusive made up of blue and orange hues. This ends up lending a stylized, Deliberately Monochrome effect highly reminiscent of the black/white films it celebrates, just with a modern tinge.
-
*The Hunger Games: Catching Fire*: Almost every color is some shade of orange or blue, except in the scenes taking place in the Capitol, where purple is added to the mix, and in the jungle, where plenty of green is visible when we see the tops of trees.
-
*Hunky Dory*, set during a famous heat wave, is washed out in a beautiful gold, but a few evening scenes are a soft blue.
-
*I, Frankenstein* has it in almost every shot. You can get sick of teal and orange from this one movie alone!
-
*Jurassic World* and its sequel *Fallen Kingdom* exploit this trope heavily. For example, Dr. Wu's lab in the former is graded blue so that it contrasts with the orange of the famous amber mosquitos. Claire Dearing has red hair that contrasts with Owen Grady's blue shirt, and when Claire isn't around, Owen tends to wear a brown vest over his shirt.
-
*Limitless*: Limitless is an interesting example because of the way it's used; whenever somebody takes the NZT, the scene will shift from blue highlights to orange highlights, and vice versa when it wears off.
- The song and dance number in
*Om Shanti Om* called "Dard E Disco" has lovely orange-blue contrast with gold tones for about 3/4 of the song.
-
*Ophelia* uses this on most of the film's posters; most of them depict red-haired Ophelia in a blue dress, in front of a blue background. Considering Ophelia herself wears blue a lot in the film, she's practically a walking example of this.
-
*Out of Sight* uses orange lighting for scenes in sunny Florida and goes with mostly blue hues when the action shifts to snowy Detroit.
- In
*Peter Pan*, when Peter pauses in the bedroom window, his body is lit in orange from the room with a blue moonlit background.
-
*Riddick*: The first third of the film is made in shades of dark yellow, with occasional splashes of blue. Most of the last third is Hollywood Darkness blue.
-
*Scott Pilgrim vs. The World* purposely uses this trope as a parody for Lucas Lee's movies. All of his movie posters are off-the-scale blue/orange contrast.
- While the contrast is not especially frequent in
*Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings*, the rings glow blue when Wenwu uses them and orange when Shang-Chi uses them. It makes for a bold standoff.
-
*Skyfall:* In Shanghai, the lighting keeps *switching* between orange and blue. One of the final action scenes also uses the palette.
-
*Star Trek Into Darkness* contains many examples, especially in scenes set aboard the Enterprise. We see orangey faces against blue backgrounds, and also sets which are lit (or painted) in patches of blue and patches of orange.
-
*Star Wars*:
- The carbon chamber from
*The Empire Strikes Back* is dimly lit with orange lighting and surrounded by blue-tinged darkness, providing an eerie contrast for the first showdown between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. It also predates the modern "Blue and Orange" phenomenon by about two decades.
- The main poster for
*The Force Awakens* is lit on one side by Kylo Ren's red lightsaber and orange explosions, and on the other side by Finn's blue lightsaber and blue laser fire.
-
*Terminator 2: Judgment Day* is bathed in blue during night scenes. The contrasting hues of orange come from various sources: lights, fire, explosions, liquid metal and clear (yet somewhat washed out) skin tones of the actors. Most scenes during daytime tend to have a broader palette of colors.
-
*TRON: Legacy*: The movie itself consists mostly of this. It could have been grandfathered in as the original *TRON* was mostly black-and-white with Red and Blue glow-lines. For the sequel they kept the Blue glow intact, but then they went and tweaked the Red to be various, mostly Orange-ish shades.
-
*War and Peace (1956)*: In the poster, the characters ("peace") have a blue background, while the battlefield ("war") has an orange background.
- The book cover website Good Show Sir started using the tag "once you see it" for blue and orange covers in spring 2013. Because once you see it, you see it everywhere.
-
*Hilda and Richie*: Both foxes are colored orange; Richie plays this straight through most of the first book as he wears blue clothes, contrasting his orange fur. Hilda downplays this as her default wardrobe color is purple but does wear a light blue dress towards the end of the first book.
-
*Awake*: the two different universes that the show alternates between each get their own color palette: Red/orange for the reality where Britten's wife is alive, and green/blue for the one where his son is. It actually serves a purpose in making it obvious to a careful viewer which one the scene is taking place in.
- In the earlier seasons of
*Bar Rescue,* a recon would be punctuated by a white outline of the bar layout on a royal blue background. When an area of the bar was described in the narration, such as a speed well, it would be highlighted in orange.
-
*Burn Notice*: Watch out for Michael's orange skin, paired with a light blue shirt.
- The final scene of "For a Few Paintballs More" from
*Community* has this colouring all over the place, and it looks awesome. Annie, Abed, and Troy have white clothes which have been stained with orange paint from the sprinkles, while Jeff, Britta, and Pierce are dressed in blue of various shades.
-
*CSI: Miami* had a very saturated color palate while *CSI: NY* was originally darker and drearier. When the two crossed over, guess which characters were bathed in golden light while the others were in dark blue shadows.
-
*Doctor Who*: The new series does this a fair bit, especially the sixth series.
- "42" is prominently orange-lit, set on a mostly-orange spaceship falling into an orange sun. This trope comes into play during the scenes with Martha and Riley stuck in a blue-lit escape pod.
- "The Sound of Drums": The warehouse/flashback scene. The warehouse is dark blue except for the fire, Gallifrey has an orange sky (as established previously), and the Doctor's fire-lit face is 50/50 as he starts his monologue.
- "Nightmare in Silver" uses it to show ||the two sides of the Doctor's mindscape when the Cyber-Planner starts taking over.||
- The Thirteenth Doctor's TARDIS console room, as revealed in "The Ghost Monument", has glowing orange crystals and blue lights in the walls.
- The Thirteenth Doctor's outfit features a noticable amount of blue accents, contrasting with the amber light of her sonic screwdriver.
- Earlier, the Eleventh Doctor's first console room's walls were an orange-copper colour, contrasting with the bright blue of the police box exterior and door frame.
- In some scenes and in a good deal of promotional art, the titular character of
*The Flash (2014)* is awash in orange light or set against an orange background. Some villains, like Zoom and Savitar, are associated with blue light. For the former, it's a representation of his use of Velocity 9 to attain higher speeds. For the latter, it's a sign of his otherworldly connection to the Philosopher's Stone and the Speed Force.
-
*Fringe*: The intro sequence started off blue, but would change to red-orange depending on ||which universe the episode took place in||, sometimes switching back and forth to show frequent transitions during the episode. Much more subtle during the fifth season, but nonetheless present; often the ||now-fugitive|| Fringe team would have to double back to Walter's old Harvard lab, which is an orange hue due to being ||ambered,|| while the scenes that show them ||evading the Observers|| have a bluish tint.
-
*Gotham*: Virtually every scene is rendered in this palette to the point of absurdity. The cityscapes, however, are not.
-
*House*: The show's pilot episode employs an extreme version of this trope, with all colors other than certain shades of orange and blue being completely desaturated. This visual style wasn't carried forward to the full series, but it continued to inform the color scheme of the hospital setting throughout the show's run.
-
*Instant Star* used a blue filter for the school interior sequences, to better match the late 19th/early 20th century stone High School building they used for exteriors and disguise the interior sets built for the midcentury-modern Degrassi school building.
-
*Kamen Rider*
-
*Kamen Rider Agito*: G3 the Secondary Rider has blue armor with orange eyes.
-
*Kamen Rider Kabuto*: Gatack the Secondary Rider is predominantly blue with orange accents, including the eyes.
-
*Kamen Rider Den-O*: Rod Form, Urataros' Den-O form and the second Imagin form, is predominantly blue with orange accents including the eyes. Urataros himself has a blue Imagin body with orange eyes.
- This trope, and the former three examples, are highlighted in
*Test! The Rider Look-Alikes!!*, an installment in the *Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders Super Spin-off* webisode series.
-
*Kamen Rider Double* has the Nasca Dopant, who is predominantly cyan with orange accents on its visor and body, as well as two scarves that slowly fade from blue to orange. Its powered-up form, the R Nasca Dopant, removes this contrast and becomes primarily orange and red.
-
*Kamen Rider Gaim*: Gaim's primary form, Orange Arms, consists of bright orange armor worn over a dark blue bodysuit. In his more powerful Kachidoki Arms form, the orange overtakes the blue in most areas.
-
*Kamen Rider Ghost* has the main riders with these as the color scheme: Ghost the Main Rider is the Orange, while Specter the Secondary Rider is the Blue, and the both of them have contrasting kinds of personality.
-
*Kamen Rider Ex-Aid* gives Emu a Literal Split Personality form, Mighty Brothers XX (Double X), that represents the two sides of his personality: the teal-colored left side is him as a compassionate doctor while the orange right side is him as a fun-loving professional gamer. The colors also serve as Foreshadowing: ||if you invert them you get red and blue — the colors of Kamen Rider Para-DX's two forms, hinting that Parado is Emu's personal Bugster. After this is revealed Parado takes over the orange half of the Mighty Brothers since he was "Genius Gamer M" all along.||
-
*Star Trek: Picard*:
- In "Maps and Legends", the glowing blue graphics on the LCARS screens juxtapose the dark orange walls of the Utopia Planitia Shipyards.
- In "Broken Pieces", the chamber where Elnor's Fight Scene takes place has Unnaturally Blue Lighting, but the hallway leading to it has orange illumination. Depending on where the actors are standing, they may be bathed in both blue and orange light.
- In "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2", the sapphire blue wings of the synth butterfly that Picard admires gradually become bright orange; it expands from the center, spreading outward towards the tips before receding and returning the wings to their original blue shade.
- The
*Star Trek: Discovery* episode "Point of Light" features a Split-Screen Phone Call between Ash Tyler in a dark, orange-lit cavern on Qo'noS and Michael Burnham in her blue-lit cabin on *Discovery*.
-
*Veronica Mars*: The first season has a very obvious distinction in color-grading when depicting the past (in blues and cooler colors) versus the present (in oranges and warmer colors). It's less emphasized in the second season and entirely gone by the third, which carries over to the movie and the fourth season.
-
*Uchu Sentai Kyuranger*: The Orange and Sky Blue Rangers, Stinger and Kotaro, are paired together, both as a sub-unit of the larger team and because they have a big brother/little brother character dynamic.
-
*Ugly Betty*: Orange and blue show up frequently, in the decor at both Mode and the Suarez household, and in clothing like Betty's blue and orange poncho that she wears in the first episode. The contrast becomes even more pronounced when the Suarezes go to Mexico and the scenes there are given the yellow tint that all American media set in Mexico gets.
-
*Ultraman Ace*: Vakishim is mostly blue when viewed from the front and mostly orange when viewed from the back, which serves as a quick visual indicator that it's a Mix-and-Match Critter Yapool created from a caterpillar (blue) and a space monster (orange).
- Sugar's landmark album
*Copper Blue* has it both on the cover◊ and in the title: pure metallic copper is a vivid metallic orange, while copper sulfate is an intense blue.
- GunsNRoses's
*Use Your Illusion* double-album is an example of this trope. Use Your Illusion I's cover is painted in shades of red, yellow, and orange and is generally filled with heavier, harder-rocking songs. Use Your Illusion II's cover, by contrast is painted in shades of blue and purple and contains bluesier, softer rock songs.
- Dismember's
*Like an Ever Flowing Stream.*
-
*Darkness Descends* by Dark Angel, between the blue-hued graveyard and orange sky.
- Judas Priest uses this trope at times. Take a look at
*Sad Wings of Destiny,◊* *Defenders of the Faith,◊* and *Ram It Down* for a few examples.
- Morbid Angel's not quite as well known
*Formulas Fatal to the Flesh.◊*
- Green Day's 2012 trilogy◊ has Idiosyncratic Cover Art varying only the band member and the colors. Aside from opener
*¡Uno!* (green — for obvious reasons- background and pink font) note : and by extension making of documentary ¡Cuatro!, which reverses the scheme ) *¡Dos!* has an orange background and blue text, and *¡Tre!* is the opposite.
- Amaranthe used this contrast in the covers of their debut album and
*Manifest.*
- The music video for "Remember the Name" by Fort Minor is between this and a green wash. While Mike Shinoda (yes,
*that* Mike Shinoda) is rapping, it's more this, while Ryu (of Style of Beyond) gets the greenest parts.
- The video for Zedd's "Clarity" is based on this concept; popping colors and contrast leads to clarity, get it?
- The music video for Kvelertak's "Evig Vandrar" heavily uses this concept.
- Peter Hollens' video of "Gollum's Song" from Peter Jackson's
*The Lord of the Rings* movies, starts with images of Peter singing in front of an orange backdrop. A glowing line appears on the right side of the screen and slowly moves from right to left, as though burning away the orange backdrop, replacing it with images of Peter singing in front of a dark blue backdrop, his face heavily shadowed. This is meant to illustrate Smeagol's personality slowly being overtaken by Gollum's evil.
- The video for "Dream All Day" by The Posies.
- In the Darker and Edgier variant of Lights' "Ice", this is indicated by the Mortal Kombat-like energy bursts used by each character: orange for the heroine, blue for the villain.
-
*Godzilla (Stern)*'s artwork leans heavily on shades of orange and blue for various reasons, generally creating a thematic contrast between certain entities.
- The playfield artwork uses eye-catching oranges and blues for various effects: the former accompanies exploding buildings, fire, and general destruction, while the latter is associated with the Xiliens and electricity (particularly when it comes to Mechagodzilla).
- The Limited Edition artwork uses it as part of a fire-water dichotomy, associating Godzilla with orange-hued fiery destruction and Mechagodzilla with the deep blue ocean.
- Unlike most wrestlers in WWE, Sin Cara has special lighting
*during* his matches. Said lighting is orange and blue. Sin Cara's ring attire and entrance video are also orange and blue.
- WrestleMania XXVIII utilizes this for their poster.
- The World Wrestling League's "Idol's of" Poster from April 21, 2013. Though when Blue Demon Jr. and Mesias are on it, it's almost inevitable. Subverted when they were picked up by Mega TV and
*High Voltage* became the main show. Scene transitions would *switch* between orange and blue.
- The Amiga originally used black, white, blue, and orange. In its four-color mode — the one used by boot screens and the Workbench UI.
- One of the display palettes for the Apple II, though not as commonly used as black, white, green, and purple/magenta.
- The Firefox logo, of an orange fire/fox encircling the blue planet Earth, and the default color scheme of the browser.
- A short-lived TV service attempted by several phone companies in the mid-90s called Tele-TV utilized this in their logo and on-screen graphics.
- In stage lighting, when a 'white' light is desired, it is common practice to use complementing colors from opposing angles, often amber and blue. This approach gives more 'depth' to actors on stage, resulting in cool blue shadows and warm amber highlights.
- Theatre lights are colored by placing filters known as 'gels' in front of the lighting fixtures. The canonical gels for a basic warm/cool wash are R02 "Bastard Amber" and R60 "No Color Blue".
- The poster for the musical of
*Rebecca* is a giant R of bright orange fire on a deep blue background.
-
*BIONICLE*:
- The mainly blue Gahlok, Gahlok Va, and Gahlok-Kal have orange eyes, with the regular Gahlok even having orange Krana "brains".
- The blue Rahkshi, Guurahk, has orange eyes as well, though so do all the other Rahkshi. Likewise with the blue Skakdi Vezok and Nektann, and the blue Makuta Vamprah (though in 2006 and from 2008 on, almost all villainous characters had orange eyes).
- Nokama in her Toa Metru and Toa Hordika forms also had orange eyes to contrast her blue body.
- Also the Ga-Matoran Vhisola, whose primary color is blue.
- Likewise with the blue Boggarak and its orange eyes.
- The blue Vahki Bordakh had striking orange as its secondary color.
- The 2004 promo material likewise utilized this color-combo by lighting a portion of the background skyline orange to simulate the light and heat emanating from the industrial areas.
- LEGO
*Ice Planet 2002*, although white and black were important colors as well.
-
*NERF Brand*: The NERF Elite series has the blasters colored in blue, orange, and white color scheme.
-
*Battlefield* started using this trope with the cover art from the second *Battlefield: Bad Company* game, but *Battlefield 3* really started it in earnest by putting it in the game itself:
- Blue icons are used for the friendly team, orange for the opposing.
- Game/DLC posters. Orange for gunfire/explosions, blue for cooler atmospheric areas.
- Maps like Operation Metro and Death Valley are washed in blue, while Bandar Desert and Tallah Market are washed in orange.
- Explosions and muzzle flashes are notably orange in color.
-
*Blinx* is orange, and wears a blue jacket.
-
*Brink!*: Orange for Resistance, Blue for Security, all other colors for scenery.
-
*Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons*: The confident older brother wears blue, and his more timid younger brother wears orange.
-
*Crash Bandicoot* is a walking orange-blue contrast; a creature with orange fur wearing nothing but blue pants. In *Crash Team Racing* and *Crash Nitro Kart*, he also drives a blue kart. Ripper Roo in the former is the inverse, having blue fur and driving an orange kart. Crash's sister Coco is also orange, and primarily wears blue overalls (or in later games, blue jeans).
-
*Jak and Daxter*: Jak wears blue and is quiet and reserved. Daxter has orange fur and is loud and hammy.
-
*Mass Effect*:
- The morality of Commander Shepard is tracked on two separate karma meters, a blue one for "Paragon" actions and an orange one for "Renegade" actions.
- The first game used a lot more clean blues and whites in-game and the user interface was blue, while the second switched to gritter oranges and browns and the user interface turned orange. The third game switched back to blue much like the first, though the overall color palette was generally less vibrant and more subdued, giving it an almost grey undertone to match the hopeless, apocalyptic feeling the Reaper War evoked.
- The Systems Alliance and Cerberus, the two main human factions Shepard works for in the series, use blue and orange as their respective color schemes. Not surprisingly, the menus and color schemes in each game match whatever faction Shepard is working for at the time (blue for
*1* and *3* when working with the Alliance, orange for *2* when working with Cerberus).
-
*Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door*: Grubba's primary, passive form, interacted with as an NPC, is mostly blue in color. His much more active, aggressive powered-up form, which is fought as a boss, is instead bright orange.
-
*Star Wars: The Old Republic*: The Darkside marker is orange instead of the more obvious red, which contrasts vividly with the blue Lightside marker (though, given how this contrast is used elsewhere [blue = dark, orange = light], it seems very odd, to say the least).
-
*Tomb Raider II*: Some of the level with the Maria Doria are strongly orange/teal; surprisingly for a non-realistic PC game from 1997.
-
*Portal*: Everything significant to gameplay that comes in two forms, with the exception of the black and white test chamber walls themselves, is blue and orange (or blue and yellow): the two ends of the portal; the repulsion and propulsion gels; the pushing and pulling states of the excursion funnels; the off and on states of the lights indicating a connection with the Big Red Buttons; the highlights and eyes on Atlas and P-body; even the "eyes" of Wheatley and GLaDOS. The test chambers in *Portal* were deliberately made mostly cool blues in contrast to the warm oranges of the behind-the scenes-areas.
- The
*Half-Life* series in general is fond of this (orange HEV suit, blue G-Man, orange Resistance, blue Combine, blue Citadel in *Half-Life 2* contrasting with the orange destroyed Citadel in Episode 1, etc).
- The video game adaptations of
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows* use practically only blue and orange shades throughout the game.
-
*Mega Man*:
- Every box art for the classic series features this in the cover. Once Zero (red) was introduced, he was often used for contrast with Mega Man X (blue).
- Atlas (orange) and Thetis (blue) from
*Mega Man ZX Advent* are this: Atlas is a hyper-aggressive (presumably) human social Darwinist girl who prefers brute force in combat and wants to use Model W to cause a Forever War, while Thetis is a rather calm Reploid boy who uses a halberd with very fluid techniques and loves the environment (especially underwater environments) to the point where he wants to use Model W to punish humanity for polluting the oceans.
-
*The Legend of Zelda*:
-
*Mortal Kombat 9* has this on the cover and, to a lesser extent, on the main menu background; both achieve this by putting Scorpion and Sub-Zero opposite each other.
- The title screen◊ of
*Aleste 2* features redhead Ellinor Waizen and the title in red-orange lettering against a deep-blue background.
-
*Singularity*: only in the time-warped alternate-2011, though. In 1955, another color palette is used. This is to help show off the unnatural state of the world in 2011.
-
*Sonic the Hedgehog*:
- The titular hedgehog and his fox companion Tails are colored blue and orange, respectively.
- Shadow the Hedgehog — although not orange-colored — features an orange aura in his spin-related attacks to contrast Sonic's bright blue color.
- The original
*Castlevania* for the NES had most, if not all, of its foreground scenery orange, complete with many blue backdrops throughout the game. Even Simon's sprites were a yellow-orange to help him pop out. Averted in *Vampire Killer* for the MSX2, which used a color palette of more subdued browns and shades of gray.
-
*Metroid*:
- Samus' orange Varia Suit contrasts with the cyan Zero Suit she wears underneath it, the blue outfits worn by Galactic Federation staff, most types of Phazon (and thus Dark Samus), and Sylux, a violently anti-Federation rival bounty hunter.
- In the original NES game, the orange Varia Suit contrasts with the opening areas of Brinstar, which predominantly use a blue color scheme.
-
*Metroid Prime* has two distinct types of Phazon. Their respective colors, indeed, are blue and orange (the latter inflicting damage at a rate 82% faster than in the former's case). The orange variety is only found in the Impact Crater, where the Final Boss awaits.
-
*Metroid Prime: Hunters* contrasts Sylux's blue with Spire's orange, with Sylux wanting to use the artifact everyone's looking for to terrorize the Federation and Spire wanting it to find his people.
-
*Metroid Prime 3: Corruption* uses this for box art and other artwork, but it's downplayed in the game itself. While blue is prominent because of Phazon becoming more abundant, orange is largely limited to Samus and her gunship. Shades of orange and some of yellow and/or cream are present in the areas and ambiance of Bryyo and Elysia; the Space Pirates' home planet features large amounts of red.
-
*Metroid Fusion*: Samus starts off with the blue Fusion Suit, while the SA-X is mimicking her orange Varia Suit.
-
*X3: Reunion's* boxart◊ features an orange lava planet with the series' signature "X" overlaid on it, showing a healthy blue planet. In the *Xtended Terran Conflict* Game Mod, Aldrin, a neutral system that most of the Multiple Game Openings begin in prominently features a massive blue Earth-like world backlit by a yellow-orange nebula.
-
*Final Fantasy*:
-
*Final Fantasy X* has Jecht wearing an orange-red sash, wielding a sword with red details, and he's associated with fire. His son Tidus meanwhile wears an outfit with dark blue colorings, his sword is bright blue, and he's associated with water.
-
*Dissidia Final Fantasy*, The Emperor shoots out two differently colored Flares, one orange and one blue. This is to let players tell them apart since the two attacks behave differently. Tidus and Jecht also return with the same color associates as in *Final Fantasy X*. Additionally, Order's Sanctuary is a water-filled white and blue field, while Edge of Madness is a black and red volcanic wasteland — the two arenas are the thrones of the rival gods Cosmos and Chaos.
-
*Red Faction Guerrilla* is set on Mars, a planet coated almost exclusively in red-orange dust. Indeed, most of the game's environments are variations on this theme. So rather than have the traditional orangey-yellow explosions and muzzle flares on the guns, the flame effects are distinctively blue. Furthermore, the antagonistic EDF buildings are all a dark blue with bright blue lights on them, making them pop out from the surrounding landscape (unlike their brown uniforms and cars).
- The Color-Coded Multiplayer in
*Team Fortress 2* may be red vs. blue, but the developers explicitly state that the reason so many of the early maps were set in desert environments was to create a contrast between the warm-colored rocks and dust and the blue sky.
-
*Monday Night Combat* makes its teams orange and blue.
-
*Counter-Strike: Global Offensive* uses counter-terrorist blue and terrorist orange-yellow as team colors.
-
*Pokémon*:
-
*Pokémon Black 2 and White 2*, the Black 2 box has blue (to represent electricity) while White 2 has reddish-orange (to represent fire). This also goes with the black and white contrast present in these games and their prequels.
- Also appears in the Primal Reversion forms of Groudon and Kyogre in
*Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire*.
- This is also the same case for Solgaleo and Lunala respectively in
*Pokémon Sun and Moon*.
- Fitting with the "past x future" theme of
*Pokémon Scarlet and Violet*, both versions have contrasting elements using orange and blue. Professor Sada wears orange prehistoric-like clothes and accessories, while Professor Turo wears a futuristic blue outfit. The same applies to the version mascots: Koraidon is predominantly orange, while Miraidon is predominantly blue. The trope is also present in the individual design of Koraidon, which has a mostly orange body with blue at the base of its plumes and antennae.
-
*Asura's Wrath*: Asura himself is painted and surrounded in orange flames while many of the enemies are advertised in blue backgrounds. The image on the main article and the box art are prime examples of this among others.
- Enforced in
*League of Legends*: many players with partial red-green color-blindness complained about the default Color-Coded Multiplayer scheme, so an orange-and-blue Color-Blind Mode was added.
- An option exists in
*Modern Warfare 3*. By default, teammates have green names and map dots and enemies red, so the colorblind assist option changes those colors to blue and orange, respectively.
-
*Legacy of Kain*, the two protagonists, Kain and Raziel, are color-coded like this. Kain wears a red sash around his chest while Raziel has blue skin, and their checkpoint emblems in *Defiance* are red and blue-green. Raziel devours blue souls while Kain drinks red blood. Blue and green are the colors of the Spectral Realm, Raziel's native plane of being, while orange and red are the colors saturating ||the hell dimension of the Hylden||, which Kain visits late in the game. There's also *Defiance's* "neutral" loading screen◊ — the character-specific ones are orange and blue.
- The Amstrad CPC version of
*Cybernoid* had the status bar framed in blue, while the level walls were orange. The Mission-Pack Sequel reversed this color arrangement.
-
*Turbo Girl* on the Amstrad CPC had the border art in flaming orange and shades of blue, with most elements of the first level using the same colors.
-
*Tiny and Big* is set in a desert with vibrant blue skies. The first two levels particularly use this trope, with Tiny's bright cyan laser cutter serving as a stark contrast to the orange-browns of the environment.
- The Mood Lighting of Los Santos in
*Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas* has this, with the sky being a strong shade of blue, and the ground heavily orange-tinted, coupled with heat haze to make the place look truly hot and smoggy.
-
*Elite Dangerous* uses a ton of orange (and the occasional bit of yellow or red) in its HUD. Teal is used more sparingly, but it's there. In fact, your primary and secondary fire groups are color-coded orange and teal, as is your throttle (to indicate whether you're in your optimal maneuvering thrust band). Modding the config files to change the HUD colors is popular, but this can negatively affect the radar's color-coding of targets.
- The infighting between the two leaders of the Golden Path in
*Far Cry 4* is represented by a blue elephant, who represents Sabal (who wears a blue jacket), fighting an orange tiger, who represents Amita (who wears an orange jacket). The uniform of the Golden Path is a blue outfit with a yellow logo and bandanna, but in a lot of light, the yellow looks orange. Your skill tree is also divided between orange tiger skills and blue elephant skills.
-
*Transistor* has this everywhere, right from the start, where the blue of the eponymous sword contrasts with the reddish-orange colour scheme of, well, Red.
-
*Smite*: Order structures show up as bluish-green on the map and Chaos structures show up as orange.
- In
*James Bond 007: The Duel* for the Sega Genesis, shades of blue and orange dominate the background palette for most of the game. The exceptions are Mission 2 (the only level set in a natural environment) and Mission 5, which replaces the oranges with purples and reds.
-
*Conker's Bad Fur Day*: Conker is an orange squirrel wearing a cyan shirt.
-
*Splatoon* uses covering everything in neon ink as a main gameplay mechanic, so Color Contrast is essential between teams. While there are many combinations in the games, blue and orange is the most featured pair for the original game, being used in trailers, promotional artwork, and the box art. The orange Inkling girl and blue Inkling boy are even considered the Series Mascots for the franchise, being the default representatives when appearing in other games such as *Mario Kart 8 Deluxe* and *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*. In a more practical use of the pair, activating color lock mode in this first entry forces all online multiplayer team colors to orange and blue. The *Octo Expansion* campaign in *Splatoon 2* makes a Call-Back to the classic blue and orange ink in ||the boss fight with Inner Agent 3.||
-
*Undertale* has blue-colored attacks which will only damage you if you move while it moves through you and orange attacks which will damage you if you don't move.
-
*Robocraft*: As of the Full Spectrum Combat update, the game gives a choice of sixteen colors to color your robot with. However, twelve of them are only available to premium account users. The others can only pick between white, gray, *blue and orange*.
-
*Borderlands*: Days and nights on Pandora in all games are only differentiated by the color filter (orange for daytime, blue for nighttime). More subtly, there's the reddish-orange and dark yellow of Jakobs (marked Western-inspired Nostalgia Filter, high base damage, no elemental effects) contrasting the cobalt blue of Maliwan (futuristic and sleek, low base damage, always elemental). note : This is less pronounced in *Borderlands 2* and onwards, when brands aren't just a Palette Swap of one another, but still noticeable most of the time.
-
*Halo 3*: The game's box art has this.
-
*FTL: Faster Than Light*: The Rebel ships have orange-painted hulls with bright-blue stripes running on them. *Red-Tail*, a variant of the *Kestrel* cruiser, features such a paint-job.
-
*Fast Racing League*: Orange and cyan are the two phase colors used in Neo and RMX. Switching to the correct color when going over a corresponding element will provide a speed boost.
-
*Tealy and Orangey* has one half of the screen be blue and the other orange. Tealy and Orangey are two balls of their eponymous colors and are unaffected by hazards of the opposite color.
-
*Hollow Knight*: The starting areas, Howling Cliffs, Dirtmouth, and the Forgotten Crossroads, all have a similar dark blue color scheme, which makes the orange Infection stand out as something abnormal compared to the rest of the environments. This becomes even more pronounced once the Forgotten Crossroads ||becomes the Infected Crossroads||.
-
*Warframe*: Plenty of sceneries feature a lot of contrast between orange and blue, such as dim orange lighting inside Grineer galleons and sealabs supplemented with blue light coming through the windows, terraformed Mars having brown canyons under clear blue sky or blue Corpus platforms floating through Jupiter's orange atmosphere.
-
*Stealth Bastard*: The paired, handheld teleporter devices are orange and blue.
-
*Just Cause 3*: The devs have stated that they were invoking this when designing the country of Medici, contrasting orange rocks and sand with clear blue sky and sea. The colour scheme is also present in the flag of the rebels, to contrast with the Red/Green Contrast colour scheme of Di Ravello's regime.
-
*Progressbar 95*: Blue segments are correct and orange ones are wrong (you can still collect them, but you won't get the bonus points blues would give).
- This is heavily featured throughout
*Wick (2020)*; the cathedral is mostly blues and blacks, while the area surrounding Wick and any candles he lights is gold and orange.
-
*Wordle*: High contrast mode substitutes orange and blue for green and yellow.
-
*XCOM 2*: Whenever the Council Spokesman appears, his facial features are hidden in darkness, with a glaring orange light to one side of him and another equally strong blue light on the other.
-
*Digital: A Love Story*: The Amie Workbench's color scheme (itself a sendup of the original Amiga Workbench) uses white, black, orange, and blue.
- The book cover of the webcomic
*Gifts of Wandering Ice*. A yellowish candlelight of a lantern against the blue ice.
- In
*Unit-M*, Agent Orange is a walking embodiment of this trope, sporting orange body hair and blue skin.
- AlterNet: In early 2015, shifted to an orange and navy blue color scheme.
-
*Cracked*:
-
*Looming Gaia*: Evan wears a lot of blue while his best friend/boyfriend Lukas wears orange. Evan is friendly and good-natured, while Lukas is stoic and cynical.
-
*Chowder*: Blue-skinned and nice Mung Daal clashes with and has a rivalry with the orange-skinned and snobbish Endive.
-
*Phineas and Ferb*:
- Phineas wears an orange striped shirt with blue shorts. He also has orange hair and blue eyes. Some minor characters also do this, an example being librarian Sherman(one of the members of the band that Phineas and Ferb work to reunite), who wears an orange shirt with a blue tie.
- During "Gitchee Gitchee Goo", the color filter switches back and forth between orange and blue. The most prominent background shapes are blue, creating a stark contrast during the points when the filter is orange.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic* makes habitual use of this trope in its character designs, employing it in some form whenever characters appear in contrast or association with each other.
- This trope helps highlight the friendly rivalry between the orange Applejack and the electric blue Rainbow Dash. While it's mostly a bonus for the toy box art, this has rarely been used due to miscommunication between the animation and toy divisions.
- The Wonderbolts, on top of their yellow and blue outfits, also mostly come in shades of orange and blue in regards to their coat and mane colors. Spitfire and Soarin', the two most prominent Wonderbolts and the ones who get most speaking parts, are respectively yellow with a fiery orange mane and icy blue with a navy mane.
- This trope is also associated with Princess Celestia, who raises and lowers the sun and is associated with the day, and Princess Luna, who controls the moon, safeguards dreams and is associated with the night.
- Celestia is generally associated with warm, orange-spectrum colors: her magic glows a golden yellow, and her throne is orange and red. Luna, besides being colored navy blue herself, has a deep blue magic aura. In the movie, Luna gets her own blue throne next to Celestia's orange one, and each is depicted with a stained glass window above it — Luna's has a blue depiction of the crescent moon, while Celestia's has a bright orange sun.
- This is especially visible in Luna and Celestia's Superpowered Evil Sides, Nightmare Moon and Daybreaker. Nightmare Moon is clad in blue armor, has a mane consisting of a flowing, navy-blue star field and eyes with light blue scleras and teal irises, and is drawn with a blue outline. Daybreaker is clad in orange armor, has a blazing orange and yellow inferno for a mane and eyes with burnt-brown scleras and glowing yellow irises, and is drawn with an orange outline.
- This is visible with Starlight Glimmer and Sunburst, two old friends who often star in shared episodes and who played important roles in each others' backstories. Starlight and her family tend towards blue-spectrum colors, whereas Sunburst and his tend towards oranges and other fiery colors. Starlight is purple, with a cyan streak in her mane and tail and the same color prominently displayed in her cutie mark; her father is purple, with a green mane and tail. Sunburst is light orange with a darker orange mane, while his mom has a burnt orange coat and a reddish mane. His dad, although only seen in flashbacks, has a yellow coat and orange mane.
- The Hooffields and McColts, a pair of Feuding Families from the episode of the same name, have their rivalry and division highlighted by this color contrast. The Hooffields are exclusively colored in shades of orange, burnt reds, and browns and have curly hair. The McColts, by contrast, have slate blue, gray, and teal coats and straight hair.
- Shimmy Shake and Lighthoof, two cheerleaders who are effectively a single character in terms of personality and never seen apart, are distinguished from one another almost solely by their color schemes. Shimmy Shake's eyes, mane, and coat are bright orange and her cutie mark magenta, while Lighthoof has a cyan coat, aquamarine mane and eyes, and a purple and dark blue cutie mark.
-
*Hey Arnold!* uses orange and blue contrast in their credits, popping the yellow names of the crew out of the blue backround. And in the Halloween special, it was actually orange.
-
*Ned's Newt*: Ned wears an orange shirt, while Newton is entirely blue (almost blue in some of his forms).
- In
*Avatar: The Last Airbender*, the Grand Finale has two determining fights happening in parallel: Aang/Ozai and Azula/Zuko. Both were red, or a kind of orange, versus blue. In one fight, Blue was good, in the other, blue was evil; in both, the fights were made all the more dramatic for the contrast.
- Rabbit Ears Productions: The climax of
*The Legend of Sleepy Hollow* is illustrated with a largely blue and orange palette, which fits well with the terrifying mood of the scene
-
*The Loud House*:
- The main character, Lincoln, is normally wearing an orange Polo shirt with a pair of blue jeans.
- He also has this dynamic with his best friend, Clyde, who has blue stripes on his shirt.
-
*Transformers*:
- In the original G1
*Transformers* series, the Autobots' crashed-spaceship-used-as-an-H.Q. is orange, and the Decepticons' crashed-spaceship-used-as-an-H.Q. is blueish-purple.
- Autobots Huffer and Dion (Orion Pax's friend in the past) have the orangeblueish purple contrast.
- Both of Optimus Primal's Transmetal upgrades in
*Beast Wars* employ this trope, with his first upgrade granting him an orange robot mode and blue beast mode. His second upgrade, ||courtesy of his taking in Generation 1 Optimus Prime's spark to save it||, distributes the orange and blue equally in all of his modes, much like ||his ancestor/namesake||.
-
*Transformers: Animated*: Jetstorm and Jetfire are like-minded twins. The complementary nature of their respective blue and orange color schemes also reflects the fact that they are Combining Mecha. Their commander Sentinel Prime also shares their colors, being mostly blue with orange highlights.
-
*Wander over Yonder*: Wander's body is orange and Sylvia's is blue. They're the two leads and traveling companions.
-
*Steven Universe*:
- Pearl's main outfits utilize a golden yellow/peachy pink and teal color scheme, so it comes off as a pastel variation on this trope.
- The Quartz soldiers encountered in "The Zoo" are mostly Amethysts from the Prime Kindergarten and are purple. However, many of them are Jaspers or Carnelians from the Beta Kindergarten and are consequently orange or reddish-orange.
-
*The Amazing World of Gumball*:
- The two main characters, Gumball and Darwin, are blue and orange respectively. The same contrast is also made when their mother Nicole and Darwin are together, since Nicole is the same blue as Gumball.
- Same with the Official Couple, Gumball and Penny post-"The Shell".
- Recurring character Felicity Parham is orange and her son Billy is blue. The former also has blue lips.
-
*Life With Loopy*: Loopy has robin's egg blue hair and cornflower blue eyes and her older brother, Larry, has red-orange hair and light orange eyes.
- In
*Scaredy Squirrel*, Dave is a blue skunk who wears an orange shirt and vest.
- Many examples in
*Ready Jet Go!*. Bergs wears an orange shirt and blue jeans. His orange shirt also contrasts with his co-worker Dr. Rafferty's blue shirt. Sunspot's orange fur contrasts with Moonbeam's blue fur. And Mindy wears an orange shirt and blue denim shorts.
- In
*Storm Hawks*, Piper's outfit is mostly blue with various orange sections, and she wears an orange headband to complement her navy/cobalt hair.
-
*The Backyardigans* features best friends Pablo, a blue penguin, and Tyrone, an orange moose. Interestingly, they respectively form a Red Oni, Blue Oni duo.
-
*Star Wars: The Clone Wars*: Ahsoka Tano has orange skin, blue eyes, and blue stripes on her montrals (the white sensory organs on her head that resemble hair). ||In season 7, she gets blue lightsabers and the clone troopers she is working with have painted their helmets orange to go along with their white and blue armor in her honor.||
-
*Jackie Chan Adventures*: Jackie wears a blue shirt with khaki-colored pants and is the calm, sensible Technical Pacifist. His niece Jade wears an orange hoodie with blue jeans and is hotheaded, cunning, and ready to fight first, ask questions later.
- The titular character of
*Zeke's Pad* has blue hair and wears an orange shirt, drawing attention to himself (no pun intended) as the main protagonist.
-
*Danny Phantom*: Jack and Maddie Fenton wears orange and blue jumpsuits, respectively. Jack is immature and childish while Maddie is much more sensible.
-
*Work It Out Wombats!*: Zeke's orange fur contrasts with his blue shirt, as well as his brother Malik's blue fur. Super's blue fur contrasts with her orange dress. Sammy has orange skin and blue stripes on his back.
- Blue and Orange is a popular color set for team colors, from schools through the pros and in almost every sport, including auto racing.
- This trope is the reason the old-fashioned 3D glasses for anaglyph 3D images use red and cyan; as complementary colors, they filter the three main colors of light into one of the two lenses (green and blue mixed creates cyan, and red is just red). Other, less common, anaglyph color patterns include red and green, magenta and blue, and magenta and green, but it's the red and blue that works best and have stuck around.
- John Logie Baird, a Scottish television engineer, invented the Telechrome, an early attempt at color television. It used a CRT with two electron guns. They corresponded to cyan and red-orange phosphors, two complementary colors chosen to display skin tones accurately. Perhaps if a video has a particularly extreme blue and orange theme, it would look just fine displayed on a Telechrome. Ultimately, Red, green and blue were decided for color TV, using CRTs with three electron guns.
- Following the 2011 Canadian federal election, the government was split with the Conservative Party of Canada (blue) in power and the New Democratic Party (orange) forming the Official Opposition. Interestingly the NDP's policies are also largely agreed to be in sharper contrast with the Conservative Party than the previous opposition: the Liberal Party (red).
- Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, has orange clouds, but a dark blue atmosphere.
- Life vests and life jackets tend to be bright orange for this exact reason. They make swimmers stand out against blue water, and thus more likely to be rescued in an emergency. An airplane's "black box" will also be orange for the same reason.
- Related is the concept of Safety orange, which is often used by hunters and construction workers to stand out against the blue sky.
- Sunsets on the blue-colored Earth are colored orange, but sunsets on the orangey-red Mars are colored blue.
- The 1970s◊ logo for London Weekend Television has a blue-white-orange stripe that forms the letters LW. The 1980s◊ revision changed the orange to a red.
- The NTSC analog television system's YIQ color space has the orange and blue contrast along the in-phase (I) axis and the green and purple contrast along the quadrature (Q) axis. More bandwidth is allocated to I than to Q because the eye is more sensitive to orange and blue contrast.
- Some forms of colorblindness make it difficult to see red or green (or both). As a result, this can force a person to
*only* see yellow/orange and blue. This is inverted with yellow-blue color blindness (tritanopia) which forces a person *not* to see those colors.
- The colour of the sand in some areas of Namib Desert is vivid orange, and the contrast with a clear blue sky is simply stunning. Have a look at Google Images search for the words "orange blue Namib."
-
*Technically* not allowed in traditional Western European Heraldry, since Orange (called "Tenne") and Blue (called 'Azure') are both classified as 'colors', as opposed to the 'metals' "Or" (gold/yellow) and "Argent" (silver/white), and the rules forbid the use of color on color. Artistic license in the actual colors chosen means that a gold or yellow can be rendered as quite orangey, thereby sneaking past the prohibition.
- The first flag of the Netherlands, the Prinsenvlag, was an orange-white-blue tricolour, as are the flags of New York City and Albany and the former flag of South Africa, all of which were based on the Prinsenvlag due to the important role the Dutch played in those areas. New York City's use of blue and orange extends to several of its sports teams, including baseball's Mets
note : itself a double homage to the previous two National League teams that used to play in the city before they both left for California in 1957 — blue for the Dodgers and orange for the Giants, basketball's Knicks, hockey's Islanders note : They play outside of the city in Nassau County, but the county also has a blue and orange flag, and soccer's NYCFC.
- Often employed on food packaging to make it stand out, most notably the Scottish drink Irn-Bru and the UK snack food Wotsits. To some people in the UK, this colour combination evokes these things regardless of what it's used for.
- Road construction signs, as the bright orange contrasts to the sky.
- The logo of
*Nickelodeon* is frequently orange-colored, while that of its nighttime counterpart (Nick @ Nite) is blue-colored. And the logo for their preschool block (and later channel) Nick Jr. has the "Nick" portion in its trademark orange, with "Jr." in light blue.
- Some hospitals employ this in their rooms, orange for evening and blue for daylight. Blue light suppresses melatonin during the day while orange light lets healthcare workers go about their tasks with reduced disruption of a patient's sleep cycle.
- Europe's two main continental Association Football competitions, the UEFA Champions League and Europa League, identify themselves respectively with blue and orange.
- Copper is an orangey-red metal that burns with a blue flame and gives the color to several vividly blue-to-green compounds and ores, such as turquoise, malachite, chrysocolla, and copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate.
- Some double stars, most notably Almach and Albireo, offer a very nice contrast between an orange primary star and a secondary that appears blue -green for some observers-.
- Shortly before sunset and after sunrise. In photography, both periods share the nickname "Blue Hour". Everything takes on a bluish shade, which often contrasts with manmade lighting: usually an orange tint.
- In the Georgian and Victorian periods, blue and orange were Britain's main political colors, representing the Tories and Whigs respectively, although there was regional variation. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrangeBlueContrast |
Orchestral Bombing - TV Tropes
*"The music [in the game] is right out of the movie! I don't know *
**which** movie, because this level sounds like I'm being attacked by Danny Elfman and Tim Burton."
Nothing quite beats an orchestra for a battle, especially an aerial one. It may involve Ominous Latin Chanting or Autobots, Rock Out!, or both. Due to the feeling of epicness such music gives off, it is often reserved for the Final Battle/Final Boss; you are far less likely to hear it used for the Warmup Boss.
Compare Music to Invade Poland to, Fanfare, and Classical Music Is Cool. Contrast with Classical Music Is Boring. If the music is
*too* loud, better hope you have Steel Ear Drums.
See Xylophone Gag for when someone makes an
*actual* bomb out of a musical instrument. Has no relation to Explosive Instrumentation.
## Examples:
-
*Haruhi Suzumiya* had its space battle episode (the Shout-Out to *Uchuu Senkan Yamato*) employ this trope with Shostakovich's *Leningrad Symphony*. Fittingly, the "training" course that they went through was set to the almost-comical, waddling march at the end of the first movement.
-
*High School D×D*'s soundtrack is surprisingly full of this. Highlights include Vali Lucifer's leitmotif "Saikyou no Sonzai" as well as some of Issei's heroic themes such as "Ishi", "D No Ishi", and "Shouri".
- In turn, the
*Jupiter* part was used in *Hunter × Hunter* when Bonolenov uses his "Jupiter" attack—as Bonolenov is a Dance Battler, there is perhaps no better song to use.
- Invoked in
*Kill la Kill*, wherein Nonon decides that the upcoming battle between Ryuko and Tsumugu is a *perfect* opportunity for band practice. Later, in her one-on-one fight with Ryuko, she takes this trope as literally as it possibly can be, right down to nuking the battlefield with weaponized music.
-
*Legend of the Galactic Heroes* lives and breathes this trope. Of course, it helps that the entire soundtrack is made up of classical orchestral works.
- The first movie has an entire battle set to Ravel's
*Bolero.*
-
*Macross* initially averted this trope, but later installments went *really* wide with it. Examples include Horobi no Uta from *Macross Zero*'s final battle and several other tracks from *Macross Frontier*.
- This musical style is in full effect during Nanoha's final battle with Fate in the first
*Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha* movie. Better yet, the first half of the heroine's revised Leitmotif is strongly reminiscent of Gustav Holst's *Mars, the Bringer of War*. Specifically, the part which John Williams also borrowed for the very first space battle in *Star Wars: A New Hope*...
-
*Mobile Suit Gundam 00* REALLY likes orchestral music during major battles. Sometimes with Ominous Latin Chanting and/or a One-Woman Wail, sometimes without them.
-
*Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn* has the eponymous Unicorn's leitmotif.
-
*Neon Genesis Evangelion* loves this trope, so much so that it has fell victim to Memetic Mutation: "[stuff happens] while Hideaki Anno plays unfitting music". Two examples are Shinji vs. ||Kaworu|| ( *Ode to Joy*) and Asuka vs. ||MP Evas|| (Bach - *II Air*).
- In
*One Piece*, when Luffy finally gets to multi-punch the ever-living crap out of Crocodile, part of Antonin Dvorak's *New World Symphony* (specifically, the first part of the fourth movement, "Allegro con fuoco") plays. It fits the scene surprisingly well.
-
*Shakugan no Shana* pumps out a booming orchestral score often mixed with Ominous Latin Chanting to give it an unbelievable powerful presence. This got especially true in the third season. Being hammered out by the same guy who did the *Shadow of the Colossus* soundtrack, this is to be expected.
- The music is as important a character as any other in
*Space Battleship Yamato*. The various series and movies do not hold back on the score during battles.
- The
*Strike Witches* OVA has the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin play during the training battle. The song is also used as background music in some promotional videos. In the show itself, there's Battle of the Witches (Witch no Tatakai) from the first season and Attack! (Shutsugeki) from the second.
-
*The Vision of Escaflowne* loves this trope to itty-bitty little pieces, usually combining it with Ominous Latin Chanting.
- Parodied in the
*Discworld* of A.A. Pessimal, when it is revealed that a long-ago Quirmian general, when he got round to launching an invasion of Far Überwald shortly after ten past six one evening, took an orchestral composer with him to chronicle the glorious invasion in music. Public performances of this piece were generally very lively indeed, until the percussion sections realised it was perhaps best *not* to load the siege weapons and to only charge the Barking Dogs with blank rounds. One conductor lamented the slaughter and destruction done to lots of expensive and hard-to-replace musical instruments during one early performance, when the technical problems of the production were still being ironed out. The *Just After Ten past Six Overture* is still played on the Disc - but very carefully.
-
*Contact at Kobol* has an has an Invoked version, in which the Tau'ri set a propaganda video of their bombings to the 1812 overture and send it to the Colonial brass. ||Except that the last bombing is a live missile feed of the Colonial government's secret bunker||.
-
*633 Squadron*, possibly the Trope Maker. Scored by Ron Goodwin.
-
*Aliens* uses this a lot, particularly in the ambush of the Marines as they enter the hive and Ripley's escape with Newt from the exploding atmosphere processor.
-
*Apocalypse Now* has a quite literal example, where "Ride of the Valkyries" is blasted over the speakers of the choppers as Kilgore's forces attack a village controlled by Viet Cong.
- Literally in
*A Song Is Born*, as a rousing rendition of "Flying Home" manages to cause a drum to fall on one of the villains, knocking him out (after "The Anvil Chorus" failed to work).
-
*Avengers: Endgame* provides the best example in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. ||Though the orchestral Avengers theme had been used in the previous three Avengers movies during climactic moments, when past Thanos's forces invade Earth for the Iron Gauntlet, the ultimate version of the theme plays as heroes arrive through portals to aid Captain America in fighting against them.||
-
*The Battle of Britain* has William Walton's Battle in the Air
- Although Ron Goodwin's main theme and his "Luftwaffe March" from that movie fit the trope much better.
- Jerry Goldsmith's epic score for the war film,
*The Blue Max*, highlighted with the cue, *TheAttack*.
-
*The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe* used this, though that was part of the movie's proper score.
-
*The Dam Busters*, with music by Eric Coates.
- Used during the Earth-Shattering Kaboom at the climax of
*Damnatus*.
-
*Dr. Strangelove*
- We'll meet again... don't know where, don't know when...
- Several examples from
*Starship Troopers*, most notably *Klendathu Drop*, from the scene where the Fleet and the Mobile Infantry launch their first assault on Klendathu.
-
*Star Trek* examples:
-
*Star Trek: The Motion Picture* gives us the Klingon theme in its opening scene ("Klingon Battle") contributed by Jerry Goldsmith. V'Ger's theme, played on an instrument called the Blaster Beam, also features in the same scene.
-
*Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan* has both the new *Trek* theme by James Horner, along with Khan's, both of which come to a head in "Surprise Attack" and "Battle in the Mutara Nebula''.
-
*Star Trek III: The Search for Spock* reprises the theme from the last movie and features the new, percussion-heavy Klingon theme by James Horner, which would return for a Moment of Awesome in the *Star Trek: The Next Generation* episode "The Defector".
- Averted in
*Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home* which features no aerial or space battles, and no shots fired in anger. Besides, the music by Leonard Rosenmann was decidedly Lighter and Softer.
-
*Star Trek V: The Final Frontier*, for all its faults, has the return of Jerry Goldsmith and his Klingon theme, with the screech of a real Bird-of-Prey mixed in, mainly heard in the track "With Out Help".
-
*Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country* brings Cliff Eidelman, who contributes yet another Klingon theme, which provides the score for "The Battle For Peace", where the crew of the *Enterprise* frantically try to stop a conspiracy from destroying the last hope for universal peace.
-
*Star Trek: First Contact* has "Red Alert", where the Federation fleet takes on a Borg Cube headed straight for Earth. Jerry Goldsmith reprises his Klingon theme as Worf's Leitmotif.
-
*Generations* calls extra attention to the score as the scenes repeatedly shift between barely audible soft music as Picard tries to sneak into Soran's work area on the surface, and the blaring battle music as the Enterprise battles the Klingons in space, and the resulting crash landing due to damage.
-
*Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope*, based on the previous.
- Ditto for the battle themes in the rest of the series.
- Used pretty-much constantly in
*Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie*. With tons of Ominous Latin Chanting. More than justified, since it has pretty much an hour of nuclear explosion footage. I definitely heard Dies Ira, and I think I heard Die Valkyrie.
- Happens quite literally in
*V for Vendetta*, where the titular V plays Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" over London's public address system when he blows up the Old Bailey and the Houses of Parliament.
-
*The World's End* has a unique variation during the brawl at The Beehive, when the epic orchestral fight music gradually kicks in, in sync with Silver Bullet's "20 Seconds to Comply".
- This shows up a few times in
*Honor Harrington*:
- In
*Honor of the Queen*, Honor has Hammerwell's 7th symphony played shipwide during the first battle of Yeltsin.
- One of the Havenite commanders uses "Ride of the Valkyries" as their general quarters signal.
- In
*Small Favor*, Hendricks and Gard (who happens to be an honest-to-god Valkyrie) perform a Big Damn Heroes with an attack helicopter to "The Ride of The Valkyries", with Hendricks riding shotgun... with a Mini Gun.
-
*Babylon 5* used this in every space battle, to cover the (unique for SF shows at the time) absence of sound in space. The opening and closing themes also count.
-
*Farscape*: The destruction of Scorpius' command carrier featured orchestral music and Ominous Latin Chanting.
- The Pilot Movie of
*JAG* has this in its final aerial battle scene.
- Spoofed on
*Monty Python's Flying Circus* in a sketch that shows an orchestra in a field playing the "Blue Danube Waltz." For no particular reason, in each successive musical phrase another musician blows up. A long sketch on a recorded comedy album, *Monty Python's Matching Tie and Hanky*, builds on the TV sketch and escalates it into all-out insurrection causing a major air force to be sent in to bomb the orchestra into submission.
-
*Mythbusters* recently had some fun with this trope in their Top 25 Special showing off their various explosions to the *1812 Overture*.
-
*Star Trek: The Original Series*:
- Whenever there was any kind of fight sequence, whether it was between people or spaceships, it would be accompanied by the most over-the-top, bombastic music imaginable. In fact, they often did this even when there was no fighting happening, like say when an ambassador boards the ship. This was a critical element of the series' Narm Charm and really complemented the acting style. It was sadly missing from most of the later series - compare the scoring to the very same fight scene in "The Trouble With Tribbles" and
*DS9*'s "Trials and Tribble-ations" for a perfect example of this.
- No Original Series score exemplifies this trope quite like the scores for "Amok Time" (by Gerald Fried) and "The Doomsday Machine" (by Sol Kaplan). Cues from both scores would go on to be reused throughout later episodes, with the cue "Ancient Battle" from the former being commonly known as
*the* Star Trek Fight Music. The music from both episodes was even included together on one soundtrack album.
- Ron Jones was probably the best among the composers for the sequel series at using this in his scores (see "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 2" in particular the track "Intervention", for a perfect example). Too bad he left
*TNG* during the fourth season. The main reason was that Rick Berman *hated* this trope, and wanted the music to be strictly part of the background of the show, like wallpaper.
-
*Monty Python's Flying Circus* develops a sight-gag TV sketch into a longer piece on a recorded comedy album, *Monty Python's Matching Tie and Hanky*. This builds on the theme of a TV sketch and escalates it into all-out insurrection causing a major air force to be sent in to bomb the orchestra into submission. The sketch is based on a typical somewhat stuffy and highbrow Radio Three presentation of an orchestral concert. It involves a prima donna violinist who persists in doing to his instrument - and other people's instruments - what Peter Townsend did to guitars. Then the violence starts to cascade as the Radio Three announcer (Michael Palin) dutifully commentates.
-
*Ace Combat* uses this trope repeatedly:
- In
*Asura's Wrath*, the battle between Asura and Augus is accompanied by the final movement of Antonín Dvořák's "From the New World".
- The World War II Battlefield games, first with 1942, and then 1943.
-
*Bayonetta* 's later levels go all out on orchestral music and choir, to match the scale of what's going on.
-
*Beyond Good & Evil* has a powerful soundtrack that is completely downloadable on the web. The very first fight that Jade has involves a big stick, several aliens and a choir of pissed-off angels singing background for her. The final fight took it to the next level.
-
*BioShock*. When you place the third (out of four) picture in the art collab, the already unstable Sander Cohen freaks out and, in a fit of instability, orders his henchmen to kill you. Cue the Moment of Awesome as you beat the living crap out of splicers who seem to come out of Hammerspace. You'll be symphonizing a bloody massacre while Waltz of the Flowers blares throughout the studio for minutes, though odds are that you'll be done by 2:44.
-
*Bungo to Alchemist*'s OST consists entirely of orchestral, classical-like music and this extends to battle themes, which are as energetic and pounding as they're elegant and classy, and can get pretty intense in the case of the boss theme. *To* and *chi* shelf themes subvert this by starting to incorporate the *koto*, a decidedly non-orchestral instrument.
- No matter how bad the
*Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight* was, and how the soundtrack is completely different from previous installments, anyone had to admit this: When you playing as GDI, and some action starts, THIS is freaking epic. Too bad it's just about only epic thing from game officially entitled "epic conclusion of the saga".
-
*Company of Heroes* does this on a regular basis, one minute the music can barely be heard as your troops move around the village or pass a few bushes and blaring you with Trumpets and a wide assortment of instruments the next as your tanks get blown to pieces by rockets or shells raining down from heaven as if the sky was crashing down.. In short, as the action heats up the orchestra start doing their thing, and it is Awesome.
- Every
*Dark Souls* game ever. Fighting fallen champions and ancient gods will warrant some Ominous Latin Chanting and intense orchestralised murder.
- This is the music during the Exterminatus scene in
*Dawn of War II*.
-
*The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim* has the themes "One They Fear" and "Watch The Skies", which play every time a dragon shows up. The former in particular is an insanely epic reworking of the main *Elder Scrolls* theme featuring Ominous Dovahzuul Chanting and bombastic brass.
- The soundtrack of
*Elemental Gearbolt* is all orchestral, all the time and the gameplay is all aerial battles, all the time.
- Several of the battle themes from
*Fallout 3*, especially Battle 5, aka "Behemoth", which plays, as its name suggests, when youre battling one of the five Super Mutant Behemoths.
-
*Fallout 4* goes ahead and just gives you a classical music radio station so you can make just about any situation in the game run on this trope.
- The Hoover Dam theme in
*Fallout: New Vegas*. Double points when the Boomers commence their bombing run on whichever faction you're fighting against.
- Every
*Final Fantasy* game ever.
-
*Guilty Gear* is more well-known for its heavy metal than orchestral music, yet *Guilty Gear Xrd*'s rendition of Ky's classic theme "Holy Orders" (which only plays when Ky's ponytail is undone) proves that not only does the series do orchestral music well, but that pairing it up with heavy metal makes it even better.
-
*Halo*. The original trilogy has some particularly notable examples, such as "Brothers In Arms/Follow Our Brothers", "On/Behold A Pale Horse", "Drumrun" (during the escape from *Halo: Combat Evolved*'s "The Maw"), "Earth City" (its rollicking and irregular rhythm fits with the movements of the Scarab Walker in *Halo 2*), "Delta Halo Suite: Leonidas" (heard in *Halo 2* during the gondola rides on "Regret", and again in *Halo 3* during the air battle on "The Covenant"), "Blow Me Away"(during the climactic battle on *2*'s "Gravemind" mission), "This Is Our Land", "This is the Hour" and "Finish The Fight" (the music in the original *Halo 3* advertisement).
- The Halo Theme, naturally. It becomes even more bombastic in
*Halo 3* as "Greatest Journey" (the final escape theme) when Martin O'Donnell swapped out the first game's synthesizers with a live orchestra.
-
*Homeworld*: The ||Burning of Kharak|| is set to a choral version of Adagio for Strings, with the lyrics to Agnus Dei. A double-whammy. Click here for the version used in the game.
- If you can play through that part of the game without crying you
*aren't human.*
- Then it comes back during the truly epic battle of the final mission. ||Rebel reinforcements arrive to take the pressure off your fleet and start driving a hole through the Emperor's defenses, sacrificing themselves while|| giving you the chance to strike back For Great Justice.
*Hell yes.*
-
*Kessen* and its sequel *Kessen II*. *Kessen* in particular was one of the first games ever to have a full orchestral soundtrack, performed by the Moscow International Symphonic Orchestra, so it was almost nothing *but* Orchestral Bombing. *Kessen III*, the last of the series, also has some bombing but uses Genre-Busting for most battle themes.
-
*Kid Icarus: Uprising*, in just about every flight sequence and several land sequences as well. Boss fights lean more towards Autobots, Rock Out!, though.
-
*Kirby*:
-
*Kirby Super Star* is the first non-spinoff *Kirby* game released on hardware capable of handling this trope, and the composers leapt at the chance with Marx's battle theme.
-
*Kirby's Return to Dream Land* has the theme of the ||final boss fake-out, Landia, doubling as Sad Battle Music.|| The ||actual final boss, Magolor (Soul), uses this for his second phase's theme, CROWNED.|| The former also serves as the first phase of ||Galacta Knight, before switching to a remastered version of his own theme.||
-
*Kirby: Planet Robobot* plays with this with ||*VS. Star Dream,* used for the first phase of the final boss in question.|| It only seems to be partially orchestral, ||as Star Dream is struggling to emulate previous final bosses||.
-
*Kirby Star Allies* has ||Void Termina's theme, "The Star-Conquering Traveler," which is an orchestral remix of the Recurring Riff ''Song of Supplication.''||
- The soundtrack to
*Legacy of the Void* makes liberal use of this trope. Standout examples include:
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*: Much of the soundtrack is quiet and understated to fit the theme of you wandering a huge, mostly empty world all on your own. Whenever you're in combat (particularly with a boss monster), trying to shut down a Divine Beast, or *especially* storming Hyrule Castle, things get much more rousing.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword* has this trope in spades, fittingly enough coming from the same music team behind the *Galaxy* games. While the overworld themes are surprisingly low-key (with the exception of the Sky theme), the boss themes in particular are particularly bombastic. The overall theme, *Ballad of the Goddess*, starts with a solo Harp of Femininity (appropriately enough), and after about 45 seconds launches into epicness.
- In the final mission of
*Mass Effect 2*, the score goes all out. First, there's the epic uplifting music during the space battle, then the score goes all out for the finale to bring the already awesome mission to a breathtaking close.
- In
*Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater*, the final boss fight takes place in a field of white flowers and has a 10-minute time limit. If you have not defeated your opponent by that point, you both get killed in an airstrike. The fight starts with no music at all, but after 5 minutes an instrumental version of the games main theme, which you have heard several times at that point, starts playing and you know that if you haven't won by the final note, you'll be dead.
- In
*Monster Hunter: World*, Bazelgeuse's theme is a bombastic piece evocative of old warplane and bombing propaganda videos. Considering its main method of attack being carpet bombing its preys with exploding scales, this fits all too well.
-
*Mount & Blade*: In the *Napoleonic Wars* mod, you get artillery to fire at the enemy. You also get troops that carry nothing but musical instruments to play for morale. The rest of the equation is up to you.
-
*Ori and the Will of the Wisps* prominently uses this during its escape sequences and boss battles, notably Mora the Spider, Corrupted Kwolok, the Sand Worm chase, and the Final Boss Shriek.
-
*Pikmin 3* uses orchestral music for particularly large-scale boss battles, a pretty sharp contrast from the lower-key, atmospheric themes heard in the rest of the game (and series).
- Subverted by
*Psychonauts*, which has the lighter portions of the *1812 Overture* playing during the Napoleonic board game level.
-
*Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time* allows the player to invoke this at will once they come across the game's Infinity +1 BFG, the RYNO V, as the gun in question plays the finale of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture for as long as it's fired.
-
*Resident Evil 5* has a full orchestra for ||Excella as Uroboros Aheri's boss fight, Jill's boss fight, and Wesker's boss fights||.
- In
*Senran Kagura*, the Gessen girls' themes are arrangements of classical music:
- Yumi: Requiem Mass in D minor, by Mozart and Piano Sonata No. 8 (Sonata Pathétique) by Beethoven for
*Shinovi Versus*, and Requiem Mass in D minor (the Lacrimosa portion) and Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals (Aquarium) for *Estival Versus*.
- Murakumo: Scythian Suite Op. 20 (Dance of the Pagan Monster), by Sergei Prokofiev.
- Tozakura: Piano Sonata No. 14 (Moonlight Sonata), by Beethoven.
- Shiki: The Four Seasons, by Vivaldi. Interestingly, "Shiki" literally means "Four Seasons".
- Minori: The Nutcracker Suite Op. 71a, by Tchaikovsky (Specifically, "Russian Dance") for
*Shinovi Versus*, and Saint-Saëns' Carnival of the Animals for *Estival Versus*.
-
*Serious Sam: The Second Encounter* has you traversing the game to various music score ranging from atmospheric ethnics to rock remixes of Jingle Bells. However, the final level is a massive showdown set to this.
- In
*Shadow of the Colossus*, all of the music is orchestrated. It also only starts playing when you encounter the Colossi.
- In the helicopter rail shooter level of
*Soldier of Fortune II*, the pilot decides to play "Ride of the Valkyries" as a Shout-Out to *Apocalypse Now*, but the stereo is destroyed by gunfire.
- Later games in the
*Sonic The Hedgehog* series have embraced this trope for their final boss battles, using orchestral versions of the games' main themes. These include *Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)*Sonic Unleasheds arrangement of Endless Possibility, and **s arrangement of His World, ** *Sonic Colors* ' arrangement of Reach for the Stars, all of which also add electric guitars for good measure.
-
*Splatoon 2* busts out the live orchestra for the final battle against ||DJ Octavio and a Brainwashed and Crazy Callie.||
- Spongebob Squarepants Battle For Bikini Bottom's Final Boss music is this.
- Every single
*Star Fox* game. The original game and *Star Fox 2* distinguish between stages on planets (except for Venom) and stages in outer space with techno for the former and orchestra for the latter, but later games drop these contrasting styles.
-
*Super Mario Galaxy's* soundtrack is 90% orchestrated (same for the sequel), and has this all over the place in varying degrees, but the best examples would have to be every single Bowser battle theme. Melty Monster Galaxy from *Super Mario Galaxy 2* is downright *magnificent* in all its orchestrated glory.
- Given the huge number of remixes and styles incorporated in the
*Super Smash Bros.* series, pure statistics alone dictate that a ludicrously epic orchestral piece will be playing in the background at some point. *Super Smash Bros. Brawl* has Final Destination, which is both this and Ominous Latin Chanting.
- The action themes in the later
*Syphon Filter* games.
- The
*Tales Series* is full of them.
-
*TinkerQuarry*'s battle music is an epic orchestral theme simply titled "Attacked".
- An orchestral version of Beyond The Bounds plays during an epic air siege in
*Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner*.
- The intro theme music for
*Batman: The Animated Series* does this perfectly, with the booms and flourishes matching up perfectly with the action on-screen.
-
*Castlevania (2017)* does this with the second season's siege on Dracula's castle. For bonus points, the theme used is an orchestral arrangement of "Bloody Tears" from the games.
- The old Disney cartoon
*Music Land* has this in a literal sense, when two music-themed islands of animate musical instruments assault each other... using giant organ pipes and horns as cannons.
- In the canyon chase sequence of
*Rango*, Ride of the Valkyries is played. On banjos. Note that the banjos are in-universe: they're being played by an army of hillbilly shrews as they chase the heroes on the backs of bats.
-
*Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave* does this with the porridge shooting run, as an homage to films like *The Dam Busters*.
- During the first BLACK BUCK mission during the Falklands War, one of the crew of the Vulcan wondered where the orchestra was. They did play the theme from
*Chariots of Fire* on the way home. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrchestralBombing |
Orbiting Particle Shield - TV Tropes
An interesting type of shield, where one to several particles (can be energy balls, rocks or any other things) orbit around someone to block shots and/or damage things. This shield usually has gaps though or individual particles can be destroyed so the shielded one is not completely invulnerable. Sometimes that shield can be thrown as a weapon.
Commonly found in video games being wielded by bosses or available to the player as power ups. In Shoot Em Ups, it's a common alternative to the Attack Drone.
If this occurs in a Video Game, it can also be a Shielded Core Boss if destroying the shields is
*absolutely required* to expose the boss for damage at all. See also Beehive Barrier, Deadly Force Field, Master of the Levitating Blades, Reverse Shrapnel, Spin to Deflect Stuff, Sphere of Power.
## Examples:
-
*Gundam*:
- The Nu Gundam in
*Char's Counterattack* can use its Fin Funnels for offense (beam cannons) and defense (beam barrier).
- The Gundam AGE-FX, being an expy of the Nu Gundam, can use its C-Funnels not only for cutting enemies but also to create a defense system.
- In
*Mobile Suit Gundam 00*, Cherudim has shield bits that will float around and block shots. The GN Sword Bits of the 00 Qan[T] in The Movie can create a GN Field.
- In
*Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny*, Akatsuki's space pack has drones that can create shields around objects◊.
- From
*Mobile Suit Gundam Wing*, the Mercurius model of Mobile Suit had a number of disks that would orbit it (usually in a ring) and absorb attacks.
- The king of this trope in the Gundam multiverse has been revealed to be the titular
*Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn*, which can use its I-field-equipped shields for this purpose. Why would that be better than the other examples above? *Because the shields have no propulsion system and thus shouldn't be able to move under their own power*; the psycoframe material the shields contain allows the Unicorn to *telekinetically move the shields in complete defiance of physics*.
- In
*Pokémon*, this is one facet of the Counter Shield that Ash devises and teaches to his team, allowing them to use their special attacks to create energy fields around themselves.
- In one episode of
*Space Battleship Yamato* the crew covered their ship with nearby asteroids to hide it from enemy radar. When the enemies finally discovered them, they reversed the polarity of the reactor powering the shield, turning it into a circular ring of spinning space rocks which intercepted and blocked enemy fire.
-
*World Trigger*:
- Hyuse's Trigger, Lampyris, produces magnetized shards that can orbit the user and reflect projectiles. The barrier can slow down physical attacks by magnetizing enemy weapons, but a well placed, sufficiently powerful strike can punch straight through the barrier.
- The Black Trigger, Alektor, surrounds the user with animal-shaped energy particles that will convert any Trion attack into a harmless cube. Only the Lead Bullet and non-Trion objects such as the rubble from surrounding buildings can successfully bypass the barrier.
- In the original
*TRON*, the MCP had a ring of orbiting shields whirling around his weak point, and Tron had to wait until the MCP was distracted and the shields slowed down so he could throw his identity disc through one of the gaps.
- In the
*Ender's Game* film, the Attack Drones used by the International Fleet to counter the Formic Space Fighters can, in a pinch, be used in this manner. In fact, it appears to be a pre-programmed secondary function, as there is a gauge on the commanders' screen showing "shield integrity", representing how well the drones are covering the ship. This is used in ||the Final Battle to keep the ship controlled by Petra alive long enough for it to get close to the Formic homeworld and fire the Little Doctor||.
- In
*Xmen Apocalypse*, in the climactic scene, Magneto floats in the air with metal detris orbiting around him.
-
*Percy Jackson and the Olympians* and its sequel series *The Heroes of Olympus* feature Percy having a variant on this he learns around the time of The Last Olympian where he can summon a miniature hurricane at his feet, which creates an updraft of wind and rain that creates a defensive barrier. When he uses this ability during a battle atop a glacier in Alaska, this attack also incorporates bits of ice, due to the nature of the environment.
-
*Worm*: the Simurgh will frequently create one using her telekinesis, picking up chunks of rubble or cars or whatever else is at hand and using it to block incoming attacks. However, it is mentioned that none of the stuff orbits her in a predictable way, and all of it is flying in (apparently) random directions in a sort of controlled chaos that makes it even harder to penetrate.
-
*Mistborn*: *The Final Empire*: Kelsier creates one with Steelpushes and Ironpulls to spin metal rods in place in the air in an incredible display of fine allomantic control, deflecting the arrows the surrounding guards are shooting at him.
-
*Dungeons & Dragons*: The *Forgotten Realms* setting's top-level spell "Elminster's Effulgent Epuration" conjures up a cluster of head-sized silvery spheres that float around the caster. Each sphere can completely negate an incoming spell, at the caster's discretion.
-
*Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay*:
- The Lore of Light spell "Radiant Sentinel" creates a ball of light that floats around the spellcaster and can parry one extra melee weapon attack per round.
- The Lore of Metal spell "Guard of Steel" creates a protective field of floating steel balls around the spellcaster, reducing the accuracy of all incoming attacks. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrbitingParticleShield |
Orbital Bombardment - TV Tropes
*"[Galaxy Commander] Perez ordered his Galaxy's WarShip, the *
Sabre Cat
*, into low orbit around Turtle Bay. When it hung over the city of Edo, Perez fired the huge vessel's laser and autocannon batteries again and again until nothing remained of the once-proud city save piles of smoking debris."*
In some science fiction, it's impractical to transport enough ground troops to invade a planet or natural satellite, or The Empire simply wants to make a statement. So they bombard it with a bunch of nukes or large kinetics, or Energy Weapons of some sort. This bombardment may be limited to a small geographical area but more often it is a general assault that wipes out most civilization if not all life on the planet.
A term frequently used in relation to this trope is "glassing," which originally referred to the bombardment being intense enough to cause the soil to vitrify, or melt into volcanic glass. Such as what happened at the Trinity nuclear test site.
Subtrope of Death from Above, supertrope to Colony Drop, usually less powerful than an Earth-Shattering Kaboom. Kill Sat is a specific example where the bombardment is carried out by a satellite instead of a ship (the primary distinction is that the Kill Sat can't leave orbit under its own power). This can overlap with a Meteor-Summoning Attack. May involve Nuking 'em, and could be required because It's The Only Way To Be Sure. Has no relation to an Orbital Shot. See also Gunship Rescue.
## Examples:
-
*Gundam*:
- The original
*Mobile Suit Gundam's* backstory includes an attempted colony drop on Brazil that was derailed to Australia. *Gundam 0083* gives us a decent peek of the ensuing crater bay carved from the 50-mile radius around what used to be Sydney.
-
*Char's Counterattack* more or less revolves around Char doing this and even begins with a preliminary meteor drop on Tibet.
- Operation Meteor of
*Gundam Wing* infamy was drafted as a plan to drop an asteroid on Earth, then seize control with the Gundams as the populace runs around in terror. Of course, we wind up seeing what happens when the Gundams jump the gun and their pilots' humanity interferes, but Dekim Barton decides to double back and do it right in *Endless Waltz*.
-
*After War Gundam X* starts with the Space Revolutionary Army devastating the Earth with mass colony drops. The series proper takes place After the End with everyone who's left scrambling to control the titular Gundam, whose Satellite Cannon was designed to shoot the things down.
- The second season of
*Gundam 00* has an orbital elevator collapse and a massive scramble from Celestial Being and A-LAWS to clear the ensuing debris before it lands on someone's head. The collapse was caused by the Memento Mori orbital cannons which were also used previously to level entire CITIES from above.
-
*Gundam SEED Destiny* features an attempt to drop a destroyed colony on Earth. Despite the efforts of both the Federation and ZAFT, who together actually manage to take out the majority of the thing, enough damage is caused to re-ignite a second Bloody Valentine War.
- Even
*SD Gundam Force* gets in on the action towards the end of its first half, when Chief Haro conducts the largest-scale Bright Slap homage ever by dropping the hand-shaped Blanc Base on the Dark Axis's Big Zam.
- In
*The 08th MS Team*, the entire point of the Apsalus Project is to produce a weapon that can destroy the Federation's headquarters at Jaburo even through the layers of rock and earth protecting it. This is done by strapping a superhigh-powered beam cannon to a mobile armor designed to "bounce" high into the atmosphere and bombard Jaburo like a Kill Sat.
-
*Gundam Evolve* featured a Titans Mobile Armor, the Geminus, that was capable of striking ground targets from orbit with a Beam Cannon. It manages to take out a Karaba base before getting destroyed by a team of Zeta Gundams.
-
*Iron-Blooded Orphans* has a non-Colony Drop version of this: ||in the final episode, Gjallarhorn launches a Dainsleif bombardment on Tekkadan's remaining mobile suits during their last stand. This ends up doing incredible damage to the Barbatos, but Mikazuki keeps fighting for a few more minutes out of sheer determination.|| A briefly seen map at the end of Season 1 shows that in the past (presumably during the Calamity Wars) something, presumably large and dropped from orbit, wiped out Sydney, Australia. *Again*
-
*Space Carrier Blue Noah*: Hostile aliens destroy Earth's bases through showers of meteors.
-
*Robotech*'s *Macross*:
- Midway into the saga, Admiral Dolza amasses the Zentradi armada above Earth's orbit. The crew of SDF-1 join forces with Breetai and Azonia to smash through Dolza's defenses and succeed in killing him, but not before the order is given to annihilate the Earth. The Zentradi open fire, devastating close to 90 percent of the planet's surface, killing two thirds of its populace.
- In the original
*Super Dimension Fortress Macross*, the Zentraedi fold into orbit and *immediately* open fire without giving humanity any time to do more than gawk at the enormous fleet they've amassed. When the *Macross* and the allied Breetai and Lap Lamiz fleets go after Bodolza, they do so under the assumption that all human life on the planet is dead. Fortunately, it turns out this isn't quite the case: a few million survivors here and there across the surface are located in the following years.
-
*Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann*: The movie confirms that this is how ||the Anti-Spirals destroyed the previous iteration of human civilization, and the Earth's surface along with it||.
- In
*Space Battleship Yamato 2199*, the Gamilas Empire used planet bombs to irradiate the earth's surface. The Gamilas Empire bombarded Alteria with ultra-menace missiles, fighters, and fighter carriers that act as a Kill Sat in an attempt to scare any civilizations that want to revolt from the empire.
-
*Yakitori Soldiers Of Misfortune*: When Unit K-321 request this trope, their commander insists that another member of the unit confirm the request before allowing it. They discover why on seeing the sheer destruction that ensues. After it's all over, Unit K-321 then find themselves being court-martialed for genocide after there's a public outcry.
-
*Global Frequency* features the threat of kinetic spears, weapons designed to be dropped from satellites, heat up on re-entry, and strike the ground with the force of a tactical nuke, and as hot as the edge of the sun. Part of a 'die-back' protocol.
-
*Star Trek: Early Voyages*:
- In the two-part story "The Fallen", the Chakuun ghostships launch devastating attacks from space on Federation colonies such as Jubal and Theta Kalyb. Approximately 100,000 Federation citizens are killed in the attack on Jubal. New Milan suffered the same fate eight years earlier.
- In "Nemesis", the Klingon commander Kharg threatens to destroy the major population centers of the Temazi homeworld from space.
-
*Superman*:
- In
*The Death of Luthor*, Supergirl visits an alien world which was destroyed by hostile spaceships shooting freezing beams which literally glassed the atmosphere.
- "Superman Vs Muhammad Ali": In order to force Superman and Muhammad Ali to comply with his demands, the Scrubb Emperor Rat'Lar warns that his armada has surrounded Earth before ordering the obliteration of one whole city. One of his hundreds of ships fires two giant intangible plasma missiles, and although Superman is able to divert them into the sea, he still must deal with the ensuing tsunami. While he is busy, another ship shoots another couple of missiles and blows one island up before Superman can stop them.
-
*Dawn of the Jedi* reveals that the desert world Tattooine was once a jungle world with large oceans. The Rakata conquered it and the people they enslaved rebelled. They bombarded the world from orbit and turned it into the desert we see in the films.
-
*Wonder Woman* Vol 1: The Green Geni get a kick out of finding planets that support life, and then bombarding them with nuclear weapons from orbit. They then have the temerity to act like the victims when the Golden Women Space Police force turns their own vessel into a prison ship for them.
- Referenced in
*Aliens* with Ripley's famous "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
-
*Iron Sky*: The Moon Nazis start the attack on Earth by dropping asteroids they towed into orbit with their Zeppelin battleships. Inverted later, when the *George W. Bush* drops nukes on the Nazi base on the Moon.
-
*Men in Black*:
- In the first film, after the Bug kills the Arquilian prince and steals the Galaxy, an Arquillian battle cruiser enters orbit around the Earth. It sends an ultimatum: deliver the Galaxy or it will destroy the Earth. It then fires a warning shot at the North Pole to make it clear that it means it.
- In the title sequence of the second film, Serleena's starship blows up several planets for no apparent reason on her way to Earth.
- In
*Soldier* the captain wants to do this to the settlers on the garbage planet, but the colonel vetoes that in favor of giving his genetically engineered soldiers some exercise. It doesn't end well for them.
-
*Stargate: Continuum*: Double Subverted. The combined fleets of the System Lords under a Time Traveling Ba'al arrive in Earth orbit and initially just sit there and look threatening, because Ba'al had grown to like the old timeline's Earth and wanted to offer them status as an autonomous protectorate of the Goa'uld Empire. ||After Qetesh kills him, thinking he's off his rocker, she orders the fleet to go back to Goa'uld Plan A and opens fire on the planet.||
-
*Star Trek V: The Final Frontier*: The *Enterprise* lays in a photon torpedo strike ||on "God"|| in order to cover the escape of Kirk, McCoy, and Spock. It only serves to slow their pursuer down momentarily.
- In
*Star Trek: First Contact*, when the Borg sphere arrives at Earth in the past, it begins blasting Zefram Cochrane's installation where his ship was to be launched the following morning. This stops rather abruptly when Picard puts a quantum torpedo volley up its tailpipe.
-
*Star Wars*: nowhere near as prominent or overpowered as in *Legends*, but still present. See the appropriate entries under Literature, Video Games, and Western Animation for more on that.
- In the films themselves, the original plan to deal with the Rebels in
*The Empire Strikes Back* was to bombard the base with Star Destroyers. When Ozzel screwed up and the Rebels got a bombardment-proof shield up, they resorted to going under the barrier with a ground side assault.
- In
*The Last Jedi*, the Resistance base on D'Qar is promptly evacuated at the beginning, right before being obliterated by an orbital strike from the First Order's *Mandator IV*-class Siege Dreadnought, which specializes in that kind of things.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- In
*Captain Marvel (2019)*, Yon-Rogg complains that Ronan and the Accusers think orbital missile strikes are the solution to *every* problem. They do it to the planet Torfa, and ||are only prevented from doing it to Earth by Captain Marvel's intervention.||
- In
*Avengers: Endgame*, 2014 Thanos announces his arrival in 2023 by unloading an artillery barrage of missiles from *Sanctuary II* that obliterate the Avengers Compound and reduce it to a pile of rubble. Later, during the battle, Wanda Maximoff seeks out Thanos, seeking revenge for his 2018 self's murder of Vision, and outclasses him to the point that he has to order *Sanctuary II* to unload another missile barrage on the battlefield (killing several of his own troops in the process) just to break her focus.
- Available in
*Aeon 14*, although orbital strikes, called "starfire" in slang, are mainly used for tactical purposes rather than to glass planets (the engine wash of a large number of ships is often enough for that).
- Banned outright in the
*Alexis Carew* series under the Abbentheren Accords, passed after the Republic of Hanover achieved independence from *Deutschstirne* by indiscriminately bombarding multiple planets with asteroids, killing billions.
- Alexis discovers a loophole in ''The Little Ships: ||the Accords define "space" as "above a planet's mesosphere", meaning flying to a lower altitude and then firing broadsides is perfectly legal, not to mention completely unexpected since ships in the 'verse aren't meant to be capable of flying in atmosphere.||
- In
*The Queen's Pardon*, while trying to escape a Space Pirate-ruled planet with thousands of enslaved spacers, Alexis points out the Accords when told that, if it comes to it, the pirates are willing to bombard the planet to subdue any uprisings. The more senior officer she's working with wryly responds that pirates aren't exactly known for following the law.
- In
*Angel in the Whirlwind*, it's common and extremely destructive for ships to fire kinetic impactors at enemy formations and bases on planet surfaces, but using them on civilian targets is frowned upon and the antimatter weapons commonly used against other ships would make the planet worthless.
- Discussed in the
*Animorphs* series when the kids find out about a particularly strange project the invading Yeerks are undertaking. When one of them guesses that it might just be aimed at killing a lot of people, their alien ally Ax dismisses the idea, saying if the Yeerks wanted to do that they could just fire their Dracon beams into the atmosphere, overheating it and incinerating all life on Earth. Thanks, Ax.
- Starting with the second book of the
*Arrivals from the Dark* series, humanity has heavy cruisers equipped with an antimatter Wave-Motion Gun. It's not uncommon to use them for orbital bombardment (even though the atmosphere would reduce the effectiveness by causing matter-antimatter reactions with air particles. In a later book, a fleet is sent into an enemy home system in order to lay waste to their homeworld using these weapons. The goal is to cause massive confusion in the enemy ranks by taking out their leaders. ||One of the protagonists calls it off, and the war continues for another century.||
-
*Ashes of Empire*:
- Dendera's "Retribution Fleet" uses this versus every planet that
*might* be connected to the rebellion. Surrender fast enough, and they'll only bombard your planet to a pre-space travel level. The slightest hint of resistance, including simply not surrendering fast enough, and the planet is bombarded back to the Stone Age.
- During their flight, Morane's ships use this as Due to the Dead for two colonies wiped out by reivers, using nukes to cremate the entire colony rather than leave the corpses to rot.
-
*Confederation of Valor*: During a ground battle in *Valor's Trial* the Others' Space Navy apparently say "screw this" and strike the place from space with some sort of tactical warhead that fuses the entire battlefield into volcanic glass, killing almost everyone on both sides.
-
*A Desolation Called Peace*: The Teixcalaanli Galactic Superpower's capital ships each pack enough nuclear weaponry to destroy a planet's biosphere, though even the war-obsessed Empire sees it as the absolute Godzilla Threshold. That the Emperor seriously considers it in the war against the unknown aliens is a sign that they're getting desperate. Ultimately, ||they negotiate a truce right before the order goes through.||
-
*The Dresden Files*: The only reason Ebenezar McCoy *isn't* known for this is because he tends to use one object at a time. Such as dropping a satellite on a South American village. Or The Tunguska Event (which is still talked about *over 100 years later*). If he wasn't considered moral enough to be the holder of the Blackstaff (which allows him to set aside most of the effects of ignoring the Laws of Magic), one might be wondering what would happen if the asteroid belt were closer to Earth...
-
*Dune*:
- In
*Heretics of Dune*, Honored Matres ships blast the surface of ||Arrakis|| into molten slag, sterilizing it.
- In
*Chapterhouse: Dune* Honored Matres ships destroyed the planet Tleilax and many Bene Gesserit Sisterhood planets.
- Averted in the
*Legends of Dune* prequels, where the League of Nobles uses atmospheric bomber craft to drop nukes on planets rather than do it from orbit. It's implied that the Thinking Machines would be able to intercept them at such ranges.
- In
* The 5th Wave*, an alien species called "the Others" attacks Earth in several successive waves — hence the title. While the books set in during the eponymous fifth wave, it is mentioned that the second wave consisted of a single huge metal rod the size of the Empire State Building dropped from orbit into the ocean. Since the vast majority of humans (used to) live directly at or in fairly close proximity to the coast, the resulting Giant Wall of Watery Doom plus some earthquakes wiped out three quarters of Earth's population in a matter of hours. It goes downhill from there. Rapidly..
- In
*Footfall*, the alien invaders have two versions of this. First, they use space-based lasers and "Rods From God" to destroy Earth's military forces and insurgents; later, after ||Kansas is nuked to defeat their first invasion they drop the eponymous "Foot" (an asteroid) in the Indian Ocean to try to force Earth's surrender (it doesn't work)||.
- In Michael Z. Williamson's
*Freehold* series the tactic takes the form of blocks of metal that are dropped from orbit. It's first seen when the Grainne military is hired to carve a gap through a mountain range for a new highway. ||At the end of The War of Earthly Aggression Grainne hits several major Earth cities with the weapons to force the UN to the negotiating table.||
- The laws of war in
*The Four Horsemen Universe* forbid this: aircraft and spacecraft are not allowed to attack surface targets from above 10 km altitude. The rule is only useful if you get caught, though: in *Asbaran Solutions*, the Blood Drinkers, a Besquith PMC, claim-jump the title PMC by attacking them from orbit with neutron bombs, leaving nobody alive to report them. ||And the Mercenary Guild leadership are in on the plot anyway.||
- Robert A. Heinlein:
- In
*The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress* the lunar rebels use the mass driver meant for sending shipments of grain back to Earth to drop big rocks on Earth military bases.
-
*Space Cadet*
- The primary mission of the Space Patrol is to ensure peace on Earth by maintaining orbiting nuclear weapons which they would use on any aggressor. Cadet Dodson serves a tour onboard a Patrol Ship whose prime mission is to coordinate such a bombardment. To keep the crew busy, they (including Dodson) perform routine maintenance on such bomb satellites.
- There's an amusing scene regarding these about two-thirds of the way through the book, where Dodson explains this to his parents and that one of the bombs will be directly overhead by the time they finish dinner. His mom panics — "What if it falls?" — which leads to Dodson having to explain how orbital mechanics work and that if Space Patrol wanted to nuke them they'd use a different bomb further back on the same orbit that could actually dump enough velocity to hit them. Dad doesn't find this very reassuring.
-
*Between Planets*. The Federation has a large space station in orbit around Earth called Circum-Terra. It's their main guided-missile control station, and can fire missiles at any city on Earth. It has between 200 and 1,000 fission bomb rockets and components for the manufacture of fusion bombs.
-
*Starship Troopers* acknowledges that if you just want to kill stuff that lives on the surface, nuking it from orbit is usually much more effective. Two problems with this: the Bugs *don't* live on the surface, and while the Skinnies do, the humans are hoping to turn them into allies/trading partners in the future and don't want to completely wipe them out. Also, it would destroy valuable real estate that humans could use in victory. As the book says, you can kill everything from orbit but you need a kid with a rifle on the ground to hold it. However, the bugs do it to humans, by bombing Argentina.
- In Andrey Livadny's
*The History of the Galaxy* setting, the First Galactic War started when the President of the Earth Alliance unilaterally decided to forcibly bring the Lost Colonies under Earth control in order to solve Earth's overpopulation problem. He sends a strike fleet to one of the more developed colonies called Dabog. The admiral of the fleet opens the invasion by nuking two major cities on the planet from orbit without warning. When the colonists are able to successfully fight off the invasion forces, the admiral pulls his forces back and has the planet sterilized by repeated nuclear bombardment as a message to the other colonies. This only serves to unify the Free Colonies against the threat, and the bloody war drags on for several decades instead of being a quick show of force, ending with the colonies coming out on top. Even a thousand years later, Dabog is still too radioactive to re-settle. Instead, it serves as a silent memorial to all those who refused to bow down to tyranny.
- After the war, the Confederacy of Suns sends warships to locate secret Earth Alliance bases (usually automated and underground) and destroys them using tornado missiles launched from orbit. If the planet has a tropopause layer, the missiles detonate and generate temporary tornadoes that seek out air shafts (all underground bases need them) and destroy anything in the base.
- The Western Galactic Empire of Robert Zubrin's
*The Holy Land* uses Psioray bombardment. Capable of wide-area bombardment, accurate to within one-tenth of a percent of the range fired, can be tuned to only affect specific groups of beings (even more specifically than species), and reduces the targets to less than an inch in height, while leaving, for instance, local birds, lizards, and predatory insects the same size. ||Poor Peru. Poor Iowa.||
- In the
*Honorverse* orbital bombardment is restricted under the Eridani Edict in that the planet has to have had its space-borne defense destroyed and be given a chance to surrender first. If the planet refuses to surrender then Orbital Bombardment is allowed but only against military targets (which does include bombarding the politicians who control the military). Of course since ships and missiles tend to fly around at relativistic speeds a "miss" can easily destroy an ecosystem and debris from orbital combat can cause massive damage (as was seen in Oyster Bay). If the Eridani Edict is disobeyed the ||theoretical|| penalty is the complete destruction of the offending government by the Solarian League, ||but given how poorly the League fleet performs against Manticore and Haven when they actually join the fight it's questionable whether the threat can be backed up anymore...although those same star nations are probably quite willing to enforce the Edict themselves.||
- When orbital bombardment is used, the weapons of choice are kinetic bombs. These weigh about half a ton and have impeller drives, and depending on their acceleration can produce blasts sized to take out anything from an outhouse to a city.
- On at least one occasion, striking a planet from orbit (or beyond) is referred to as the Heinlein Maneuver. That the Havenites refuse to even risk it is one of their early redeeming qualities. That the Masadans directly set out to do this is probably the second or third time they cross a Moral Event Horizon (Blackbird Base being the first).
- Not long before
*In Enemy Hands*, Admiral Esther McQueen used orbital kinetic strikes from her flagship PNS *Rousseau* in combination with low-altitude bombing to foil an attempted coup against the Committee of Public Safety. The bombing in particular got her the In-Series Nickname "Admiral Cluster Bomb".
- Much later in the series, one of the villains establishes their evilness by destroying several cities with kinetic strikes to put down a popular rebellion against the local Puppet State government. ||The Manticorans return the favor, destroying the villain's headquarters with a precision strike from orbit.||
- In the
*Hostile Takeover* series by S. Andrew Swann, the tactic is called "orbital reduction of target", and consists of dropping a cloud of thin, heavy filaments from orbit. This smashes up the target area, has good ground-penetrating properties, and leaves the surroundings essentially undamaged. In the backstory Jonah Dacham destroyed the city of Styx this way, killing 35,000 people, including his mother. ||(Not really; someone else had her killed.)|| Later, Klaus Dacham does the same thing to ||the refugees from Godwin Arms||.
- Turns up on a number of occasions in the
*Kris Longknife* series. Shipboard laser weapons have approximately the potency of tactical nuclear weapons: in one memorable incident, when an alien dictator starts firing nuclear missiles at her orbiting ships, Kris destroys the missiles in midair and then melts the mountain containing the dictator's redoubt down to approximately sea level.
- From the
*Legacy of the Aldenata* series by John Ringo:
- The Posleen invasion was lead off by kinetic weapon strikes on planetary defense centers and various pyramid structures around the world (due to a resemblance to similar structures set up by the Posleen, who consider them important).
- In
*Hell's Faire*, the heroes and the entire population of Earth, are totally screwed until ||the fleet unexpectedly returns and uses kinetic bombardment to destroy every important target on the ground.||
- ||O'Neal's team|| finds out what it's like to be on the receiving end of it, in
*The Eye of the Storm* (free sneak preview available here, containing the scene in question in Chapter Four).
-
*Lensman*: As might be expected, the Lensmen get into this particular Arms Race. If you're *lucky*, they're just tossing bombs at you. If you get them *really* mad, they target you with a couple of planets moving at several times *c*. With diametrically opposed vectors. It's called the "nutcracker", and the results are described as the creation of a new, temporary star.
- In
*Line of Delirium*, the three Imperial colonies in the Shedar (Alpha Cassiopeiae) system were invaded by the fast-breeding Sakkra. Civilians were evacuated (mostly women and children, although not all women left), while most men chose to stay and fight. Instead of trying to retake the planets, which would result in huge casualties, The Emperor decides to bombard them with meson bombs. The invaders and the defenders were killed, and the planets were made uninhabitable. The Empire proceeded to retaliate and wiped out the entire Sakkra species. The protagonist mentions visiting his home planet Shedar II decades later, revealing that the oceans are still boiling.
- In
*The Lost Fleet*, it's standard practice in the Forever War by both sides to bombard enemy planets using "rocks" in order to reduce the enemy's recruitment pool and industrial strength. When John Geary (who spent 100 years as a Human Popsicle) learns of this, he is horrified that The Alliance has stooped so low. He is determined to put an end to this.
- One of the reasons this tactic is presented as so horrible is that it takes a few minutes for the payload to reach its intended target. While the target is fully aware it is coming, they can't hope to escape the blast radius, so they have time to agonize over their inevitable death. The 'Rocks' are too durable to blast out of the sky, as well. ||In a later book, humanity's first alien allies save a human planet using their incredible flying/shooting skills to divert one of these attacks.||
- In
*Lucifer's Star*, orbital bombardment is considered the equivalent of using nuclear weapons. It's something most powers can use but is considered to be an absolute last resort given inhabitable planets are an incredibly important resource. It's a sign of how thoroughly sick the Commonwealth has become with the horrific casualties brought about by the Archduchy of Crius' superior technology (but numerical inferiority) that they decide to do this to the Crius homeworld.
-
*The Mote in God's Eye*. In the Back Story to the novel, five Imperial battleships destroyed all life on the rebellious planet Istvan, killing tens of millions of human beings.
- Peter F. Hamilton
- In
*The Reality Dysfunction* a special forces team floating down a river through enemy territory get some sudden and unexpected support when 5,000 precision-guided kinetic energy harpoons fired from a spaceship slam into the banks on either side. The harpoons are falling so fast no-one hears them until after they land. Then they *really* hear them.
- The Kinetic-Energy Harpoon is mentioned (although not used on-page) in "The Nano Flower" in the Greg Mandel trilogy; described as a "poor man's nuke"
note : Just a big lump of metal with an ablative heat-shield, although you do have to factor in how much it costs to get it into space and then bring it down again, they were apparently used in the Slamdown War. That resulted in massive campaign to get a defensive system in orbit, designed specifically to stop them ever being used again.
-
*The Occupation Saga*: Tactical orbital bombardment is a standard part of the Shil'vati Imperium's playbook. The side with orbital superiority typically dominates most battlefields, to the point that the primary job of Imperial Marines is acting as Target Spotters for the Navy. The Shil'vati are so used to using it that in *Between Worlds Three* the colonels of the first two Marine regiments are completely stumped by the campaign to retake Raknos-Three from the Roaches, where weather conditions prevent its use.
- The Shongairi in
*Out of the Dark* open their invasion of Earth with a kinetic bombardment that levels several cities. They later bombard a U.S. Army tank unit that refused to surrender and in the end the Shongairi leader wants to reduce Earth to rubble.
-
*Safehold*: Langhorne used this to kill off those who disagreed with his philosophy for running a colony. During the rest of the series, the heroes are worried that the bombardment may be set off again if any use of advanced technology is detected.
- Seen repeatedly in the
*Star Carrier* series by Ian Douglas. When the *America* carrier battle group first meets the Turusch they're doing their utmost to bring down a theatre shield protecting a Marines base on Eta Boötis IV. After the battle group drives them off, they eventually return and obliterate the entire colony with kinetic strikes from multi-AU ranges. ||Late in the book they attack Sol the same way. The few shots that get through cause devastation on Earth and Mars and slag several space stations.|| And that's just the first book.
- Star Wars Legends:
- The various Star Destroyer type vessels are equipped for orbital bombardment. The Expanded Universe says they were
*designed around the task*, which is part of why they so heavily outgunned everything else in space at the time and had such an advantage against other vessels designed for starship combat. Notably, in the novel *Rebel Dream*, a Super Star Destroyer uses this tactic while *defending* by using ground troops to force the enemy into specific locations on the planet below, where they could safely be blown to bits. Repeatedly.
- And of course there's the Death Star, designed to be the ultimate form of orbital bombardment. Perhaps a little
*too* good at this task.
- In
*Legends*, that much firepower is *justified*, from a military standpoint: there are around planetary shields able to resist *anything less* for an indefinite but long period of time. For example, the makeshift Rebel base on Hoth in *The Empire Strikes Back* had a shield capable of surviving a bombardment from *five* Imperial Star Destroyers (one of which would be enough to *melt the crust of a planet in a matter of hours*, even if three are usually employed to make sure nobody can escape from the other side of the planet) and a Super Star Destroyer (with the firepower of *over a thousands ISDs*), and Alderaan's planetary shield actually *resisted the Death Star's superlaser for a tenth of a second* (that in that tenth of second had already delivered more than enough firepower to actually shatter the planet) before being overwhelmed. Eventually, both Legends and Canon would have the Empire develop ships capable of breaching a planetary shield without destroying the planet (Legends had the *Eclipse*-class Star Dreadnought, with a less powerful superlaser, while Canon has the *Onager*-class Star Destroyer with a similar weapon and the *Mandator IV* dreadnought featured in *The Last Jedi*).
- The Republic Attack Cruisers/
*Venator*-class Star Destroyers from the prequels feature similar systems, but they had a unique drawback: because of the placement of their weapons, they were great for orbital bombardment, but crap for ship-to-ship combat. This was fixed with the later Star Destroyers.
- Orbital bombardments come in various degrees, depending on the situation, whether it's supporting an invasion, targeting an enemy's production facilities, making a statement, or other such uses. It went on to introduce the Base Delta Zero, the only Imperial (and pre-Imperial) code not subject to change because they don't want anyone to get the order confused when it comes down, as it's a planetary scale scorched earth tactic. Interestingly, while it's been threatened several times the only known time in the Imperial era a BDZ was
*successfully* carried out was in the backstory to the *Hand of Thrawn* duology against Caamas, and that was by a mercenary fleet rather than Imperial regulars. How far it goes depends on varying factors, with Soontir Fel envisioning his ordered but aborted Base Delta Zero on Nar Shaddaa involving burned-out buildings, surface landings and mop-up operations, while kill-crazy guys like General Grievous have liquefied entire surfaces of planets.
-
*X-Wing Series*:
- In
*Rogue Squadron* the New Republic uses the ISD *Emancipator*, one of two ISDs captured by the Rebellion at Endor, in an ||unsuccessful|| attempt to bring down the theatre deflector shield protecting the Imperial surface base on Borleias. Interestingly Wedge Antilles notes during the briefing that the Hoth solution, a ground attack against the generators, has historically been more successful. ||In the end it doesn't matter: the attack is a spectacular failure due to intelligence missing that the general in command had an extra power supply for the base.||
- Offscreen in
*Wedge's Gamble*, Warlord Zsinj's SSD *Iron Fist* does a hit-and-run attack on the Rogues' surface base on Noquivzor in retaliation for them blowing up a couple of his ships earlier. Becomes an Exploited Trope: ||Tycho is listed as MIA after the attack, which lets him rescue the Rogues later in the book.||
- In the
*Jedi Academy Trilogy* Admiral Daala uses her Star Destroyers to bombard civilian targets on Mon Calamari before a gambit by Admiral Ackbar costs her an ISD and forces her to retreat.
- Discussed in the P.O.V. Sequel
*I, Jedi*: before the Jedi apprentices go to war with the ghost of Exar Kun, Corran messages his CO in Rogue Squadron, Tycho Celchu, to ask Admiral Ackbar to order Exar Kun's temple bombarded from orbit in the event of failure, hoping that an orbiting ship would be beyond the reach of Kun's influence.
-
*New Jedi Order*: The Yuuzhan Vong were inordinately fond of the Colony Drop form, particularly bombarding GFFA planets with their own orbital defense stations. The particular version used against ||Sernpidal|| in *Vector Prime*, ||crashing a planet's moon into it||, they call Yo'gand's Core after their first Supreme Overlord who pioneered the tactic. They also use the ship-against-planet form a few times, including to glass N'zoth. On the flip side, the *NJO* novel *Rebel Dream* gives us Operation Emperor's Hammer, a.k.a. Operation Infantry Can't Do Shit About Super Star Destroyers.
- In
*The Thrawn Trilogy* Thrawn conquered a world at the start of *The Last Command* by *bluffing* them into believing he could do this to them by firing through their shields, at which they immediately surrendered. The trick required cloaking ships, Force-assisted split-second timing, and picking a target prone to panicking when they saw something that's supposed to be impossible. In *Heir to the Empire*, Joruus C'Baoth is quite certain he's safe from this while meeting with Thrawn and Pellaeon due to the village's proximity to Mount Tantiss, which Thrawn is very much interested in. Pellaeon assures C'Baoth that the *Chimera*'s crew is more than capable of levelling the village "without so much as singeing the grass on Mount Tantiss." Later, in *Dark Force Rising*, Thrawn has the *Chimera* bombard the fields outside a Noghri village, while Thrawn is in the middle of that village visiting the maitrakh, just to scare her half out of her mind. Demonstrating that Pellaeon's confidence in his gunners was not misplaced.
- In
*Shadows of the Empire* we have a mention of Darth Vader bombarding Falleen to *save it*, as a flesh-eating bacteria had escaped from a research facility on the planet (one established by Vader himself) and wiping out the city and the surrounding region was the best way to prevent the contagion from spreading and wiping out all life on Falleen. This had the side effect of kicking off a bloody rivalry with Prince Xizor (head of the Black Sun crime syndicate and a confidant of the Emperor), whose family was killed in the bombardment.
- The
*Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook* mentions Project X271, that could wipe out all life on a planet. The captain of the *Devastator* had suggested to use it on Falleen to stop the spread of the aforementioned flesh-eating bacteria, only for Vader to deem it overkill and order an immediate orbital bombardment with turbolasers.
-
*Honor Among Thieves*: The Empire has the location of a device that could control hyperspace, but so does a common thief. They care enough about stopping him from selling it that they send *ten* Star Destroyers to bombard a city hosting a conference of Rebel sympathizers. Han Solo is on-planet and has to race back to the *Millennium Falcon* through the city as it explodes around him, then run the blockade along with all the other ships fleeing the planet.
- Star Wars Expanded Universe: Orbital bombardment still exists in the canon EU of
*Star Wars*, albeit far, far scaled back from the potency and commonness of Legends.
- Base Delta Zero is confirmed as extant in the current canon, but has been far scaled back to make its depiction more consistent with the movies, shows, and games (where no ship was throwing around planet-slagging firepower- or even casual nuclear firepower). No one has the yields to totally demolish planetary atmospheres anymore, at least not in any remotely reasonable time frame, and thus BDZ seems to be limited to just destroying production assets, military bases, and major settlements with the strength of a fleet's guns (possibly aided by fission and plasma weapons, e.g. the 100 megaton building-sized bombs that
*Ninkas* carry). Nor is a single capital ship ever stated to be able to do this in *an hour*, as *Legends* had it. When the Empire wants to quickly kill whole planetary populations with just a few capital ships, some other, more unwieldy weapon is required, such as billions of metric tons of poisonous gas on Geonosis, or a system of weather-manipulating satellites on Naboo.
- Base Delta Zero has entered casual conversation as slang in the Disney canon, with one Imperial officer in the novel
*Servants of the Empire* threatening to "Base Delta Zero" some incompetent recruits.
- In
*Thrawn*, the titular admiral has his flagship attempt to bombard an enemy base on Scrim Island, only to find that it's shielded. So he resorts to jumping in atmosphere and pumping tons of turbolaser fire into the nearby ocean, causing a small tsunami that drowns said base (the shields were designed to block energy weapons, not millions of tons of water). Notably, the same novel establishes that even if the island *wasn't* shielded, Thrawn's *Arquitens*-class light cruisers would have been incapable of dealing any significant damage with orbital bombardment, instead having to enter the stratosphere of the planet for damage fall-off over range to not render their turbolasers useless. A 40 million ton, 1,600 meter long ISD-2 is obviously a different story, but it does justify why, say, a single pirate ship can't subjugate a planet from space. Orbital bombardment is only even a possibility for large military-grade capital ships, and even then it's not 100% effective.
- In
*Aftermath: Life Debt*, three Star Destroyers begin bombardment operations to wipe out the Wookie species on the planet of Kashyyyk. It's stated that even bombing such a relatively small population into submission (Kashyyyk has a population of 56 million) would take a long time, but since no one was around to stop them, they could afford to be slow. In the end, someone actually was around to stop them, so the Wookie population escapes with only minor damage. Notably, Star Destroyers also drop large "propulsion bombs" from their bays to accomplish this rather than relying solely on turbolasers.
- In the
*Troy Rising* series by John Ringo, Earth is subject to kinetic bombardment multiple times. The first three bombardments target major cities. Afterwards, humanity abandons urban culture. The last orbital bombardment to actually hit Earth was targeted at the leaders of the major nations of Earth, with the intent of causing paralyzing power struggles. Unfortunately, as all the targeted nations have very clear rules of succession, all it did was piss us off.
- A fixture of
*Warhammer 40,000* novels.
- The
*Blood Angels* novel *Deus Encarmine* has a Chaos Space Marine warship blow away the Blood Angels' entire motor pool. At the end of the next book, *Deus Sanguinius*, a high-ranking Blood Angel regretfully note : The Blood Angels are one of the nicer chapters. notes that a planet will have to be hit with an Exterminatus.
- Shows up in two separate Ciaphas Cain novels:
- In
*Duty Calls*, the Imperial fleet supporting the Imperial Guard's ground operations against a Tyranid invasion by blasting any 'nid-held locations they find out about. The planet's weather patterns make finding out about them difficult, unfortunately.
- Done by Chaos in
*Cain's Last Stand* when Warmaster Varan's forces flatten the PDF headquarters with a battleship's lance batteries. The for-once-not-incompetent brass had already evacuated but we don't know the casualties.
-
*Gaunt's Ghosts*:
- The reason the Tanith First-and-Only are called Gaunt's Ghosts is partly because they're the only survivors of their homeworld after Chaos warships, fleeing an Imperial naval victory early in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, glassed their homeworld. Commissar Ibram Gaunt managed to get about a third of his Imperial Guard recruits offplanet before the enemy struck.
-
*Ghostmaker* features a brief discussion of Imperial doctrines on the tactical use of orbital bombardment after Colonel Corbec sends the Imperial frigate *Navarre* coordinates for a strike. Ordinarily the Navy only bombards from orbit to soften up targets for ground assaults; during the actual attack they prefer to send Space Fighters for airstrikes. In this case, though, the Ghosts have discovered a (probably Nurglite) daemon whose Weather Manipulation has both grounded the fighters and prevented any more troops from landing, so *Navarre*'s captain uses Corbec's coordinates to blow it to bits.
- In
*His Last Command*, the step-cities of the planet Anacreon Sextus are glassed from orbit. Slightly different in that this *was* a final solution, since the Imperium had initially attempted to secure the World by ground assault, but it became clear that the *planet itself* was a trap laid by the Ruinous Powers.
- In the
*Wing Commander* novel *Fleet Action*, multiple Terran Confederation planets are bombarded from orbit by a massive Kilrathi fleet the humans are unable to stop, using antimatter warheads and dirty nukes specifically employed to sterilize worlds.
- While they're never used, all warships in Harry Turtledove's
*Worldwar* series (and subsequent books) are armed with nukes. However, when the Race nukes human cities, they do so using "killercraft" (jet fighters). In *Homeward Bound*, the US sends a Sleeper Starship towards Home, the Race's homeworld in Tau Ceti, armed to the teeth with nukes in a clear case of Gunboat Diplomacy. When the humans reveal that they possess ||FTL starships||, the Race comes up with a counter in the form of their STL starships being capable of being launched towards Earth to impact the planet at 50% of the speed of light.
-
*Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.* has the villains using this tactic to usher in the Darkest Hour at the tail end of Season 7: ||After Sibyl hacks the Lighthouse's database, she transmits the location of every SHIELD base in the world to the freshly arrived Chronicom fleet, which proceeds to obliterate every facility.||
-
*Andromeda*:
- The
*Andromeda Ascendant* is said to be capable of glassing an inhabited planet in about six minutes with her "conventional" weaponry. In contrast to her more limited supply of Nova Bombs.
- One of her sister ships, the
*Pax Magellanic*, managed to blow up a planet when her captain called in fire on his own position when he was about to be overrun by Nietzschean rebels. ||Or rather ordered her to self-destruct, which prompted her to drop her slipspace core on him and lurk in the asteroids for three centuries slipping further and further into solipsistic insanity.||
- In "Una Salus Victus", Dylan Hunt seizes control of old Commonwealth orbital defense missiles from the Drago-Kazof pride and fires on his own position to force Fleet Marshal Cuchulain to back down and let him and Tyr go. They're in a bunker under a mountain, so they're safe for a half-dozen hits, but by the fifth missile it's clear the mountain won't last much longer.
- In "Bunker Hill", Dylan's plan to liberate Earth from the Drago-Kazof is to start a slave uprising to lure the Nietzsheans' armor into the open where he can destroy it from orbit with
*Andromeda*. ||The Space Battle goes awry and Dylan never reaches the Sol system, but the rebels get off a video message that triggers uprisings all across the Dragos' empire.||
-
*Babylon 5*:
- In "The Coming of Shadows" a group of Shadow ships demolish a Narn orbital base at the behest of their long-time enemies the Centauri, then turn their guns on the colony below.
- In "The Long Twilight Struggle", the Centauri use mass drivers (cannons shooting small asteroids) to bombard the Narn homeworld. In Season 3, the effects are shown — including altered climate due to atmospheric dust. This attack was severe enough that even the Vorlons, who explicitly take no interest in the younger races affairs, issued an official protest of the Centauri Republic's actions.
- Also almost the fate of Earth, at the end of Clarke's presidency of the Earth Alliance in "Endgame". He sets Earth's orbital defense satellites to start nuking targets on the surface and then shoots himself so he can't be forced to countermand the order. The Alliance of alien and renegade Earth ships led by Sheridan destroy the entire defense grid to stop this.
- Later on, the Narn, with the help of the Drazi, proceed to Centauri Prime to return the favor, though they at least restrain themselves to only using conventional heavy weapons (causing untold thousands of deaths).
- Also from
*Babylon 5*, the Shadow planet-killers used bombardment of many thermonuclear devices shot *into* the planet's crust, which would burrow down to the core and destabilize it. The planet remained intact, but totally sterilized and volcanically volatile on the surface. The ||Vorlon|| planet-killers were more of the Earth-Shattering Kaboom variety, by contrast.
- In the movie
*A Call To Arms*, which served as a pilot to the spinoff *Crusade*, the Drakh got hold of a planet-killer abandoned by the Shadows, and used it on Dureen's homeworld, before threatening Earth with it.
- A
*Crusade* episode also has the *Excalibur* using its Wave-Motion Gun to destroy a mine being used by a technomage named Alwyn to amplify a spell to destroy another EarthForce ship. This was all a ploy by Gideon, Galen, and Alwyn to destroy the mine that was making locals sick. Alwyn, a master of illusion, was never there.
- In "The Lost Tales", Galen shows Sheridan a vision of a possible future, in which the restored Centauri Republic performs a sneak attack on Earth and lays waste to its surface from orbit. The plot of the episode is an attempt to keep that future from happening. ||Galen wants Sheridan to "accidentally" kill Centauri Prince Regent Dius Vintari (son of the infamous Emperor Cartagia) during a flight on Starfuries. However, at the last moment, Sheridan comes up with an alternative - he offers to effectively adopt Vintari and have him live on Minbar with Sheridan, Delenn, and their son. The hope is that being away from the Decadent Court will keep Vintari from growing up bitter and resentful. Galen later admits he hoped for the same outcome.||
-
*Battlestar Galactica (2003)* begins with the nuclear annihilation of humanity by the Cylons. The original miniseries was somewhat vague as to how the bombs were delivered (likely due to budget constraints), but "The Plan" shows the bombing attacks in full, horrifying detail.
- As in the games' the Covenant in
*Halo (2022)* glass human planets (or population centers, at least) as part of their genocidal war. The aftermath of one such operation is shown to have liquified the crust and created an effect similar to a large-scale volcanic eruption.
- The pilot of
*Lexx* opens with His Divine Shadow bombarding the Brunnen G homeworld. Though later on the series tends more towards Earth Shattering Kabooms, mostly from the titular ship.
-
*The Mandalorian*:
- Between
*Star Wars Rebels* and this series, the Empire engaged in a genocidal bombing campaign against Mandalore, laying waste to the surface with fusion bombs and gunning down any survivors. Long after the Empire's defeat, the surface is marred by massive crystalline formations from the heat of the bombs and the planet's very magnetic field has been destabilized, creating mega-storms. ||That said, after Din obtains a piece of trinitite with Mandalorian sigils from a trader he figures out that it is possible to survive on Mandalore.||
- In the Season 2 episode "The Tragedy", Din Djarin's ship, the
*Razor Crest*, ||gets obliterated by an orbital strike from Moff Gideon's Star Destroyer||.
-
*The Outer Limits (1963)*: In "Demon with a Glass Hand", it is mentioned that the Kyben bombed Earth from space in the 30th Century.
-
*Stargate-verse*:
-
*Stargate SG-1*:
- The series had occasional instances of the Goa'uld bombarding planetary surfaces with low-power blasts from
*Ha'tak*-class motherships as a terror tactic ("The Warrior", "The Sentinel"), to cow the inhabitants into surrendering. In at least two alternate timelines/universes ("There But For the Grace of God", *Stargate: Continuum*) they also used full-power multimegaton blasts to attack Earth, with the practical effect of both terrorizing the populace and culling them to a manageable number. There's a good reason why Goa'uld rule scattered backwards villages instead of entire cities.
- In "Pretense" SG-1 tails Jaffa ground forces on Tollana and discovers them fiddling around with the Tollans' anti-orbital cannons, each of which could one-shot a
*Ha'tak*. ||Turns out they were painting them as targets to let the mothership take them all out at once. Fortunately, Teal'c convinced the Nox Lya to make one of the cannons invisible.||
- The Ori also used this on occasion. In "Counterstrike" Adria uses her mothership's main gun to demolish the Dakara superweapon (and most of the city along with it). In "Line in the Sand" an Ori mothership tried to destroy a village that refused to convert to Origin, but Sam was able to phase out the entire village until the ship leaves. She duplicated this feat in an alternate universe in "The Road Not Taken" by using the entire power grid of the continental United States to phase out the whole planet. Cue a rather disconcerting visual of the shot from the main gun travelling straight
*through* Sam and doing squat.
-
*Stargate Atlantis*:
- In "The Siege, Part 3", a fleet of Wraith ships trying to capture Atlantis start bombarding the city's shields from orbit with energy weapons. ||The team convinces them to leave by faking the destruction of the city, detonating a nuclear weapon above the shields and then cloaking the city after the initial blast passed.||
- In "First Strike" the SGC attacks the Asuras with the Horizon weapons system, a MIRV launched from the
*Daedalus*-class battlecruiser tipped with six 280-gigaton naquadria bombs. The resulting blasts razed an entire continent, though as the inhabitants were self-replicating machines they cleaned up quickly, and retaliated next week by attacking Atlantis with an orbital weapon of their own.
-
*Star Trek* has shown cases of orbital bombardment a number of times, and discussed the possibility a few times more.
-
*Star Trek: The Original Series*:
- Averted in the second pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before" Kirk tells Doctor Piper that he is going out to eliminate the mutated Gary Mitchell before he becomes too powerful, and that should he not be heard from in 12 hours the
*Enterprise* was to depart to a nearby Starbase with Kirk's recommendation that Delta Vega be subject to an orbital bombardment from lethal neutron radiation.
- In "Operation Annihilate" Kirk is forced to consider orbital bombardment to stop the neural parasites who have invaded Deneva from getting any further into Federation space. When the
*Enterprise* finds that ultraviolet light will kill the parasites but leave their unwilling hosts unharmed, Kirk elects to bombard Deneva with such light, freeing the Denevans from the parasites.
- "A Piece of the Action" had
*non-lethal* orbital bombardment (a precision phaser blast from the *Enterprise* set on stun).
- "Mirror Mirror", this is the standard way the Terran Empire deals with cultures that refuse them.
- "A Taste of Armageddon". After Captain Kirk is captured by the Eminians, he gives Scotty General Order 24. Unless he countermands his order, in two hours the
*Enterprise* will destroy the entire inhabited surface of Eminiar Seven.
- "Assignment Earth". The U.S. puts a nuclear warhead platform in orbit. During the episode it falls out of orbit and drops toward an enemy country: it will go off on impact.
-
*Star Trek: The Next Generation*:
- One episode has another non-lethal example when the
*Enterprise* uses her phasers to bore a hole in a planet so an away team can beam to an underground location they couldn't get to otherwise.
- In "Code of Honor" Picard orders photon torpedoes to fired and detonated high over the planet's cities as a show of force after Lutan abducts Natasha Yar. At least, that's what it's supposed to be. Later scenes on the surface show no indication such bombardment took place and it's never mentioned again.
-
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine*:
- In "The Die Is Cast", the combined Obsidian Order/Tal Shiar strike force moves in to blow away the Founder Homeworld. Their opening volley supposedly destroys 30% of the planet's crust, and while the visual effects don't really mesh with what they say, we still see attacks that would devastate entire continents.
- In "Broken Link", Garak tries to take over the
*Defiant's* weapon systems and points out to Worf that their ship could reduce the new Founder Homeworld to a smoking cinder in short order.
- "The Dogs of War" shows a Dominion propaganda video of a Jem'Hadar battleship blasting apart a Cardassian Rebellion outpost on the surface of a planetoid.
- In "What You Leave Behind", the Jem'Hadar blow away Lakarian City on Cardassia Prime in retaliation for Cardassian civilians fighting in support of the Cardassian Rebellion. When this instead causes the entire Cardassian military to pull a HeelRace Turn in mid-battle, the female Founder orders the orbital genocide of the entire Cardassian species. 800 million die before Odo is able to convince the Founder to capitulate.
- In the
*Enterprise* alter intro for the Mirror Universe episodes, an *Emmette*-type starship bombards the Lunar colonies with photonic torpedoes.
-
*Star Trek: Discovery*:
- Lorca fears that the Klingons will bomb a peaceful race of Energy Beings from orbit for fear that their antenna may allow Starfleet to penetrate their cloak.
- While in the Mirror Universe, Burnham receives an order from The Emperor to obliterate a secret base of La Résistance from orbit. ||When Burnham delays, Emperor Philippa Georgiu personally arrives in her flagship to rain hellfire down onto half of the planet with a photon torpedo barrage||.
- In "If Memory Serves", ||Georgiou mentions that she had the surface of Mirror!Talos IV bombarded from orbit after the Talosians tried to trick her using illusions||.
- Banned by the Ares Conventions, Honours of War and the Clans' even more restrictive code of honor in
*BattleTech*. Using WarShips for orbital bombardment is tantamount to genocide unless against strictly military targets, and will summon the wrath of every neutral power against the aggressor. Clan Smoke Jaguar was annihilated by the combined forces of a dozen mercenary units and the elite units of all the Successor States while the other Clans stood by and let it happen, with one of the reasons cited was the orbital levelling of a city called Edo on a planet called Turtle Bay because of an insurgent problem. Once warships became available (again) to the Inner Sphere, using them to attack concentrations of enemy ground troops became a legitimate tactic, though it rarely happened because the ships tended to be Too Awesome to Use, and the Word of Blake made use of both this and nuclear weapons during the Jihad.
-
*Eclipse Phase*: When the TITANS started forcibly uploading people en masse the various human and transhuman powers of the solar system tended to respond by hitting them from orbit with nukes, asteroids, and anitmatter. There are still areas of Mars and the moon that are under quarantine, and of course earth is unfit for transhuman life as far as many are concerned. Also many Firewall Sentinels still drop hypersonic rocks on TITAN remnants.
-
*Star Fleet Battles*:
- The game allowed ships to launch drones (nuclear missiles) at a planet to destroy surface installations.
- After the Klingons invaded and conquered the Hydrans, they put space stations in orbit around the Hydran planets which could destroy the Hydrans on the surface if they revolted. Unfortunately they didn't provide as much protection against attack from space as they did against attack from the ground, and the Hydrans were eventually able to capture them.
-
*The General* magazine Volume 13 #6, article "Saga of the Bug War". This article on the *Starship Troopers* game included rules for Terran starships in orbit passing over the field of battle and firing down nuclear rockets to destroy targets on the ground.
- The West End
*Star Wars* RPG has torpedo spheres, siege vessels designed for cracking planetary deflector shields via Macross Missile Massacre, followed by a computer-controlled turbolaser attack against the generators to open the way for ground invasion. This was a time-consuming process, which was part of the *official* reasoning for the Death Star's introduction.
- In the sci-fi variant of
*Stratego* the Spotter unit calls down orbital laser strikes.
-
*Terraforming Mars* is a Board Game about essentially peaceful attempts to create a second home for humanity. Some of this is achieved by methods that would fall into "planet killer" territory if used on Earth. Hitting Mars with a comet will produce water, for example, or you can set up shop on a radioactives-rich asteroid and use laser beams to heat up the atmosphere. Or you can drop Deimos, which isn't otherwise being used (Phobos can be used to host a city).
-
*Traveller* has "ortillery" or "orbital artillery" including nukes, fusion cannons, and meson guns among others. Most of which the Imperial Navy tries to maintain a monopoly on, within Imperial borders.
- Another notable example is the former Sindalian Empire, which liberally bombarded planets known or suspected to harbor resistance - which was a large part of the reason that rebels rose up to tear it apart.
-
*Warhammer 40,000*:
- Many Imperial vessels are capable of Exterminatus, cleansing a planet deemed unsalvageable by the Inquisition with virus-bombs that turn all living things into highly flammable organic matter, or cyclonic torpedoes that shatter the planet's crust. For a kinder, gentler approach, human warships have enough giant guns to specific parts of the planet instead. The more technologically advanced Necron ships almost certainly do as well, though for some reason this isn't shown often (or perhaps at all).
- Ork roks combine this with Colony Drop and It's Raining Men, being asteroids that are hollowed out, filled with orks, guns, and engines, then sent hurtling through space (or from ships onto planets) until they crash on a planet. They either crash and do a lot of damage or crash-
*land* and act like non-reusable drop pods.
- The 5th Edition Necron codex had a weird crossover with the Space Battle trope when an Imperial sector fleet used cyclonic torpedoes to destroy a Necron Planet Spaceship called the World Engine (after its shields had been sabotaged in a Heroic Sacrifice by the Astral Knights chapter of the Space Marines). The World Engine was quite literally a planet that had had engines attached to it.
- Some editions of the game itself allow high ranking Imperial Commanders, such as Inquisitors, Adeptus Astartes Chapter Masters, or certain Astra Militarum officers, to call in orbital strikes in place of a normal shooting attack. They are usually not that accurate (shooting from orbit means they scatter 2d6 without subtracting the shooter's Ballistic Skill like a normal Blast attack), but when they do hit there are few units in the game that can survive such a strike.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh!*: Its a (rather underwhelming) support card for the Alien archetype, depicting their flying saucer firing a beam at a planet.
-
*Assault Retribution* ends with a lengthy final mission where the player defeats the Mutant Hivemind in the mutant's homeworld, allowing humanity to retaliate by bombarding the mutant planet with a satellite-delivered nuke. Combined with the planet's now-unstable core, this leads to an Earth-Shattering Kaboom of the mutant planet.
-
*Dawn of War* has several examples:
- The Space Marine Force Commander has an Orbital Bombardment power, which has the Astartes' orbiting Battle Barge fire multiple Pillars Of Light into the general area of the selected location. In
*Dark Crusade*, you can hijack the Orbital relay, letting you use the ability on the Space Marines (they fire one on their own base in the ending).
- The Tau have the Orbital Strike ability, which fires a single massive beam on one point, which then spreads out. In
*Soulstorm*, the Ethereal orders the Air Caste to fire into their base as a desperate maneuver. The Ar'ka cannon could be considered a variation, since it serves as a lunar-based planetary bombardment system (it can strike any of the four planets in the system).
-
*Dawn of War II: Retribution* demonstrates Exterminatus on Typhon Primaris.
-
*DUST 514* allows squad leaders to call down strikes from orbiting ships once their squads accrue enough war points during a battle.
-
*Escape Velocity* includes code for ship-launched weapons that destroy planets, although the official releases don't use them. For that you'd have to be playing a mod such as *Polycon* or *Starfleet Adventures*.
-
*EXTRAPOWER*: The method of choice for series Big Bad Dark Force to soften up planets before invading. Happens midway through *Star Resistance* to the Shakun Star and early in *Attack of Darkforce* to Earth.
-
*Galactic Civilizations*: One of the ways of softening up planetary defenses during an invasion is to drop asteroids on it. While this helps drastically reduce the number of defenders, it also severely reduces the planetary quality. Another option is bombardment via mass drivers, which is less destructive, but still ruins pretty much everything on the planet's surface.
-
*Galaxy Angel*: The first game opens up with Eonia's fleet using this method to attack Planet Traansbal and wipe out the royal family, including his own father the Emperor. We don't get to see the full effect, save for the destruction of the royal palace.
-
*Haegemonia: Legions of Iron*: The only way to get a planet to surrender is to rain fire down on it until it either surrenders or the inhabitants are wiped out.
-
*Halo*:
- The Covenant fleet glassed multiple planets from orbit during their genocidal war against humanity. How well this works depends on which source you look at: one of the
*Reach* datapads claims that the Covenant mostly just glass population centers because glassing an entire planet is simply too time-consuming for them. Then again, said datapad was written in-universe only one year into the war; subsequent sources have somewhat clarified that while the Covenant don't literally glass every square millimeter or even come close to it (e.g. Kholo still had surviving vegetation and standing structures after receiving one of the most thorough glassings of the war), the effects are still devastating enough to require extensive reterraforming in order for the glassed planet to become habitable again (plus, the initial in-universe estimates on how long it would take them to glass a world are off because the Covenant military turns out to be much, **much** bigger than initially assumed).
-
*Halo: Reach*: At the end of "Tip of the Spear," the supercarrier *Long Night of Solace* delivers a DFA attack on the frigate *Grafton*.
-
*Halo 4* has targetable ordinance drops. While intended to supply the user with a weapon, the drop will also insta-kill most players if they're standing under it.
-
*Halo Wars* lets UNSC players call down fire from the MAC gun (Magnetic Accelerator Cannon) of an orbiting warship. In addition, Covenant players who use the Prophet of Regret as their leader can call down an orbital laser beam which can be left active indefinitely (and steered around) assuming you have the resources.
- Somewhat subverted in Halo Wars 2. Isabell infiltrates the Banished's CAS carrier and fires its glassing canon at the Arc. The automated defense systems are not happy.
- In
*The Forerunner Saga*, the Forerunners put down a rebellious planet with the full fury of their fleets on display. These include deploying possibly billions of fighter craft and sentinels, bombardments of plasma, antimatter-matter annihilation, and even stranger energies, laser blasts that cut across entire continents, and actually ripping out massive sections of the planet's crust and overturning them.
-
*Homeworld* series:
- In the third mission of the first game the Taiidan Empire ||incinerates Kharak's atmosphere from orbit|| using an illegal atmosphere-deprivation weapon.
- The backstory for Homeworld 2 explains that the Hiigarans (before their exile) first did this to the Taiidan with conventional weapons, which is why the Taiidani retaliated and took Hiigara for themselves, kicking the Hiigarans out. Later in the actual game ||the Vaygr attempt this on Hiigara, and you as the player have to stop them by intercepting the missiles and destroying the bombardment platforms||, or else it's Game Over.
-
*House Of The Dying Sun*: The objective of the final mission. The late emperor decreed that worlds that instigate rebellions to be rained fire upon from orbit. ||With the emperor's inner circle betraying him, it means Rhal'Tuum Prime, the throneworld of the empire, and all its inhabitants must die.||
-
*The Last Federation*: An essential part of war, allowing a civilization (or the player) to deplete rivals' infrastructure and population without risking soldiers. Two species have particular interactions with it:
-
*Marathon 2: Durandal*: The relative ease of the first few levels are justified when Durandal launches an orbital bombardment attack against the Phfor garrison to sow chaos and panic in their ranks.
**Durandal:**
You should encounter little organized resistance because the Pfhor
are preoccupied. I've been introducing them to the
**magic**
of orbital bombardment.
-
*Mass Effect*:
-
*Mass Effect* mentions that, during the turian occupation of Shanxi, the turians were more than happy to blow away city blocks from orbit to take out single squads of human soldiers. During a sidequest, Shepard offers to have the *Normandy* hit a ||rachni hive|| from orbit.
-
*Mass Effect 3*: One of Diana Allers' news stories mentions that the Reapers blew away Adelaide, Australia with an orbital strike. There's also the battle with ||the landed Reaper destroyer on Rannoch||, which Shepard takes out by painting it as a target for the *Normandy* and the entire quarian fleet.
- The Reapers don't generally do this: their goal is to
*harvest* life, not obliterate it, and bombardment kind of defeats their purpose, at least if it's done before harvesting is complete. Javik, however, mentions a planet from his time, Atespa, which was such a Death World that the Reapers' ground troops were getting *eaten* by the native fauna. The Reapers eventually gave up and nuked the planet from orbit. That said, through *Mass Effect 2*, there are a *lot* of out-of-the-way planets which used to have someone living on them, and now don't, and in some cases have had their atmospheres totally demolished, leaving the planet uninhabitable. The phrase "craters", "major urban centers" and "bombardment" keep occurring far too often to be a simple coincidence. Generally, if the Reapers aren't terribly interested in a planet's occupants, they'll bomb the crap out of it and move on. High resistance also seems to engender this kind of response: when you see the turian planet Palaven early in the game, large portions of the continent facing you are glowing orange, indicating millions of square miles of crust has effectively been melted... and the invasion just commenced the previous day. Earth doesn't get it nearly as bad, but when you come to London you can see that the sky is blacked out and the air choked with soot... despite London being nowhere near the glowing orange spots you see from space, showing that the atmosphere has been globally screwed by the bombardment, albeit not to the extent that the planet will need to be significantly terraformed to recover.
- The worst kind of bombardment that a planet can be subjected to is a meteor drop, where the attacker will simply tow in large asteroid, attach thrusters to it, and then accelerate it at the planet they want dead. This can be done easily by pretty much any state (or corporation) with a Space Navy and the ability to produce and transport a few building-sized fusion torches, so basically every single major power and most of the minor ones. Whenever a bombardment of this type is discussed, from the krogans' use of it during the Krogan Rebellions, to Balak's attempt to crash X-57 into Terra Nova, to Garrus casually suggesting towing in some asteroids to drop on Rannoch, it is
*always* in the context of imparting enough energy with the impact to not only kill all life on the targeted planet, but render biosphere messed up beyond repair for thousands if not millions of years. So, petaton impacts, in a universe where ship guns that output double digit kilotons a second are already considered potent. The only way to prevent this is to be both hyper alert at all times and possess near-total space superiority in order to stop an asteroid towing operation before it begins, which isn't always possible. Needless to say, this tactic is banned by the Fictional Geneva Conventions under the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction, though this doesn't prevent "third galaxy" nations from using it against each other.
- In the
*Master of Orion*, this is one option for dealing with enemy colonies after defeating defending fleets and defense stations. It can wipe out ground troops, civilian populations, and planetary improvements, leaving an empty planet ready for resettlement. Or just an empty planet if it's toxic note : meaning it cannot be terraformed, and mineral-poor. Certain late-game weapons upgrade this to Earth-Shattering Kaboom.
-
*Planescape: Torment* gives a high-level mage the spell "Meteor Storm Bombardment", which does pretty much exactly what you'd think.
-
*Risk of Rain 2*: The Captain can call upon his ship, UES Safe Travels, to call down pods to bombard an area (or alternatively, drop down a massive object with significantly longer delay) and up to two supply beacons that have a variety of useful effects. He's notably disadvantaged in the Hidden Realms areas, where both these abilities are disabled since he can't establish connection to his ship.
- In
*Sins of a Solar Empire*, capital ships and bombardment frigates can do this to enemy planets to depopulate them, allowing your own colony ships to claim the world for you.
-
*Star Control 2*:
- When asking the Spathi why they fight along the Ur-Quan enslaved, they mention how part of the surrendering ceremony included blasting portions of their planet's surface into radioactive dust. The Spathi didn't like that part.
- Starbase Commander Hayes mentions how the way the Ur-Quan made clear that Earth had lost the war was to destroy Buenos Aires. Weeks later, after the official surrender and the human decision to be slave-shielded, the Ur-Quan blasted from orbit not only
*all* man-made constructions more than 500 years old, but also places seemingly worthless for humans (presumably to destroy more ancient ruins):
**Starbase Commander Hayes:** From their positions in orbit, the Dreadnoughts blew away a kilometer of land in central Iraq, vaporized several targets in the Amazon rain forest, punched a big hole through the antarctic icecap to destroy something deep under the surface, and melted a broad swath of the ocean floor in the south-eastern Atlantic.
- Some time after you ally with the Zoq-Fot-Pik, a lone Kohr-Ah Marauder will attack their homeworld. After you defeat it, they will comment that the ship began raining destructive bolts of energy, and while they were able to protect with shields populated areas entire ecosystems were annihilated.
-
*StarCraft*:
- In the backstory of
*StarCraft*, the Terran Confederacy nuked Korhal into radioactive desert, killing all of the planet's humans and a good number of its other flora and fauna, which led to the restrictions on nuclear weapons that resulted in Terrans only using very weak tactical nukes that have to be guided by ground soldiers with laser pointers. The "glassing" of Korhal was said to have involved over a thousand strategic high-yield *Apocalypse*-class missiles, despite Korhal only being inhabited by 35 million people. Later, the Protoss "purified" Terran colonies that were infested with Zerg during the first campaign. In both cases the planets were recolonized later on.
-
*StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void*: The *Spear of Adun* has the ability to fire various types of orbital strike on the map. The mission "Forbidden Weapon" requires the player's forces to outpace a displacement beam from a Tal'darim mothership arcing across the surface of the planet. At the end of the mission "Purification" the newly-reactivated Purifiers annihilate all life on the Zerg-infested planet they were orbiting with one shot from their ship's main gun. And finally, ||Amon's physical body is destroyed when hit from orbit by the *Spear of Adun*, the Purifier ship, and the Tal'darim motherships, all at once.||
- In
*Star Fox 2*, Andross's forces attempt to destroy Corneria from above. If the planet's damage reaches 100%, good-bye.
- Almost all ship-to-planet combat in
*Star Ruler* consists of this. Park a ship in orbit, then start blasting the crap out of every population center with heavy kinetics, missiles, or energy weapons until every one of the billions of citizen is dead. However, once you start making huge ships or extremely high-tech ships, you stand the risk of *blowing up the planet* when you only meant to cleanse all life. Nuclear-Chemical-Biological warheads allow you to kill most of the population without destroying the infrastructure. In *Star Ruler 2*, excessive bombardment will be a "heinous" act, and will give the victim influence to use against the aggressor in diplomacy.
- In
*Stars! (1995)*, orbital bombardment is the only viable way to clear out enemy population on a settled planet (colonists can just be dropped, but are usually slaughtered for any planet with more than minimal occupancy and mass drivers quickly become easy to counter).
-
*Star Trek Online*:
- Engineers have an Orbital Strike power for use during ground missions that deals a lot of damage in a very localized area. A targeting grid appears on the ground, then a couple seconds later a Pillar of Light comes out of the sky. Season 8's Voth lockbox introduced an unlockable trait that allows the beam to last much longer and follow the target(s) in case they try to get clear. In a frequently amusing case of Gameplay and Story Segregation, the power also works on interior maps, such as indoors on starships, without any effects like the roof collapsing or explosive decompression.
- The Polaron Bombardment Kit Module also performs a similar function, having your orbiting ship fire several shots at the area targeted. Also defies the rules of structural integrity if used inside.
- The Delta Alliance reputation includes a rifle, usable by all players, that calls down an Orbital Strike when the secondary firing mode is used on an "exposed" target.
- Episode "Romulan Mystery", mission "Cutting the Cord" has the Player Character marking ground targets for their orbiting ship to destroy, ||including an Iconian gate||.
- Episode "Dominion Domination", mission "The New Link" has one of the KDF PC's bridge officers suggest calling in the fleet for a quick bombardment to make sure that ||a group of changelings you encountered|| don't try to stick around after you leave. The Starfleet version of the mission instead suggests that the planet will be declared a no-fly zone and ||the changelings|| left in peace.
- Episode "Borg Collective", mission "Collateral Damage" has Undine warships begin glassing a planet the Borg are assimilating. The season 9 update replaced this mission with "A Gathering Darkness", where the Undine ships start with small-scale tactical bombardment then switch to an Earth-Shattering Kaboom.
-
*Star Wars*:
-
*Star Wars Battlefront (2015)*: This is known as an "Orbital Strike", this is a powerful power-up available to be picked up by soldiers on the field. Orbital Strikes can also be called down at will by an AT-AT if the player takes control of it in Walker Assault. Nien Nunb, a Rebel Hero, can also summon these as one of his default abilities; however, he can't do this in smaller game modes, instead receiving the less over-powering Proximity Mines to replace the Orbital Strike.
-
*Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)*: Orbital strikes are present, and also see use in the singleplayer campaign. There's a pseudo-scripted scene in the Battle of Jakku mission where Iden needs to call in several orbital strikes from a nearby *Starhawk*-class battleship to take out a force of AT-AT walkers advancing on her position.
-
*Empire at War*: The *Forces of Corruption* expansion pack makes Orbital Bombardment available in ground battles when you have frigates, cruisers, or capital ships in orbit above a planet you happen to be invading. It has a limited area of effect, and takes an impractically long time to recharge, even when you have an entire fleet of Star Destroyers up there, possibly for balance issues.
-
*Knights of the Old Republic*: Darth Malak orders an orbital bombardment of Taris (giving us the page picture), effectively bombing the planet into the stone age in an attempt to get one Jedi (who escapes). It's also explained that the Rakata bombarded Tatooine long ago, and that this is how it came to be a sandy desert planet to begin with.
-
*Star Wars: The Old Republic*:
- Imperial Agent PCs and some mobs have the ability to call in tactical orbital strikes (even indoors). It does Area of Effect damage and knocks over weaker enemies.
- In story, there's a scene at the beginning of the
*Knights of the Eternal Throne* expansion when your character comes within meters of being blown up by a turbolaser strike. Also, in *Knights of the Fallen Empire* Arcann orders it done to five planets, because he can't find the Outlander.
-
*Stellaris*: Bombardments of this sort can be done with different intensities — "light" only targets unquestionably military targets, "limited" seeks to cripple the world's industrial capacity but avoids permanent harm to the biosphere, and "full" basically just glasses everything. This is a major part of why pre-spacefaring civilizations do so very poorly against invasions by space age civilizations.
- Bombardment is the only way to deal with Infested Worlds (planets taken over by the Prethoryn Scourge) — ground forces can't even land on one. You just have to sit in orbit and hammer the planet until no life exists anywhere on its surface. Similarly, the Contingency's "Sterilization Hubs" must be bombarded from orbit until the planet-sized machine self-destructs.
- With the release of the
*Utopia* DLC, any empires running with the Fanatical Purifiers (Fanatic Xenophobe and Militarist) civic will gain access to Armageddon type bombardment, which is the highest level of orbital destruction unique to them.
- The "Apocalypse" DLC adds planet killer ships, and the accompanying free update reworks orbital bombardment mechanics so that each level leaves so much of the planet's population alive, Armageddon-intensity bombardment eventually turns an inhabited planet into an uninhabited Tomb World. In addition, empires with the Barbaric Despoilers civic can raid planets instead of bombarding them, abducting populations as slaves.
-
*Sword of the Stars*:
- Ships can attack enemy colonies during tactical combat. Mass drivers, (nuclear) missiles, and even lasers that merely damage other ships kill millions when used against planetary populations. There are also specialized Assault Shuttles that go on bombing runs and Biowar missiles carrying Synthetic Plagues that don't damage terraforming or infrastructure (aside from Beast Bomb and Nanoplagues that is).
- Dreadnoughts can be also built with a Siege Driver, a massive mass driver that fires
*asteroids* at planets. Two or three is usually enough to depopulate a world, although environmental damage will be extensive. In most cases, the planet will be rendered uninhabitable by such bombardment.
- Humans can also research and build Node Missiles, which are basically destroyer-sized missiles capable of FTL travel. While their intended use is to soften up enemy defenses (i.e. ships, satellites) before the arrival of the main fleet, they can just as well be used to conduct bombardments of planets from
*star systems* away. They're actually more effective at this than destroying ships, as they move so fast that even regular missiles have a hard time keeping up.
-
*Sunrider*: In the opening minutes of the first game, the PACT dreadnought Legion obliterates the capital city of the planet Cera with a shot of its Wave-Motion Gun. The protagonist's sister is among the millions killed in the blast.
-
*Ten Minute Space Strategy*: Bomber spacecraft are necessary in order to destroy enemy's colonies and, consequently, win the game. Without fighters escorting them, they are sitting ducks, however.
-
*Terra Invicta*: Used to attack and destroy enemy surface bases, as well as armies on Earth. How effective it is depends on the weapons your ships have, and the thickness of the planetary atmosphere. In the Protectorate ending, ||an orbital bombardment is called on the UN Headquarters in New York (which destroys it and a good chunk of New York City) and chalked up to an accidental misfire, conveniently eliminating the only remaining organization opposed to Earth's new benefactors and the only people who know the truth about humanity's surrender to the aliens.||
-
*XCOM: Enemy Unknown*: Your chief engineer notes that the aliens must have this capability as their technology is so far advanced, and the fact that they *aren't* simply wiping you off the map by lobbing in asteroids hints at bigger plans for humanity.
-
*Red vs. Blue*: Season 9's "The Sarcophagus" has the Freelancers call in an orbital strike from the Director's flagship, UNSC *Mother of Invention*, to get out of being trapped on a rooftop. The building is collapsed by the attack and the Freelancers are rescued in midair by a Pelican.
- In
*Crimson Dark* the Republic of Daranir launched an indiscriminate bombardment of the Cirin Alliance planet Farhaven. The Cirin consider it a war crime.
-
*Exterminatus Now*, as a parody of *40k*, features Exterminatus. However here it's a localized attack rather than a planet-wrecking one.
- In
*SCP Foundation*, SCP-1514 ("Star Wars") offers a non-standard example. If the SCP-1514-2 Kill Sats do not receive the daily telepathic signal from SCP-1514-1A (implying a Russian first-strike on the United States), they will attack and destroy their ground targets in Russia, triggering a nuclear war. However, they don't have WMD-level death rays, and instead have Xasers (X-ray lasers). Their targets are unspecified, but is strongly implied to be nuclear launch sites in Russia. Their destruction would *absolutely* wipe out all of Russia, making this an example of an orbital bombardment with weak power by itself but WMD-level effects due to their targets.
- The Wizards of the Coast website has a what-if page about a Space Opera version of
*Magic: The Gathering* called *Space: The Convergence*. One of the sample cards shown is called Orbital Bombardment. (It's a sf-flavoured Wrath of God.)
-
*Mahu*: In "Second Chance", the Galactic Commonwealth never performs a planetary invasion without previously bombarding the world they want to conquer for a few weeks. Once the planet's fortifications are all reduced to rubble, the fleet in orbit continues to give fire support to the troops on the ground.
- In
*Battletech*, Nicholai Malthus bombards Remus City on the planet Romulus after militia remnants assist the Strikers in escaping the planet. The only reason Clan Jade Falcon didn't catch as much flak for this as Smoke Jaguar did for their bombing of Edo city a few months later(see Tabletop Games) was because Malthus forcibly evacuated the population first.
- The Irken Empire from
*Invader Zim* employs a procedure called "Organic Sweep" on already conquered planets which is basically amounts to this trope. The entire Irken Armada bombards the planet with all their artillery, eradicating all the organic life and structures that might have survived the previous conquering. This leaves the planet ready to be re-purposed as the Almighty Tallests see fit.
-
*Star Wars Rebels*:
- Remember Base Delta Zero from
*Legends* under Literature? A HoloNet News broadcast in "Rise of the Old Masters" mentions "another successful planetary liberation utilizing the Base Delta Zero initiative." Details as to what exactly that means in canon are lacking, but it doesn't sound good ...
- "Zero Hour": ||Grand Admiral Thrawn does this to the Rebel base on Atollon, stopping just before their shield fails because he's under orders from Grand Moff Tarkin to take the rebel leaders alive.|| The effects are rather... unimpressive, with each shot from the Star Destroyer's turbolasers being inferior in explosion radius and lethality to a modern artillery shell.
*The Last Jedi* suggests that this was because turbolasers have an Arbitrary Weapon Range past which they rapidly lose power; Thrawn started bombardment from geosynchronous orbit, while bombardment is presumably usually intended to commence from LEO.
- During the liberation of Earth in
*Exosquad*, a column of Neosapien Hover Tanks commandeered by the Resistance get into an extended battle at a cloverleaf interchange with a group of loyal Neo Tanks. This lasts until the entire Exofleet gets overhead and brings the battle to a swift conclusion in favor of the Resistance.
- Attemped in
*Young Justice (2010)* by Mongul from the WarWorld after learning that the Reach had reached Earth. After the WarWorld's laser cannon was disabled, Mongul instead launched a saturation attack that took a combination of the remaining Justice League, Earth's military forces, and the Reach's secret armada to repel.
**Mongul:** Your deaths today in the face of the Reach are a mercy. My grand laser emitter would have ended your world in a matter of minutes; another mercy. But it seems the mercies of Mongul are not appreciated, so we will do this the hard way, and the WarWorld will unleash all it's weapons on the Earth. You're welcome.
- While only theoretical, "Rods from God" are meant to do this. These were literally a rod made from some quite dense metal such as tungsten - suspended in high orbit, ready to be dropped at any time. The kinetic energy accumulated and subsequently released by such an object is roughly the same as a nuclear weapon without needing to worry about all that nasty fallout and may technically be able to not violate agreements such as the Outer Space Treaty. The US military has even considered making one for real, called Project Thor. The catch is that Tungsten is an extremely dense metal, and getting enough of it into space would require a lot of effort and money.
- In the 1960s, US Air Force engineers designed the Orion Battleship, a 500m, nuclear propelled space craft that could theoretically bombard any target on earth with both conventional naval artillery and a terrifyingly large number of nuclear missile launchers. Even worse, it was entirely possible to build it by the end of the decade. Even at the peak of the nuclear arms race, President Kennedy was so terrified by the blueprints' theoretical destructive powers, he orded the end of any further research in Orion propulsion, and the destruction of all blueprints and scale models. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrbitalBombardment |
Orchestra Hit Techno Battle - TV Tropes
*"Change the scheme, alter the mood! *
Electrify
* the boys and girls, if you'd be so kind."*
Rave music is generally regarded as Background Music to pop drugs to and dance. The songs are uplifting, entrancing and quite often promote the ideas of peace, love and happiness. People who enjoy House Music, Techno and Speedy Techno Remakes generally dance to it to get lost in the music, like a form of well deserved escapism from Real Life.
But sometimes, said "Rave music" can go the other way, into the realm of aggression and rage. Mostly a trope confined to fiction, The Orchestra Hit Techno Battle is when high energy rave music is used as BGM for a Fight Scene or an epic battle, rather than a peaceful dance party.
Named for the orchestra hit synth that is frequently used in early 90's techno groups such as 2 Unlimited and of course The Immortals and their
*Mortal Kombat* remix. The film adaption of *Mortal Kombat* is probably the most notable example of utilizing this trope as well as being the Trope Codifier.
In some cases, the song itself only has to be about fighting as in the case of the aforementioned
*Mortal Kombat* remix.
Since the decline of rave culture, many of these songs such as 2 Unlimited's 'Get Ready For This' are frequently played at hockey games to amp the testosterone levels in the crowds up.
May overlap with Ballroom Blitz if the battle actually is taking place at a dance club and the music is actually playing in universe.
In video games, this is a type of Battle Theme Music, mostly reserved for Boss Battles.
## Examples:
- Many videos of MMORPG boss kills (most prevalent in regards to
*World of Warcraft*) actually invoke this, by layering techno or electronic music on top of the boss battle footage. This video (the 25 man world first kill of Algalon the Observer, by the guild Ensidia) is one such example.
- In
*Mortal Kombat: The Movie*, the track "Techno Syndrome" from The Immortals underscores the first phase of the final showdown between Liu Kang and Shang Tsung.
- The fight scene between Liu Kang and Reptile features an instrumental remix of Traci Lords' 'Control.'
- A particularly brutal and gritty version exists in
*True Romance* during the fight scene between Clarence and Drexl, Nymphomania's 'I Want Your Body' is playing in the background. The music in the scene is pretty loud, which almost drowns out Gary Oldman's dialog.
-
*TRON: Legacy* had a cameo from Daft Punk as the dj's inside a virtual club while a Ballroom Blitz broke out, thanks to Clu's forces.
-
*The Terminator* used an electronic soundtrack with synthesized orchestra hits for many of the chase scenes, notably the Tunnel Chase and Factory Chase. Long before the days of techno but the idea is the same. Arguably, movies like *Terminator* retroactively helped inspire techno's dystopian aesthetic to begin with.
- The
*Matrix* series was fond of this, and would often mix pumping techno from Juno Reactor and others with more orchestral fare by Don Davis and crew.
-
*Scott Pilgrim vs. The World* features a rave soundtrack during the fight with Roxxy. Understandable, since it takes place in a nightclub.
- The nihilists from
*The Big Lebowski* actually brought a ghetto blaster playing techno music to a battle with the Dude and his posse.
- Pretty much the entirety of the soundtrack from
*The Raid* is a pumping selection of breaks and dubstep.
- WHAT DOES EVERYBODY WANT?! Unce Unce Unce Unce. WHAT DOES EVERYBODY NEED?!
- Too Cool was an interesting subverison. They would have a dance number to a techno / hip hop beat in a environment that is normally reserved for fighting and aggression.
- WWE has been using electro house inspired pop songs more and more with their P Pv's such as Wrestlemania.
-
*Recca* had techno music for the *entire soundtrack*. Note that *Recca* is a NES game...
-
*Bio Metal* had "Get Ready For This" and "Twilight Zone" by 2 Unlimited for its boss music. Or at least in the US version.
- The Boss music from
*Plok*.
- Seven Force's theme from
*Gunstar Heroes* and *Alien Soldier*.
- Ridley's music from
*Super Metroid* sounds similar to 'Twilight Zone' from 2 Unlimited, just in a different time signature. The arrangement used for Meta-Ridley in *Metroid Prime* fits this trope even better.
- A majority of
*Devil May Cry's* soundtrack.
- Played With in Katana ZERO, during Club Neon. While the first half of the stage is played as a stealth section, you have to mow your way out of the club once you meet Electrohead, the BGM not changing from it's bassy, rave theme, "Hit The Floor".
- PAYDAY 2:
- Due to the open-ended design of the game, in the Nightclub heist this can be invoked by the player heisters if you shoot the mafia and tie hostages as soon as you can, (the "Loud" approach), or completely averted by busting the target safe in and out with proper silent tools (the "Stealth" approach.)
- The Alesso Heist DLC features a special soundtrack for the stage, composed by Swedish DJ Alesso. So special in fact, you can't change it without the use of mods.
-
*Many* tracks from the *Streets of Rage* series.
- Shudder, one of the boss themes from
*Einhänder*.
- In
*Arcana Heart's* story mode, should you be defeated by Mildred Avalon's first form, her boss theme becomes one of these. It's much more intense than her normal battle theme, and because she starts with a full Super Meter when you lose the first round, it serves to underline how badly you're screwed.
-
*Mortal Kombat 3* notably uses this trope in the main title, Streets, and Belltower themes.
- Laguna's theme song in
*Final Fantasy VIII*.
- Chaotic Dance from
*Baten Kaitos*, The Dragon and the Quirky Mini Boss Squad's theme.
- Some of the boss battle music from both
*Super Mario Galaxy* and *Super Mario Galaxy 2*, especially the music played during the final boss battle with Bowser at the end of the first game.
- When the battle really starts to heat up in the
*Half-Life* series, expect it to be underscored by some beats! Even more notable in that the game has no BGM except for dramatic events.
-
*Space Channel 5 Part 2* has Desperate Dance Showdown for Dancing Purge's battle. It certainly fits the atmosphere of the battle at the time.
- Chapter 3 and the Final Boss battle in
*House of the Dead*.
- Teased in
*Kingdom Hearts II* and onwards with the high energy remix of Simple and Clean; it's in most of the games but despite fan outcry it has yet to be used as battle music.
- "Another Side, Another Story" originally plays during a fight scene at Memory's Skyscraper. It's been used several times since as a battle theme.
- Subverted by
*Sensory Overload*, which uses techno orchestra hits in the Game Over music, but not in any of the in-game themes, which have a more EBM-type sound.
-
*Pokémon Black and White* use this during the battles with legendary Pokémon.
- Originating between the 80's and 90's, the
*Mega Man* series always had this as part of its famous Background Music. *Mega Man X* even has the orchestral hit in many of its tunes.
-
*The Adventures of Batman and Robin* for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive ignores the whimsical, orchestral score of its source material for 90s acid house. The intro score is 9 minutes long!
-
*Tekken* has the Chicago and Stadium themes. The arcade soundtrack to *Tekken 2* (not so much the arranged PlayStation soundtrack) has several examples as well, notably for Heihachi, Michelle Chang, Lei Wu-Long, and the Sub-Bosses.
- The Genesis game
*Combat Cars* has a techno soundtrack, and the Character Select and Downtown themes are soundalikes of Haddaway's "What Is Love?" and 2 Unlimited's "Tribal Dance", respectively.
- The
*Contra* series had this as far back as the second game, both versions of which used PCM orchestra hit samples. *Contra: Hard Corps* exhibits this trope the most, notably in "Locked and Loaded", "Zephyr", the appropriately named "R.A.V.E.", "A Spirit of Bushi", "Format X", "The Dawn", and "The Hard Corps". *Contra: Shattered Soldier* has a Nostalgia Level with a techno remix of the original game's Stage 1 theme, as well as techno battle themes for Yokozuna Jr., Jinmen-gyo, and Mr. Heli-Robo.
- The first two
*Syphon Filter* games have many orchestral techno battle themes, notably Main Subway Line, Pharcom Expo Center,] Rhoemer's Military Base,Missile Silo, the second game's intro, United Pacific Train 101, C-130 Crash Site, Club 32 (bonus points for the mission being set in a dance club), Moscow Streets, Agency Biolab Escape, and New York Slums.
-
*WinBack* has this during boss battles.
- In
*Bejeweled*, the Time Trial mode invokes this with the techno track "Data Jack" by Skaven of the Future Crew. Likewise, *Max Payne*'s Ragna Rock Club stage uses the break section of Skaven's "Corruptor".
- The Power Plant theme in
*One Must Fall 2097* sounds like a stereotypical 2 Unlimited track.
-
*GoldenEye (1997)* has orchestra hit-based arrangements of the James Bond theme in a few levels, e.g. the Silo, Frigate, and Train.
-
*Action 52*, released in 1991(predating *Recca* by a year), has the iconic and often-remixed Cheetahmen theme.
- In contrast to the hard rocking Ultimate Final Boss from the previous two games, the battle theme for ||Clarity Centralis|| in Spark the Electric Jester 3 makes full use of this.
- In
*Super Mario RPG*, the first phase of the fight against Smithy combines this with an Ominous Pipe Organ.
-
*Super Mario World*'s final battle theme, which was reused for Bowser's Castle in *Super Mario Kart*.
-
*Star Fox* for the SNES has Corneria's stage theme. Considering the rest of the game (and series) tends to use Orchestral Bombing, it stands out.
- The
*DanceDanceRevolution* series features this trope in many of its boss songs, notably the "PARANOiA" and "MAX" series.
-
*Impossamole*, in its TurboGrafx-16 incarnation, has the chiptune equivalent of this in much of its background music, but oddly not the boss theme.
-
*Descent* has this in Io Sulfur Mine from the DOS version, and Venus Atmospheric Lab from the Macintosh version.
-
*Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon* has Combat II, an homage to the aforementioned *Terminator* Tunnel Chase theme.
-
*Undertale* has Death By Glamour, Mettaton's battle theme.
-
*Double Dragon Neon* uses this trope for the first fight with Skullmageddon, Mecha Biker, and the Giant Tank.
-
*Ikaruga*, has the main theme "Ideal", which is remixed as "The Stone Like" for the Final Boss battle, the main boss theme "Butsutekkai", and the part of "Reality" heard during the Bullet Hell maelstrom in Chapter 4.
- The
*Metal Slug* series has the Assault theme for the recurring boss Allen O'Neil, which sounds like a pastiche of "Techno Syndrome" and the *Mission: Impossible* theme. Notably, it was given a Drum and Bass arrangement in the seventh installment.
- In
*Duke Nukem 3D* the Red Light District strip club music is a soundalike of the *Mortal Kombat* theme.
- Ys:
-
*California Speed*, namely the arcade version, uses stadium techno for its Laguna Seca and Sears Point courses.
-
*Dead to Rights* has a dancefloor battle set to a *Matrix*-esque techno track, appropriately titled "Nightclub Combat". | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrchestraHitTechnoBattle |
Order Reborn - TV Tropes
*"Speak again the ancient oaths and return to men the Shards they once bore. The Knights Radiant must stand again."*
Long ago, there existed an order of people who battled evil valiantly but have since fallen into disarray and were ultimately forgotten. But as the Ancient Evil rises its head again, a new group of heroes will take up the fallen banner of their ancestors and defend the world that they passed down to them in their name.
The Order Reborn is a reincarnation of an extinct heroic organization that has been forgotten over time but resurrected by the distant successors to combat evil, new or old. It is probably based on the old principles but (ideally) with adjustments made to prevent it from meeting the same end.
Usually precipitated by the Last of His Kind, who will become The Mentor. The "order" being rebuilt is often The Chosen Many. A subtrope of The Order. Compare with Putting the Band Back Together and Split and Reunion. For this trope on nation-wide scale, see Resurgent Empire.
## Examples:
-
*"From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the universe, comes a legend. The legend of Voltron: Defender of the Universe. A mighty robot, loved by good, feared by evil. As Voltron's legend grew, peace settled across the galaxy. On Planet Earth, a Galaxy Alliance was formed. Together with the good planets of the Solar System, they maintained peace throughout the universe until a new horrible menace threatened the galaxy. Voltron was needed once more. This is the story of the superforce of space explorers, specially trained and sent by the Alliance to bring back Voltron: Defender of the Universe."*
- During
*Inuyasha*, Naraku brought about the end of the Demon Slayers by luring their strongest away for a mission, and then leading a horde of demons to attack their village. For a while, Sango and Kohaku were the only ones left. By the time of *Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon*, they have recovered. Kohaku is The Leader of a new generation of Demon Slayers, which include his nephew, Hisu. Sango makes demon slayer tools and suits up for battle when needed.
- The Green Lantern Corps in The DCU in the arcs ending with "The Road Back". It also happened after the Arcs
*Green Lantern: Rebirth* and *Green Lantern: Recharge*.
- The Nova Corps in the Marvel Universe went through something similar after the
*Annihilation: Conquest* story.
- DC's Shadowpact is revealed to be an unknowing revival of an ancient order that appears once every few years, in different forms, with different purposes but under the same name. It is revealed, by the Phantom Stranger, that the Shadowpact always fails.
-
*The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen* has had several incarnations over the years, including a 16th century version led by Prospero, and an 18th century team featuring Lemuel Gulliver and Lord Blakeney in its roster.
-
*Star Wars*: *The Force Awakens* shows that Luke restored the Jedi Order... but they were then wiped out by his nephew along with his "Knights of Ren". Disillusioned by this, Luke's gone into exile and in *The Last Jedi* denounces the Jedi saying they have to end, concluding their beliefs were a failure. *The Rise of Skywalker* though it's indicated that ||Rey|| is now a Jedi and may restore the Jedi Order once again, avoiding its past mistakes hopefully.
- After gathering the Lorestones, Lone Wolf is able to re-establish the Kai Lords twenty years after their destruction.
-
*Inheritance Cycle* is going this route with the Dragon Rider organization. Eragon was a big deal because he was the first such rider in decades, and could lead to many more.
-
*Deryni*: This relationship between the Michaelines and the Knights of the Anvil is alluded to from time to time. When the Michaelines were suppressed in Gwynedd, many members sought sanctuary with the Anvillers, bringing their knowledge and some of their portable wealth with them. While the Anvillers have other influences (including Muslim ones), they seem to be a mixed human/Deryni military order that eschewed the spotlight of political prominence that Michaelines had, perhaps so as to avoid the Michaelines' fate.
-
*Harry Potter*: The Order of the Phoenix was formed during the dark times when Voldemort and his Death Eaters were wreaking havoc on the magical community and was disbanded when Voldemort was thought to have been permanently defeated. Once Voldemort returns (despite the vehement insistence of the Ministry of Magic to the contrary), the Order reforms. Because it's only been 15 years since the Order had been disbanded, it is primarily composed of its (surviving) original members.
- Andrey Livadny's
*The History of the Galaxy*: the Confederacy of Suns and its military are dissolved after 1000 years for lack of external enemies and the desires of the colonies for self-governance. After just 20 years, humanity is attacked by a previously-unknown alien race bent on crippling and, possibly, wiping us out. It is up to a few soldiers, headed by four veterans of the Confederacy to defeat the overwhelming enemy and restore the Confederacy for common defense. One of them, a young woman, becomes the first President of the Confederacy, despite having no prior political or governing experience. Later novels show a rebuilt Confederacy after only a few years, its mildest back to full strength, despite many of the ships and Real Robots being scrapped at the end of the first one.
- In
*A Song of Ice and Fire*, the Night's Watch is a shadow of its legendary heritage. It was erected to defend against the Others but has now fallen into disrepair. While it was once considered an honorable calling by all, most kingdoms believe it to have lost its purpose since the Sealed Evil in a Can behind the Wall hasn't been active for thousands of years. Now, only those in the North consider the Night's Watch to be a noble calling, where second/third sons and highborn bastard sons from select Northern noble houses are known to join for the sake of honor and duty. The lack of support from many southern regions and the practice of 'pardoning' criminals in return for joining up (among other things) resulted in the Watch gradually becoming an Army of Thieves and Whores. Meanwhile, the Others *have* come back, prompting Jon Snow and others to believe that the order needs to be whipped back into shape. ||Once he becomes Lord Commander, he starts making drastic changes, many of them progressive, with this objective in mind — in an effort to save everyone, including the wildlings, from the Others. He secures a loan from the Iron Bank to pay for needed supplies, insists on daily combat training, makes plans to build glass gardens to grow produce in winter, etc. Some of Jon's initiatives are far more controversial, such as making peace with the wildlings beyond the Wall, who Jon brings south to shelter at various castles held by the Night's Watch in both a humanitarian effort to save them and to gain their aid defending against the Others. He also wants to save the wildlings as any human being who dies north of the Wall rises as a wight. However, some of these policies — such as saving the wildlings — are deeply opposed by some of his officers, and Jon eventually falls to a mutiny.||
-
*Kindling Ashes*: One of the goals of the Fire Souls is to re-establish the Flyer organization. Many of them have already learned the lore and skills necessary to become fliers.
- In
*The Stormlight Archive*, the Knights Radiant, defenders of mankind, turned their backs on humanity and abandoned their weapons many years before the books, gaining the reputation of traitors and blasphemers. However, the return of the threat they once defended against leads to them starting to make a comeback, heralded by ||Kaladin||. As of *Words of Radiance*, ||Shallan, Dalinar, Renarin and (secretly) Szeth have joined their ranks||. Additionally, this is the explicit goal of the Well-Intentioned Extremist group the Sons of Honor: they seek to foster chaos and destruction to induce the return of the Knights Radiant and the Heralds, in order for them to fix everything wrong with the world.
- During
*The Beast Arises* series, the Imperial Fists suffer terrible casualties until they are finally driven to extinction during the second invasion of Ullanor. In an attempt to prevent knowledge of this event from devastating the morale of the war ravaged Imperium, Chapter Master Maximus Thane of the Fists Exemplar convinced the Imperial Fists Successors to secretly rebuild their parent Chapter with members of their own brotherhoods.
- While not defunct, The Order of the
*Bat'leth* from *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* had long lost its way and became another empty symbol of personal glory. But in the *Star Trek: Klingon Empire* series, Chancellor Martok revives the Order's original purpose - to keep Kahless The Unforgettable's legacy and ensure that all actions that the Empire undertakes are done so with honor and those who would dishonor the Empire with their deeds are stopped.
- The New Jedi Order established by Luke Skywalker from
*Star Wars Legends* is the archetypal example. They used to be a major force in the galaxy, then they diminished into Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. Both of them lived in exile. Then they took turns training Luke Skywalker, who ushers in a new era for the Jedi.
- In the anthology novel
*Tales from the world of The Witcher*, it's mentioned that decades after the events of *The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt* a Second Conjunction of the Spheres occurred, resulting in the world being filled with new kinds of monsters, and new Witcher schools being established to confront them with stricter codes of conduct to legitimize them in the public's eyes.
- High Guard from Gene Roddenberry's
*Andromeda*. Granted, the High Guard are more of a Space Navy that an Order, but when stuck between the Nietzcheans and the Magog, anyone could put on the white hat.
- Slightly subverted in that there were still remains of the High Guard in existence on the planet Tarazed that still kept the flame of the Commonwealth alive. But their entire fleet consisted of a few dozen slipfighters and no capital ships.
- The Fayvana from
*Fading Suns* are a psychic coven that claim to be a descendant organization of the Phavian Institute, which was destroyed during the end of the Second Republic. The actual link is extremely tenuous; most people in the know think that they're an unrelated group claiming a legacy for themselves. Regardless, they *are* devoted to the ideals of the Institute.
- The Dragons from
*Feng Shui* are repeatedly destroyed by the evil forces that they oppose, but they keep being reformed by new members.
-
*Drakan*: The dragon-riding Order of the Flame.
-
*The Elder Scrolls*
- Late in
*Morrowind*'s Thieves' Guild quest line, you are tasked with reestablishing the name of the Bal Malogmer, an ancient order of thieves in Morrowind who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, with an added dose of Karmic Thievery.
- In
*Oblivion*'s *Knights of the Nine* expansion, you can reestablish the eponymous chivalric order that was disbanded some 200 years prior in order to battle the Big Bad of the expansion, an ancient evil being who has just emerged from being sealed in can.
-
*Skyrim*:
- During the main quest, you can help re-form the Blades, an Ancient Order of Protectors who have long served the emperors of Tamriel as bodyguards and spies but were devastated by the Great War and were officially disbanded by the White-Gold Concordat. This term is enforced by the Thalmor who have been hunting the surviving Blades with overwhelming force wherever possible.
- The Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild questlines involve bringing each guild back from the brink of complete elimination.
- In the
*Dawnguard* DLC, the titular order of vampire hunters collapsed in the 2nd Era and was revived by a Well-Intentioned Extremist when the threat of vampires resurfaced in the 4th Era. You can join up and help save the world from the vampire threat.
-
*Fallout 4*: The Minutemen can be this, with the player's help. They used to be able to protect people across the commonwealth from threats such as feral ghouls and raiders, but are down to a single active minuteman by the time you arrive. If you side with them, you can bring them back to their former glory.
- In
*Lost Technology*, the Dragon Knights of Fevnir were founded by the descendants of an order of dragon-riding knights two hundred years ago.
-
*Warcraft* has the Order of the Silver Hand from the world. The Paladins of the Order served to defend the human kingdoms through the second war and a bit of the third war as Light-empowered healing-capable knights, but were disbanded in *Warcraft III* by a crazed Arthas when Uther the Lightbringer refused to help him purge the plague-infested town of Stratholme. Most of the Paladins themselves, including Uther, were killed shortly afterwards by Arthas and the Scourge after he became a rampaging Death Knight. Of those that lived, a large chunk went on to form the fanatical Scarlet Crusade, while the rest held onto a disorganized remnant at most, and were largely Knights of the Silver Hand in name only. Years later in *World of Warcraft*, when former knight Tirion Fordring's son Taelan is killed by the Scarlet Crusade, he reforms the order to combat both the Scourge and the Crusade. In *Wrath of the Lich King*, Arthas' failed attack on Light's Hope Chapel leads to the Silver Hand merging with the Argent Dawn (a good splinter faction of the Scarlet Crusade) to form the Argent Crusade, which would lead the charge on Icecrown Citadel. In addition, despite its incorporation into the neutral Argent Crusade, the Order of the Silver Hand does still exist as an Alliance-aligned entity, as new Human and Dwarf paladins are knighted as members of the Silver Hand. There's a bit of irony in this, as Fordring was exiled from the order by Uther for helping an old orc.
-
*Dragon Age: Origins*
- While there are other Grey Wardens on Thedas, you and Alistair are the last of the Wardens in Ferelden after the Battle of Ostagar. By the end of the game, your victory over the Fifth Blight redeems the Wardens' reputation in Ferelden — it's mentioned earlier that the Wardens aren't very popular in Ferelden due to a past Warden's attempted coup. In
*Awakening* you have to start conscripting new Wardens after the ones from Orlais are all killed/captured by the Darkspawn, taking your journey full circle from conscriptee to conscripter.
- At the end of the second prequel book, all that's left of the Wardens in Ferelden are Duncan and ||Alistair's mother||, both relatively new recruits. Duncan is charged by his superiors in Weisshaupt Fortress to rebuild the order in Ferelden. He succeeds but not enough to stop the next Blight.
- In
*Dragon Age: Inquisition*, the upcoming third game in the series, this will be played straight, as the plot surrounds the return of the titular Inquisition, an ancient order which was disbanded 900 years before the present age.
- After the destruction of the Jedi Order in between the events of
*Knights of the Old Republic* and *Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords*, Meetra Surik's apprentices canonically rebuild the Order essentially from scratch, given that none ever had formal Jedi training other than what Meetra taught them note : the Disciple *is* an exception as having been a Jedi youngling, but it is not entirely clear he canonically went with Meetra and in any case he never even got to be a Padawan (he had the potential, but the Order was *severely* short on available Knights as a result of Revan drawing many off to war and Mical simply was never picked until he was deemed too old.
-
*Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood*
- Ezio sets about rebuilding the Assassin order in Rome, after the destruction of their primary base in Monterigionni. Unlike most Order Reborn plots, the Assassin brotherhood's support infrastructure is still intact, but the membership needs to be completely rebuilt and reorganized in a hostile area of Italy being dominated by their enemies. Once Ezio starts recruiting dedicated Assassins, he can dispatch them to support other Assassin operations across Europe. While Ezio can only recruit up to 12 assassins, by the end, they can all achieve the rank of Master Assassin and, therefore, be able to have recruits of their own.
- Ditto in
*Assassin's Creed III*, where the Assassins were all but destroyed in the New World by the Templars (it helps that the Grand Master of the Templars' New World Chapter is ||a former Assassin, who knows all the ins and outs of his former comrades||). Connor calls Achilles out on the fact that it happened on his watch. By that point, Achilles is an old man with a cane whom the Templars (usually) leave in peace as long as he stays in the Davenport Homestead and doesn't try anything. It's up to Connor to rebuild the Assassins by recruiting those dissatisfied with the British rule and sending them on missions to other colonies. The state of the Assassins in the Old World is unknown.
- In
*Assassin's Creed Syndicate*, the British Brotherhood of Assassins was severely weakened after the murder of ||Edward Kenway|| in his own home. Since then, the Templars have taken over London and kept it in their grip. It wouldn't be until the Frye twins decided to disregard their superiors' orders and went to London to weaken the Templars' hold on it that Assassins were able to return to the city.
- Following the events of
*Diablo III*, Tyrael reforms the ancient order known as the Horadrim in *Reaper of Souls* to seal away the Prime Evil and combat other growing supernatural threats in Sanctuary.
-
*Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order*: The game takes place several years after the events of *Revenge of the Sith* and much of the plot is driven the attempts of Cal Kestis, a survivor of the Jedi purge, to find a list of force-sensitive children so he can rebuild the Jedi order. ||Subverted in that upon finally finding the Holocron, Cal ends up destroying it for fear that the Empire would find the children and kill them or turn them to the dark side.||
- The overarching plot of
*Overwatch* surrounds the demise and rebirth of the titular organization. During its heyday, Overwatch was a peacekeeping force comprised of various heroes from around the world, but it was eventually decommissioned as a result of internal corruption, ideological disillusionment, and the relentlessness of its biggest enemy, Talon. However, with the world falling into chaos in the years following their disbandment, members of old and new decide to reunite and fight back once again as an unsanctioned, but highly capable ragtag strike team, because the world could always use more heroes.
- This is what
*Cobra Kai* became after a 34-year ban was lifted on the dojo. In the final episode of the first season, Miguel won the final round in a tie-breaker against Miyagi-do fighter Robby.
- Practitioners of Woo Foo in
*Yin Yang Yo!* have had this happen constantly; in the back story, it's established that each time, part of the reason was that the fighters couldn't work together and lost because of it.
-
*Avatar: The Last Airbender*: The Air Nomads were wiped out prior to the start of the series with only the title character surviving. Come Season 3 of the Sequel Series *The Legend of Korra*, a Mass Super-Empowering Event has caused new Airbenders to start popping up all over the world, and rebuilding the Air Nation is a major subplot for the season.
- The Olympic Games—first recorded in 776 BC in honor of Zeus. They went on every four years (stopping wars in the process, at least temporarily) until Emperor Theodosius I of Rome suppressed them in 394 AD. The concept was revived on and off starting in the 17th Century until an explicit International Olympic Committee was formed in 1890 (though no longer in honor of Greek mythological gods, the more general idea of different nations competing in competitions less brutal than war stuck). The first modern Olympics were held in 1896 and have occurred every four years since (save for some very major distractions.) | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrderReborn |
Blue-and-Orange Morality - TV Tropes
*"For one of dragon's blood to not take up weapons, to not prepare night and day to slaughter any enemies that would come against them—it is unthinkable. It is—one who does such a thing, who believes the world will not be dangerous, will not strive to kill him
That is what we call insane."*
To say that questions of morality are thorny and filled with gray when they aren't being hammered between stark absolutes is putting it mildly. Because of this there can be great drama when characters who represent a wide range of moral viewpoints come together or into conflict.
The strangest of these characters are those who espouse Blue and Orange Morality. These characters have a moral framework that is so utterly alien and foreign to human experience that we can't peg them as "good" or "evil". They aren't a Chaotic Neutral Unfettered, though they may seem to act terrifyingly randomly; nor are they necessarily a Lawful Neutral Fettered, because our and their understanding of "law" as a concept may not even be equivalent. There might be a logic behind their actions, it's just that they operate with entirely different sets of values and premises from which to draw their conclusions. It's also worth noting that such cultures are just as likely to be something we'd find appalling as they are to be something we'd find benign and/or weird. They may also find us appalling, benign, or weird even if we don't see them that way, and although they are often likely to commit acts we would see as horrific, some are unusually benign. Either way they tend to act as if nothing were the matter. Because in their world/mind, that's just what they do. This trope is one of the trickier to pull off well, because Most Writers Are Human, and it's often hard to portray alien and
*truly* foreign. Because of this, it's not uncommon for audience members to label these characters as Designated Heroes or villains due to human audiences often lacking the experience or knowledge that these fictional characters have. Audiences must remember that these characters are meant to be Morally Ambiguous.
This is similar to Values Dissonance, but the main difference is that societies with Values Dissonance can, at least on a basic level, generally measure one another by the same concepts of Good and Evil, or even Order and Chaos. With Blue and Orange Morality, the values are so foreign, that such concepts can no longer be applied. They may not even know what these things are, or even if they do, will often find them confusing. The concepts are not necessarily beyond their grasp, mind you, but just aren't something which they'd place any importance on.
Conversely, they may have these concepts, but apply them in vastly different ways. Such as regarding motionlessness as the epitome of evil, or viewing exploration as an element of chaos.
Note that cases involving solely a misapprehension of facts and consequences do not count here, no matter how alien the reasons; if, for example, a race of aliens thinks killing is okay because its own members respawn within a day with no harm done, and mistake humans as working the same way, that doesn't mean they wouldn't balk at killing if they realized the degree of harm it causes to other creatures. In this case, they may be working by comprehensible moral standards and just gravely mistaken about the implications of their actions. This is not to say that trope can't still apply if the culture remains this way with no grasp of the reasons behind it. If, say, such a race of aliens really do exist, and really did come to believe killing is okay as
*a side effect* of the reasons above, but don't apply this to their thought processes when killing, and thus, think just as little of killing mortals who *don't* respawn, then this trope can still apply.
Likely candidates for Blue and Orange Morality include The Fair Folk, who follow rules of their own making; Eldritch Abominations that are beyond comprehension; the more exotic Starfish Aliens; AIs and robots, especially when super smart and/or incapable of emotion; The Anti-God and God via Time Abyss and Above Good and Evil. Another candidate is the power of money or The Almighty Dollar. An individual human (or single members of any species whose majority falls into darker morality) who operates on this is the Übermensch of Nietzschean philosophy (a
*human being* who has developed their *own* Blue/Orange set of morals). A Nominal Hero may have this motivation as well. Moral Sociopathy overlaps strongly with this trope for obvious reasons, though this is not always the case.
See also these tropes, which includes/connected to this kind of Morality System: Xenofiction, Humans Are Cthulhu, Humanity Is Infectious (all often involving this), Insane Troll Logic (when the set of values is still rooted in our world but just doesn't make sense to us), Above Good and Evil, Affably Evil/Faux Affably Evil (they sometimes can come across as this), Even Evil Has Standards (when handled poorly or bizarrely), Evil Cannot Comprehend Good (less elaborate forms that resemble this in practice), Non-Malicious Monster (which occasionally requires this), and Obliviously Evil (when a villain thinks that their actions are acceptable or helpful). When two sides go to war, and nothing will stop them except total annihilation, that's Guilt-Free Extermination War. If the character genuinely knows everything will turn out okay, allowing the plot to treat them as a good guy no matter how cruel, irresponsible, or inhuman this makes them by our standards, that's Omniscient Morality License.
See also Morality Tropes and Philosophy Tropes for other Morality and Philosophy Systems.
Not to be confused with Orange/Blue Contrast (though the fact that there's a contrast between those colors
*does* help this trope's name make more sense).
No Real Life Examples, Please!.
## Examples:
<!—index—>
<!—/index—>
-
*Big Hero 6*: Baymax's sole motivation is the survival and physical health of his patients, making him hard to work with at first. He becomes much more co-operative when he adds mental health to the list and is convinced that helping Hiro will improve his mental health. He also considers just about everyone he encounters a potential patient, even scanning the Big Bad and determining (among other things) his blood type during their first encounter.
-
*Kubo and the Two Strings*: According to the hero's mother, the Moon Kingdom functions on this. Kubo's aunts and grandfather do care for him and want him happy, but their way of going about it and view of the human world is monstrous to humans - forcibly abducting him from his parents (after ||hideously disfiguring one into a beetle||) and plucking his remaining eye out to make him blind to the mortal realm, which the celestials consider impure and sinful.
- In
*Kung Fu Panda 2*, Mantis mentions that he never knew his father, because his mother ate his head before Mantis was born. Being, well, a praying mantis, Mantis doesn't consider this unusual, and later on when it looks like they're about to die, he's actually *disappointed* that he never got the chance to settle down with a nice girl and have his head eaten.
-
*The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part*: It turns out that the residents of Bricksburg/Apocalypseburg are this to the Sistarians, who don't really understand the tough and gritty facade the former have been putting up and therefore have no idea how to effectively communicate their desire for peace.
-
*Monsters University*: Tampering with the mail is a big enough offense in the eyes of monsters to merit lifelong banishment to the ||supposedly|| lethal human world. With no supplies, as is suggested in the original film. In human terms, that's like being dropped in the middle of Darkest Africa without any food, water, protection, clothing, or contact with the rest of humanity. For the rest of your life.
-
*The Nightmare Before Christmas*:
- The Addams Family seems to have a moral code that makes sense only to their family. They happily engage in murder, arson, torture, poisoning, destruction, cruel jokes, and seem to find pain (both theirs and other people's) hilarious. At the same time, they are a family of polite, friendly people who clearly care about one another and have some lines that they won't
*ever* cross (i.e. the couples always ask each other for consent, the parents *never* beat or abuse the kids, they never throw anyone out for being different, and they think that betraying your family is an unforgivable act). Exactly how good/evil the family is portrayed heavily Depends On The Writer.
-
*Brimstone Valley Mall*: The main demons all fall into this, to some degree. They were sent up to Earth to lead people into sin, but they rarely actually do that — not for any moral reasons, but because they like life on Earth and don't want to go back to Hell. While they rarely actively antagonize anybody (except for Misroch), they have no qualms about murder, stealing, assault, or cannibalism. However, they're not totally amoral, either; they all value loyalty and friendship, and they are decidedly not bigoted in any way. Murdering a bystander because He Knows Too Much? Totally fine. Flaking out on band practice or degrading your friend's ambitions? Absolutely not!
- There's a play called
*Blue/Orange* that deals with people of this sort of morality, although the name ostensibly comes from a mental disorder one of the characters has that causes him to, among other things, see the insides of oranges as blue. Not the outside, nothing else orange, just the insides.
-
*Cyrano de Bergerac* shows us a strange example of humans with this type of morality: the Gascons believe that *"Good"* is to be crack-brained and brave, to be poor is a motive for pride, your self-destructive tendencies are to be not only tolerated but encouraged, to treat others like crap is tolerable so long as they are not Gascons, and to die in battle is the best destiny you can aspire to. *"Evil"* is to try to get ahead in life by connections and alliances with powerful people, and to display your riches in public is shameful to the point of being declared No True Gascon. Most of all, Disproportionate Retribution and Disproportionate Reward are completely normal conduct.
-
*Danganronpa*:
- ||Nagito Komaeda|| has a very bizarre outlook on morality. To him, hope is good and despair bad, but because his life has been a long roller coaster of disaster followed by windfalls, he believes that bad things will always
*lead* to good things, and therefore it's okay to cause despair so long as that's not your end goal (like ||Junko||), because doing that will lead to more hope. He condemns one of the murderers because they did it out of despair and a twisted love for ||Junko||, but he will cause various problems for his classmates and shows No Sympathy for things like Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu mourning ||Peko Pekoyama||'s death, because to him all these things are just stepping stones to the victims having a more hopeful situation in the end. His classmates think he's creepy because of it.
- ||Junko Enoshima|| straddles the line between this and Card-Carrying Villain. Yes, most of her schemes are just to satisfy her sadomasochistic tendencies, but there's also an element of her thinking that it's a
*good* thing to spread despair to others, as it's the one emotion that never bored her, and she considers boredom to be the worst possible thing. So she genuinely cares for her classmates... which is why she sticks them into the killing game; to treasure the despair she fosters in them.
- In
*Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony*, there's Korekiyo Shinguji, the Ultimate Anthropologist. He sees himself as a passive observer of humanity and is excited by any chance to study "Humanity's Beauty"... which to him means any expression of character or skill, including a murderer's attempt to cover up their crime. ||It's later revealed that he's also a Serial Killer who sees nothing wrong with killing people he sees as especially admirable, since he's a firm believer in the afterlife and he sees it as introducing his dead sister to new friends.||
- In
*Double Homework*, ||Dr. Mosely/Zeta does her best to protect her test subjects whenever possible and believes in the underlying morality of what she does. However, she runs illegal experiments that mainstream science considers unethical, and she has no problem killing anyone who becomes a liability to her sometimes with pleasure.||
-
*Saya no Uta*: ||Saya herself|| is not conventionally evil and does not take delight in killing humans, helps mental patients if they wish so, and only exists to fulfill a mission. ||Sadly, all of this still means she'll go around killing (and eating) humans both as a conventional food source and for studies, her healing skills can drive people even more insane than before, and her mission is to "bloom" and release spores to convert the entire population of the planet into more beings like her.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrangeAndBlueMorality |
Orc Raised by Elves - TV Tropes
Orc Raised by Elves is the opposite of Raised by Orcs. In that trope, someone who is from a good group is raised by villains; this is the opposite, a member of a bad or Always Chaotic Evil group being raised by a good or Always Lawful Good group. This trope, like the other one, gets into the nurture/nature issue. Sometimes, the "orc" will turn out good, thanks to their upbringing, but at other occasions, being evil is hereditary. Sometimes the raised orc will confront members of his biological race. Interesting stuff will happen, like the raised orc thinking they're enemies, or potential friends, or wondering why he looks more similar to them than the ones who raised him. If the orc is disgusted by or otherwise rejects their biological race, an Disappointing Heritage Reveal is typically involved.
Compare with The Farmer and the Viper, which sometimes overlaps, although that's more generally about evil characters being incapable of reciprocating kindness. See also Raised by Humans, Nature Versus Nurture, and of course Elves Versus Dwarves.
## Examples:
-
*Black Clover*: Despite being a devil from the underworld, Liebe himself has a hatred for his own race due to their constant torment and abuse of him in the underworld for having no magic, and was later taken in and raised by Licita when he came to the human world. Although he claims that *all* devils including himself are scum, Asta points out that Liebe is different, inferring that his inability to kill Asta is because of his compassion, which comes from the maternal love he received from Licita.
-
*Dragon Ball*: Kakarot was a Saiyan (a savage and ultraviolent warrior race known for eliminating the populations of entire planets for profit) who came to Earth as a baby and was found by Son Gohan, an Old Master martial artist. As a result of brain trauma from falling headfirst onto a rock and being raised by the kind Son Gohan, the baby grew up to be a loving and cheerful child, renamed by Gohan as Son Goku.
- Slightly retconned in recent years. Kakarot's parents are written as being Saiyans with better dispositions, so he was naturally inclined towards being a nicer Saiyan than most growing up with Gohan merely amplified his kind nature.
- This also applies to Piccolo Jr., whose interactions with the innocent Son Gohan (Goku's son, not grandfather) led to him abandoning his psychopathic & vengeful ways to the point that he even willingly assists in babysitting Gohan's daughter in Dragon Ball Super and sacrificing himself to keep the Black Star Dragon Balls from being restored in Dragon Ball GT.
-
*YuYu Hakusho*: Kurama, a reincarnation of a silver-haired fox demon that born into a human child called Shuichi Minamino. He only planned to stay in his human body until he recovered enough power to return to his old ways, but the loving cares of his human mother formed emotional bonds between them. He was at the point of wanting to save her life when she was ill at the start of the series. First appearing as a possible enemy, when he saw the efforts of Yusuke for saving him and his mother at cost of his own life, Kurama decides to join to his side without hesitation, and later convince demon Hiei to do the same.
-
*You Are Umasou* has a sad version of this. Heart is a T-rex raised by a Maiasaura who found his egg in a river. Her herd is not happy about the situation, and tried to kill him after hatching, but they eventually agree to allow him in when she can't bear to abandon him. Unfortunately, Heart cannot eat leaves so he's left with fruit, the only things he'll eat. When he learns that he's a "Big Jaw", he runs away to live a carnivorous diet. It's later inverted when Heart raises a baby ankylosaur named Umasou, and he has to struggle with raising a son with herbivorous instincts (like always following their parents, making it harder for him to hunt).
-
*The DCU*:
-
*Batman*: Damian Wayne, biological son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, was raised by his mother and trained by the League of Assassins as a killer at early age. Without knowing a word of his existence, Damian appears in his 10s in Wayne's house as a ruthless and violent kid left there by Talia to disrupt Batman's work. With his mentorship as well as Dick Grayson's (who would become the new Batman when Bruce ||temporarily|| died), Damian made a HeelFace Turn and eventually became the new Robin, being like an Anti-Hero version of this Kid Sidekick.
-
*New Gods*: Orion is this, being part of an experiment/peace deal that also included Raised by Orcs. Scott Free was the son of one of the benevolent deities and was given to be raised by the Evil Overlord Darkseid. Darkseid's son, Orion, was raised in his place. Both of them grow up to be heroes, as Orion's rage was given a positive outlet and he became one of New Genesis' greatest champions, while Darkseid was not able to stunt Scott Free's underlying nature or crush his hope no matter how much torture he underwent, and he eventually escaped to Earth where he became Mister Miracle (in the process costing Darkseid one of his strongest minions, Big Barda, who fell in love with Scott and escaped with him).
-
*Hellboy*: Hellboy, a demon considered to be the Antichrist, was found by humans as a baby to be later raised to become an All-American Hero.
-
*Marvel Universe*:
- Ethan Edwards/Virtue is a Skrull sent to Earth when Galactus was due to consume the Skrull throneworld and raised by a kindly Iowa couple.
-
*The Mighty Thor*: Loki is a Frost Giant who was raised by Odin after (apparently) killing his father Laufey. Loki attempts to conquer and destroy Asgard and in general the universe. He also hates his own race, especially his Abusive Parent (who Loki has also killed, twice).
-
*Rom vs. Transformers: Shining Armor*: Subverted/deconstructed; the Space Knights *think* that they've done this by raising Stardrive, a young Transformer that they rescued from a destroyed ship, but in truth they haven't done anything of the sort. Their only real contact with Transformers has been peripheral reports of collateral damage caused by the Great War and the Decepticons attacking organic worlds for resources. Rom is legitimately shocked and disturbed when he realizes that the "evil killer robots" he's been hearing horror stories about his whole life are actually just normal people who happen to be sentient machines. The rest of the Space Knights are even slower to accept the fact that the Autobots are generally good people trying to stop the Decepticons. This all causes Stardrive to suffer not just from discrimination in the Space Knight ranks, but also from extreme self-loathing.
-
*Heroes in the Shadows*: Raphael is the biological son of the Shredder. Recognizing the kind of horrors being raised by someone like the Shredder could bring about, Yoshi takes his son and flees with him to America along with Tang Shen, Miwa, and Leonardo. He was raised as a member of the Hamato Clan.
- The
*Underworld* fic The Lone Wolf basically sees Selene try to be the elf to Michael Corvins orc, based on her belief that all lycans are basically feral monsters. Realising that Michael is a lycan who was turned by chance and has never fought against the vampires (he was essentially bitten in the same accident that killed his fiancé a few months before coming to Budapest), Selene contemplates helping him learn self-control with the tentative plan of using him as an inside man against the other lycans, to the extent of wondering what her life will be like if Michael becomes the last lycan.
- A minor character in the
*Knights of the Old Republic* Game Mod *Brotherhood of Shadow: Solomon's Revenge* is a Mandalorian orphan who was taken in by Coruscanti elite, and signed on the smuggling ship Orion to explore the universe and learn more about the culture of his birth. As a result, he's an incredibly odd combination of Gentleman Adventurer and Proud Warrior Race Guy.
-
*Lilo & Stitch*: Experiment 626, a living creature who is capable of creating untold chaos, was exiled to an asteroid, but he managed to escape and crash into Earth, on a Hawaiian island to be specific. Mistaken for a dog and placed in an animal shelter, he is soon adopted by a young woman named Nani and her rambunctious younger sister, Lilo. Soon, Lilo has named him "Stitch", and with time he forms emotional bonds with her to the point of protecting Lilo from other menaces, like the Mad Scientist who created him.
-
*Thor*: This is interestingly presented. Loki had always felt different among his fellow Asgardians, but he never realized he was a Frost Giant because a Glamour had disguised his true appearance. When he discovers the truth, he's furious because, while Odin did love him, Loki was nonetheless meant to be a political pawn in Odin's attempt to create lasting peace between Jötunheim and Asgard note : which may or may not be the same thing as bringing Jötunheim under Asgard's control by using his adopted son as a Puppet King who would promote Asgardian interests; Odin's history and character is such that both are possible. Loki then strikes a deal with the Giants which would allow them to invade Asgard — but Loki despises the Jötnar and, in a twisted way of proving his loyalty to Asgard, had planned to wipe out his own species. His eponymous show features small moments like Loki mentioning an Asgardian proverb, singing an Asgardian song, or smashing his cup while calling for another, all of which demonstrate how he continues to carry his adoptive culture with him.
-
*Discworld*: In *Unseen Academicals*, Mr. Nutt is actually an orc and was raised by humans and Friendly Neighborhood Vampires. He's a stand-up guy, although, in this case, it's questionable whether orcs actually were Always Chaotic Evil to begin with.
-
*From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back*: Doshanalawook (sister of the infamous bounty hunter Bossk) is a Trandoshan (Lizard Folk whose violent culture places a heavy emphasis on enslaving and/or killing and skinning Wookiees, and who falsely believe Wookiees culture is equally devoted to murdering Trandoshans) who was raised by Wookiees. She's better known as the mysterious "Chainbreaker" and presumed by the galaxy at large to be a Wookiee, because she's dedicated her life to freeing Wookiees from Imperial slavery. She's also the apprentice of Attichitcuk, the father of Bossk's Wookiee nemesis Chewbacca.
-
*InCryptid*: Sarah Zellaby is one of the only non-sociopathic Johrlac (also known as "cuckoos" for their Backstory Invader powers), who was raised by the only other non-evil Johrlac, Angela, and her husband Martin, a Friendly Zombie, and frequently spent summers with her human cousins, children of Angela's adopted human daughter. So she's an Orc Raised by a Token Heroic Orc. note : Johrlac naturally leave their young to be raised by human families, hence the "cuckoo" nickname, but almost always turn out evil (or at least with Blue-and-Orange Morality) once their powers manifest).
-
*Outcast of Redwall*: Veil is a vermin (and thus Always Chaotic Evil) raised by the Abbey Dwellers (generally Always Lawful Good) and is presented as definitely leaning toward evil, but ultimately makes a Heroic Sacrifice. It *may* be implied that the Abbey Dwellers made him morally ambiguous by treating him with suspicion since childhood, but since vermin are generally Always Chaotic Evil in the series, maybe not.
-
*A Song of Ice and Fire*: A direwolf is a close relative of the wolf, but larger and stronger. Direwolves are extinct south of the Wall, as they are a very large and dangerous predator, and people have probably hunted them out. Robb Stark finds a dead female direwolf with a litter of six pups on the path between Winterfell and the holdfast where Gared was executed, which are raised by the members of House Stark and become mascots and companions of every member of the family.
-
*Survivor Dogs*: Storm is a Fierce Dog who was taken in by the Wild Pack after her biological mother was murdered. She was raised by Gentle Giant Martha. Storm brings up the issue of Nature Versus Nurture. She still has Fierce Dog instincts, such as her love of fighting as a pup and ||the time she tore a dog's *jaw* off in a fight||, but she's also on the "good guys" side and tries her best to fight her violent tendencies.
-
*Tolkien's Legendarium*: Tolkien himself pondered whether orcs were redeemable. His conclusion was that it wasn't very likely, as whatever Morgoth did to them had condemned the whole species to an existence of constant pain and fear, which even a "good" upbringing could not undo.
-
*Star Trek*:
-
*Star Trek: The Next Generation*: Worf is a Klingon (who were the villains in *Star Trek: The Original Series* and only slowly later became allies of the Federation) raised by humans. Unlike most other examples, his adoptive parents made a point of keeping him in touch with his Klingon heritage — though this leads to his mindset being based on an exaggerated and more idealistic view of Klingon culture (for one thing, the other Klingons in the show, including his biological brother Kern, tend to be more underhanded than Worf, who is a thorough Proud Warrior Race Guy).
-
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine*:
- They tried this with a Jem'Hadar baby, but the Founders had genetically engineered them to hate all non-Founders, and the attempt to raise him like Worf failed.
- Odo was raised by Bajorans while being ||a Founder||.
- Cardassian orphans left on Bajor after the Occupation have been adopted and raised by Bajorans. One such boy grew up with a
*serious* case of self-loathing.
-
*Stargate Atlantis*: In one episode, a wraith girl is raised by humans. She genuinely tries, is distraught by her need to feed, and desperately injects the untried Wraith retrovirus that would theoretically make her human (she'd ||been feeding because her adopted father's serum didn't work||). This, unfortunately, only magnifies the Iratus Bug aspects of the Wraith heritage, having exactly the opposite effect and turning her into a rampaging monster.
-
*Dungeons & Dragons*:
-
*Forgotten Realms*:
- One elven mage managed to raise a good red dragon (using magic to suppress his genetic evil tendencies). Sadly, "a red dragon who never knew greed or malice" matched a Curse Escape Clause to a magic prison holding a trio of very powerful fiends.
- Drizzt Do'Urden, a drow. Although technically an "adult" when he makes it to the surface, he is adopted by Bruenor Battlehammer, a dwarf, and taught to be a productive member of society. Ultimately a borderline example, since it's made very clear that Drizzt was a good guy well before he met Bruenor, though Bruenor did help him to really understand what that meant.
- In fifth edition's
*Volo's Guide to Monsters*, players are given the option to select a monster race such as orcs, goblins, etc. Being raised by elves (or another friendly race) is one of the exampled reasonings as to why one from a monster race would be helping a group that likely attacks their kind.
-
*Mystara*: Elves of Alfheim have captured a large number of Orcs after a failed Orc invasion. They were initially considered making them slaves but, when the majority rejected the idea as appalling, they decided to just let them go. The Orcs however asked permission to stay and take various jobs. Over the few generations, Alfheim Orcs have gone completely native and their descendants are raised in Elven culture, with Elves considering them a part of their society and defending from outsiders who don't know better.
-
*Red Dragon Inn*: The 3rd set includes Serena the Pious, an Orc Paladin who was spared and raised by The Order who slayed her village because she was such a cute baby. Her righteous upbringing mostly holds her Orcish temper at bay, but carousing in a tavern isn't exacly condusive to that...and sometimes there arre benefits to being just a little bit mean. Where she stands on her Piety Meter strengthens or weakens several of her helpful and harmful abilities.
-
*Dwarf Fortress*:
- Cacame Awemedinade, a legendary character in the
*Dwarf Fortress* community, is considered perhaps the mightiest king of the dwarves... despite being an elf. While adopted later than most examples at age 7, he considers himself no less of a true dwarf, as evidenced by his immense hatred of other elves. His reputation as a paragon of dorfiness is enough that even other elves and goblins have sworn fealty to him, and not even ||demons|| can best his axedwarfship.
- A general example, members of various civilizations can move to others during worldgen, and in more recent versions human civilizations tend to have a thriving minority of goblins among them. Just as human, elven, or dwarven captives go on to fit right into goblin civilization, goblin populations in non-goblin civilizations act no different from others of their newfound culture, making their description as innately evil a case of The Artifact.
-
*Fall from Heaven*: One leader of the Clan of Embers, Sheelba, has this as her backstory. She was adopted as a war orphan by a Bannor soldier who had just lost his own daughter, and was bound with a Geas by a mage to be obedient, which eventually became her name. However, the spell never worked (what actually made her civilized was being treated like a normal girl), and when she overhears her father drunkenly admitting that he still doesn't see her as his daughter (which may not be the truth; he may have only said it to avoid getting branded an orc sympathizer), she runs away and joins the Clan.
-
*Mass Effect*: The fluff makes mention of some groups of vorcha who were raised by asari. The vorcha, while not Always Chaotic Evil, are looked down upon as violent, thuggish brutes by most of the galaxy and most of them don't do anything to help that perception. The diplomatic asari tried to prove that this wasn't inherent in the species by raising some newborn vorcha themselves. These vorcha did indeed turn out to be very stable and productive members of society, proving the asari's point, and these vorcha even attempted to found their own colony of "civilized" vorcha... unfortunately, thanks to their twenty-year lifespans, their reproductive rate outstripped the rate at which their descendants could be educated and "civilized".
-
*Orcs Must Die! Unchained*: Deadeye is an orc/elf hybrid who was raised by elves as one of their own. She was unfortunately driven into exile when she was accused of the murder of her adoptive parent, becoming an outlaw. Temper is a minotaur raised by Dwarves, though unlike Deadeye his upbringing was largely positive.
-
*Warcraft*: Thrall the orc is an interesting case. He was found as an infant after the orcs' defeat in *Warcraft II* and adopted by the human Aedelas Blackmoore, overseer of the internment camps holding most of the surviving orcs. While this meant Thrall grew up free of orcish influence, Blackmoore was hardly a good role model, as his whole scheme was first to train Thrall as a gladiator slave (hence the name), then to use Thrall to lead an orcish army that could overthrow Lordaeron and put Blackmoore in power. Instead Thrall escaped from Blackmoore, linked up with some orcish holdouts, rediscovered the orcs' benign shamanistic heritage, liberated his people from the humans' internment camps, killed Blackmoore, and went on to become the Warchief of a revitalized and redeemed Horde.
- Sandwich Stoutaxe (yes, really), a drow baby who was found in a basket by a dwarf (who thought it contained sandwiches) and later became a paladin of the dwarf god Moradin. She avoids My Species Doth Protest Too Much because she considers herself a dwarf.
-
*Invincible (2021)*: ||Downplayed with the titular protagonist, since his orc father is stil around to raise him. While Nolan Grayson/Omni-Man is from a race of superpowered Social Darwinists who believes humans are nothing but animals for conquering, Mark was raised on Earth as a human for most of his life with an idealistic image of what a hero is. Because of this, he is a firm believer in protecting humanity, and when Nolan reveals his true motivations, he decides that he would rather die protecting humanity than help his father conquer and/or destroy it. This makes Nolan state that he regrets raising Mark as a human.||
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*: Spike the Dragon was reared as a hatchling by ponies. As an adolescent, he sees the Great Dragon Migration and goes on a quest to learn more about his own kind, where he quickly finds that he prefers to live among ponies. Later episodes further emphasize his pony-like character compared to other dragons, but he forges ties with the Dragon Lord and eventually becomes Equestria's official Friendship Ambassador to the Dragon Lands. ||Then he goes through puberty.||
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*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)*: Originally raised as a member of the Hamato Clan, Oroku Saki/Shredder turned on his adopted family as soon as he found out that he was actually the heir of their Evil Counterpart the Foot Clan, taking special care to target Hamato Yoshi/Splinter, the man he called his brother, for years over a girl they both liked.
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*Star Trek: Lower Decks*: Mesk is an Orion Starfleet officer who was raised by humans on Earth. Somewhat like Worf, he learned about their culture remotely and has a distorted view of its reality (much more so in his case, because he learned about it from trashy holonovels), constantly talking up a fake history of being a pirate and referring to criminal urges, much to the annoyance of Tendi, a real former Orion pirate who joined Starfleet. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrcRaisedByElves |
Order Versus Chaos - TV Tropes
Those roommate preference forms? They're just for the illusion of control.
*"According to the philosopher, Ly Tin Wheedle, chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized."*
Bored of the age-old battle of Good versus Evil? Want something new to spice up your setting and throw your readers in confusion? Fear not! Cosmological Forces R Us has brought you the brand new dichotomy: Order versus Chaos.
Using it in a setting allows you to have two sides, in a similar way to Good and Evil. While the most traditional works have assigned Order to Good, and Chaos to Evil, inversions of this are also common: often, you'll find a Chaotic Good band of rebels fighting against a Lawful Evil empire (Common enough it's becoming its own trope). In another take on the subject, true goodness is seen as the balance between the two forces, and both Order and Chaos are portrayed as evil when they are taken to their extremes.
Order, sometimes called Law, is associated with civilization, authority, rules, protection, the status quo, tradition, and, when stretched to its extreme, mindless obedience, totalitarianism, and abuse of power. It's quite common to depict what happens when Order takes their laws and oaths just a little too far, but also don't be surprised to see The Good King portrayed positively. When they have powers associated with them, it's often leadership, The Virus, Brainwashing, and the power to bind with rules and oaths. When used as a villain, he's likely to say "We Have Reserves."
Chaos is associated with change, The Trickster, free will, creativity, individualism, and, to the extreme, madness, savagery, solipsism, and selfish overindulgence. The powers associated with it are Shapeshifting, illusions, and matter transmutation, as well as Entropy and Chaos Magic in general. By nature, Chaos tends to be too disorganized to pose a serious unifed threat like Order, and may engage in an Enemy Civil War or find its members Divided We Fall. On the other hand, the forces of Chaos are the hardest to predict.
They're sometimes Anthropomorphic Personifications, struggling with the whole world at stake, and don'tcha know, the hero's just the one that's got to pick between one or the other to serve or choose neither one and keep them balanced because Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous. When they're not actual forces, they're broad themes represented by the agenda of specific groups of people.
Rarely is it brought up that by sorting the world into clearly defined categories of Chaos and Order, the trope inherently skews itself in favor of Order. It's also generally vague as to why the forces of discord and chaos are regimented and disciplined enough to have actual Forces of Chaos. Naturally this only applies to absolute, cosmic-level order and chaos, not human individuals who tend toward one or the other because humans are a diverse lot. Incidentally, this skews the trope in favor of Chaos, as does the very fact that there is a conflict between order and chaos in the first place.
When classifying people as one or the other, three factors tend to get elided into one:
- Whether they believe the universe to be ordered
- To what extent they support order in society
- How they conduct their lives.
There can also be a mixture within one character. For instance, a hero who flies by the seat of his pants can nevertheless believe in an orderly universe and support his society more or less according to whether it is in harmony with the greater order. Conversely, an obsessive-compulsive character may be reacting to his belief that the universe is chaotic, and society no better.
See also Character Alignment, where this is a major factor. See also Alike and Antithetical Adversaries for other variants on this conflict. Can often be involved with the dilemma of Harmony Versus Discipline. Visually represented on a smaller scale with Slobs Versus Snobs. Also not uncommon in Odd Couples.
## Examples:
-
*Gatchaman Crowds* Insight's main conflict is between those who believe that CROWDS shouldn't be given to the people because people will misuse them and will cause conflict (Order) against those who believe that CROWDS do more good than bad and humanity will evolve to use it responsibly in time, creating a better society in the future justifying the conflict it will take to get there. (Chaos)
-
*One Piece* has — at least as a background story so far — the war of the World Govvernment and their policy of "absolute justice" against the free-spirited pirates. The World Government is portrayed as corrupt and pretty much completely evil, aside from a few story-prominent Navy officers who reject "absolute justice" in favor of their own brand of justice. The pirates, on the other hand, range from nice guys like Luffy to jerkasses like Buggy to dog-kicking scumbags like Arlong and Crocodile.
-
*Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion*: The ultimate question posed by ||Homura|| to ||Madoka after the former became a demon: does she consider stability and order more important than personal desire. Madoka establishes herself as the Lawful of the two when she answers that it would be wrong to selfishly break the rules, while Homura is the Chaotic one whose desires led her to betray her friends and remake the world in her own image.||
-
*s-CRY-ed* (anime version) casts the independent mercenary Kazuma as a proponent of Chaos and the military-mindset HOLY member Ryuhou as a Orderly Knight Templar who's confidently skirting the Moral Event Horizon. Most of Kazuma's potential Inner allies aren't all that good, and Ryuho's fellow Cape Busters run the gamut from easygoing to The Caligula. Then Conflict Killer ||Kyoji Mujo|| shows up, having suckered the mainland brass into thinking him a full-blown Knight Templar when he's really a Social Darwinist. At this point, if the two are left unattended for more than *two seconds* they start pounding on each other, but both agree that he's the biggest threat.
- Tsutomu Nihei's
*Blameverse* features this conflict prominently. In *Noise*, the main character is a cop investigating a cult who worship the power of chaos who are kidnapping children to use for human sacrifices in their bizarre Magitek rituals. When they kill her, she is resurrected by an agent of the Safeguard, protectors of order, but they turn out to be a pack of fascists who plan on disenfranchising and killing everybody who can't afford network implants and brainwashing the ones who do. Then in *Blame!*, we see the aftermath of this; the cult succeeded in throwing the world into chaos, but since they're so poorly organized their descendants, the Silicon Lives, don't amount to much more than a bunch of roving cyber-barbarians. The Safeguard doesn't fare much better, as their directives become so corrupted that they essentially believe that *everything* that's not them must be exterminated.
- This is one of those few times in fiction where the reader is shown exactly WHY the Balance Between Order And Chaos is so important and makes it clear that although Order is necessary, if it taken too far from the median line between Order and Chaos, extremes become implemented without a balancing force. In fact this is even evident in the Schizo Tech and Bizarchitecture seen in the manga, where widespread chaotic disruption results in the ever-growing expansion of the City, but the reason why that expansion continues is because the ordered directives of the builders demand logical progression and expansion. With no mediating force, one extreme inevitably bleeds into the other where neither are compatible for continued life.
- In
*K*, The 4th and Blue Clan stands for Order, and they get Chaos from both sides - the 3rd and Red Clan are their rivals for most of the series, but their element is Destruction. The Green Clan, JUNGLE, who Scepter 4 fights in the second season ||In an alliance with HOMRA, as well as the Silver Clan|| is Chaos.
- Very much present in
*Soul Eater*, which likes to play around with the concepts on a regular basis.
- Mostly in the "pure chaos" results in total insanity with no control or direction, but "pure order" in fact amounts to nothingness where the chaotic nature of life is not present. You start to feel very bad for the Anthropomorphic Personifications who run the universe.
- It says something when even they ||give up on the idea, and ultimately leave everything to humans. By the end of the manga, most of the 'verse's Anthropomorphic Personifications are either dead, imprisoned, or have sided with humanity against the remaining bad things in the world. There is still the matter of the one in the Book of Eibon, who
*was* shown to be able to tip the balance significantly.||
-
*Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann* is very much about this trope: the good guys represent the forces of freedom, while the villains are the oppressors. ||However, every villain in the series is an Anti-Villain with Well-Intentioned Extremist reasons for their actions.||
-
*The World God Only Knows* has a minor version of this in the second to last episode of the first season. Many students want to put a media room in the library, but Shiori, the student librarian, won't have it, preferring the library to be a place of quiet solitude for books to be enjoyed.
- The overarching conflict in
*Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt* is this, although it's played with a bit. The angelic Anarchy Sisters are Chaotic Neutral, being largely just selfish jerks who want to have fun heedless of the amount of mayhem they cause while protecting the city; by contrast, the demonic Daemon Sisters are Lawful Evil and make serious attempts to improve the quality of life by way of tyranny and enforced conformity.
- Given the sheer selfishness and dubious moral choices that Panty and Stocking have both made over the series, most notably Panty indifferently telling the Daemon Sisters to kill Brief, even suggesting they take a crap in his mouth first to give him a last meal, their mutual decision to abandon their fellow survivors in "...of the Dead", and Panty ||refusing to catch Brief, even though he just restored her angelic powers, in the final episode, which leads directly to the Daemon's plan succeeding||, it's not implausible to take a more cynical view and view the series as Lawful Evil Daemon Sisters vs
*Chaotic Evil* Anarchy Sisters.
- The
*Devilman* spin-off manga *AMON* portrays conflict between God, Satan and Amon as this. God is a cruel tyrant who wants to exterminate demons just because he didn't create them and they don't fit his vision of order in the world. Satan, while defending demons, despises their chaotic nature and wants to rule over them. Amon, a deeply chaotic spirit, despises both of them.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL* has the conflict between the Astral World (representing Order) and the Barian World (representing Chaos), with Earth caught up in the middle. The Astral World's ruler Eliphas is so fanatically devoted to Order that he stands in Yuma's way just because he has Chaos powers, even when Yuma uses them to heal several inhabitants of Astral World. After Yuma narrowly manages to defeat him, Eliphas realizes he was wrong, especially with the revelation that ||Chaos is the source of life, and the Astral World was slowly dying because they had purged it of Chaos.||
- Dragon society in
*Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid* is divided into three factions: those who seek to keep the world in order, those who seek destruction and power, and those who seek neither. Tohru, Fafnir, and Ilulu are part of the chaos faction, Elma and Clemene are part of the order faction, and Lucoa is unaligned.
- In
*My Hero Academia*, this conflict is best exemplified with the introduction of the Meta Liberation Army. The QLA, an organization spanning generations since its founding by a villain named Destro, represents Chaos and the ability to freely use the Quirks(formerly known as "Meta" powers) which are possessed by the majority of the population, but they use terrorist tactics to push their agenda. On the side of Order, the government and law-enforcement maintain the peace with the help of licensed heroes. While this works for the most part, it requires that Quirks be very heavily regulated, with professional heroes being the only ones legally allowed to use their Quirks in combat while anyone else would be considered a "villain" for doing so.
- In
*Attack on Titan*, this trope is why Eren abandons ||Mikasa|| and rejects her allegiance. However compatible their personalities are, or how much she tries to accommodate him, they are too different on the inside to ever be allies. ||Mikasa, like everyone in her genetically-altered bloodline|| is always trying to build hierarchies and nurture her loved ones. Eren doesn't believe *anyone* should have power over anyone else, and would eagerly burn down the world if that's what it took to remove the tyrants running it. He's horrified when he realizes ||Mikasa|| thinks of herself as his 'inferior'.
- Tanya von Degurechaff of
*The Saga of Tanya the Evil* maintains neutrality in this debate, saying that that freedom without regulation leads to anarchy; while regulation without freedom leads to tyranny.
-
*Food Wars!*: During the Central Arc, once Azami Nakiri becomes the school dean, his first action is dissolving all autonomous organizations within Tootsuki and founding an organization named Central, set to be the only RS/Club/etc., led by him and the Council of Ten Masters. It decides all classes, all recipes, and all students must follow a specific and narrow way of cooking, which it considers to be the "correct way" to cook, thus fulfilling the role of Order. The role of Chaos is taken up by the Polaris Dorm, a rebel faction that refuses to obey Central, spearheaded by Soma and his friends. All of its members have their own way of cooking, and celebrate this diversity by trying each other's food and providing feedback. Erina, Azami's daughter, reflects that their chaotic collaboration and random ideas can create effective solutions, surprising even her God Tongue, which is supposed to be absolute and infallible.
-
*Final Fantasy: Unlimited*: This is the dynamic between Gaudium (the followers of the world-eating Eldritch Abomination Chaos) and the Comodeen (who want to defeat Chaos and build a stable society in Wonderland).
-
*The Last Supper*: Visually represented with the food around Jesus, as discussed in this blog. The food to Jesus's sides (and thus closer to his emotional, human Apostles) has fallen over, while the food directly in front of him is standing up to reflect Christ's serenity in the face of his suffering.
- Shows up quite commonly as a theme in the works of Grant Morrison, who is a self-described chaos magician and anarchist. As a result, Morrison's heroes tend to be agents of chaos trying to break free of the shackles of dull, conformist order.
-
*The Invisibles* had the good guys as agents of Chaos, fighting off the evil forces of eternal Order. The series often plays with these associations, as a member of the Outer Church (the Order side) tries to convince a bunch of outsiders they're the good guys by citing the story of Ahura Mazda versus Angra Mainyu (see below).
- The original, Silver Age run of
*Doom Patrol* had the team tending toward Good Chaos, as they were the rejects and cast-offs of society. Grant Morrison's later run kicked this into overdrive, with surreality as the order of the day, and characters like Crazy Jane (each of whose multiple personalities has its own superpower) and Danny the Street (a sentient transvestite boulevard). It also featured Evil Chaos in the form of the Brotherhood of Dada, and Evil Order as Darren Jones and the Men From N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Granted, the Brotherhood of Dada wasn't evil so much as plain weird. In fact the heroes found themselves working to SAVE the Brotherhood of Dada in their second appearance, and two of them even pointed out that the Brotherhood had the right idea.
- In the last issue of Morrison's run, Crazy Jane is kept in another world (implied to be our own) and her therapist insists her adventures with Doom Patrol are delusions. The therapist claims that some enemies the Doom Patrol facedthe Scissormen and Orqwith, the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E., the Sex Men, the Ant Farm and the Telephone Avatarwere representations of cold, alien, tyrannical authority (Evil Order), while othersRed Jack, Desecrator, Shadowy Mister Evans, the Candlemakerwere predatory forces of destruction (Evil Chaos) representing her father.
-
*Nameless (2015)* is a Cosmic Horror Story in which a monstrous, otherworldly intelligence has been imprisoned in our universe and punishes anyone who dares defy its whimsin other words, according to Morrison, it's ||the Christian God, ultimate symbol of order||.
-
*Seaguy* is a more comedic take on this idea: a colorful, whimsical world in which the last superhero is no longer needed, because all of the villains were defeated long agoand in which the apathetic citizens are secretly ruled by the tyrannical I-Pol.
- The DCU:
- The Sufficiently Advanced Energy Beings known as the Lords of Chaos and Lords of Order. Several previously-existing magical beings were retconned to fit in with this; Dr. Fate's mentor Nabu became a Lord of Order, the Legion of Super-Heroes' antagonist Mordru was revealed as a Lord of Chaos, and so on. Most portrayals of these focused on balance, especially Hawk and Dove, who represent, respectively, Chaos and Order and were created by a Lord of Order and a Lord of Chaos who had fallen in love and tried to find some happy middle.
- It also has Jack Kirby's Fourth World of the New Gods, where Order is represented by the oppressive tyrant, Darkseid, who demands absolute obedience and seeks the Anti-Life Equation, mastery of which will force any mind to submit to the will of he who wields it. He's opposed by the Space Hippies of New Genesis, who believe in peace and free will ("That is the Life Equation!") — and his own son, who is essentially a personification of pure, primal fury. Amazingly, though Kirby clearly spells this out several times, many writers who followed him Just Didn't Get It, and explicitly flipped around the Order and Chaos attributions of the two factions. This may be because it was most clearly stated in
*The Forever People*, the least well-regarded series in the saga. In *The New 52* Highfather and Darkseid *both* represent order, with the Forever People rejecting both of them in favour of a chaotic third option.
- Batman and The Joker are Order and Chaos respectively.
- Batman upholds justice and the rule of law (the spirit if not always the letter). His mental discipline is the closest thing he has to a superpower, and prevents him from going mad in spite of all he has to deal with. Unquestionably a good guy, but difficult to get along with, and the possibility that a loss of human contact would drive him to Knight Templar tendencies is a disquieting one.
- The Joker is strongly anti-authoritarian and anti-society, indiscriminately destructive, and downright insane. He's unquestionably evil, though sometimes his antics are meant to expose hypocrisy or evil in other people.
- Marvel Comics'
*Crystar Crystal Warrior* is about a war between the magical forces of Order and Chaos on the planet Crystalium. While the good guys are all allied with Order, and the demon lord Chaos is indisputably evil, it's worth noting that the Order wizard Ogeode recognizes that if Order were taken too far, it would be just as destructive as Chaos (his bosses don't like it when he talks like this); while Chaos's Dragon, Moltar, was railroaded into the job and clearly doesn't really believe in it wholeheartedly, either. ||Moltar finally does a HeelFace Turn at the very end of the series.||
- Doctor Strange villains Dormammu and Shuma-Gorath have both been described as Lords of Chaos. There is also the God of Chaos Chthon, the source of power for the Scarlet Witch, who is more of a general Marvel-wide villain; he created Chaos Magic which causes Reality Warping and other chaotic-style stuff, but he also represents conquest. The personifications of Chaos and Order represent more of a Balance Between Good and Evil.
- Vampirella has a cosmic conflict between Order and Chaos with the Conjuress representing the Balance Between Good and Evil. By and large, Vampirella sides with Order as that is associated with good and justice. However, she has several friends on the side of Chaos. It is also noted that Chaos, the Satanic Archetype ruler of Hell, is insane and not really doing his job well.
- Marvel also has Lord Chaos and Master Order, two Anthropomorphic Personifications of the concepts. Usually Lord Chaos serves the role as the antagonist, or they both team up to protect the universe against a greater threat. An exception was when the cosmic being Edifice Rex planned to revert the universe back to a point singularity - all of the other cosmic beings opposed him, except for Master Order who thought it was a wonderful idea.
- Subverted in
*V for Vendetta*: V fights to bring down the oppressive government, but is careful to tell to Evey that it's law, rather than order, that he opposes. He also makes sure to explain that anarchy is not the same as chaos. This is because in oppression a resistance will always exist, while in anarchy it will not, as there is nothing to resist.
- According the comics, the Cenobites are order. In one of the more comedic stories, an obnoxious, lazy office worker spends all his time tinkering with one of the puzzle boxes, distracting his fellow employees and annoying his borderline Clock King boss, who easily solves the puzzle for him, summoning some Cenobites. The Cenobites prepare to take the boss to the Labyrinth, only to be told off by him; the boss says he only solved the puzzle because it was disrupting the order, productivity and perfectionism he constantly strived for, which the Cenobites are now doing. The Cenobites mull this over for a bit, eventually decide the boss is essentially "doing Leviathan's work" and decide to take the employee, who the boss had earlier described as "a gear that has become misaligned", in his place.
- The theme of Jonathan Hickman's
*S.H.I.E.L.D.* is a war between science as a force for change (represented by Leonardo da Vinci) and science as a means of control (represented by Isaac Newton). The lead character, the son of Nikola Tesla, initially sides with Leonardo, before deciding both sides are wrong because they're locked into the idea there must *be* a war.
- Modern
*Green Lantern* comics have shades of this with emotional spectrum.
- Green in the middle represents Order and the further you go from it, the more chaotic the corps become. Each color represents emotion, except for Green, which is willpower - the ability to overcome and control your emotions for the greater good, so the further you go from it, the less control you have.
- Blue and Yellow, hope and fear respectively, represent how you can use the emotions to affect and shape the world. Their goal is to establish order, but Blue Lanterns see it as harmony that can be built only in cooperation with Green, while the Sinestro Corps tries to impose tyranny and rule the Universe with an iron fist.
- Orange and Indigo - greed and compassion - represent what happens when you let your emotions define your life. Indigo Tribe sacrifice their individuality for the common good, but it makes them detached and borderline sociopathic. Larfleeze, on the other hand, is completely selfish and cares only about himself.
- And finally we have Pink and Red - love and anger - who represent Chaos. Members of both corps lose their minds, taken by the representative emotion. Star Sapphires want to spread love through the Universe and are willing to go to extremes to do so, as well as tending towards yanderish behavior. Red Lanterns are a horde of berserkers destroying everything in their path and often fighting between each other, when not provided with better (as in, any) targets. In the beginning they were mindless and bestial, but Atrocitus allowed them to regain some degree of self-control since then.
- It should be noted that Order isn't presented as completely good and Chaos as completely evil. The White Entity is composed of white light, (formed when all of the seven colors are combined), and represents life, which is a combination of all emotions, as well as order and chaos in all their forms. Meanwhile, Black represents absence of emotions and life, the state of emptiness and stasis. The Guardians' actions to purge emotions from the Green Lantern Corps allowed the forces of Black to infiltrate them, as their actions have bought them too close to this cold, emotionless state.
-
*Nemesis the Warlock* pits the titular powerful alien wizard in service of Kaos against the tyrannical bigot ruling humanity, Torquemada. At first it looks like Chaos/Nemesis is good and Order/Torquemada is bad, but as the series goes on it becomes clear Nemesis is manipulating both people around him and readers as well to portray himself as a hero, but in reality is a cruel, bored god prolonging the war for his own amusement, because Torquemada is the only man to give him any challenge. At the end it's clear they are both bastards.
-
*Asterix* fits this theme. The Romans are well-organised (the story occasionally lampshades their beautiful maneuvers as a form of history-porn), trained, dress in uniforms, live in elegant villas or tidy little fortified camps, and are cultured and structured — although the characters given to the individual Romans show the cracks in the façade. The Gauls, on the other hand, have long, wild hair and facial hair, live in ramshackle huts, actively resist authority even if that authority might have a point and charge into battle anyhow with no plans and their biggest men at the front. It's worth observing that when the Gauls beat up the (ordinary) Romans, they tend to look messed up, but quite happy about it, as if they're just relieved to be liberated from the oppression of order. The Gauls export their particular brand of Chaos to the camps, eventually — a new centurion arrives to discover that no-one is in uniform and the soldiers, all bruised and missing teeth, have completely given up attacking the village and are now just hanging around enjoying food, drink, games and basically having a relaxed, good time. On the other hand, the Gaulish chaos isn't entirely good, since if they have no-one to fight against they just argue constantly with each other. Some later Goscinny stories, such as *Asterix and the Soothsayer*, and *Asterix and Caesar's Gift* (to name just a couple) make it very clear just how annoying it would be to live in the village if you are anything close to being a normal person.
-
*The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil* has the orderly world of Here haunted by the chaos of There lurking "beneath the skin of all things" that eventually invades in the form of the titular beard.
-
*PS238* does this, complete with angels of order and demons of chaos along with the fact that their conflicts are "mostly political nowadays," may be explained by the fact that *PS238* is intended as a children's comic. There's also Malphast, whose parents are on opposite sides of this war.
- Invoked in
*Birthright* by God King Lore who is universally branded as an evil overlord. Lore claims that the affected people spend all their time warring already, but if he conquers all the combatants then he can finally deliver peace.
- The
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*'s fan works typically make more use of this than the TV show itself, most notably in the background characters. You have the obviously chaotic ones, or at least the ones most closely associated with any form of chaos (those usually being Derpy Hooves, Vinyl Scratch/DJ Pon-3, and Lyra Heartstrings), and you have their opposites, the ones portrayed as the more level-headed, orderly ponies (respectively, those usually being Doctor Whooves or Carrot Top/Golden Harvest, Octavia, and Bon-Bon). More often than not, you will typically find them serving as foils to each other in many a fanfiction, fan comic, or fan video.
-
*Chronicles of Harmony's End* features the gods of these forces, and as you'd expect, they *really* don't get along.
-
*Contraptionology!*: This is the nature of the conflict between Discord and the Nightmare — or, as they were known in ancient days, Change and Constancy. Constancy used to rule over the prehistoric world, keeping it in a constant, stable state of simplistic nature beneath a static moon and sun; then Change came, bringing motion to the heavens and seasons to the world, and setting existence into the cycle of constant progression and evolution that it has known since. They have warred ceaselessly against each other ever since, Discord seeking to bring randomness and constant novelty while the Nightmare drives ponies to grasp onto something, anything, to preserve in eternal and unchanging stability.
-
*Pony POV Series*: This contrast is embodied in the Alicorns, representing Nature's Law, and the Draconequi, representing Nature's Fury (although they favor Chaos, even though Discord is the Anthropomorphic Personification of it). However, while they did have a war at one point, they generally don't *hate* each other and are meant to balance one another out. During the Dark World Series, we find out that Discord and Grogar went to war, forming an all evil version of this trope.
-
*A New World, A New Way*: Discord (who is connected to the natural chaotic forces of the Everfree Forest) clashes with Zygarde, the Order Pokémon, when the latter starts to remove that Chaotic energy and replace it with Order.
-
*The Immortal Game*: The backstory involves constant warfare between Titan (Order) and Discord (Chaos). And given that Titan is a Knight Templar of the highest order, this is another all evil example.
-
*Lines and Webs*: The conflict of order and chaos is extremely important for the beginning of the series, with Celestia and the Order she represents being portrayed as evil while Twilight and the Chaos she represents portrayed as good — although the series is heavy on Greyand Grey Morality. Eventually Order and Chaos unite against and even greater threat.
-
*The Borderworld*: The whole story collection centered around this conflict, with Discord for Chaos and Order being for, well, Order, and the Tree of Harmony for, of course, Harmony. The conflict is called the Eternal War because it spawned ever since all three sides were born, and has spanned across the universe and time itself. However, the Tree of Harmony at some point decided to re-brand herself as a bridge between Order and Chaos; while she opposes both sides' negative attributes, she has come to appreciate their good qualities.
- The Origins of Sentient Life as Narrated by Discord has Discord and his kind fighting Order based members of their kind before most life forms evolved in the universe. This led to different worlds being dosed in massive amounts of Chaos or Order Energy, such as Earth and Equestria respectively, affecting their evolutionary paths. This war only ended when a neutral race ||the 13 Primes of Transformers|| trapping them on worlds where their natural Chaos and Order energies would balance out a world that was leaning the other way.
- In the
*Tamers Forever Series*, this is represented by the millenia-old conflict between ||the Archangels and the Archdemons||.
-
*The Dark Lords of Nerima* has this in form of the Sailor Senshi (heroic Magical Girls who fight for love and justice and work to preserve the peace of the world), and Ranma and the Wrecking Crew (crazy Martial Artists with so many different fighting styles that can blow up mountains at their best, plus they're Chew Toys). They only reason why both sides are at war is because Ranma and Ryouga tricked the Senshi into thinking that they are both Multiversal Conquerors to protect a Youma that Ryouga befriended. The said thing is that the Senshi are *very* insistent on believing that they're evil, which given how twisted their villains were it's not surprising.
- Many of Occam Razor's works, like the
*Shadowchasers Series*, feature this. For example, devils are creatures of Law and Order who mostly aim to enslave the world, while demons are creatures of Anarchy and Chaos who mostly aim to destroy the world. Both races are evil and hate each other. As it is based after *Dungeons & Dragons*, this is to be expected.
-
*Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights*: ||The war between the Morning Lights, the faction of MagicalGirls from across the multiverse, and Dead End, the Legion of Doom composed of their enemies, is an extension of the eternal conflict between Cosmos and Chaos. Each is a Sentient Cosmic Force, and it's made clear that *either* claiming final victory over the other would be a disaster for all of reality. Instead, the Morning Lights seek to restore the balance between them both.||
-
*Sonic X: Dark Chaos*: Despite having created the *Chaos* Emeralds, Maledict Maledict firmly believes in imposing absolute order upon the universe - courtesy of his Demon Empire - and he will do anything to accomplish his goal.
**Maledict**: That is why the universe belongs to me. We bring order upon the chaos. Without it, life and civilization would not exist. Brother would fight brother, parents would destroy their children. Darkness would swallow all.
-
*Son of the Sannin*:
- Jinin Akebino leans more to the "order" side, which is why he's loyal to Yagura as the Mizukage, even though it's lead to Kirigakure be known as the Bloody Mist, and thinks that Mei Terumi's rebelion will plunge their village into chaos.
- A more personal example happens to ||Yakumo Kurama||. The chaotic nature of her powers caused her to accidentally kill her parents, leading her to cross the Despair Event Horizon. Then, Danzo showed up offering her the means to control them, leading her to become one of his puppet agents in Root.
- In
*The LEGO Movie*, Lord Business represents order, with his insistence on conformity and following the instructions, and the Master Builders represent chaos, with their unbridled (and sometimes counterproductive) creativity. ||Emmet succeeds by balancing the two, in a sense. But then the Duplo Aliens of the Systar System show up, being more of the destructive kind of chaos, setting up the sequel...||
- One of the underlying conflicts in
*Demolition Man*. Several characters represent different levels on the spectrum, and the two main villains of the movie lie on opposite extremes.
- Dr. Cocteau is a relatively benevolent dictator who has built a future world where anything that can offend or harm anybody is banned, and maintaining civil, peaceful coexistence has usurped the value of life in importance. To this end, the following things are banned: guns, alcohol, swearing, caffeine, sexual intercourse (apart from a weird neural link thing), contact sports, chocolate, non-educational children's toys, and spicy food.
- Simon Phoenix is a violent psycho who hates rules because they stop him from behaving like a violent psycho. ||After they murder Cocteau||, he and his unfrozen gang want to turn San Angeles into a lawless hellhole where they can commit crimes all day, everyday.
- Edgar Friendly is an iconoclast leading a gang in the sewers against the Cocteau regime. He fights so people have the right to eat real food, listen to real music, have real sex and generally make their own choices. Cocteau wants him dead for it, so much so that he unleashes Phoenix (albeit with a mental Restraining Bolt).
- All the
*Pirates of the Caribbean* want to do is sail around the world, drink rum and get saucy women at Tortuga. But noooo... The Company just has to have its Order.
- In 2008's
*The Dark Knight*, the Joker claims that he is a representation of chaos, going up against Batman who represents order. As a sort of justification, he says that chaos, for all that it does, is at least *fair.* note : Though really, he means "indiscriminate," not balanced or even.
-
*Beetlejuice*, the movie with the afterlife bureaucrat Juno and Mr. "It's Showtime", with the protagonists trying to find a happy medium (no pun intended).
- In
*Auntie Mame*, Mame Dennis represents chaos, and Dwight Babcock represents order. Babcock wants to give her all the responsibility of raising an orphaned kid while keeping all the power for himself.
- In the original
*Mad Max*, Max and the police force represent order, whereas the biker gangs represent chaos.
- Somewhat the point of
*The World's End*. ||What is better? An advanced, progressive society full of robots, or a crude, harsh society where individual freedom is preserved? Humanity chooses the latter. In fact the advanced society is only full of robots *because* humans instinctively reject their idea of order; when they did this on other worlds, they only had to replace a few people to achieve it, but on Earth it took damn near everyone.||
- In
*Cadet Kelly*, Kelly represents chaos, while Jennifer represents order. Kelly wants to express her creativity and individuality, while Jennifer just wants to enforce the rules. Ultimately, ||Kelly finds a way to be creative through the school's rifle team.||
- The dynamic between Owen (Chaos) and Claire (Order) in
*Jurassic World*. Which is why their off-screen date was an Epic Fail — she turned up with an itinerary, and he turned up in board shorts note : It's Central America! It's hot!.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Loki, The Trickster, is the embodiment of chaos in all his appearances, while Thor brings order to the Nine Realms. Lampshaded in regard to Loki in
*Thor: Ragnarok*:
**Thor**: Come on, [Sakaar] is perfect for you. It's savage, chaotic, lawless. Brother, you're going to do great here.
- Thanos believes that life is chaotic and unbalanced, which will inevitably result in extinction, so in
*Avengers: Infinity War* he puts it upon himself to bring order to the universe by destroying half of life and thus limiting it. One of his first victims ||is a self-proclaimed God of *Mischief*||. Thanos also believes in destiny, i.e. predetermined and orderly course of events. ||By killing Gamora|| he rejects the chaos of emotions and submits himself to this course.
- In
*The Cat in the Hat*, there is a struggle between the fish (order) and the cat (chaos). The cat isn't strictly bad, since he brightens what would have been an otherwise boring day, but it's portrayed as a good thing when the house returns to order. When the Cat returns in *The Cat In The Hat Comes Back*, the children greet him with hostility and make it clear that, fun or not, the chaos he brings is NOT welcome.
- In
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*, McMurphy represents Chaos and Nurse Ratched represents Order. Chaos is definitely the good side here.
-
*Catch-22*— the protagonist, Yossarian, is Chaos; the military bureaucracy he's struggling against is Order.
- In
*His Dark Materials* chaos is good and order is evil. 'God' is the evil leader of a race that seeks to control and repress joy and passion, so the protagonists must Rage Against the Heavens.
- The works of Michael Moorcock, especially
*The Elric Saga* and *Corum* series, where the Lords of Chaos and the Lords of Law pick Champions to fight for them. Neither Order nor Chaos are portrayed as very nice. It's pointed out in the books: Chaos means that every possibility is allowed (symbolized by the eight-arrow symbol), but at the end, you'll just move back and forth and get to nowhere. Order (symbolized by a straight arrow) means that you have direction, but exclude some possibilities — in the worst case, all of them. A world gone too far in Chaos is one where shape cannot be maintained and horrible things will try to eat you. A world gone too far in law will eventually become a featureless white plane. And although Order has a superficial appearance of being Good, and Chaos of being Evil; the true Good is, in fact, the Balance, with Evil being the extremes of either Order or Chaos.
- In
*A Song of Ice and Fire* we have the Wildlings, who love their freedom, would never support the whole monarchistic system that is causing all the crap in Westeros, but have no real infrastructure or laws. On the other hand we have the Night Watch, which is honour bound to protect the country from them.
- Roger Zelazny's
*The Chronicles of Amber* also had Order and Chaos, respectively embodied by the Unicorn/Pattern and the Serpent/Logrus, as the main cosmological forces of his multiverse. In the second series, they were rather insistent on main character Merlin picking a side, much to his annoyance. Too much imbalance was especially said to endanger the existence of the universe. It's also noteworthy that families ruling Amber and Courts of Chaos both have elements of the opposite in them - Chaos is much more honorable and has complicated form of hierarchy within which all intrigues and schemes happens, while children of Oberon are more or less pragmatic, backstabbing manipulators constantly changing aliances between one another and don't even mantain illusion of hierarchy among them.
- Part of the world's magic system of Modesitt's
*Saga of Recluce* novels. His system is very complex but normally the Chaos side is evil. This is increasingly subverted in the later novels, but we have not yet seen an Order mage as a major villain. Ironically, the Chaos mages have (or had) a well-organized Empire, while the Order mages were generally either rebels or refugees for much of their history.
- The
*Illuminatus!* trilogy is largely about the battle between Chaos as good and Order as evil, but also suggests that Chaos is 'good' in this context because there is too much Order - too much Chaos is shown to be just as bad. One of the guiding principles of the Discordians (our Chaotic good guys) is that "imposition of order leads to escalation of chaos".
- Nonfiction example: Thomas Hobbes's
*Leviathan* is very pro-Order, characterizing totalitarianism as the only alternative to "the war of all against all".
- A semi-viral unpublished novel called
*The Cloven Accord* depicts Chaos as evil natural disaster-causing demons and Order as a mind-destroying cult. The happy medium, the Ilyarians, appears to be extremely metaphysical hedonism. Uniquely, all symbolism inherent in these concepts is helpfully listed at the back of the book.
- Mickey Zucker Reichert's
*The Last of the Renshai* series ties this trope to a modified version of Norse Mythology. Odin has been keeping the world as orderly as possible to delay Ragnarök. One of the main characters in the book decides the world needs a little bit more chaos. The efforts of other characters to stop him end up being counterproductive, tilting the balance the other way.
- On the Discworld, there's the constant competition between Fate and the Lady, the Lady being Luck — a chaotic factor interfering with Fate's order.
- The
*Old Kingdom* series has Charter Magic (Order) vs. Free Magic (Chaos), though the Abhorsen makes use of both.
- The
*Thursday Next* books have the Hades family as Evil Chaos and Goliath Corporation as Evil Order. Thursday tends towards Balance
- In John C. Wright's
*Chronicles of Chaos*, the central conflict of the setting is that of Cosmos vs. Chaos. The children are caught in the middle; indeed, one consideration when thinking of escaping back to their parents is that they aren't certain the forces of Chaos are right, even though the forces of Cosmos have been holding them hostage.
- In Gordon R. Dickson's
*The Dragon Knight* series of books the forces of evil are constantly trying to upset the balance between "History" and "Chance."
- In another nonfiction example, it was subverted by Pierre-Jospeh Proudhon's writings, namely by the statement "Anarchy is Order."
- Louise Cooper's excellent Time Master trilogy, along with the sequel Chaos Gate and prequel Star Shadow trilogies. Another example of Good = Balance, and Evil = Extreme; although none of the factions are quite that straightforward, and the nature of the universe is portrayed as a pendulum constantly swinging back and forth between the two.
- In Tamora Pierce's
*The Immortals* novels, the Big Bad turns out to be ||the goddess of chaos who fights against the other great gods. It's because of her that creatures like the stormwings got into the mortal realm.||
- It also is known in
*The Icelandic Sagas* which sometimes can seem to resemble the Western genre.
- R.A. Salvatore's
*The Orc King* has an interesting play on this; King Obould is motivated by bringing order to orcish society where as his rival Grguch firmly believes that chaos is the way of the orc and Obould should die for straying from that. This is demonstrated in parallel scenes where Obould subtly helps his generals plan for an assault with considerably more discipline and forsight than one would think an orc capable of(an attack he knew wouldn't happen, at that). Meanwhile, Grguch orders a raid on the orc's enemies without any planning at all, despite, when he's called on it, displaying considerable understanding of battle planning; he knows what to do but doesn't do it as he considers order and discipline contrary to what he believes orcs should be. The twist in all this, however, is how these two are percieved by the heroes. The Companions of the Hall have been fighting orcs for as long as they can remember, and are forced to chose between assisting the creation of Obould's stable kingdom, which completely disrupts their perception of the natural order, or Grguch's chaos, which is normal for them, but in practice will involve a long conflict that will surely cost many more lives before it is resolved.
- In Elizabeth Bear's
*The Promethean Age* series the Fae are definitely Chaos and the Promethean Society Order and neither is presented as very nice. Subverted in that|| The Promethean Society was originally founded by Lucifer who is a Magnificent Bastard and the original rebel against Order||.
-
*Paradise Lost* uses the standard notation where God is Order and Lucifer is Chaos. As a quirk of the way Milton wrote it, God is the stern version, while Lucifer decides in the first part to make the best of the bad situation he's been put in. It also points out Lucifer's hypocrisy. While he claims to stand for freedom, he very quickly becomes a despotic tyrant who rules Hell with an iron fist. Like many classics, the resulting work is still quite open to interpretation.
- In
*The Bartimaeus Trilogy*, there is Grey-and-Gray Morality. As such, the most prevalent conflict is between the magicians' order and the spirits' chaos.
- The
*Mistborn* trilogy has the gods Ruin (chaos) and Preservation (order). Ruin is the Big Bad, but it's noted that this is only because he's the one who's ascendant; if Preservation had its way, everything would stay exactly the way it was forever. In the end ||Sazed assumes both the Ruin and the Preservation Shard, becoming the new god Harmony.||
- Depending on the Writer and when it's not pure Blue-and-Orange Morality, the conflict between the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods in Cthulhu Mythos can be viewed as order vs. chaos. The Outer Gods are also often associated with Chaos, being essentially not-really-anthropomorphic personifications of primal forces, hence Azathoth often being called the Nuclear Chaos and Nyarlatothep's epithet "the Crawling Chaos".
- In
*The Lord of the Rings,*
- This is played out in the race of Ents: male Ents loved the wilderness and forests, nature untamed, while the Entwives cultivated gardens and loved orchards and farmlands. The two genders drifted apart over the years, and the Ents have since lost the Entwives completely. Less a war and more like contrasting life-styles and preferences that took them awya.
- According to J.R.R.'s notes and letters relating to
*The Silmarillion,* Sauron followed the chaotic Morgoth, paradoxically, out of a desire for absolute order. Wanting to impose his will upon everyone and everything, Sauron came to see tyranny as the easiest way to do so.
- Downplayed in
*The Moomins* stories, where the protagonists tend to be Chaotic Good and others such as hemulens are often Lawful Stupid. It's never a major conflict, but at least in one book we find Snufkin and his father waging a sort of guerilla war of annoyance against wardens of a park for children who are enforcing such strict rules that no one's having any fun.
- In Tad Williams
*The Dirty Streets of Heaven* Heaven is Order and Hell Chaos but while demons are definitely evil Heaven is implied to be a Crapsaccharine World with the higher orders playing Machiavellian games and the "saved" playing forever in the Elysian Fields at the cost of their memories and personalities which has led some on both sides to seek a Third Way.
- In Poul Anderson's
*Three Hearts and Three Lions*, the evil forces are Chaos — fairies, dragons, trolls, etc. — and the good ones, Law — humans, some fairies, dwarves. This is a Trope Codifier.
- ||Grundy|| from
*A Fable of Tonight* belives his mission is to ensure balance between Order and Chaos, with healthy dose of Balance Between Good and Evil, through The Multiverse. ||When he finds a world where either Order or Chaos gained too much of an advantage, he tries to balance it. But because he's a demon, his methods are both utterly evil - he brings terror to wacky, crazy world of magic and lets criminals from it into our, much more orderly, world, to spread disorder - and bound to upset the balance to much towards the other side. This is when the force Grundy calls the Adversary intervenies, creating a champion of good to truly restore the balance between order and chaos.||
- Patrick Tilley's
*Amtrack Wars* series pits the fascistically orderly Amtrack Federation against the chaos of the Mute tribes. it pretty much comes off as Gray-and-Grey Morality with the tribes being the the lighter shade.
-
*A Clockwork Orange* uses this to prevent Too Bleak, Stopped Caring, though it's subtle; the main conflict is between Villain Protagonist Alex, a young man who generally dedicates himself to rape, ultraviolence, narcotics, and Beethoven, and the government that wants to torture the criminal impulse out of him. Alex is Chaos; the government is Order. They're both pretty damn bad.
- Once you get past the Totally Radical slang, this is the main conflict in
*The Demon Headmaster* series. The title villain has no backstory besides "Lawful Evil on legs", while the heroes are unruly, fun-loving schoolkids who represent everything he despises. In the first book, Dinah notes that if the Headmaster cared about things like money he wouldn't be going to the effort of world domination - he genuinely believes the world would be better off his way.
-
*Atrocitology: Humanity's 100 Deadliest Achievements* by Matthew White is a non-fiction example. In the opinion of the author, "Chaos is deadlier than tyranny. More of these multicides result from the breakdown of authority than from the exercise of authority."
- In Idlewild, Fantasia has this worldview, dubbed Nutritious and Delicious. Her schizophrenia
*may* have played a role in its adoption.
- In
*The Quantum Thief* the Sobornost mind upload collective claims to represent Order and seeks to wipe out all death and uncertainty from the world, and preaches that every thought is worth preserving, but their inner workings are far less orderly than they claim. Their prime opponent is the Zoku collective, who in turn embrace the quantum uncertainty principles, and declare that change is inevitable and positive; the Zokus' identities are fluid and they only define themselves through their interests, which they are free to change any time.
-
*Journey to Chaos*: Order and Chaos are in a perpetual Divine Conflict for control over the multiverse contained within Noitearc, the Great Tree That Supports the Worlds. Elves call this "The First War". Chaos desires worlds of infinite possible change and Order desires worlds of permanent and unchangeable stability.
-
*A Mage's Power*: Eric reads a story that portrays the founding gods Order and Chaos as family in a multiverse origin story while glazing over their animosity.
-
*Looming Shadow* and *Mana Mutation Menace* see mana mutation become the latest front in the First War. If there is a magical illness in your world that can turn people into savage monsters, what is the best way to deal with it? Accept the danger and find a cure or reject it entirely and accept Order's domination?
- The centuries-long war between the Gun and the Line is the whole reason for the plot of
*The Half-Made World*. Neither side is particularly sympathetic — both want the West all to themselves, and everybody else gets caught in the crossfire.
- Representing Chaos are the Agents of the Gun, a small and disorganized group of superhuman gunslingers patterned after famous outlaws and folk heroes, each empowered by and in service to the demonic firearms they wield.
- Opposing them is the Line, representing Order, which combines all the worst aspects of Industrialized Evil with N.G.O. Superpower, and which is slowly but inexorably extorting, coercing, or outright conquering all civilization in the West. Notably, the balance is tilted decisively in favor of Order — as one Agent puts it, you don't join the Gun to win, but to lose gloriously.
-
*The Traveller in Black* by John Brunner is set in a magical land where the struggle between Order and Chaos underlies everything. The Traveller himself is an agent of Order.
- In
*The Dinosaur Lords*, Falk justifies to himself fighting against a divinely-ordered Crusade as fighting for Order as opposed to discord represented by the horde.
-
*The Elder Empire*: The central conflict. On the *Of Sea and Shadow* side, the heroes are mostly fighting for Order, as they know that letting the Empire fracture into countless mini-empires will result in nothing but war and bloodshed. On the *Of Shadow and Sea* side, the heroes are mostly fighting for Chaos, as they believe that the species has evolved past the need for a single omnipotent authority. The problems with both sides are discussed; if there's a single Empire that means there's a single point of failure that can be exploited, while if there are multiple empires there will be no way to force them to cooperate in the face of a major threat.
- "The Red Tower" is a force of undirected change and creativity, endlessly producing grotesque and meaningless mockeries of life, in petty rebellion against the surrounding wastes and their entropic return to their natural state of purity and emptiness. Attempting to ascribe moral qualities to such cosmic forces is futile.
- In
*The Ten Thousand Doors Of January*, there's a secret society dedicated to maintaining what they call order — the status quo that's comfortable to them while treading on others, particularly The British Empire, and progress in the sense of industrial and economic development — by opposing the change and disruption brought about by Doors leading to other worlds.
-
*Wraith Knight*: The primary conflict in the series is this rather than the Black-and-White Morality of Good versus Evil. The Lawgiver represents order with its tyranny, expansionism, and religious control. The Trickster by contrast represents freedom, chaos, and resistance. ||It's subverted when it's revealed that it is the Lawgiver and his brother Running Both Sides.||
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*Our Miss Brooks*: At Madison High School, there was order represented by Osgood Conklin, the Dean Bitterman who ran the school in a orderly manner (in "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Miss Brooks has a nightmare of Mr. Conklin telling her to "stay on the ball", "hold the line" and "run the school in an orderly manner"). He goes so far as to hang signs such as "Respect through Power" ("Spare That Rod!) and "No Goldbricking" (The Movie Grand Finale) through the school. Opposed to Mr. Conklin was chaos in the form of High-School Hustler Walter Denton, who played pranks like making Conklin look like a drunk ("Cure That Habit"), blasting an ancient cannon ("Marinated Hearing"), and writing a fraudulent letter forcing Mr. Conklin to let the students act as teachers for the day ("Turnabout Day"). In between these two extremes was Miss Brooks, who disapproved of Mr. Conklin's strict and overbearing manner in running the school - once even calling Conklin the most "unprincipled principal in the country" ("The Novelist"). However, she indeed wanted to teach while shielding Teacher's Pet Walter Denton from the consequences of his more outrageous pranks. The conservative and shy Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks' Love Interest, was between Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks' in outlook, although a Nice Guy without Conklin's faults.
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*Babylon 5* had the Vorlons and the Shadows. Originally they were portrayed as Black-and-White Morality (Vorlons projecting angelic images of themselves vs. the demonic and fear-inducing Shadows). ||Later, their millena-old conflict is revealed as rival philosophies run amok: the Vorlons believe the best way to promote growth among the younger races is through order and obedience, while the Shadows believe evolution is best served through chaos and conflict. The Vorlons and Shadows are eventually revealed to be similar, with both groups trying to force the younger races to choose a side or die.|| The idea was taken from Babylonian mythology, hence the name of the show. ||Sheridan ultimately has to lead the younger races into collectively telling BOTH sides where they can stick their rival philosophies, and to go away and leave the younger races alone to make their own choices.||
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*Firefly*: The chaos-loving Independents (who lead The Heroes) vs. the order-loving Alliance (the antagonists, responsible for a number of nasty things in the name of the greater good, but still more noble-minded and sympathetic than, say, the Empire from *Star Wars*). The Unification War is a more complicated matter. note : The "Eternal Prohibition" was left on Earth-That-Was, everyone was permitted weapons, and taxes were both the lowest of any government in history and actually treated as *charity*. A lot of Independents weren't all that nice; thugs and debt slavers right out of Charles Dickens. It was when the war was declared that it got worse. . Then you have the Always Chaotic Evil Reavers ||who were created by the Alliance||.
- Quite a few pairs in
*House*. Cuddy's job requires her to be the Order to House's Chaos. The fact that House needs to ask Cuddy for approval of his methods doesn't affect much at all since according to House, Cuddy can never refuse him for one reason or another. If she does refuse, he usually gets around this via a loophole either he, Wilson, or one of his fellows can find around policy.
- Earlier seasons had Foreman (Order, because he followed policy more in earlier seasons) and Chase (Chaos, because he agreed with House just to kiss-ass).
- Pair Kutner + Defibrillator and anyone trying to deal with the subsequent mess. Or Kutner with anyone else really.
- In
*Get Smart*, the government spy agency the heroes belonged to was called *CONTROL*, while their enemies' organization was *KAOS*.
-
*House of the Dragon*: In the mind of the Hightowers, a consistently male line of kings is order, and a ruling queen means chaos to them.
- Classic
*Doctor Who* had the Black and White Guardians, cheerleaders for chaos and order, respectively. While the Black Guardian generally appeared as a villian, it was suggested (and confirmed in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe) that the White Guardian was just as bad. (The *Big Finish Doctor Who* arc "Key 2 Time" introduce the Grace, who seem to be Balance ||and are possibly worse than the Guardians put together||.)
- The new series and
*The Sarah Jane Adventures* has The Trickster and The Pantheon of Discord. Though an opposite Order aligned group has not been shown. As they share some dialogue, some speculate that the two may be related, if not the same being.
- The Doctor himself is a benevolent force of chaos (just look at the effect he has on his companions' lives), and many of his enemies represent cruel order. The Daleks believe in cleansing the universe of all that does not meet their standards of purity and perfection (i.e. themselves), the Cybermen want to achieve harmony and survival by eliminating things like race, gender, and those untidy emotions (by making everyone a Cyberman), and the Master is a counterpart to the Doctor himself, but instead of merely wanting to experience the universe, he intends to
*run* it.
- The rest of the Doctor's race, the Time Lords, were "ancient, dusty senators" who were afraid of change and chaos. While they weren't his enemies for most of the original series (though they had their moments), they were nonetheless very law-bound and the Doctor was considered a dangerous renegade, who was tolerated because he occasionally came in handy.
- In
*Yes, Minister*, Hacker tries to claim that the role of the government is to do good and fight evil. Humphrey dismisses that notion with a dry laugh, and explains that the government is *actually* there to maintain order amid chaos.
- Even
*Sister, Sister* had this! Tia and Tamera had very different personalities. Tia (order) was the neat, studious one, and Tamera (chaos) was the party girl.
- In
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* the Dominion's Founders viewed themselves as imposing order upon the chaotic galaxy of the "solids". In Odo, this is tempered somewhat by his upbringing among humanoids, sending him into Lawful Good instead of Lawful Evil.
- A mostly subliminal but ever-present theme on
*Game of Thrones*, referenced most directly during a conversation between Varys and Littlefinger. Varys works for the good of the realm, and because of his powerless upbringing understands exactly what happens to the weak when there is no order or realm to protect them. Littlefinger, on the other hand, rebels against a system that would relegate him to a life as an irrelevant hedge lord, and sees chaos as a way to ensure his rise to power. Varys describes chaos as "a gaping pit waiting to swallow us all," while Littlefinger describes it as a ladder for the strong to climb. They're both right.
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*The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power*: Sauron followed Morgoth out of desire for order and control, but after witnessing what a chaotic, meaningless destruction a nihilistic force like Morgoth can cause, he started to regret the path he chose and felt relived when Morgoth was finally defeated. He than migrated in the Forodwaith with many Orcs and started experimenting on them, in the search of a power that could help him impose the order he so much wants on Middle-earth. And when than doesn't work, he starts projecting into Galadriel, who, in her relentless quest to hunt him down, proved to be just as ambitious and obsessed with control as him, even if their goals are fairly different.
- A reoccurring theme in
*Nowhere Boys*.
- In Season 1, the Big Bad is an entity known as the Restoring Demon, who is obsessed with restoring order whenever there's a magical disturbance.
- In the feature film
*The Book of Shadows*, the Big Bad is a girl named Tegan, who is ||revealed to be the personification of Chaos,|| and wishes to take revenge on "Bear", ||the personfication of Order.||
- In
*The Magicians (2016)* Umber and Ember are respectively gods of order and chaos. They joined forces in creating Fillory because their natures would balance out and allow for something greater than they could make on their own. So long as both remained in Fillory the world was stable. After Umber was driven out by the Beast there was nothing to stop Ember from indulging in his darker urges and bringing the entire world to ruin.
- The children's educational show
*Odd Squad* pits kid secret agents and the orderly powers of Math against a grab-bag of (silly) chaos-spreading villains and freakish (goofy) phenomena.
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*Once Upon a Time*: Regina (the mayor and all around Control Freak) versus Emma (the woman who came to town and shook it from its foundations).
- Oddly enough, shows up perfectly in the country music song "The Reckless Side Of Me" by The Steeldrivers. "There's two angels sittin on my shoulders / All they ever do is disagree / One sits on the side of rhyme and reason / The other on the reckless side of me"
- The Rush song "Cygnus X-1: Book II" is about this. It details a war between Apollo (who brings wisdom and order) and Dionysus (of love and chaos) that decimates the human followers. This is ended when the astronaut from Book I (at the end of the previous album) shows up and tells of how he has existed after plunging into the titular black hole. They dub him Cygnus The God of Balance as a result.
- "Therein" by Dark Tranquility. From the lyrics: "Order stormed the surface where chaos set norm - had there always been balance?...surely not - therein lies the beauty..."
- This is a far more common dichotomy in ancient religions than concepts of "good vs. evil". Consider almost any ancient Pantheon (such as the Norse or Greek Gods) with flawed and often immoral dieties. They aren't exactly "good" in the sense of being moral and upright, but they represent elements of Order and human understanding and were almost always opposed to some rival group representing forces of Chaos and primordial nature. The Norse Gods fought the Frost Giants, the Olympian Gods defeated Giants and Typhon. Over time, and especially under the influence of medieval Christianity, Order became more associated with morality and the divine while Chaos became associated with evil, sin, (where applicable) the devil.
- This is the central tenet of Zoroastrianism. Followers worship Ahura-Mazda, the embodiment of truth, order and justice — and oppose chaos and disorder (the Lie). One of the offshoot sects, called Zurvanism, names the Lie as Ahriman, the brother of Ahura-Mazda, and holds that the two are always in conflict over the spirits of mankind. The two are both the sons of Zurvan (Time).
- In Egyptian Mythology, the god Set is considered to embody
*constructive* chaos (the forest fire that allows new growth, for example) while the... *thing*... known as *isfet* represents chaos taken to its potentially universe-destroying extreme.
- Order versus Chaos was the primary division in Egyptian culture, with the word
*ma'at* meaning not just order but also justice and rightness. *Isfet* meant both chaos and injustice. The Pharaoh was the "Lord of Ma'at" who upheld both social and cosmic order through his combined political and religious authority. Without this authority, the Egyptians believed that the primordial chaos which existed before Creation would overtake the world and dissolve everything.
- Discordianism. What else could be expected when the Goddess is Eris, Goddess of Chaos? (Actually, Eris is Goddess of Strife. The
*Principia Discordia* explains that the Greeks were somewhat "off" in their appraisal of Eris.) On the other hand, the Principia recognizes the difference between creative/destructive order and disorder, advocating the "good" version of each. Although it generally prefers the "disorderly" method, as Discordians believe the world is *far* too organized already.
- The Seelie and Unseelie courts of The Fair Folk represent Order and Chaos (or Light and Darkness) respectively rather than Good and Evil, although that is how many modern fictional treatments align them. Both tend to be equally dangerous and unpredictable.
- Many creation myths start with a primordial sea of chaos, from which gods and creatures are born that eventually bring order to the chaos and create the earth.
- The Taoist creation story from the
*Zhuangzi* is about a chaotic, bag-shaped god named Hundun ('chaos'), who lived before the universe existed, and two emperors called Shu and Hu (Brief and Sudden). Hundun treated Shu and Hu kindly, so they decided to repay his kindness. "All men have seven openings so they can see, hear, eat, and breathe," they said (nostril, nostril, mouth, ear, ear, anus, the other one). "But Hundun has none. Let's try drilling some into him!" Every day they drilled another hole, and on the seventh day, Hundun died. People like the emperors meddle with the primal world by trying to establish rules and regulations for it, thus killing it.
- In mythological studies, there is a trope called "Chaoskampf". It is always along the lines of "storm god fights huge serpent/dragon, representing order vs chaos". It appears in the form of Indra vs Vritra, Zeus vs Typhon, Thor vs Jormungandr, Marduk vs Tiamat, YHWH vs Leviathan (followed by Christ vs the Ancient Serpent Satan), and possibly Susano'o vs Orochi as well. Yu the Great killing Xiangliu during his work stopping the Great Flood may also count, although Yu is not a storm god.
- This was what came to define the Attitude Era, as the foul-mouthed, bellicose, and totally unpredictable Garbage Wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin feuded with Corrupt Corporate Executive Vince McMahon's slick, soulless media empire.
- Another, similar conflict from the Attitude Era was down-on-his-luck Psychopathic Manchild Mankind's running battle with the 'Corporate Champion', The Rock, which involved the clean-cut rising star (and corporate shill) of the WWE getting squashed under forklifts, thrown through tables, and repeatedly gagged with Mankind's Companion Cube, 'Mr. Socko'.
- The officials of Ohio Valley Wrestling took frequent measures to help tone down the cheating of the heels and were met with stiff opposition and/or creative interpretations of their new rules every single time. The most frequent offenders were Bolin Services and The Jersey Shore Crew (who existed before the television show).
- Every main member of the WWN family (including Ring of Honor but excluding Dragon Gate USA) took some measure to cut back on the "cliches" of pro wrestling and reign in heel cheats. In every case there was a group that formed in response to more or less do what they wanted without reproach, such as The Prophecy, Special K, Generation Next, The Rottweilers, The Embassy, Hangm3n, SCUM, The Kingdom, The Rebellion and probably a few others in ROH, YRR, and "The MSL Universe" Full Impact Pro, The Scene and Premier Athlete brand of EVOLVE, Valkyrie and C4 in SHINE, Christopher Daniels and SoCal Val being habitual offenders. And that's not even getting into outside groups seeking to bring chaos such as The Blackout, The House Of Truth, most obviously New Japan Power Stable CHAOS and most infamously Bullet Club. Although The Second City Saints, Age Of The Fall and Decade were
*orderly* heels, Bullet Club turned face and Las Sicarias were chaotic baby faces from the start.
- CM Punk has been on both sides of this in WWE. He's been a force of Chaos operating against the authority in the WWE in the form of John Laurinitis and Triple H from 2011 to 2012. However, in his earlier feud against Jeff Hardy, Punk played the role of Order, contrasting his personal dedication to the Straight Edge lifestyle against Jeff's excessive self-indulgence.
- The
*Old World of Darkness* had three cosmic principles in its setting, especially shown in the *Werewolf* and *Mage* games: Dynamism/Wyld as Chaos, Stasis/Weaver as Order/Technology, and Entropy/Wyrm as corrupted destruction. *Werewolf* especially tended to picture Chaos as good, but mostly because it was the underdog of that fight. *Mage* had the technomancers of the Technocracy to act as Order, the insane Marauders as Chaos, and the diabolic Nephandi to serve as Entropy, with the Player Characters supposed to stand somewhere in between.
- The cosmology in the
*Mage: The Ascension* setting stressed the importance of the Unity of these three forces. When in balance, they feed into one other in a perfect harmony of creation, existence, and destruction leading to new creations. The Crapsack World nature of the WoD is a result of that balance having been broken in favor of stasis and corruption.
- Incidentally, in the creation myth for
*Werewolf*, the Wyrm was originally supposed to be the blessed end brought to all things that had fulfilled the purpose. Then the Weaver, who'd already been driven batshit crazy by trying to define the limitless Wyld, tried to define the Wyrm, which twisted it and turned its purpose towards unending corruption.
- The Were-Spider source book details their more minute distinctions of each force in the way they determine their Auspice. Each were-spider has what amounts to a primary alignment with one of the three forces, and a secondary alignment which determines how they expressed it. An entropic-dynamic character, then, would thus be concerned with spreading/serving entropy and destruction in as chaotic a manner as possible, whereas a static-dynamic character might be more interested in creating and preserving new works.
- It is not as hard-written into the story as in the other gamelines, but
*Vampire: The Masquerade* has this kind of conflict too between the three core factions presented, with the Anarchs representing chaos, the Camarilla representing order, and the Sabbat representing destruction, based on their general demeanours and goals. This in itself gets twisted around a through the individuals of each sect a lot, however, so it's definitely not as prominent as the more solid examples in the setting. The Camarilla is generally presented as the good guys in this gameline, with some Anarchs shining through occasionally, though it leans more towards being the lesser evil than actually being good.
- In White Wolf's other Tabletop RPG,
*Exalted*, traces of this are also present. The Wyld is a place instead of a force, but one that The Fair Folk inhabit as the representatives of Chaos. Order is represented by the Sidereal Exalted and their Celestial Bureaucracy, as well as by the Realm of the Dragon Blooded.
-
*Dungeons & Dragons* has a similar system of moral alignment for characters that opposes Evil to Good, and Law to Chaos.
- In the original game, there were only three alignments: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Lawful was frequently equated with Good and Chaotic with Evil, so it's not much of a surprise that future editions expanded the system into the nine alignments that we know today — which many people
*still* have arguments about, in large part because of the popularity of Anti Heroes and Anti Villains in fantasy fiction. *C'est la vie.*
- Even in the original edition, the Monster Manual had creatures defined as "Chaotic but good" or "Lawful but evil". This most likely led to the two-axis alignments.
- The other alignments are also useful. A Dark Lord's just-following-orders minion or a heretic-burning priest is Lawful Evil (keep the rules whatever the cost to people.) A Thief character is Chaotic Good (screw the rules, be excellent to each other.)
- Fourth Edition pared it down to Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil, and Chaotic Evil. Players have hotly debated whether this means that Lawful Good is somehow "more good" than Chaotic Good, or whether goodness means being naturally chaotic. Wizards' own article on the subject appears here. To summarize for those who don't want the link; Word of God is that Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil are explicitly
*not* The Same, but More of Good and Evil. They simply represent very specific, focused views of good and evil — Lawful Good views law and order as being essential components to goodness, while Chaotic Evil is so psychotic and self-absorbed it goes beyond what even Evil considers appropriate. An "Evil" character has standards and is usually rational about their goals; a "Chaotic Evil" character has no standards and will do whatever they want to achieve their goals, which are often horrific even to Evil beings.
- In the older editions, the Blood War was a massive mashup between the demons and the devils on which kind of evil (pure rampaging destructive chaos vs brutal and cunning tyranny) should dominate the cosmos. Now its changed to war of Evil Versus Oblivion between the demons and the devils.Not only are the demons an infinite source of chaos and destruction but they cannot access the material plane until the devils are defeated. This makes the devils Necessarily Evil and are the only thing keeping the endless hordes of demons from overwhelming the cosmos]]. This handily explains why the devils who use order have not defeated the devils and why the forces of good have not intervened to destroy evil it is impossible with the demons and destroying the devils means that death of everything.
- In 4e, the equivalent of the Blood War of prior editions is being fought between Bane, god of war and conquest, and Gruumsh, god of destruction and slaughter. Bane is a strategist who plays by the rules of war, while Gruumsh cares only for slaughter. Gruumsh covets Bane's position as god of war, and Bane uses the war with Gruumsh as a cover to make the other deities think he's distracted, occupied, and generally less competant than he actually is, though Gruumsh's unpredictability and bravado keeps the war much more even than Bane would like.
- In the Basic/Expert/etc variant of
*D&D*, the Sphere of Matter was generally affiliated with Law, and the Sphere of Energy with Chaos, with Time favoring Neutrality and Thought combining some of each. The four all generally team up to oppose the Sphere of Entropy, a nihilistic variant of Chaos that's looking to eliminate life of *any* alignment, however.
- Curiously, that's how things are in Normal
*CD&D* reality. In the alternate Nightmare reality, it's Chaos (a.k.a. Freedom) that's generally on the side of the angels, and Law (there called Stasis) that's considered a menace.
- The Neverwinter campaign setting can get like this with the right Game Master and playing the cynical side of Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism. One interpretation of the campaign is do you let Lord Neverember rule knowing that he might use Neverwinter as a stepping stone to conquer the northern lands, or do you dethrone him and risk the rioting that could cause Neverwinter to never recover from the disasters? Tyranny or anarchy, take your pick.
- Two products from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, publisher of "Old School Renaissance" supplements for older D&D games, redefine Law and Chaos:
-
*Carcosa* defines Law as "sworn enemies the Old Ones" and Chaos as "servants and allies of the Old Ones".
- Their flagship RPG,
*Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role Playing* (whew!) defines Lawful beings as (oversimplifying a bit) conscious pawns in a cosmic plan, and Chaotic beings as those touched by magic, a random and amoral force that could overwhelm our so-called "reality" in the blink of an eye. Notably all Clerics must be Lawful, and all Magic Users and Elves must be Chaotic.
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*Magic: The Gathering*: The conflict between White (the color of tradition, society, law and faith) and Red (the color of emotion, liberty, and impulsiveness) is at its heart the conflict between Order and Chaos. Since none of *MTG*'s colors are inherently good or evil, this can take many shapes over different stories, such as a heroic White society fighting back the chaos of Red barbarians and monsters that threatens to destroy it or Red freedom fighters and revolutionaries fighting against an oppressive and hierarchical White regime.
- Red and White are not however mutually exclusive, and some of the Guilds from the Ravnica sets explore the mixing of the two colors in some interesting ways.
- The Boros Guild, Red/White, is for instance extremely dedicated to promoting White ideals of justice, law and society, but rather than pursuing these goals stoically and/or emotionlessly like White tends to, they do so with a clearly Red passion, fervency and personal, emotional investment.
- This is taken a step further in the form of the Rakdos Guild, the Black (the color of selfishness, ambition and amorality) and Red guild; more or less a self-indulgent and frequently psychotically violent chaos incarnate. It is revealed that the entire reason the other nine Guilds allow the Rakdos to exist is to show to the non-guild citizens what a world without the guilds would be like. Furthermore, when a guild wants something done on a large scale that just isn't possible within their respected roles of the guildpact, they often commission the Rakdos to sow a little chaos and do it for them. Or, in the case of the Dimir, they set things up so the Rakdos take the blame.
- The Kaladesh arc is a clear example of a story focusing on good Chaos versus evil Order, focusing on the chiefly Red-aligned Renegades fighting against the stifling, tyrannical order of the chiefly White Consulate.
- While all the colleges in the Strixhaven Arc have similar oppositions in the vein of an academic debate, this is more directly shown when looking at the Lorehold college, the school that focuses a lot on the past and fittingly produces a lot of Adventurer Archaeologist students. Their outlook on history is a debate on whether it is a series of orderly events (white), or if it is a chaotic mess (red), and the deans that represent each aspect are Augusta and Plargg respectively.
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*Warhammer* had both the Chaos gods and the Gods of Law, the later being obviously so obscure that they not only are barely mentioned, but pretty much absent from the main plot, although their followers are known to be extremistic. There's also several other gods who are either rather neutral, or that side against Chaos, but are not considered Gods of Order.
- The Chaos Gods themselves do not simply represent Chaos; they represent corrupted Chaos. All Warp gods are affected by the emotions of their worshippers and all four Chaos gods personify, in part, something much more positive than their normal nature- Slaanesh is the God of Love, for instance, and Tzeentch the God of Hope. The reason they are Chaotic Evil rather than Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good is largely because the Warhammer universe is just that screwed up. The fact that all the other factions are about as Ax-Crazy as each other is what makes Chaos the worst faction of the lot in the first place. Its not that there is no Good and Evil in this setting- it's that Evil exists, and it has
*won*.
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*Warhammer 40,000* typically defines itself as Order vs. Chaos (or rather, Order vs. Disorder, seeing as how one of the factions in the universe is *called* Chaos). There is no real Good vs Evil. Although there are some individuals who could be considered good, as a whole the sides are basically Bad vs *Worse*.
- Normal racial divisions are the Imperium, Eldar, and Tau for Order, and Chaos, Dark Eldar, and Orks for Disorder. Necrons and Tyranids are both off to the side a bit, but as Necron lore becomes more developed, they seem to be leaning towards Order. Their goal is wiping out sentient organic life in order to
*truly* starve the chaos gods.
- In the first Necrons codex, the C'tan are essentially the Gods of Order, as they're the complete antithesis of the Chaos Gods. The Chaos Gods exist in the Warp while the C'tan are wholly physical beings (well, energy beings, but they have no connection to Warp whatsoever) The Chaos Gods can substitute reality with their own, while the C'tan have mastery over the laws of physics, allowing both to do seemingly magical things. The followers of the Chaos Gods tend to end up controlled by their emotions and become more and more mutated until they turn into mindless Spawn, while the followers of the C'tan had their minds transferred into unchanging metal bodies and became the soulless and emotionless Necrons. The ultimate goal of the Chaos Gods is to consume the galaxy in chaos by turning it into a giant warp rift, while the ultimate goal of the C'tan is to seal off the warp, turning every sentient being into soulless cattle for them to feed on.
note : This angle was dropped in the second Necrons codex because Games Workshop came to the realisation that this made it very hard to give any meaningful character to the Necrons themselves and defined them solely by their relationship to the C'tan.
- Similarly to the C'tan mentioned above, in the Fantasy setting perfect order can be seen in the undead armies, the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings, legions of mindless servants who thoughtlessly serve their masters in "the perfect, unending order of undeath."
- With the
*Warhammer: Age of Sigmar* sequel setting to Warhammer Fantasy, the Gods of Law have been dropped entirely (it is implied that they were either defeated by the Chaos Gods or were too weak to interfere during the End Times that ended WHF's world and didn't survive) and the stifling evil absolute Order role is take by the successor to the original undead factions, the Grand Alliance of Death. The healthy order is taken by the Grand Alliance of Order, the Chaos Gods and their followers in the Grand Alliance of Chaos and the Greenskins, Trolls (renamed to Troggoths), Ogres (renamed to Ogors) and Giants are placed in Grand Alliance of Destruction, still on the chaos side, just not capital C Chaos side.
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*Winterweir* has one of its main setting themes as the conflict between the Celestials (Order) and the Demons (Chaos) with neither side being especially good.
-
*F.A.T.A.L.*. It stresses that neither is actually related to good or evil. It also calls Order "ethical" and Chaos "unethical" in the Character Alignment section. You may clap sarcastically whenever you like.
- In
*Traveller*, the Interstellar Wars are very much about the conflict between Order and Chaos. The Vilani Empire is about ten thousand years old and has done almost nothing new in thousands of years. Yet at the same time, it has highly refined all its techniques and technology and has a political system designed to keep order. It is sometimes oppressive, but it holds thousands of worlds together. The Terran Confederation has a more or less democratic structure, as well as a large number of only half-controlled Intrepid Merchants and Space Cossacks, who are a great help against the Vilani Imperium.
- The Zhodani and the Vargr represent a much more extreme example of the "Order versus Chaos" confrontation. Zhodani nobles use their psionics to maintain a vaguely Orwellian police state, while the Vargr have an extremely fragmented society where authority is based on "Charisma".
- In the
*Empire of the Petal Throne*, Order and Chaos are called Stability and Change, respectively. They are not exactly at war, but they are often opposed. Interestingly, they tend to mirror each other. There's a Stability Sun Deity and a Change Sun Deity, for example. Neither is necessarily good or evil.
- A Meta Game version is the Pink Mohawk vs the Black Trenchcoat in
*Shadowrun*, where Pink Mohawks represents chaotic shadowrunners who goes in with plenty of explosions and gunfire while Black Trenchcoat relies on cold calculation to complete the runs.
- The main plot of
*AdventureQuest Worlds* is about Drakath, champion of chaos and the 13 lords of chaos. Order is less obvious, however the constant and stable conflict between good and evil seems to represent order (and considering that it's Lawful Good vs. Lawful Evil, and the predictability of their fight going into something of a tradition, would represent order, an order that Drakath shattered when he came into the story.
- In the
*Metal Gear* franchise, Solid Snake would do battle against both terrorists (representing chaos) *and* politicians (representing law), both of whom threatened to destroy the world with their war with each other.
- On a more thematic note, the war between Big Boss and ||Zero|| ultimately boils down to this. Big Boss's goal is to establish an anarchic perpetual battleground where soldiers are free to serve as mercenaries and do battle without allegiance to any government, ideology, or creed, whereas the latter hopes to unite the world under a One World Order government run by Big Brother A.I.s.
- The
*The Witcher* franchise, including both the books and video games, had three wars waged between the Northern Kingdoms (Neutral), the Nilfgaardian Empire (Order) and the Scoia'tael (Chaos). There is even a card game based after those three wars, titled "Gwent"!
- Geralt of Rivia, on the other hand, did his best to avoid their three wars with each other, remaining True Neutral to the best of his abilities, just to focus on two things: Killing monsters for profit, and rescuing his adoptive daughter, Ciri.
- The virtue system in
*Serpents Isle* is quite different from past games. Unlike the Britannia virtues, based on Infinity, Ophidian virtues are based on Order and Chaos. The Virtues of Order are Logic, Discipline, and Ethicality. The Virtues of Chaos are Emotion, Enthusiasm, and Tolerance.
- However, unlike the virtues of Britannia, Ophidian virtues are not good by themselves and must be practiced with its opposite counterpart to achieve balance, otherwise, wrongs are committed, called Banes. The Banes of Order are Ruthlessness (Logic without Emotion), Apathy (Discipline without Enthusiasm), and Prejudice (Ethicality without Tolerance). The Banes of Chaos are Insanity (Emotion without Logic), Wantonness (Enthusiasm without Discipline), and Anarchy (Tolerance without Ethicality). The Order and Chaos counterparts combined together form the Principles of Rationality (Logic and Emotion), Dedication (Discipline and Enthusiasm), and Harmony (Ethicality and Tolerance).
- Halfway through the game, the Banes of Chaos possess three major party members, which in turn annihilate the three major cities, which were guilty of practicing the Banes of Order. The three main cities were also notable in that they practiced bastardized forms of the three major Britannia Principles, Truth, Love, and Courage. Monitor practiced a bastardized version of Courage and the Bane of Apathy. With their courage just being merely words and not true actions, they were wiped out by the Bane of Wantonness when he sent goblin hordes to attack Monitor. Fawn, worshipped Beauty, a bastardized version of Love, which caused them to commit the Bane of Prejudice to anything ugly. The Bane of Insanity killed the city with plague and flayed the city's priestess alive (the Avatar restores her however). Moonshade (a bastardized version of Britannia's Moonglow, the city of Honesty) is a city of half-truths where the truth is only good when convienant. This leads them to commit the Bane of Ruthlessness. When the Bane of Anarachy arrived, he had the town's inhabitants kill eachother.
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*Ogre Battle*, *Ogre Battle 64*, and *Tactics Ogre*'s alignment system.
- Order and Chaos have been divided into separate worlds in
*The Longest Journey*. Although generally both sides try to leave each other alone, sometimes someone gets it into their head that their side is the superior.
- The
*Thief* games have the Hammerites, a particularly militant group of Knight Templars, as Order, and the Pagans, a demon-worshipping underground Cult of shamans and hippies, as Chaos. Neither are portrayed as particularly nice. The protagonist, interestingly, could be considered a representation of balance: he's a thief, but his livelihood hinges pretty heavily on the institutions of the society he lives in, and he frequently steps in to keep things from going all to hell.
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*Shin Megami Tensei* has this as its central conflict. Pick a game out of the series and despite ever-changing setpieces, backdrops and actors, the script remains the same. Unlike most examples neither side is shown to be better than the other, often becoming two types of evil depending on the game (Neutral is generally treated better and is the canon ending in all instances of direct continuations), but just has different trade offs for humanity and demons. Order tends to result in the eradication of all independent thought and the reduction of reality to a vast machine dedicated to the worship of YHVH, whilst Chaos tends to spawn a twisted world of Might Makes Right and endless war.
- It returned as a major mechanic in
*Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey*, up to and including several bonuses (extra attack combos, price discounts when recruiting demons) and losses (failed negotiations, harder to contact successfully a demon of opposite alignment) depending upon your stance on Order and Chaos.
- SMT is an interesting example in that although neutrality is often presented as canon, it is also often presented as not being that great of a choice, which ends up making the choice of endings seem like a 'shades of shit' kind of deal. Strange Journey in particular shows that allowing humanity to go on as it is could be a bad idea...
- Spinoff series generally portray the alignments in a much more positive manner. One example is
*Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon*, where it's not them being forced to pick a side but rather how Raidou wishes to live his life. The only game with a Social Darwinist outlook in the spinoffs is *Devil Survivor 2's* Meritocracy, but it's based on star signs instead of the typical alignments.
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*Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne* has an interesting version of this trope with the Reasons. As one might expect, the Demon ending(leave the Vortex World as it is) and the Freedom Ending (turn the world back to normal) are Neutral, while Shijima(a World of Silence) is Law, but one would assume Yosuga(Might Makes Right) is Chaos. That assumption, however, is incorrect, since following any of the Reasons, including Musubi(everyone lives in isolation) is essentially playing by Kagutsuchi's rules. The real Chaos ending is the True Demon Ending, in which you permanently destroy Kagutsuchi and team up with Lucifer.
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*Shin Megami Tensei IV* adds a fourth option: Nothingness. Screw Order. Screw Chaos. All of your options suck and nothing anyone does will bring an end to the neverending Crapsack World that is the MegaTen universe, so just end it all. ||Not that it'll help, as *Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse* reveals.||
- The entire premise of
*Primal* was this. Arella was the literal personification of order. Her polar opposite is Abbadon, who has begun to tip the balance of power towards chaos.
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*Grandia II* portrays the two Gods of the story (Granas and Valmar) as personifications of Order and Chaos, both supposedly created by humans who leaned too far one way or the other. It spells this out, *very* briefly, and the characters do not comprehend any of the implications. A little robot makes the remark in question. You see, ||Granas and Valmar were some ancient civilization's scientific researchers, who jointly discovered how to transmute matter and energy at will, i.e. the key to utopia, and promptly became as gods. Their partnership broke up when they realized their ideologies were split neatly along the line described by this trope — Granas wanted a perfect world full of happy people who never experience anything negative; Valmar insisted that life is made interesting by conflict... so he started one. The details are foggy, but we do find out that the war ended with Granas down for the count and Valmar (or at least his giant bio weapon) still hanging around. Gameplay ensues.||
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*Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn* (and *Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance*, the direct prequel) have Ashera, the Goddess of Order and ||Yune||, Goddess of Chaos. ||In an interesting twist, the Goddess of Chaos is depicted as a young child. The two also used to be one being: the original Goddess Ashunera cast out her own emotions, which became Yune, after accidently flooding the world. The Empty Shell that was left behind became Ashera, and lacking emotions causes her to make some... questionable decisions.||
- If the words of a certain traitorous bishounen priest are any indication, this may well turn out to be the most primal conflict in the
*Suikoden* series. There are many ways one could wax fauxlosophic about this, but so far most of the writing on the wall seems to be margin notes. For instance, the conflict that created the Suiko-verse was between two embodiments of protection and destruction. Refreshingly, the series chastises both extremes, showing the horrors of "true Order" (dharma, in the words of the aforementioned priest) at least as often as the horrors of "true Chaos."
- Indeed, the Empire of Holy Harmonia, the possible Big Bad of the game series, lives up to its name as the embodiment of strict order. On the other hand, recurring Psycho for Hire Yuber is Chaos's standard bearer (oddly enough, the two actually end up on the same side in at least one war).
- It's also implied that Pesmerga, whose sole purpose in life seems to be to eliminate Yuber, is Yuber's counterpart on the side of Order. The two look very similar (including their all-black wardrobes), have swords with the same name, and despite their human appearance are apparently immortal demons of some sort.
- While
*Suikoden Tierkreis* isn't connected to the main series, it pits the hero against The Order Of The One True Way, an empire with clear parallels to Harmonia, just nastier and with plenty of horror.
- In
*The Elder Scrolls*, this is heavily present (though at times significantly played-with) with the series' divine beings. To note:
- The primary Creation Myth for most religions of Tamriel generally follows a pattern that, in the pre-creation "void", there were two opposing primordial forces - Stasis (Order) and Change (Chaos). A few of the religions anthropomorphize these forces into beings most commonly known as Anu and Padomay, respectively. The interplay between these two forces led to Creation, sometimes anthropomorphized as the female entity "Nir". Nir favored Anu, which angered Padomay. Padomay killed Nir and shattered the twelve worlds she gave birth to. Anu then wounded Padomay, presuming him dead. Anu salvaged the pieces of the twelve worlds to create one world: Nirn. Padomay returned and wounded Anu, seeking to destroy Nirn. Anu then pulled Padomay and himself outside of time, ending Padomay's threat to creation "forever". From the intermingling of their spilled blood came the "et'Ada", or "original spirits", who would go on to become either the Aedra or the Daedra depending on their actions during creation. (Some myths state that the Aedra come from the mixed blood of Anu and Padomay, while the Daedra come purely from the blood of Padomay).
- One of these spirits, said to have been "begat" by Sithis (the embodiment of chaos and, for lack of a better term, Padomay's "spirit"), was Lorkhan (aka Shor, Shezarr, Shep, Lorkhaj, etc.). Depending on the version of the myth, he convinced/tricked some of the other et'Ada into helping him create the mortal plane, known as Mundus, to permanently disrupt the "stasis" of pre-creation with "chaos." (The races of Mer, or Elves, generally believe this was a cruel trick that robbed their ancestors of their pre-creation divinity while the races of Men believe it was a good thing.) Those et'Ada who sacrificed large parts of their being to create Mundus became known as the Aedra, while those that did not participate became the Daedra. For his treachery, the Aedra "killed" Lorkhan and tore out his "divine center" (heart), which they cast down into the mortal world he helped to create.
- The Aedra, meaning "Our Ancestors" in the old Aldmeri language, sacrificed a large portion of their divine power in order to create the mortal world. It is said that the et'Ada who would become the Aedra formed from the intermingled blood of Anu and Padomay, giving them some traits of both Order and Chaos. Meanwhile, the Daedra, meaning "Not Our Ancestors," did not sacrifice any of their power during the creation of Mundus and remain truly immortal. The et'Ada who would become the Daedra are said to have formed exclusively from the blood of Padomay, giving them purely Chaotic traits. (Though even this is heavily played with, as two of the Daedric Princes, Jyggalag and Peryite, both govern over spheres which contain elements of
*Order*.)
- This is heavily played up in some of the religions of the races of Mer (Elves),
*especially* the Altmer (High Elves). According to Altmer religious beliefs, the creation of Mundus was seen as an act of malevolence as it forced them to experience mortal suffering, loss, and death while removing their spirits from a place of pre-creation divinity. While most are content to toil in this mortal "prison" with "more limitations than not," some extremists, like the Thalmor, actively seek to *undo creation* to return to that state of pre-creation divinity. According to their beliefs, mankind was made up from the "weakest souls" by Lorkhan to spread Sithis (Chaos) "into every corner," ensuring that there could never be the "stasis" (Order) of pre-creation again. However, they believe that not just the *existence* of mankind, but the existence of the *possibility* of mankind keeps them trapped in Mundus. Essentially, the Altmer are oppressed not just by the existence of mankind, but the possibility of mankind's existence.
-
*Oblivion*'s *Shivering Isles* expansion is based around this trope. Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness will periodically ||transform into his original form as Jyggalag, the Daedric Prince of Order, and level the Shivering Isles - Sheogorath's realm of madness, creativity, and free will||. The main quest of the expansion is to bring an end to this Vicious Cycle once and for all.
- The main villains of the game
*Anachronox* are revealed to be a species devoted to Chaos, who were sent back to a former universe by a species devoted to Order — though not much is made of this, since the sequel was never made.
-
*Mortal Kombat* has the Order Realm/Seido, and the Chaos Realm, who are constantly at war with each other.
- Plus, a Lawful Stupid character from Seido and a Chaotic Stupid character from Chaosrealm. They're arch enemies.
- Tyrant conquerors Onaga and Shao Khan are associated with order and chaos respectively and are favored by the members of the realm of equivalent alignment.
-
*Dungeon Master* features a group of heroes sent on a quest by Lord Order to defeat Lord Chaos. Complete the quest as stated and Lord Order thanks you, ||then murders you. To win, you have to defeat them both by merging them back into the one human they were originally created from.||
- Very much like the example above,
*Faery Tale Adventure 2: Halls of the Dead* evokes the "too much of either is bad" version. The Big Bad is ostensibly the personification of Chaos, but destroying him will only serve to ||allow Order to achieve a perfectly ordered state by encasing the entire universe in lifeless crystal. Destroying Order likewise makes the world uninhabitable, for the opposite reason. The correct solution is to unify them, bringing harmony to the world again.||
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*Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning* had two factions: Order and Destruction (since one of the races is Chaos). With Empire, Dwarves and High Elves on one side and Chaos, Greenskins and Dark Elves on the other. However, it has somewhat been criticised for making the Order side a bit too 'Good', although that could just be in comparison to the pure baby-murdering evil that is Destruction.
- In
*Disgaea*, it becomes clear that this is the true conflict, and the idea that it's Black-and-White Morality is some sort of in-universe ideal decay that has happened over millennia. Evidence of this is found in the fact that OTHER demons will chastize demons they see getting "too evil", e.g. Raspberyl's declaring Mao's intent to blow up the Earth, an act for scum. Also in the first game Etna insists on teaching Laharl kindness in her own warped demon way, and this trait was something she admired in his father.
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*Heroes of Might and Magic* series:
- The fourth has this
*and* Black-and-White Morality (though it's worth noting that Chaos hates "Life" and Order equally, and Life feels the same about Chaos and "Death.") Order is borderline good, but a spell to protect against that alignment references "what the self-righteous are capable of." Chaos . . . is just evil. Sorry.
- In the fifth and sixth games, Order is represented by Asha the creator goddess and her six children, as well as by the Necropolis faction who worship Asha as the 'Spider Aspect', while Chaos is represented by Asha's brother Urgash and the Inferno faction, which consists of the Demons that Urgash created to wage war on his sister.
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*S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl* has the very aptly named Duty vs. Freedom, Duty being a highly disciplined paramilitary organization that believes the world needs to be protected from the Zone, and Freedom being a loosely run band of stoners and anarchists who believe the Zone's gifts should be shared with the entire world.
- The famous Green Rocks of
*Sonic the Hedgehog*, are called the *Chaos* Emeralds. They wasted a perfectly bland plot in the scrapped game *Sonic X-Treme*, which would have featured the Rings of *Order*.
- This is one of the pairs of faiths in
*Lords of Magic*. Order is represented by the standard High Middle Ages style humans, Chaos is represented by barbarians.
- This is the most important conflict of the
*Dept. Heaven* series, where order is represented by the gods of Asgard and chaos by the Underworld and its demons. Both sides are far and away on the "extreme" end of what these things represent, and woe betide anyone who gets in the middle. Gray-and-Grey Morality also applies; the Big Bad of the series is a proxy of the gods, and the most messianic character who's appeared thus far is a demon.
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*Riviera: The Promised Land* has its hero Ein find a happy medium by telling both sides of the conflict where they can stick it if they're going to keep recklessly endangering the lives of ordinary mortal people in neutral territory for their own selfish warring.
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*Yggdra Union* and *Blaze Union* both deal with mortal affairs more than the huge conflict going on in the background, but they go a long way towards establishing the powers that be on both sides as incredibly callous. The antagonist of these games was born to be one of Asgard's soldiers, and was punished horribly for refusing to go to war and asserting his free will despite being what was considered a subhuman class, then exiled to a mortal world—and then completely ignored, even as he started manipulating events on that world for the sake of revenge. (These games, by the way, are the one with the messianic demon.)
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*Knights in the Nightmare* explains that the conflict between the forces of order and chaos has been so bad that a lot of worlds have neutral arbitrators to keep their fighting from damaging mortal worlds.
-
*LEGO Universe* doesn't exactly have "order," but Imagination is a channeled chaos, pitted against the completely unfettered Maelstrom. The distinction is similar to that between building a tower of Legos out of bricks from a dozen different sets, and smashing the tower to bits.
- Though it (possibly) started out as an Good vs. Evil affair, the revelation of
*Soul Calibur's* true intent in *SoulCalibur IV* (to force the world into a state of peace and safety by crystallizing all its inhabitants) causes its conflict with Soul Edge to fall into this (because it slips into a "no matter who wins, we all lose" scenario). Fan theory suggests that this happened over the course of the series, rather than Soul Calibur having such a twisted objective from the start.
- The closest we have to Word of God on the matter is that Soul Calibur was
*originally* just as evil as Soul Edge, from whence it came, because Algol's Blue-and-Orange Morality gave its spirit no moral compass besides a directive to destroy Soul Edge at all costs. The sword's evil was eventually quieted and purged by its keepers (who are all long dead now), and is speculated to have reawakened after Soul Calibur was temporarily trapped within Soul Edge. Unlike a lot of video game examples of this trope, merging the swords together is *a very bad idea*, creating a godlike Eldritch Abomination that is pure evil.
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*Portal 2* plays the conflict between Master Computer GLaDOS and whimsical AI sidekick Wheatley as less Evil vs. Good and more as the aspect of game theory that pits a perfectly logical, experienced player against a completely random one who has no idea what he's doing, what the rules are, what the win condition is, etcetera. The random player can win not because he's good at the game, but because he's so unpredictable that the logical player cannot anticipate his moves. In fact, later in the game, Wheatley does a better job of ||being an actual antagonist|| than GLaDOS ever did. Interestingly, the randomness doesn't always work in his favour because, well, it's random. ||Even his "triumph" would have meant that *everyone* lost by *dying*, instead of just him losing by being deposed.||
- In
*The Colour Tuesday*, the Others keep everything in a state of mind controlled order so as to prey on humans. This makes the rebellious Alex a perfect candidate for trying to break the Others' control.
- In
*World of Warcraft*, the Titans aren't so much "good" as "ordered", and do some pretty morally questionable things in order to keep the balance. On the opposite side is the Burning Legion, which holds it as their sacred mission to bring chaos and destruction to all worlds.
- To demonstrate, the Titans created the Halls of Origination which functionally destroys the world by resetting it back to when the Titans first finished making/modifying it. From Algalon's words, it's to be used whenever things go wrong with the Titans plans and seemingly every world visited by the Titans has one.
- The Bronze Dragonflight acts much like the Titans, maintaining the "order" of the timelines. This also means ensuring some pretty horrible events happen, as the effects of them
*not* happening might be worse. Their nemesis, the Infinite Dragonflight, wishes to change the timelines greatly to achieve some unknown goal. They do so by disrupting that "order", threatening to destabilize the entirety of time.
- Kirby and Meta Knight often fall into this, with the former being carefree and chaotic (often causing a lot of trouble) and the latter imposing extreme order (often in an effort to counteract that trouble).
- This is the entire foundation of the
*Dissidia Final Fantasy*, with the Goddess of Harmony (Cosmos) vs the God of Discord (Chaos).
- In the first
*Mass Effect* game, Sovereign claims that the Reapers "impose order on the chaos of organic evolution". Two games later, a downed Reaper says something similar, arguing to Shepard that ||harvesting organics and uploading them into new Reaper shells|| is the only way to "preserve" them. Otherwise, they will eventually create synthetics that have the power to destroy them. ||This turns out to be the purpose of the unthinkably old AI overseeing the whole cycle.||
- The trio of gods in
*Runescape*, Saradomin, Zamorak, and Guthix represent Order, Chaos and Balance, respectively. While there are few sympathetic Zamorakian NPCs, and most heroes are Saradominists, the distinction isn't clear cut, as groups like HAM and the White Knights can attest to. Armadyl, the only objectively "good" god, was dethroned for being a Suicidal Pacifist, Guthix simply wants to preserve existence, though his followers often act Stupid Neutral, and Zaros is just power personified.
- A common theme in the Geneforge series. The Shapers have maintained a fairly peaceful and stable social order for centuries, and kept the worst excesses of their distinctive form of magic to a minimum. Scratch the surface, though, and you'll quickly notice that this relative peace and comfort masks a tyrannical society with next to no social mobility, kept afloat with healthy doses of Fantastic Racism, including the systematic extermination of most sentient nonhuman species. The rebellion against them, in turn, wants to tear down not just the tyranny and racism, but the peace and stability, and all the rules that made it possible in the first place. It doesn't help that the rebels are not exactly in agreement about what should come next, and many of the rebel creations hate humans just as much as humans hate them. Both sides are convinced they're right, and neither side is presented as overwhelmingly better or worse than the other when it comes to morality; both demonstrate plenty of willingness to punt a few canines over the horizon. And you get to choose which side wins. There are a few sides that try to compromise, but these tend to get killed off quickly, or become affiliated with the (chaotic) rebels by default.
- A theme in
*BlazBlue*. The game is a very complex Morality Kitchen Sink, but this is an underlying theme of the series. The conflict manifests itself primarily represented in series protagonist, Ragna the Bloodedge and his younger brother/rival, Jin Kisaragi being chaos and order respectively.
-
*Catherine*, being a spinoff of *Shin Megami Tensei*, has this as a running theme but in a much more downplayed scope compared to the parent series, and the Ms. Exposition Trisha even brings up this trope on one occasion. The game follows Vincent, a bored thirty-something Everyman who finds himself in a Love Triangle with two women, with the two women representing Order and Chaos. The protagonist's choice between the two ||or not|| forms the central focus of his Character Development.
-
*Assassin's Creed*: the long conflict between Assassins and Templars is essentially a question of whether the world needs more freedom or more control. The games are generally in favor of the Assassins, though Shaun (an Assassin) doesn't consider them to be "heroes" since they still kill people to accomplish their goals. Most Templars aren't portrayed in a favorable light, especially in the second game. The third game brings both sides closer together on the morality scale. William tells Desmond that both sides have made attempts throughout history to join together, but ultimately their ideologies are diametrically opposed.
- Furthermore, the Templars create chaos in their attempts to impose order whereas Assassins contain chaos by minimizing violence, stabilizing threats and building institutions and support systems. So no one side is pure Order or pure Chaos. They even have the same goal, a peaceful world, but disagree on how to get there.
- Very much the name of the game in
*Chaos Reborn*, where wizards with reality-warping powers battle each other for claims of godhood, and affect the balance of the entire universe around them.
-
*Blade & Soul* has this theme running through its main Player Versus Player factions. The Cerulean Order is a well-intentioned dictatorship which believes society functions best when people are assigned to the role most suited to their natural talents and skill set. The Crimson Legion advocates complete social mobility and believes any form of stable government will naturally lead towards corruption and tyranny.
- In
*Civilization* *V*, you can choose one of three mutually exclusive ideologies as your Civ progresses into the modern age. Freedom (Chaos) represents capitalism, is all about empowering the individual, and is great for giving smaller, more peaceful Civs a much needed leg-up by giving bonuses to culture, happiness, tourism and diplomacy, and also gives some defensive bonuses to the military. Order (you'll never guess) represents Marxist-Communism, works by empowering the state, and is good for sprawling (but not necessarily aggressive) empires with lots of industrial buildings as it gives bonuses to food, production and population, and gives them out on a per-city basis. Autocracy (Omnicidal Neutral), representing Fascism, is all about empowering the great leader at the very top and giving huge bonuses to all things military, allowing you to build armies faster, more cheaply, in greater numbers and even improving the individual combat power of units. Civs tend to get along better with other Civs of the same ideology and some even have preferred ideologies: for example, the Americans and French prefer Freedom, the Chinese prefer Order, and the Germans unfortunately prefer Autocracy.
- The choices in
*Papers, Please* side you with the government or the revolutionaries. It's up to interpretation on how good or evil either group is. You can also decide to flee from both of them.
-
*Stellaris*:
- The Ethos system originally featured, amongst others, the Collectivist-Individualist dichotomy. The exact ideology represented by any given ethic is left intentionally vague for roleplaying purposes, but from what could be gathered, Collectivists favoured autocratic governments and didn't take happiness penalties from slavery and Individualists favoured democracies and personal liberty, gaining bonuses to energy production. This proved to be so controversial that the Collectivist-Individualist axis was eventually replaced entirely by a new Egalitarian-Authoritarian axis.
**Fanatic Collectivist description**: "The purpose of the individual is simple; strengthen the collective. To enter the blackness of space we move as one, and we shall not be weakened by wanton separatism." **Fanatic Individualist description**: "We must recognise that 'society' is but a convenient fiction, the by-product of individuals working toward parallel, overlapping, and contradictory goals. As it should be."
- The
*Nemesis* expansion provides the opportunity to reform the Galactic Community into the Galactic Imperium. In case of a significant weakening of the Imperium's authority, it is very likely that a large-scale uprising will begin, which can quickly turn into an all-galactic Civil War between two hostile coalitions. Conceptually, this conflict directly refers to this trope, since the loyalists defend the Imperium as a bulwark of stability, unity, and development of the galaxy, as well as peace in it, while the rebels want to return to a much more democratic format of the Galactic Community, accusing the Imperium of tyranny and oppression. The war between them can end in victory for either side, or with the signing of a peace treaty, which will lead to the political independence of the two power blocs from each other, and also to a continuation of their conflict in a cold war manner.
- The trope forms the main backbone of the conflict between Symmetra (Order) and Lucio (Chaos) in
*Overwatch*. Symmetra believed that order has to be upheld to create a better community. Unfortunately, due to her upbringing and working for Vishkar Corporation, widely believed to be an evil, corrupt company, some tends to miss that she's not a big fan of their underhanded tactics, only interested with order and was led to believe that Vishkar is doing things for an eventual greater good, the restoration of order. On the other hand, Lucio was a victim of Vishkar's attempt to impose their order (with a little help from Symmetra), and as a believer of people's freedom, he rose up by stealing Vishkar's technology and using it against them, granting freedom to the oppressed people and allowing him to do a dual-job between an international DJ by day, a freedom fighter by night. Symmetra obviously do not get along with Lucio, her doubts with Vishkar aside, she still saw him as no better than a thief, a street rat that rose to fame with dubious, unorderly manners and he should at least return the technology he stole, while Lucio justifies himself with how Vishkar was asking for it for oppressing his people first and it's for the oppressed people that needs freedom (which was dubbed by Symmetra as 'anarchy') and generally, he is not aware of Symmetra's personal doubts and thinks that she's just the same as the other corrupt Vishkar guys that oppressed his people, therefore, she has no validities in chastising him when she's showing blind obedience to what he thinks to be Obviously Corrupt company.
-
*SWAT 3* briefly touches on this with the recurring euphemism (deadly or otherwise, depending on how you play) of "bringing order to chaos" - i.e. removing, whether by arresting or neutralizing, any armed and antagonistic individuals who are currently threatening the safety and well-being of your squad of SWAT officers or any civilians.
- In
*WildStar*, this is ultimately the conflict between The Dominion and The Exiles; Those that join and become citizens of the Dominion and obeys their laws are granted rights like education. If you don't obey, you get swept aside. The Exiles consist of those who got "Swept aside" and are trying to live their own lives free, but they've become criminals just to survive.
- From
*Melee* onward, the Master and Crazy Hands of the *Super Smash Bros.* series imply this (Master with Order, Crazy with Chaos). But then *Ultimate* takes it a level higher with ||*World of Light*'s Big Bads, Galeem and Dharkon. The hand they control and copy enforces this theme.||
- The concepts of Master & Crazy Hands compared to that of ||Galeem & Dharkon|| shows both sides of both ways Order & Chaos can be taken. Master Hand represents the Order of creation and structure, while Crazy Hand is the Chaos that exists for the sake of change. ||Whereas Galeem is Order for the sake of control and tyranny, and Dharkon is Chaos as a purely destructive influence that seeks to erase all life.|| The difference is that the Hands can put aside their differences to work together for the good of the universe, while ||Galeem & Dharkon|| cannot, making this more akin to a Black-and-White Morality story in a way.
- In
*Chivalry: Medieval Warfare*, the Mason Order want to overthrow the monarchy for their peasant populist, pseudo-Communist, Social Darwinist ideology, while the Agatha Knights fight to uphold peace, legitimacy, honour and the feudal system. It's an Excuse Plot, just go fight people, it's really fun.
- The major factions of
*Fallout: New Vegas* are on sort of a sliding scale of Order vs. Chaos.
- Caesar's Legion is a brutal, totalitarian military state dependent on raiding weaker tribes (Evil Order). The New California Republic is an idealistic aspiring democracy ("Good" Order, though not immune to corruption or political exigency). There is no option to make them get along.
- Choosing to remain independent of either gets both out of the Mojave and leads the region down the path to anarchy (Chaos, for better or worse).
- The fourth option is Mr. House, who's also Order (he desires control, but based on economic monopoly rather than Caesar's military conquest or the NCR's negotiation), but exploits the Chaos between Caesar and the NCR and is largelyp content to take a fairly hands-off approach.
- The final Splatfest of
*Splatoon 2* was themed around this, with Pearl championing Team Chaos while Marina lead Team Order. Rather than influence the next game's story mode, as the final Splatfest of the first game did for *Splatoon 2*, *Splatoon 3* uses Chaos's victory as the basis for its overall setting instead, shifting from Inkopolis to the more blatantly post-apocalyptic wasteland that is the Splatlands and its overcrowded hub city, Splatsville.
- In
*Puyo Puyo Tetris 2*, this is the conflict between Marle and ||Squares||. The former is a downplayed representation of chaos, since she embraces the spontaneous nature of fun; the latter ||goes as far as to take control over Marle and threatening to erase the main cast from existence in his efforts to maintain his idea of "order", all a result of him thinking the Puyo and Tetris worlds merging isn't "right"||.
-
*Indefensible Positions* (a finished webcomic) is largely about a group of heroes dealing with a war between Idiotic Order and Idiotic Chaos Knight Templar demigods. The issue with having "Forces of Chaos" is referred to when one of the main characters says to the Chaotic demigod, "I will serve Chaos" — then adds under his breath, "but not you".
-
*Last Res0rt*
- The series dances around this with the Chaotic Djinni-si (a collection of vampires, shapeshifters, telepaths, and other Things That Go "Bump" in the Night) and the Orderly Celeste (a hybrid species of angels and demons who are "often" associated with the good side, even though they're collectively the Villain with Good Publicity).
- Veled, the Big Bad, is a Celeste best defined as a force of Chaos and Evil.
- Word of God also says that the bullethole-and-skull logo of
*Last Res0rt* is *named* "Chaos". No clue what an alternate logo for "Order" might look like...
-
*Codename: Kids Next Door* had the Delightful Children From Down the Lane and their Father as Evil Order, and more widely, the adult world in general. Interestingly, the KND could themselves be highly Knight Templar-ish, erasing the memories of their own operatives once they got "too old".
- To quote
*The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy,* "The world has almost completely fallen into order. It's up to us to restore chaos." Eris, the goddess of chaos, is a recurring character. The one time she was ever calm, life was becoming so routine that it might as well not exist. However, her plans are as chaotic as she is, varying from pranks to antagonizing people to massive upheaval of all life, and involving everything from brainwashing dolls to giant flying babies to giant alien zombie lobsters.
-
*Æon Flux* is all about order vs. chaos to the point of being a gender-flipped version of Moorcock's Cornelius stories, with Aeon as chaos/Jerry and Trevor as order/Miss Brunner.
-
*ReBoot* has a case of Evil Versus Evil, as Hexadecimal is The Queen of Chaos and Megabyte represents Order in the form of tyranny. The one time that Hexadecimal executed a successful Evil Plan, she snapped her fingers and undid the damage because Victory Is Boring. Megabyte, with the same opportunity, imposed an eternal dystopia. note : Dot saw a vision of it and prevented it from happening. Interestingly, Hexadecimal was never portrayed as Capital E evil in the same sense as Megabyte, but more as a force of nature with a dark sense of humor.
- In
*The Simpsons*, Bart is Chaos while Lisa is Order. In one of the Simpsons comics (Issue 111) the kids even represented them.
- On
*Batman: The Brave and the Bold,* Equinox has the powers of both Order and Chaos Magic. Eventually it's revealed that ||the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos made a deal, tasking him to keep balance between the two forces||. Finding this impossible, he decided to restart the universe from scratch.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic* is *weird* about this trope.
- In place of standard Order, it has "Harmony," which emphasizes unity and compromise rather than strict discipline. Opposing it is "Disharmony," which is occasionally referred to as Chaos and emphasizes arbitrariness and strife. Discord, its primary representative, acts according to random whims.
- Fittingly, this means that the Mane Six have actually battled against both Chaotic foes, such as Discord or the magic-eating monster Tirek, and Orderly ones, such as the tyrannical King Sombra and Starlight Glimmer.
- The episode "Feeling Pinkie Keen" has Twilight Sparkle as Order and Pinkie Pie as Chaos. Twilight is the Element of Magic, and firmly believes that everything has an explanation, even magic (since works in ways you direct it in, and creates the expected effect). Pinkie is the Element of Laughter, and despite being an earth pony, is seemingly able to bend space and glimpse the future due to the Rule of Funny.
- The 2-part opening episode of season 5 is based on this, with the villainess, the aforementioned Starlight Glimmer, having determined that even so minor a form of chaos as "ponies having individual talents and specialties" is an evil she cannot tolerate. Leading her to strip all ponies under her rule of their cutie marks and with these, their special talents. Naturally, the Mane Six have to stop her and give them all back.
- Subverted in
*Phineas and Ferb*. Candace *thinks* of herself as representing order but her own behavior is at least as chaotic as the boys'. Played straighter with the regimented OWCA versus the whimsically evil Doofenshmitrz.
- As revealed in
*The Legend of Korra*: *Beginnings*, there were two major spirits: Raava the order spirit, and Vaatu the chaos spirit. Each 10,000 years, they wrestle around, the former keeping the latter in line just in time for the Harmonic Convergence. But it was thanks to Wan ||accidentally releasing Vaatu|| that the balance of the world gets out of control. So he spends the rest of his life working with Raava to fix what he accidentally did.
- Season three has the Red Lotus, a splinter group of the White Lotus who are essentially anarcho-primitivists that revered Vaatu and wish to destroy all governments and establish a new, more spiritual world. In the words of their leader, "The natural order is disorder". Season 4's main villain is Kuvira's Earth Empire, a force of absolute order.
- Depending on the region, the game Pai Sho, which both Lotus groups draw their names from, is considered either a fast-paced and exciting game, like the Red Lotus, or one about strategy and waiting for the proper time to make a move, like the Earth Empire (and as presented with Asami and Bolin, order beats chaos almost every time).
- In
*The Owl House*, Belos and ||the Collector|| basically represent the extremes of Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil villains. Belos is a ||genocidal|| fascist dictator, while ||the Collector is a deranged maniac who would rip apart the world for a chuckle.||
- This is the conflict in physics between the theories of General Relativity, which describes an orderly and predictable universe, but is only applicable to large scales, and Quantum Mechanics, which describes a chaotic, random, near-nonsensical universe, but is only applicable to small scales. Both theories are correct, even though they contradict each other. The purpose of a Unified Field Theory would be to resolve these conflicts and unite both theories.
- Real life asymmetric/guerilla wars tend to be this trope. Although the chaos is usually less of a choice than in most fiction, and more of a necessity, born from a lack of options.
- Judging vs. Perceiving preference pair in MyersBriggs tests. Judgers prefer more order in interactions and frequently lay out plans, Perceivers have more flexible rules and do not keep plans as much. In the Big Five Personality Traits, people high in conscientiousness lean more toward order, and those who are lower tend toward flexibility.
- The order-chaos dynamic is what the dimensions on the political compass amount to, designed in order to illustrate a slightly more complex graph of political ideologies compared to the traditional left-right spectrum. The X-axis measures the extent to which economic enterprise is controlled (far left is extreme central market planning, far right is extreme unregulated market capitalism), the Y-axis measures the extent to which moral norms are enforced (the far top is extreme authoritarian social control, the far bottom is extreme atomization of social mores). It has been derided as too simplistic, and is more popular for memes than any serious discourse. Attempts to amend it include adding new axes such as one for social conservatism and progressivism with the extremes representing flat out racism and/or anti-LGBT behaviour and potentially self destructive multiculturalism against integration in that order. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Order |
Operator Incompatibility - TV Tropes
In Speculative Fiction, as in Real Life, technology is designed with certain unquestioned assumptions: The user has the normal number of appendages, is within a certain generous range of sizes, can withstand so many G's of acceleration. The user can shoot lightning from her hands, or commune telepathically with computers... just like everyone else in the builder's species. But not everyone
*is* a member of the builder's species, and that's where this trope comes in.
In certain settings, Finagle's Law ensures these assumptions will cause disaster. Sure, sometimes it's a bonus, or even a built-in feature, that the alien saboteurs can't use the Artifact of Doom properly, but usually it's just a pain.
If a piece of technology only works for one
*specific* user, that's Loyal Phlebotinum. This trope may involve Phlebotinum-Handling Requirements.
Sister trope to Human Furniture Is a Pain in the Tail.
## Examples:
-
*Patlabor*: Hiromi is almost always seen in one of Section 2's trailers because he's simply too *tall* to operate one of their Labors. The one occasion we see him in one, his knees are up around his chest, preventing him from operating the controls.
- Since he's a robot with non-human fingers, Atomic Robo can't operate a touch screen at all. In one scene, he's actually seen complaining to Steve Jobs about how useless the iPad is to him. Later, when Robo has to answer a call on a smartphone, he literally can't, for the same reason. Why he doesn't just use a capacitive stylus is unknown.
- One
*Nodwick* strip featured a villain who dedicated his time searching for a tunic that gave godlike power... without learning that it was designed for a being with six tentacles and a very narrow waist.
- In
*Monsters vs. Aliens*, the alien is octopus-like, and as a result his ship is controlled with what is essentially a DDR pad. Dr. Cockroach is still capable of using it though, albeit with some difficulty.
"My Ph.D. is in
*dance*."
- In
*Toy Story 2*, Rex and Ham both have difficulty playing a video game because they're so small their arms can't reach both sides of the SNES-style controller at once.
- In
*Turning Red*, Mei's giant red panda form is too big to fit normally through many doorways. She is either portrayed as moving through them while leaning forward or the animators cheat by not showing her top half. Similarly, she is shown to have difficulty moving through a narrow alley which an average sized human would not have difficulty with.
- In
*District 9*, alien weapons can only be used by those with the alien's arm, presumably due to some sort of DNA compatibility. ||Then, of course, the protagonist ultimately gets an alien appendage and fires at will.||
- In the movie
*Judge Dredd*, the fact that a Judge's weapon can only be used by that particular Judge ||or someone sharing that Judge's DNA|| becomes a plot point.
-
*Dredd*'s Lawgiver is more like the source material's version. Kay attempts to use Anderson's Lawgiver ||and gets his arm blown off for his trouble.||
- In
*The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension*, Buckaroo gets confused at the climax when trying to fly the Red Lectroid Thermapod because its controls are, among other things, designed to be operated partially by the pilot's bare (and presumably prehensile) feet. He therefore has to turn control of the ship over to the Black Lectroid John Parker, who unfortunately "failed driving school."
- Subverted in
*Total Recall (1990)*, when Quaid activates the alien reactor. The activating mechanism is in the shape of a three-fingered alien hand, but Quaid just puts his fingers Spock-style and activates it anyway.
- Played with in
*Galaxy Quest*. The Thermians are actually Starfish Aliens, but the human characters can operate the ship because it's an accurate replica of the ship from the TV show they were in, which was of course operated by humans.
- In
*The Colors of Space*, by Marion Zimmer Bradley, humans need to be in stasis to use the FTL drive. ||Or so the aliens who invented the drive claimed.||
- In the
*Heechee Saga*, by Frederik Pohl, the vessels left behind by the alien Heechee have V-shaped seats which are uncomfortable for human crew.
- Marion Zimmer Bradley's
*Darkover* series:
- In
*The Heritage of Hastur*, the Sword of Hastur is protected by two force fields. Only a telepath can pass through the first one, but only a *non*telepath can pass through the second one.
- Noted in
*The Forbidden Tower*: Terrans, who are usually right-handed, often have trouble using implements designed by/for Darkovans, who are usually left-handed.
- In one
*Animorphs* book, our heroes steal a Bug fighter that is usually piloted by a Taxxon (a really, really big centipede with maybe six or eight arms), and is here piloted by an Andalite with two arms. Ax complains the ship seemed to have been designed for a *mutant* Taxxon, one with "twice the usual amount of appendages". The flying afterwards is fun, that's for sure.
- In the Liaden Universe novel
*Plan B*, Val Con's attempt to steal an Yxtrang fighter jet is complicated by the fact that it's designed for a race of people who average at least a foot taller than him and he can't even reach the foot pedals unassisted. He's able to improvise leg extensions and other tools to get himself off the ground, but once the Yxtrang start shooting at him the fact that the safety restraints also weren't designed for someone his size becomes a serious issue.
- One of the characters in Harry Turtledove's
*Worldwar* books is Kassquit, a human woman raised by the alien, lizardlike Race. She must wear artificial "fingerclaws" to be able to use the Race's computers.
- The
*My Teacher Is an Alien* series involves thousands of alien species living peacefully on one massive space station. This leads to some rather complex issues—for example, when the human protagonist first needs to use a bathroom he has to answer a series of rather personal questions to the computer, causing serious discomfort before he finds a toilet that will actually work for his anatomy.
- Similar to the situation in
*The Colors of Space*, the Tyr in C S Friedman's *The Madness Season* claim that FTL travel can only be performed by them because the method that they use causes a state of absolute terror for any other living thing in hyperspace. ||It is later uncovered that there is more than one method of FTL travel, but the Tyr suppressed those in order to maintain control of the galaxy.||
- In Anne Mason's
*The Stolen Law*, Vallusians have six fingers on each hand - two opposable thumbs. This leaves human protagonist Kira unable to work the gun they want her to train with, as its grip has two triggers that must be pulled simultaneously; more seriously, when an important piece of technology is sabotaged, it reveals the existence of a Vallusian traitor, as none of the other known races would have been capable of manipulating the necessary controls - she figures out how to hit the second thumbpad by laying one of her hands on top of the other, but that would have just made things more difficult, as there was only room for one *arm* in the closed space where the device was located.
- In the previous book,
*The Dancing Meteorite*, a Vallusian suggests helping the Arraveseans by piloting one of their ships, since it was originally a Vallusian model. Kira has to point out that the ship has been modified to suit the Arraveseans, who are less than five feet tall and have three arms and twelve hands.
- Averted in the novelization of the movie,
*The Last Starfighter*, since the Gunstar is capable of detecting the species of its pilot and modifying its cockpit and controls to match.
-
*Star Wars* Expanded Universe:
- In the
*X-Wing Series*, Rogue Squadron's chief mechanic is a Verpine, an insectoid race whose hat is engineering ability. Wedge has heard rumors of Verpine making modifications to the controls of starships that they see as improvements, without taking into consideration that most species don't think in base 8 or have microscopic vision. (Zraii is more careful than that.)
- In the Wraith Squadron trilogy there are several mentions of the fact that starfighters are designed for the average humanoid size, and that means there are species at either end of the size scale who can't become fighter pilots, regardless of their other qualifications. At one end of the scale, there's "Runt", from a species who usually top out over two meters tall, who only just fits inside his fighter's cockpit. At the other end, there's a running joke about how there'll never be an Ewok fighter pilot because he wouldn't be able to reach the controls. ||Near the end of the trilogy, Lara meets an Ewok pilot who uses prosthetic arm and leg extensions to overcome this problem.||
- The Givins' hat is mathematics. In one of the
*New Jedi Order* books, Corran, Anakin, and Tahiri have some trouble starting a Givin-built starship until they figure out that the controls are arranged according to a bizarre math formula.
- In
*The Truce at Bakura*, it's stated that Ssi-Ruu paddle beamers (and other technology) are utterly incompatible with Human technology due to their unusual life-force powered energy cells.
- On a smaller note, Ssi-Ruu paddle beamers are designed for use by said aliens and Dev Sibwarra actually has to have one custom made for his use.
- In the Chanur Novels, Tully as the lone human in a ship crewed by a race of Cat Folk aliens has to use a pick to operate the recessed controls usually operated by the Hani's retractable claws.
- The
*X: Beyond the Frontier* novelization *Farnham's Legend* has a Teladi, a reptilian species, have trouble with the computers on a wrecked Boron space station because they were designed for a species with tentacles.
- In "Scanners Live in Vain", only those who have been through the Haberman process (which basically involves blocking most of their sensory and some of their autonomic nerves; "Habermans" can see, but can't taste, smell, feel, or hear, and they have a mechanical control for their heart rate) can withstand the effects of the space drive; unmodified humans would go insane from what's known as the Great Pain and must make the trip while unconscious. Most of a ship's crew is composed of criminals sentenced to the Haberman process, supervised by a small number of volunteers who enjoy
*tremendous* status and are allowed to occasionally use a technology that reverses the effects, turning their senses back on temporarily.
- A brief gag in
*Life, the Universe and Everything* says that Slartibartfast had been planning to spend his retirement learning the octraventral heebiephone, even though he knew perfectly well he didn't have enough mouths.
- Occurs in
*Farscape* when anyone other than D'Argo tries to operate Lo'la. The ship requires D'Argo's DNA to function so it's...messy for someone else to use it.
-
*Doctor Who*:
- A lot of tech in
*Stargate* can only be operated by someone with the ATA (Ancient Technology Activation) gene. Luckily a procedure is developed that can give most people this trait, though those blessed by the plot are still inexplicably better at it.
- As well as some of the Goa'uld technology (e.g. hand devices) are only usable by someone who is or was a host for a Goa'uld (or Tok'ra) symbiote.
- Also, a lot of technology is created so that the Goa'uld
*can't* use it. Whether or not they're problematic for Jaffa such as Teal'c or ex-hosts such as Carter varies.
- Became an issue for Warwick Davis when he appeared in one episode of
*Top Gear*. He has extensions so that he can operate the pedals of a car but he only has a set for an automatic (accelerator and brake, no clutch) and the "Reasonably Priced Car" is a manual. Richard Hammond's attempts to cludge together a work around were... less than optimal.
-
*Call of Cthulhu* supplement *Terror from the Stars*. The Mi-Go have a Lightning Gun which they fire by grasping it and altering its electrical resistance. Humans who want to fire it have to clip one of its wires.
-
*The Mechanoids* from Palladium Books features telekinetic aliens. Their devices usually have the activation switches on the inside of the casing for a cleaner look. Human intruders who want to, say, use the elevator have to saw a hole and flip the switch manually.
- In
*Exalted* artifacts, manses, and demenses can, with a few exceptions allowing mortal use, be fully utilized by any essence wielder. Some have further restrictions on who can use them. For example, *The Daiklave of Conquest* can only be wielded by Dawn Caste Solars while *The Hand of the Great Maker* requires Chaos-Repelling Pattern (a Solar Charm) to attune and Wyld-Shaping Technique (another Solar Charm) plus either a five-dot Solar Hearthstone or a Protoshinmaic Vortex to be useful.
- The advent of metahumanity in
*Shadowrun* prompted product manufacturers to cater to dwarfs and trolls, who are very disproportionate to humans, elves, and orks. Most gear cannot be used as-is by dwarfs (who have shorter legs and bigger hands) and trolls (who are three meters tall with horns and *enormous* hands) and gear designed for them is unwieldy in others' hands. This contributes to racial prejudice; trolls regularly grow to be over *eight feet tall*, meaning many of them need to *crawl* aboard a subway car. More humorously, there are dwarf communities where ceilings are only five feet high, meaning *humans* have to crawl through them.
- Shows up regularly in
*Dungeons & Dragons*. Giants and other big creatures that use gear have stuff that's far too big for PC races to use and, in some cases, even lift. Centaurs can't wear armor or footwear shaped for humanoids. And halfling and gnome buildings are small enough that humans or elves have to crawl inside them if they don't have access to magic that can make them smaller. And that's not getting into magic. The classic Dwarven Thrower is an enchanted hammer that always returns to its wielder's hand after being thrown, but only if its wielder is a dwarf. A Holy Avenger is an Infinity +1 Sword in the hands of a Paladin but is only barely magical if used by anyone else. The Staff of the Magi and Staff of Power can only be used by powerful arcane spellcasters.
-
*BattleTech* has the Clans run into a case of building the cart before you had a horse in the development of ProtoMechs as the genetically engineered Clan forces didnt have a phenotype that could pilot the concept natively, and introducing an actual cockpit would have been too space-consuming. They came to a compromise with utilizing washed out Aerospace pilots and augmenting them with enhanced imaging implants. The diminutive size of the pilots on top of the physiological adaptations meant for resisting high-gs managed to help stave off the more deleterious effects of the EI system, meaning the designers could free up much needed spare room by making the cockpit just a cavity for the pilot to climb into and the EI does the rest. This, of course, means that you have to be tiny and wired up to use them.
-
*Endless Sky*: You can't take over the spaceships of Starfish Aliens because of how fundamentally different their anatomy is from yours. ||Namely the Ka'het, each of their ships is actually a spaceship-sized slug alien in Powered Armor, and once you kill one, your crew has no way of interfacing with its exoskeleton besides salvaging the tech from it.||
-
*Halo*: The titular ringwords and many other examples of Forerunner technology can only be activated by ||humans|| because they were designated by the Forerunners as their successors. Oftentimes, the alien Covenant have had to resort to kidnapping in order to attain access to Forerunner tech.
- Subverted in the end of
*Metroid: Zero Mission* when ||Samus escapes the exploding mother ship in a Space Pirate ship. The controls are glowing pads designed to be used by the pirate's claws, but Samus operates them just fine.||
- Mentioned briefly in
*X-COM: UFO Defense* with the Alien Grenades, which had some sort of weird psionically-activated arming mechanism that human engineers had to remove (with *extreme* care) and replace with a conventional timer. Alien firearms apparently have some sort of DNA scanner that locks out users not on the approved list, requiring a software hack to get around.
- Likewise with its sequel
*XCOM2* for pretty anything used by ADVENT forces, which, according to the novel *Resurrection* will either set off homing beacons or outright explode if the Resistance attempts to use or tamper with it.
- Celia's ill-conceived magic artifact in
*The Order of the Stick* requires a jolt of electricity to activate. Not all humans can shoot magic out of their fingertips? How was she to *know* that? Humans don't even have an entry in the Monster Manual anymore! A particularly justified case, as Celia has very little contact with humans and regularly pals around with dryads, mermaids, fire spirits, etc. - she's used to *racial* abilities, and humans having such a wild array of abilities confuses the hell out of her.
- On the flipside, an attempt to hang Belkar fails because he doesn't weigh enough to pull the noose taut enough to snap his neck.
- A painless execution method, invented by a shapeshifting race in
*Starslip*, requires 21 appendages, so humans can't use it. Female humans, anyway.
-
*Subnormality*'s Sphinx can't watch movies in modern formats, because her paws are too large to pick up DVDs or type on a keyboard.
-
*Freefall* features a humanoid wolf with a wolf's snout, digitigrade legs, and black/white vision (Florence), a squid-thing wearing a humanoid environmental suit (Sam), a rotund robot of human-normal height (Helix), a giant construction robot (Sawtooth Rivergrinder), and assorted other semihumanoid robots (Dvorak, Tangent, and the robot tailor, for instance). This trope shows up often:
- Why Annie/Anakin has to drive in the pod race in
*Darths & Droids*. Originally, Pete/R2D2 was supposed to drive because of his min-maxed robotic reflexes, until the players realized that since the pod was described to be small and have handlebars, the limbless robot R2D2 couldn't just plug in and drive, and the other adult characters couldn't fit. So they brought in a child who *could* fit.
- In
*Star Trek: Lower Decks* the backup hull panel release controls at the bottom of the pool in Cetacean Ops are *not* designed for flippers, to the chagrins of the two belugas running the department.
- CAPTCHAs, those things where you have to prove that you're a human and not a bot by entering the text from an image, have quite a difficult time distinguishing between bots and blind humans— because speech synthesizers and Braille displays can't render images. For this reason, an increasing number of CAPTCHA-protected sites include an option to have the characters spoken at you (which would benefit the hearing blind but not bots or the deaf-blind, though it's somewhat unlikely a person who is both deaf and blind would be operating a standard computer).
- A remarkable number of tools assume (often with dangerous consequences) that the user is right-handed.
- This includes nearly all bullpup firearms (magazine well behind the trigger), as attempting to fire them left-handed will fling red-hot cartridge cases into the user's face or down their collar. Many newer bullpup weapons can be adjusted for left-handed firing in the field, but heaven help you if you then pick up the wrong rifle by mistake, or a right-handed soldier picks up yours.
- Most firearms in general have safeties suited to right handed users. A leftie will either need to engage/disengage the safety in an awkward manner or use one with an ambidextrous safety.
- Left-handers have real issues using right-handed scissors. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OperatorIncompatibility |
Orchestral Version - TV Tropes
A Video Game tune, sometimes the Background Music, is turned into a huge orchestral version by the game developers. (Or, in some cases, another band.) It is not often used within the game or series and is only available online or in stores, though there's a chance it could show up in a remake or sequel, depending on the budget.
This is usually done because the game itself has limitations on the quality of the music if it is an 8-bit, 16-bit, etc. game.
The music is not always the same thing, and is sometimes extended. It may also be worse than the original music depending on who you talk to.
Not always limited to video game music, but is rarely seen in other media.
Not to be confused with Orchestral Bombing. See also Boss Remix.
## Examples:
- The original
*Leisure Suit Larry* theme song was composed for the PC speaker - which can only produce single-tone sine waves. For the seventh game they redid it as a full-blown professional jazz recording.
- The sax was played by none other than Larry Laffer's spiritual father: Al Lowe. Get the intro from here, and all of the other tunes from the game(s).
-
*The 7th Guest*'s in-game music is MIDI-based, but the bundled soundtrack CD features orchestral arrangements of the major songs, including a rock version of the main theme, "The Game".
-
*Super Smash Bros.*:
- The soundtracks for
*Melee* and *Brawl* do this for lots of older Nintendo themes.
- Also a literal orchestra version. Several of the
*Melee* themes have been performed by the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and released as an album called *Smashing...Live!*
-
*Double Dragon I* and *II* both have professionally arranged OST albums, whose arrangements were used in the *Double Dragon Trilogy* released on Steam and mobile devices. More recently, Jake Kaufman reworked several of the series' iconic tunes for *Double Dragon Neon*, including the title theme, "Arrival of the Black Warriors"(City Slum), "The Great Fray"(Industrial Area), "Abobo the Giant Appears"(the Green Abobo cave theme, which gets a literal orchestra arrangement in the Haunted Forest level, and two power metal arrangements for Skullmageddon), "Old Nemesis Willy"(Hideout), "Unleashing The Ogre"( *DD II* Mission 1), and the Stage Clear and Intermission jingles.
-
*Halo*: Many tunes from *Halo: Combat Evolved* and *Halo 2* were orchestrally remastered in *Halo 3*, and the first two games' soundtracks were also reorchestrated by Skywalker Sound for their *Anniversary* remakes. The "One Final Effort" and "Halo Finale" arrangements of the main theme are especially awesome.
- The original MIDI music to
*Descent* was heavily dependent on specific sound card models. Fortunately, the Macintosh version was given RedBook recorded music, which included awesome arrangements of several of the PC tunes. Compare the PC version of the Lunar Scilab BGM to its Mac counterpart.
-
*Perfect Dark*: "Air Force One is Down!" [Crash Site Confrontation OC Re Mix]
-
*Super Mario Bros.* The main theme especially gets this treatment, considering how well known it is.
- Lately, the
*Sonic The Hedgehog* series has been using orchestral rock mixes of the games' main themes as backing music for the Final Boss fights.
-
*Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts* has many redone versions of old music, including an unused final boss theme.
- The original arcade version of
*Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair* and its Mega Drive port had tinny FM-synthesized music, but the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 CD version received a professionally mixed RedBook soundtrack, which is quite awesome.
-
*Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze* features rearrangements of tunes from the classic games such as "Simian Segue", "Aquatic Ambience", and "Stickerbush Symphony".
- The iconic Wily Castle Stage 1&2 theme from
*Mega Man 2* was bound to recieve at least one of these.
- The title theme of
*Ori and the Blind Forest* was re-recorded with fully orchestral instruments for the Definitive Edition.
- Markus "Captain" Kaarlonen reorchestrated his 1991 MOD song "Space Debris" for the soundtrack to
*Rochard* in 2011.
- The
*DuckTales* soundtrack was orchestrated by the aforementioned Jake Kaufman for its Enhanced Remake, *DuckTales Remastered*. The already epic Moon theme gets two arrangements, a symphonic rock version for the stage, and a piano version for the end credits.
- In the Xbox remake of
*Conker's Bad Fur Day*, all of the original's MIDI tunes were re-recorded with live instruments.
- Tim "CoLD SToRAGE" Wright's
*Amiga Revisited 2011* EP consists of reinterpretations of classic Psygnosis tunes, namely "March of the Greentops (Tim 1)" from *Lemmings*, the title themes from *Agony* and *Aquaventura*, and the title and funeral themes from *Shadow of the Beast III*.
-
*Final Fantasy* games get this a lot. Square Enix has released orchestral albums of *Final Fantasy and II* and *Final Fantasy VI*, and there are several CD's based on orchestral concerts.
- The original
*Mother* had a soundtrack CD that, rather than containing the NES games' eight bit melodies, reproduced them as fully orchestrated and vocal songs.
- Tropers may know its first song, "Pollyanna," from the fact that it's the official unofficial theme song of the Sugar Wiki.
- OverClocked ReMix has
*Chrono Symphonic*, a retelling of *Chrono Trigger*'s soundtrack entirely in orchestrations.
- The original soundtrack for
*Dragon Quest VIII* was fairly normal, but in the US release, every track was replaced with an orchestrated version of the original.
- The
*Ys* series has redone several major themes in full orchestra.
- Aviators, better known for his
*My Little Pony* filk music, has produced an orchestral suite incorporating songs from *The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim*, *Halo*, *Fallout 4*, *Mass Effect 3*, *Super Mario World*, *Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest*, *The Legend of Zelda*, *Sonic The Hedgehog*, and others.
-
*Undertale*'s 5th anniversary was celebrated with a livestreamed concert by Music Engine in which a Japanese orchestra gives Toby Fox's soundtrack the grand orchestral treatment. (And yes, the encores were performed by Toby Fox himself.)
-
*Fate/Grand Order* had several pieces from the game's first soundtrack orchestrated by one of Type-Moon's composers Hideyuki Fukasawa and performed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra for a special concert.
- The fans of the
*Touhou Project* are quite fond of making orchestral remixes of ZUN's already awesome music. For example, Emotional Skyscraper~Cosmic Mind.
-
*Gradius V*'s Stage 2 & 8 BGM begins with an orchestral version of the first few notes of "Challenger 1985", the first game's Stage 1 music. The previous games' boss themes, including the well-known Aircraft Carrier, were also reorchestrated for the returning bosses.
-
*Star Fox* orchestra medley.
- Russell Cox from Overclocked Remix orchestrated
*The Guardian Legend*'s title theme as "Naju Overture."
-
*Raiden 1* got this treatment in its PC Engine CD port, and several of *Raiden II*'s songs, along with the first game's boss theme, were updated for *Raiden IV*.
- Magical Trick Society orchestrally arranged
*Ikaruga*'s main theme, "Ideal", while Aojiro did likewise for "Butsutekkai", the boss theme.
-
*R-Type*'s Japan-only PC Engine CD-ROM port appropriately gives the already epic soundtrack a RedBook techno makeover.
- The
*Syphon Filter* title theme got this treatment in *The Omega Strain*, *Dark Mirror*, and *Logan's Shadow*.
- This trope is actually inverted in
*Resident Evil 5*. The in-game tracks are performed by 20th Century Fox Studio's Hollywood Studio Symphony, but the soundtrack features less refined, digital versions of "An Emergency", "A Big Despair", "Wind of Madness", "Deep Ambition", and "Plan of Uroboros".
- The
*Ace Attorney* series has had multiple orchestral remix albums dedicated to it, titled "Gyakuten Meets Orchestra", further amplifying the already prevalent Mundane Made Awesome aspect of the series.
## Non-video game examples:
-
*3-2-1 Contact*'s theme tune inverts this trope, originally being recorded with a full orchestra, but switching to an electronic arrangement in the last couple seasons.
- The
*Doctor Who* theme was originally created by Delia Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop through samples of test-tone oscillators, white noise and a single bass string (later arrangements of the theme in the classic series used synthesisers). The 1996 TV Movie had a fully orchestrated version. For Nu Who, Murray Gold combined samples of the original with conventional instruments, and also had a full orchestra version by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for special occasions.
- The original cast album of the "play about a musical"
*Say, Darling*, which had songs by Jule Styne and Comden and Green, replaced much of the two-piano accompaniment used in the production with orchestrations by Sid Ramin. Ramin and his then-uncredited assistant Robert Ginzler went on to orchestrate Styne's next musical, *Gypsy*.
- The original off-Broadway production of
*Assassins* was done without a real orchestra, but Stephen Sondheim's score was orchestrated by Michael Starobin for the original cast album.
-
*Closer Than Ever* had only a pianist and bassist to accompany the four singers in its off-Broadway production. The cast recording was orchestrated by Michael Starobin using seven additional musicians.
- The Angry Video Game Nerd's theme tune has an orchestral version floating around on YouTube, by the fans. It was later used in his videos.
- As an homage to the Future Crew megahit demo
*Second Reality*, Remedy's *Final Reality* benchmark demo has a cityscape sequence with a remastered version of Skaven's S3M music from the former demo.
- There exist quite a number of traveling productions that exclusively perform re-orchestrated versions of video game songs. The most notable ones are probably
*Video Games Live* and *PLAY!*. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrchestralVersion |
Orderlies are Creeps - TV Tropes
*"Just so we're all clear, what's going on back in the reality of the insane asylum is that orderlies are raping the shit out of us, right?"*
Perhaps it's because a hospital environment makes people feel more than a little vulnerable, and anxious about whether their caregivers have their best interests in mind. Perhaps it's because anywhere
*but* a hospital, an orderly's occasional job of subduing unruly patients would brand them as a bad guy's Mook. Perhaps it's a bit of classism at play where people are more mistrustful of working-class orderlies versus the solidly middle-class college-educated nurses and the downright aristocratic graduate-school trained physicians. Or perhaps it's simply Nightmare Fuel to imagine *any* medical professional turning bad, and it's orderlies who tend to catch the flack because we really, *really* want to believe our doctors and nurses are trustworthy.
Whatever the reason, many orderlies in fiction are depicted as petty or not-so-petty criminals, taking advantage of their patients and the trust of their hospital superiors (unless their superiors are just as bad, or
*worse*). When he's not stealing patients' medication to sell on the street, any orderly who's not a faceless extra is bound to be rooting through their belongings for cash and jewelry. An orderly with lower tastes may procure drugs from hospital stocks for personal use, or secretly trade them to addicts under their care in exchange for sexual favors. The creepiest of all don't bother to barter, molesting or outright raping patients who are too drugged, restrained, unconscious or crazy to report the offense.
## Examples:
- Parsons, a Fat Bastard orderly in
*Locke & Key* who ends up suffering ||Death by Racism||.
- In
*Runaways*, the Cloak imposter who assaulted — and, it is implied, raped — Dagger turns out to be an orderly at a hospital — specifically, the hospital where she ended up.
-
*Batman*: Done to varying degrees in Arkham Asylum, particularly the stealing drugs and being a little too rough on the patients on account of how they're *criminally* insane.
- In
*Robyn Hood: The Curse* #1, an orderly takes a disturbing interest in Sam while she is in a coma in the hospital. However, while he is getting inappropriately physical with her, the monster that is possessing her manifests and kills him.
- During Jeff Lemire's run on
*Moon Knight*, the titular character is put in an asylum and abused by the orderlies. Sort of.
- Subverted in the
*Homestuck* AU *Brainbent*. Equius is an orderly, and he certainly has a creepy demeanor (quiet, sweaty giants in sunglasses tend to be offputting), but he's actually perfectly harmless, and indeed quite sweet underneath his stoic exterior.
- Averted in the
*Fullmetal Alchemist (2003)* AU fanfiction *Asylum (FMA)*. Alex Louis Armstrong is the main orderly at the titular asylum, and he's sweet as can be, acting as the Token Good Teammate among the staff alongside Dr. Maes Hughes. His actual moment of doing or saying anything is dramatically pulling Ed into a big bear hug after hearing the latter's tragic backstory and he's actively assisting the patients in their attempts to escape.
- In the Real-Person Fic,
*Just Taken*, while most of the orderlies are even respectful or neutral when it comes to the patients, Alfie comes off as a bully, especially towards Melanie.
- Buck from
*Kill Bill*, who raped comatose patients and made a sideline in pimping their bodies out to others (usually truckers like him). He ends up as one of the Bride's first victims when she gets out of her four-year coma, losing his life (by means of heavy steel door), his clothes and his truck (the Pussy Wagon) in the bargain.
- In
*Terminator 2: Judgment Day*, Sarah Conner is locked up in a mental institution. An orderly licks her face while she's strapped down and ||apparently|| comatose. When this preeminent Action Girl kicks his ass, the audience usually cheers.
- The extended cut features the same orderly and his pal zapping her with a stun rod and beating her with a baton earlier in the movie, making his eventual bashed-in face all the more richly deserved.
-
*Shock Treatment*: Rest Home Ricky. He isn't all that bad of a guy from what we see of him, aside from him working for Cosmo and Nation McKinley at Dentonvale (and by extension, ||Farley Flavors||). Gets a Pet the Dog moment when it's revealed during one song that he has a relationship going with Nurse Ansalong.
- In
*A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors*, one of the Westin Hills orderlies tries to persuade ex-junkie Taryn to hook up with him, offering to share the contents of the hospital's drug cabinet with her. The other main orderly Max (played by a young Laurence Fishburne) averts this, since he's a friendly, lenient guy and genuinely wants to help the kids.
- An unintentional example of this is found in
*Look Who's Talking*, when John Travolta's character puts his grandfather into a nursing home and explains his daily medical care to the orderly. Later on the medical care is neglected and Grandpa goes a little nuts; it's revealed that the orderly speaks no English and so could not have complied with the medical instructions. Not so much a malicious creep as a negligent one, not to have admitted he didn't know what he was doing.
- The mental institution in Rob Zombie's
*Halloween (2007)* remake seems to be completely run by creepy — and downright criminal — orderlies. The nurses are heartless, the orderlies rape the female patients, electroshock therapy seems to be a common treatment, and Michael Myers was degraded, insulted and beaten on a daily basis. (And Dr. Loomis wonders why Michael's mental state only *worsened* once he was in the care of these *"professionals!"*) Special mention goes to the necrophiliac ambulance driver in the sequel.
- Blue in
*Sucker Punch*. Though the Mind Screw makes it unclear whether he's actually murdered any patients in the real world, what is relatively clear is that he's willing to take bribes to arrange unnecessary lobotomies, has a slimy demeanor, and is not above trying to rape a lobotomized girl.
- The Orderlies in
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest* are little more than sadistic thugs, gleefully man-handling the patients who go against Nurse Ratchet.
- The orderly in
*Happy Gilmore*, played by Ben Stiller subjects the retirement home residents to long quilting sessions which he sells for personal gain. If anyone complains, they're punished by "pulling landscaping duty". In deleted scenes, other things the residents are forced to do include things like operating a phone sex line. In a deleted scene, he is thrown out the window by an angry Happy Gilmore after he's lied to by the orderly that his grandmother had "senilitis maximus" after she told Happy what was going on.
- Zep from the first
*Saw* film is a hospital orderly who kidnaps Lawrence's wife and daughter, then torments him with photos of them tied up and threats to murder them at a specified time. Granted, that was the test Jigsaw put him in, but considering Zep ends up dead anyway, he could have defied Jigsaw at the cost of his own life rather than terrorizing a helpless mom and little girl.
- The unnamed orderly in
*Criminally Insane* feeds the patients dog food, and scarfs down chocolate bars in front of the eating disorder-afflicted Ethel with the smuggest look on his face. Ethel kills him by hanging him with a cord.
- The eponymous character in
*Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet* is raped and impregnated by an orderly. She gets her revenge when she rips his head off while running amok through the asylum shortly after giving birth.
- The orderlies in the hospital at the beginning of
*Return to Oz* later show up in Oz as the wheelers.
- Dr. Hoenneger's assistant in
*The Wolfman (2010)* is a total asshole to Lawrence during his time in the asylum, and enjoys mocking him as he administers the various tortures that passed for medical treatments in the Victorian Era. He's even named "Creepy Guard" in the screenplay. He gets his comeuppance, of course, when it turns out Lawrence isn't just a lunatic who believes himself to be a supernatural monster, but actually, you know, the Wolfman.
- An orderly in Troma's
*Unspeakable* sexually abuses a comatose woman, and the patient shitting herself isn't enough to stop him from going down on her (yes, "scat cunnilingus").
-
*Fear Clinic*: Bauer, the clinic's orderly, is an irritable, foul-mouthed ex-convict who none of the patients like, although he's fairly professional over the course of the film.
- In
*Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed*, Tyler is an orderly who works at the rehab clinic, accepting sexual favours from patients in exchange for drugs. He also harasses Bridgette, getting uncomfortably close to her, and refusing to let her have the monkshood unless he's allowed to inject it.
-
*The Monster Maker*: Steve has no issue obeying every morally dubious order Dr. Markoff gives him, and seems to take perverse delight in being ordered to tie up Maxine.
- In
*Deadpool 2*, Deadpool takes to calling the orderlies that run the Mutant Reeducation Center "pedophiles", something Cable gets in on in the climax.
- In
*The Burning*, an orderly treats Cropsy like a sideshow attraction, trying to scare an intern by showing him off. He instead gets the shit scared out of him when Cropsy grabs his arm.
- In
*Blackenstein*, a white orderly at the veteran's hospital, jealous at not having been able serve in Vietnam, delivers a long angry to tirade to Eddie about how stupid he was to be suckered into fighting. Also, when the limbless Eddie says he is thirsty, he mockingly suggests that Eddie reach over and pour himself a glass of water. Eddie's first act after being turned into a monster is to find the orderly and kill him.
- David Strine in
* Unsane*, the long-time stalker of protagonist Saywer, capitalises on her wrongful institutionalisation at a mental hospital by getting a job there as an orderly, so he can obtain her love at any cost.
- In
*Faceless*, Gordon, the orderly who assists Dr. Flamand in his illegal operations, is near mute who rapes Barbara while she is shackled to her bed. And from Nathalie's reaction, this is not the first time this has happened. He is also a necrophiliac.
- Edward Lee and Wrath James White's
*The Teratologist* opens with a scene of a creepy orderly's nightly routine of repeatedly raping a severely physically and mentally disabled patient. Since he gets off on the disgustingness of it, he deliberately neglects to bathe her or see to her other hygienic needs.
-
*Sword of Truth*: Most, if not all the orderlies at the asylum in *The Law of Nines* work for the Big Bad, and abuse Jax and Alex's Mother.
- The doctors in
*The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls* are described as this.
- Pelafina in
*House of Leaves* is convinced (rightly or not) that the attendants at the mental hospital have been raping her on a monthly basis.
- In
*Deadly Quicksilver Lies*, the Rainmaker pays off some of the orderlies at the Bledsoe's insane ward to toss the fence's enemies in with the crazies.
- The orderlies in
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest* act as Nurse Ratched's enforcers. MacMurphy beating one up in a fist fight is considered a triumphant achievement for the patients.
- In
*Spider's Bite*, the first *Elemental Assassin* novel, Gin kills an orderly at a mental hospital who has been raping patients.
- A subplot of
*Sweet Valley High* book #13 had Elizabeth and Jessica working as hospital volunteers. Elizabeth is increasingly unnerved by the way an orderly keeps staring at her and the book culminates in him kidnapping her.
- Averted in
*The Silence of the Lambs* and its film adaptation, as Barney, the main orderly in charge of taking care of Hannibal Lecter, is consistently portrayed as a pretty decent guy, and even Hannibal himself seems to have some kind of affection for him. However, the facility's administrator Dr. Chilton *is* a creep and seems to be one of the few people who Hannibal truly hates.
- On
*1000 Ways to Die*, a creepy orderly with a foot fetish liked to groom the feet of cute-looking comatose patients as they laid down in their hospital beds. He died when one of them kicked him in the face due to a triggered reflex, sticking the lollipop he was eating inside his throat and causing him to suffocate him to death.
-
*CSI*: A slight variation in an episode where the mother of a terminal, comatose young woman in a long-term care facility convinces an orderly to rape her daughter (who's an only child) so she can have a grandchild. The mother keeps track of the daughter's menstrual cycle so she'll know when to tell the guy to do it. He agrees...for a large screen tv and other expensive items.
- An orderly in the beginning of the
*Highlander* episode "Patient Number 7" gropes and attempts to rape an out-of-it girl. Before he can, the *real* villains of the episode break in and shoot him.
- In the
*Doctor Who* episode "World Enough and Time", Bill gets shot through the chest and wakes up in a creepy hospital with a cumbersome artificial heart attached to her, where she's forced to work as a cleaner. Her only friend is a slightly creepy but charming hospital orderly known only as "Razor". It turns out that ||he's the Master, and he's setting her up to be turned into a Cyberman||.
- On
*ER*, Elizabeth notices an orderly leaving a patient's room and doesn't think anything of it. . .until she later walks into the room and sees that woman is covered with bruises, having been raped.
-
*The Invisible Man* has an episode where orderlies at sleep clinics variously administer electroshocks to make a woman dream she is having sex and program various random people to become killers under the delusion that the chosen targets are going to kill them.
- Played for Laughs in
*The Kids in the Hall* in the sketch where the Headcrusher gets his fingers broken and must undergo physical therapy. The dead-eyed orderly who wheels him down the hall responds to his anguished screams by muttering that if he doesn't stop crying, he'll hit him. (And Nurse Unloop does hit him, despite not being a Battleaxe Nurse.)
- An episode of
*Law & Order: Criminal Intent* had a sociopathic orderly called Hal Shippman (i.e. he was named after a Real Life doctor who turned out to be a serial killer). ||He was just a Red Herring though.||
- Any time a hospital is the scene of a
*Law & Order* investigation, it's a safe bet at least one suspect and/or unlikeable witness will be an orderly who steals meds, smokes weed on duty, or got fired from a previous job for groping a patient. Make that an *especially* safe bet, if it's *Law & Order: SVU*.
- One
*NCIS* investigation into 'roid rage among marines at a Navy hospital uncovered an orderly who'd been under-dosing patients so he could sell the rest of their meds on the street.
- Some of the orderlies in
*Kingdom Hospital* are awfully creep , although not necessarily bad people.
**y**
-
*One Life to Live*'s Blair Daimler is the result of her mentally ill mother's rape by an orderly at the asylum.
- Inverted in
*Penny Dreadful* season three, where Vanessa's flashbacks show the orderly at the asylum she was locked up in as pretty much the most decent individual in the entire place. Said orderly was the only human being who cared about Vanessa during her time there and tried to help her however he could. Unfortunately, soon after her release, ||the orderly died and was resurrected as "the Creature" by Dr. Victor Frankenstein||.
- On
*Perception (2012)*, an orderly ||terrorizes mental patients as a masked boogeyman and murders a co-worker to cover up his abusive behavior||.
- Jimmy The Overly-Touchy orderly from
*Scrubs* season 8. It's nonsexual so he's not portrayed as villainous, just weird. It's Played for Laughs.
-
*Star Trek: The Next Generation*: In "Frame of Mind", Riker wakes up in an alien asylum where he is a patient and told that the Enterprise is an elaborate fantasy his mind created to cover up the truth about an extremely violent murder he committed. The burly orderly who supervises him doesn't have enough sense to not openly taunt the potentially psychotic person about this. Of course, this causes Riker to freak out and lash out at him before being sedated.
- Played with in Eleven's flashbacks during Season 4 of
*Stranger Things*. Initially it's subverted, as Eleven is brutally bullied, and her only ally is a character known as the Friendly Orderly, who sticks up for her despite being tortured for it, warns her to distrust Dr. Brenner, and offers to help her escape. ||It then gets played horrifically straight, as the Friendly Orderly, aka One, tricks El into removing the implant suppressing his powers, and promptly goes back into the facility and massacres everyone he can find. When a horrified Eleven catches up to him and declines his offer that We Can Rule Together he ends up hurled into the Upside Down, where he ends up transforming into the season's Big Bad, Vecna. Orderlies don't get much creepier than that.||
- In
*Teen Wolf* one of the orderlies at Eichen House takes clear pleasure in the power he has over the inmates, looking for excuses to restrain them. ||He also murdered patients, including Lydia's grandmother, believing himself to be ending their pain.||
-
*Walker, Texas Ranger*: Season 6's "Forgotten People" has the Rangers dealing with the corrupt administrator of a nursing home that was a front for a secret illegal testing facility wherein she is trying to put variations of an outlawed Alzheimer's drug on the market after an old friend of Trivette's on the Dallas Cowboys was murdered for trying to tell him what was really going on. The scary part about her orderly minions? They're all ex-cons!
-
*The X-Files*: Inverted in "Excelsis Dei", when an elderly resident psychically-rapes a female orderly. It turns out that the residents in the nursing home aren't being treated well, but as a male orderly points out, he's only being paid minimum wage, so there's not much incentive for him to do his job properly.
- Ace from
*Ruby Quest*. He apparently used to be a nice guy until the overturn of the facility, which turned him into ||a dreaded Eldritch Abomination's servant||.
- The orderly from Michael Gentry's Interactive Fiction work
*Anchorhead* is generally a foul-mouthed, unpleasant person who is usually seen reading a porn magazine, and will occasionally make a lewd remark.
- This is the very premise of
*Disorderly*, an online Flash game where you're an orderly at a nursing home tasked by your boss to curb the overpopulation problem by discreetly getting rid of the home's occupants. With the entirety of the game having you beating the snot out of senior citizens, poisoning their food, sabotaging their life-support machines, and you get *rewarded* for it.
-
*Sanitarium* has a few examples - in the first act, one willfully leaves Max and several other patients in the burning tower because Max apparently stole and crashed his car, while the third act has one who threatens and bullies Max. ||They're not real.||
- In
*American McGee's Alice* and *Alice: Madness Returns*, Alice's experience with the two Jerkass orderlies who tortured her in the mental asylum she stayed at manifest in the creepy Wonderland versions of Tweedles Dee and Dum. You fight them in the first game, but they make a non-combative appearance in one of the creepiest sequences of the second||, in the same asylum Alice stayed in.||
- Double Subverted in
*Psychonauts*. The original orderly of Thorny Towers was Fred Bonaparte, a friendly loser who took time out to help a particularly nasty patient named Crispin. However, their interactions made Fred lose his sanity as fast as Crispin regained his, and soon *he* was a suffering patient as Crispin was made this trope in his place.
- Yasuko from
*Spirit Hunter: NG* (specifically its novella) initially appears to be a warm and caring midwife. Her true colours are slowly revealed until she finally steals the Urashima Woman's baby, assaults her when she tries to get it back, and buries her corpse in the lake alongside all the fetuses she also stole from the hospital.
- In the flashback portion of the
*The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show* short "Scrappy's Birthday", Shaggy and Scooby are harassed by an orderly at the veterinary hospital where Scrappy is born.
-
*Rocko's Modern Life*: In "Tickled Pinky", when Rocko goes to the hospital for an appendectomy, he's briefly tormented by a pair of thuggish, condescending orderlies.
- A very mild version in the
*SWAT Kats* episode "Enter the Madkat." The involuntarily-committed former comedian Lenny Ringtail is harassed by an orderly whose desk is right outside of his cell. The orderly frequently listens to *The David Litterbin Show*, hosted by Ringtail's hated professional rival, a David Letterman Expy, even though he knows it causes Ringtail to become agitated and hit his own head against the wall.
- The
*Johnny Bravo* episode "Intensive Care" has Johnny suffer abuse from a hospital orderly named Alphonse, whose methods of causing Johnny pain are clearly intended less as punishment for hitting on the hospital's nurse and more for the sake of making Johnny suffer. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrderliesAreCreeps |
Ordered to Die - TV Tropes
*"Listen to daddy. I want you to take the gun, and I want you to put it in your mouth, and I want you to turn around and blow your brains out. Blow your brains out. BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT!"*
A leader demonstrates their authority by ordering one of their followers or underlings to kill themselves. Perhaps the lieutenant has failed one too many times. Perhaps it's a sheer demonstration of their own power and their followers' Blind Obedience. Perhaps it's just to Kick the Dog.
A key point is that the victim obeys of their own free will. If they don't have a choice, it's Psychic-Assisted Suicide. If they have a choice between suicide and something worse, see Suicidal Sadistic Choice. If the victim doesn't realize their action will kill them, see Tricked to Death.
A variant is the leader ordering their people to do something obviously suicidally dangerous but not directly deadly, such as stand between him and The Hero.
Subtrope of Murder by Suicide. Supertrope to Walk the Plank, a specific version of execution by suicide; Seppuku can also be one. A typical indirect way of achieving this while hypocritically disguising in wartime as duty is the all-time favourite Uriah Gambit.
Compare Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You, where it's the character volunteering to die, and Leave Behind a Pistol, for when they are
*allowed* to kill themselves as a way out. Telling someone to kill themselves without having the authority to expect them to obey is a Suicide Dare, and can end in Driven to Suicide.
## Examples:
-
*Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works]*: While Shirou is fighting Archer, Kotomine uses one of his Command Seals to force his Servant Lancer to kill himself so that he would not be able to interfere with the antagonists' plans (as a few times before Lancer was willing to help the protagonists). It ends up backfiring spectacularly on him, as Lancer is Not Too Dead to Save the Day; he ends up killing Kotomine, scaring away Shinji, and freeing Rin all before he expires.
-
*JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders*: Vanilla Ice cutting off his own head to give Dio his blood out of Blind Obedience might count, as he had no idea he could be revived and become a vampire. *Might* — maybe he's just too dense to realize decapitation is a fatal sacrifice, or that he didn't have to give Dio *all* of his blood.
- At the start of
*No Game No Life Zero*, Riku orders Ivan to sacrifice himself to allow Riku and Alei to escape. Ivan accepts unquestioningly, asking Riku to look after his daughter, and Riku later reveals that he has done this dozens of times before.
-
*One Piece*:
- The personnel of the military group Germa 66 are expected to become a Human Shield for their commanders if they are ordered to. In particular, their supreme leader, Judge, during his fight with Sanji, ordered his men to form a wall in front of him and then he tries to strike Sanji
*through* his men, impaling one of them with his spear in the process, to distract Sanji.
- Earlier on, Don Krieg, infuriated by his lieutenant Gin's decision to spare Sanji, orders Gin to throw away his gas mask immediately before bombarding the area with poison gas. Gin complies, and when Luffy throws him and Sanji gas masks (forgetting to keep one for himself), Gin throws his back to Luffy, resulting in him being (possibly fatally) poisoned.
-
*Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas*: Garuda Aeacos orders somes of the Specters under his control to kill themselves in front of the heroes just to show off his authority over his underlings and their unwavering devotion in him.
-
*Star Wars: Legacy*: In the last issue of the main series, Darth Krayt demonstrates the fanatical obedience of his newly unveiled Sith Troopers by ordering one to kill itself. The Trooper places the hilt of its lightsaber under its chin and switches it on without a moment's hesitation.
- The origins of New Goddess Granny Goodness are a variant. In the hell world of Apokolips, she was selected as a warrior and was given a pup to raise, which was her closest and most faithful companion for years as her training progressed. Then, during an inspection, her instructor ordered her to kill the dog. Instead, she killed the instructor. When Darkseid appeared, he inquired why she had done so. She replied that to do so would have wasted a tremendous asset, as she had trained the dog to obey him first and foremost, even above her, who had raised and trained him. Interested, Darkseid ordered the dog to kill her. It immediately attacked and
*then* she killed the dog. Impressed with her ability to inspire the fanatical devotion he wants, the tyrant awarded her full marks for the exercise and had her promoted.
- Voldemort in
*The Rigel Black Chronicles* gets rid of ||the Basilisk, by *repeatedly ordering it to bite itself*. For extra horror, it pleads with him to make the pain stop while it's happening||.
- During World War 2 a Japanese officer tells some Australian soldiers he's taken prisoner that the Japanese will win because their soldiers are braver. To demonstrate, he orders one of his men to commit hara-kiri. The Japanese soldier rips open his belly with his sword. Not to be outdone, the Australian officer orders one of his men to do the same. The Australian soldier tells him to fuck off.
**Japanese officer:** Aha! You said your men were braver! **Australian officer:** They are. Your man wouldn't have dared answer you back like that.
- In a variation set before the war begins, Hitler tells a British diplomat that Germany is the stronger nation because of its iron discipline. To prove his point, he commands a soldier to jump out the window to certain death. The soldier obeys. This is repeated with a second soldier. As a third soldier is ordered to leap, the diplomat regains sufficient composure to protest.
**Diplomat:** How can you throw away your life like this? **Soldier:** You call this a life? *(jumps)*
- In
*Alamut*, Hassan-i Sabbah of The Hashshashin demonstrates his power over his acolytes by ordering two of them to commit suicide, which they do without hesitation.
- In the Chronicles of the Kencyrath, the increasingly paranoid Ganth Gray Lord decided his household was plotting against him and ordered his son Torisen's friends (some of his own sworn followers) to commit suicide, which they immediately did. This was a major factor in Torisen's choice to run away, something that was both dishonorable by Kencyr standards and the only reason he survived his father.
- In the
*Conrad Stargard* series by Leo Frankowski, a delegation sent by the Mongols to demand the Poles submit to the Mongol Empire orders some of their own soldiers to kill themselves to demonstrate how they don't fear death. Conrad realizes he's got to take charge of matters, or the battle will be lost before it's begun. So Conrad asks the Mongol ambassador to order another member of their delegation to kill himself. He hesitates (because it's his son, as it turns out) but complies. Then Conrad asks for yet another demonstration. When the ambassador demands to know why, Conrad says if all the Mongols are stupid enough to kill themselves, they won't have to fight them on the battlefield. By this stage everyone is laughing at the Mongols, defeating their attempt at psychological warfare.
- The
*Craft Sequence* book *Ruin of Angels* has a character who has been secretly ordered by their monarch to become a Death Seeker as penance for a perceived act of disloyalty. If the character had refused, they would have been more formally executed, which would have been a disgrace to their family.
- In
*Quo Vadis*, a Roman nobleman Petronius is ordered to commit suicide by Emperor Nero. It's clear that if he doesn't do it, he can expect a Fate Worse than Death. Petronius cuts his wrists and dies in a warm bath of water, which is supposed to be relatively painless. His beautiful slave and lover voluntarily joins him to invoke Together in Death.
- In Fredric Brown's short story "Rebound", a person discovers he has the power of Compelling Voice and ends up shouting "Drop dead!" during a night walk. Next morning, he is found dead atop Echo Hill.
- At least two examples in the
*Sword of Truth* series:
- Confessor magic enslaves a person's mind completely, to the extent that powerful ones can order a person to drop dead, and he will. Kahlan has demonstrated the ability several times over the books.
- Jagang demonstrates his power to the captive Sisters of Dark by ordering a previously captured one to die... and showing them what it means to die when still formally serving a most displeased Keeper.
- In the Pocket Books
*Star Trek* novel *Here There Be Dragons*, the *Enterprise* is attacked by a ship that clearly has no chance of defeating them; the attacking crew triggers the self-destruct rather than be captured, as per their standing orders. An odd example in that the crew aren't soldiers, Proud Warrior Race Guys or religious fanatics, but regular human criminals who are Only in It for the Money; possibly their superiors have promised to ensure that blowing themselves up will be the *less* painful option, but it's not elaborated on. ||In any case, the flaws of this system rapidly become apparent, as one of the crew decides he'd rather live and ejects in the escape pod — but rather than simply turn himself in and provide state's evidence, he attempts to lead the *Enterprise* into a trap, figuring he can sweet-talk his way back into his superiors' good graces. It turns out badly both for him *and* his superiors.||
-
*War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches*. In "Foreign Devils" the Guangxu Emperor is a Puppet King while Prince Tuan has all the power. The Emperor orders Tuan to kill himself on several occasions, but Tuan always pretends that the Emperor is making a joke.
- In the
*Doctor Who* story "The Talons of Weng Chiang", if one of Magnus Greel's Chinese underlings fails him, that underling has to poison himself with what the Doctor describes as "highly concentrated scorpion venom." This trope is implied with the man the Doctor and Leela capture in the first episode, who puts a red tablet given to him by Li Hsen Chang (who has been brought in to act as an interpreter) into his mouth and drops dead seconds later. However, when another character kills himself by the same method later in the story, it is explicitly stated that he is being ordered to do so, with Greel personally telling him to "take the sting of the scorpion", then standing over him to make sure he obeys.
-
*The Glamorous Imperial Concubine*: Qi You is ordered to commit suicide. Fu Ya and Official Xiang save him by switching the poison with a sleeping drug.
-
*The Legend of Xiao Chuo*: Yelü Li Hu is ordered to drink poisoned wine after his rebellion.
- In the pilot movie of
*Lexx* His Divine Shadow orders a guard who failed to prevent the protagonists from escaping with the titular superweapon to execute her partner, and then herself.
-
*Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace*:
- Ruiji is ordered to drink poison after she nearly kills Muping.
- After her crimes are revealed Yanwan is ordered to drink poison. She refuses, so she's forced to drink it. Then she's given an antidote and kept alive for years until she's tricked into drinking arsenic.
- In the
*Star Trek: The Next Generation* episode "Thine Own Self", Deanna Troi takes an exam to qualify as a command-level officer. One part of the exam is a holographic simulation of a scenario in which the ship faces possible destruction due to a malfunction in the engine; to pass, Deanna has to order a fellow officer to expose himself to deadly radiation in order to repair the problem manually.
-
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine*. In "Rocks and Shoals", a Vorta field officer deliberately sends his Jem'Hadar soldiers walking into a death trap, so that he can safely surrender once they are out of the way (and so they won't go Ax-Crazy and turn on him when the drug used to keep them in line runs out). They know it's a trap, but they go anyway simply because obeying the Vorta "is the order of things."
-
*Supernatural*: Dick Roman, leader of the Leviathan monster race, orders a minion who failed him to *eat himself*. Since they have a built-in Healing Factor, this is a ridiculously cruel punishment even by the standards of other Bad Bosses featured in the show.
-
*BIONICLE*: Roodaka demonstrates her authority over the Visorak to Vakama by ordering a few Visorak to jump off a tower. Subverted in the novelization where the Visorak are Saved by the Platform Below, which they had no idea was there. Played straight in the movie version where there is no platform.
- How the death penalty is executed in
*Shiloh*. The condemned is offered a vial of poison. If they refuse to drink it, they are left chained up in a cell to die of starvation.
- A pretty common occurrence in Imperial China. This usually happened when a bigwig — typically an official or a general — had displeased the Emperor in some way. The offending official/general would typically receive a letter explaining how he had failed his sovereign, alongside a duly sealed imperial order to commit suicide. Recipients of such orders generally did as they were commanded, partly because this was considered the right thing to do for an imperial official (depending on the era, refusing an imperial decree might have been literally unthinkable), partly because it allowed them to save face, and partly because the penalties for defying such orders were often shockingly unpleasant.
- One infamous example was Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi's elder son Fu Su. When the emperor died, some of his high officials decided they wanted the younger son Hu Hai to be the next emperor, so they concealed Qin Shi Huangdi's death and forged his signature on a letter commanding Fu Su to kill himself. While some of Fu Su's advisors realized what was happening, Fu Su refused to believe that anyone could dare to forge an imperial order (since falsely claiming imperial authority was the worst crime imaginable) and duly committed suicide. This allowed Hu Hai to ascend the throne as the deeply incompetent Emperor Qin Er Shi.
- This was how Socrates died. Due to being found guilty of impiety and corrupting the Athenian youth, the Athenian government forced him to kill himself by drinking hemlock. It only insured he was made immortal due to being a martyr to his philosophy, and
*Phaedo* by Plato portrays him facing his death with utter aplomb. The government was not unaware of the martyr problem and would actually have preferred exile; they made it incredibly easy for Socrates' students to liberate him and get him out of the city. Plato's *Crito* is about Socrates rejecting that option and intentionally choosing martyrdom.
- Supposedly there was a Real Life incident that inspired this trope, variously attributed to any of the below. As with all such tales they should be taken with a grain of salt, as they may have just been exaggerated horror stories for the benefit of Western audiences.
- Shaka Zulu (who marched an entire
*impi* off a cliff to impress visiting Europeans)
- Alexander the Great (to frighten a city into surrendering- in this case the men weren't soldiers, but convicts already sentenced to death, who complied so their families wouldn't be punished)
- King Henri Christophe of Haiti at the cliff castle of Sans-Souci
- Or The Old Man of the Mountain (that's the guy who led The Hashshashin, not the Dirty Old Man who chased Betty Boop.) | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrderedToDie |
Order Versus Chaos - TV Tropes
Those roommate preference forms? They're just for the illusion of control.
*"According to the philosopher, Ly Tin Wheedle, chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organized."*
Bored of the age-old battle of Good versus Evil? Want something new to spice up your setting and throw your readers in confusion? Fear not! Cosmological Forces R Us has brought you the brand new dichotomy: Order versus Chaos.
Using it in a setting allows you to have two sides, in a similar way to Good and Evil. While the most traditional works have assigned Order to Good, and Chaos to Evil, inversions of this are also common: often, you'll find a Chaotic Good band of rebels fighting against a Lawful Evil empire (Common enough it's becoming its own trope). In another take on the subject, true goodness is seen as the balance between the two forces, and both Order and Chaos are portrayed as evil when they are taken to their extremes.
Order, sometimes called Law, is associated with civilization, authority, rules, protection, the status quo, tradition, and, when stretched to its extreme, mindless obedience, totalitarianism, and abuse of power. It's quite common to depict what happens when Order takes their laws and oaths just a little too far, but also don't be surprised to see The Good King portrayed positively. When they have powers associated with them, it's often leadership, The Virus, Brainwashing, and the power to bind with rules and oaths. When used as a villain, he's likely to say "We Have Reserves."
Chaos is associated with change, The Trickster, free will, creativity, individualism, and, to the extreme, madness, savagery, solipsism, and selfish overindulgence. The powers associated with it are Shapeshifting, illusions, and matter transmutation, as well as Entropy and Chaos Magic in general. By nature, Chaos tends to be too disorganized to pose a serious unifed threat like Order, and may engage in an Enemy Civil War or find its members Divided We Fall. On the other hand, the forces of Chaos are the hardest to predict.
They're sometimes Anthropomorphic Personifications, struggling with the whole world at stake, and don'tcha know, the hero's just the one that's got to pick between one or the other to serve or choose neither one and keep them balanced because Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous. When they're not actual forces, they're broad themes represented by the agenda of specific groups of people.
Rarely is it brought up that by sorting the world into clearly defined categories of Chaos and Order, the trope inherently skews itself in favor of Order. It's also generally vague as to why the forces of discord and chaos are regimented and disciplined enough to have actual Forces of Chaos. Naturally this only applies to absolute, cosmic-level order and chaos, not human individuals who tend toward one or the other because humans are a diverse lot. Incidentally, this skews the trope in favor of Chaos, as does the very fact that there is a conflict between order and chaos in the first place.
When classifying people as one or the other, three factors tend to get elided into one:
- Whether they believe the universe to be ordered
- To what extent they support order in society
- How they conduct their lives.
There can also be a mixture within one character. For instance, a hero who flies by the seat of his pants can nevertheless believe in an orderly universe and support his society more or less according to whether it is in harmony with the greater order. Conversely, an obsessive-compulsive character may be reacting to his belief that the universe is chaotic, and society no better.
See also Character Alignment, where this is a major factor. See also Alike and Antithetical Adversaries for other variants on this conflict. Can often be involved with the dilemma of Harmony Versus Discipline. Visually represented on a smaller scale with Slobs Versus Snobs. Also not uncommon in Odd Couples.
## Examples:
-
*Gatchaman Crowds* Insight's main conflict is between those who believe that CROWDS shouldn't be given to the people because people will misuse them and will cause conflict (Order) against those who believe that CROWDS do more good than bad and humanity will evolve to use it responsibly in time, creating a better society in the future justifying the conflict it will take to get there. (Chaos)
-
*One Piece* has — at least as a background story so far — the war of the World Govvernment and their policy of "absolute justice" against the free-spirited pirates. The World Government is portrayed as corrupt and pretty much completely evil, aside from a few story-prominent Navy officers who reject "absolute justice" in favor of their own brand of justice. The pirates, on the other hand, range from nice guys like Luffy to jerkasses like Buggy to dog-kicking scumbags like Arlong and Crocodile.
-
*Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion*: The ultimate question posed by ||Homura|| to ||Madoka after the former became a demon: does she consider stability and order more important than personal desire. Madoka establishes herself as the Lawful of the two when she answers that it would be wrong to selfishly break the rules, while Homura is the Chaotic one whose desires led her to betray her friends and remake the world in her own image.||
-
*s-CRY-ed* (anime version) casts the independent mercenary Kazuma as a proponent of Chaos and the military-mindset HOLY member Ryuhou as a Orderly Knight Templar who's confidently skirting the Moral Event Horizon. Most of Kazuma's potential Inner allies aren't all that good, and Ryuho's fellow Cape Busters run the gamut from easygoing to The Caligula. Then Conflict Killer ||Kyoji Mujo|| shows up, having suckered the mainland brass into thinking him a full-blown Knight Templar when he's really a Social Darwinist. At this point, if the two are left unattended for more than *two seconds* they start pounding on each other, but both agree that he's the biggest threat.
- Tsutomu Nihei's
*Blameverse* features this conflict prominently. In *Noise*, the main character is a cop investigating a cult who worship the power of chaos who are kidnapping children to use for human sacrifices in their bizarre Magitek rituals. When they kill her, she is resurrected by an agent of the Safeguard, protectors of order, but they turn out to be a pack of fascists who plan on disenfranchising and killing everybody who can't afford network implants and brainwashing the ones who do. Then in *Blame!*, we see the aftermath of this; the cult succeeded in throwing the world into chaos, but since they're so poorly organized their descendants, the Silicon Lives, don't amount to much more than a bunch of roving cyber-barbarians. The Safeguard doesn't fare much better, as their directives become so corrupted that they essentially believe that *everything* that's not them must be exterminated.
- This is one of those few times in fiction where the reader is shown exactly WHY the Balance Between Order And Chaos is so important and makes it clear that although Order is necessary, if it taken too far from the median line between Order and Chaos, extremes become implemented without a balancing force. In fact this is even evident in the Schizo Tech and Bizarchitecture seen in the manga, where widespread chaotic disruption results in the ever-growing expansion of the City, but the reason why that expansion continues is because the ordered directives of the builders demand logical progression and expansion. With no mediating force, one extreme inevitably bleeds into the other where neither are compatible for continued life.
- In
*K*, The 4th and Blue Clan stands for Order, and they get Chaos from both sides - the 3rd and Red Clan are their rivals for most of the series, but their element is Destruction. The Green Clan, JUNGLE, who Scepter 4 fights in the second season ||In an alliance with HOMRA, as well as the Silver Clan|| is Chaos.
- Very much present in
*Soul Eater*, which likes to play around with the concepts on a regular basis.
- Mostly in the "pure chaos" results in total insanity with no control or direction, but "pure order" in fact amounts to nothingness where the chaotic nature of life is not present. You start to feel very bad for the Anthropomorphic Personifications who run the universe.
- It says something when even they ||give up on the idea, and ultimately leave everything to humans. By the end of the manga, most of the 'verse's Anthropomorphic Personifications are either dead, imprisoned, or have sided with humanity against the remaining bad things in the world. There is still the matter of the one in the Book of Eibon, who
*was* shown to be able to tip the balance significantly.||
-
*Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann* is very much about this trope: the good guys represent the forces of freedom, while the villains are the oppressors. ||However, every villain in the series is an Anti-Villain with Well-Intentioned Extremist reasons for their actions.||
-
*The World God Only Knows* has a minor version of this in the second to last episode of the first season. Many students want to put a media room in the library, but Shiori, the student librarian, won't have it, preferring the library to be a place of quiet solitude for books to be enjoyed.
- The overarching conflict in
*Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt* is this, although it's played with a bit. The angelic Anarchy Sisters are Chaotic Neutral, being largely just selfish jerks who want to have fun heedless of the amount of mayhem they cause while protecting the city; by contrast, the demonic Daemon Sisters are Lawful Evil and make serious attempts to improve the quality of life by way of tyranny and enforced conformity.
- Given the sheer selfishness and dubious moral choices that Panty and Stocking have both made over the series, most notably Panty indifferently telling the Daemon Sisters to kill Brief, even suggesting they take a crap in his mouth first to give him a last meal, their mutual decision to abandon their fellow survivors in "...of the Dead", and Panty ||refusing to catch Brief, even though he just restored her angelic powers, in the final episode, which leads directly to the Daemon's plan succeeding||, it's not implausible to take a more cynical view and view the series as Lawful Evil Daemon Sisters vs
*Chaotic Evil* Anarchy Sisters.
- The
*Devilman* spin-off manga *AMON* portrays conflict between God, Satan and Amon as this. God is a cruel tyrant who wants to exterminate demons just because he didn't create them and they don't fit his vision of order in the world. Satan, while defending demons, despises their chaotic nature and wants to rule over them. Amon, a deeply chaotic spirit, despises both of them.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL* has the conflict between the Astral World (representing Order) and the Barian World (representing Chaos), with Earth caught up in the middle. The Astral World's ruler Eliphas is so fanatically devoted to Order that he stands in Yuma's way just because he has Chaos powers, even when Yuma uses them to heal several inhabitants of Astral World. After Yuma narrowly manages to defeat him, Eliphas realizes he was wrong, especially with the revelation that ||Chaos is the source of life, and the Astral World was slowly dying because they had purged it of Chaos.||
- Dragon society in
*Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid* is divided into three factions: those who seek to keep the world in order, those who seek destruction and power, and those who seek neither. Tohru, Fafnir, and Ilulu are part of the chaos faction, Elma and Clemene are part of the order faction, and Lucoa is unaligned.
- In
*My Hero Academia*, this conflict is best exemplified with the introduction of the Meta Liberation Army. The QLA, an organization spanning generations since its founding by a villain named Destro, represents Chaos and the ability to freely use the Quirks(formerly known as "Meta" powers) which are possessed by the majority of the population, but they use terrorist tactics to push their agenda. On the side of Order, the government and law-enforcement maintain the peace with the help of licensed heroes. While this works for the most part, it requires that Quirks be very heavily regulated, with professional heroes being the only ones legally allowed to use their Quirks in combat while anyone else would be considered a "villain" for doing so.
- In
*Attack on Titan*, this trope is why Eren abandons ||Mikasa|| and rejects her allegiance. However compatible their personalities are, or how much she tries to accommodate him, they are too different on the inside to ever be allies. ||Mikasa, like everyone in her genetically-altered bloodline|| is always trying to build hierarchies and nurture her loved ones. Eren doesn't believe *anyone* should have power over anyone else, and would eagerly burn down the world if that's what it took to remove the tyrants running it. He's horrified when he realizes ||Mikasa|| thinks of herself as his 'inferior'.
- Tanya von Degurechaff of
*The Saga of Tanya the Evil* maintains neutrality in this debate, saying that that freedom without regulation leads to anarchy; while regulation without freedom leads to tyranny.
-
*Food Wars!*: During the Central Arc, once Azami Nakiri becomes the school dean, his first action is dissolving all autonomous organizations within Tootsuki and founding an organization named Central, set to be the only RS/Club/etc., led by him and the Council of Ten Masters. It decides all classes, all recipes, and all students must follow a specific and narrow way of cooking, which it considers to be the "correct way" to cook, thus fulfilling the role of Order. The role of Chaos is taken up by the Polaris Dorm, a rebel faction that refuses to obey Central, spearheaded by Soma and his friends. All of its members have their own way of cooking, and celebrate this diversity by trying each other's food and providing feedback. Erina, Azami's daughter, reflects that their chaotic collaboration and random ideas can create effective solutions, surprising even her God Tongue, which is supposed to be absolute and infallible.
-
*Final Fantasy: Unlimited*: This is the dynamic between Gaudium (the followers of the world-eating Eldritch Abomination Chaos) and the Comodeen (who want to defeat Chaos and build a stable society in Wonderland).
-
*The Last Supper*: Visually represented with the food around Jesus, as discussed in this blog. The food to Jesus's sides (and thus closer to his emotional, human Apostles) has fallen over, while the food directly in front of him is standing up to reflect Christ's serenity in the face of his suffering.
- Shows up quite commonly as a theme in the works of Grant Morrison, who is a self-described chaos magician and anarchist. As a result, Morrison's heroes tend to be agents of chaos trying to break free of the shackles of dull, conformist order.
-
*The Invisibles* had the good guys as agents of Chaos, fighting off the evil forces of eternal Order. The series often plays with these associations, as a member of the Outer Church (the Order side) tries to convince a bunch of outsiders they're the good guys by citing the story of Ahura Mazda versus Angra Mainyu (see below).
- The original, Silver Age run of
*Doom Patrol* had the team tending toward Good Chaos, as they were the rejects and cast-offs of society. Grant Morrison's later run kicked this into overdrive, with surreality as the order of the day, and characters like Crazy Jane (each of whose multiple personalities has its own superpower) and Danny the Street (a sentient transvestite boulevard). It also featured Evil Chaos in the form of the Brotherhood of Dada, and Evil Order as Darren Jones and the Men From N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Granted, the Brotherhood of Dada wasn't evil so much as plain weird. In fact the heroes found themselves working to SAVE the Brotherhood of Dada in their second appearance, and two of them even pointed out that the Brotherhood had the right idea.
- In the last issue of Morrison's run, Crazy Jane is kept in another world (implied to be our own) and her therapist insists her adventures with Doom Patrol are delusions. The therapist claims that some enemies the Doom Patrol facedthe Scissormen and Orqwith, the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E., the Sex Men, the Ant Farm and the Telephone Avatarwere representations of cold, alien, tyrannical authority (Evil Order), while othersRed Jack, Desecrator, Shadowy Mister Evans, the Candlemakerwere predatory forces of destruction (Evil Chaos) representing her father.
-
*Nameless (2015)* is a Cosmic Horror Story in which a monstrous, otherworldly intelligence has been imprisoned in our universe and punishes anyone who dares defy its whimsin other words, according to Morrison, it's ||the Christian God, ultimate symbol of order||.
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*Seaguy* is a more comedic take on this idea: a colorful, whimsical world in which the last superhero is no longer needed, because all of the villains were defeated long agoand in which the apathetic citizens are secretly ruled by the tyrannical I-Pol.
- The DCU:
- The Sufficiently Advanced Energy Beings known as the Lords of Chaos and Lords of Order. Several previously-existing magical beings were retconned to fit in with this; Dr. Fate's mentor Nabu became a Lord of Order, the Legion of Super-Heroes' antagonist Mordru was revealed as a Lord of Chaos, and so on. Most portrayals of these focused on balance, especially Hawk and Dove, who represent, respectively, Chaos and Order and were created by a Lord of Order and a Lord of Chaos who had fallen in love and tried to find some happy middle.
- It also has Jack Kirby's Fourth World of the New Gods, where Order is represented by the oppressive tyrant, Darkseid, who demands absolute obedience and seeks the Anti-Life Equation, mastery of which will force any mind to submit to the will of he who wields it. He's opposed by the Space Hippies of New Genesis, who believe in peace and free will ("That is the Life Equation!") — and his own son, who is essentially a personification of pure, primal fury. Amazingly, though Kirby clearly spells this out several times, many writers who followed him Just Didn't Get It, and explicitly flipped around the Order and Chaos attributions of the two factions. This may be because it was most clearly stated in
*The Forever People*, the least well-regarded series in the saga. In *The New 52* Highfather and Darkseid *both* represent order, with the Forever People rejecting both of them in favour of a chaotic third option.
- Batman and The Joker are Order and Chaos respectively.
- Batman upholds justice and the rule of law (the spirit if not always the letter). His mental discipline is the closest thing he has to a superpower, and prevents him from going mad in spite of all he has to deal with. Unquestionably a good guy, but difficult to get along with, and the possibility that a loss of human contact would drive him to Knight Templar tendencies is a disquieting one.
- The Joker is strongly anti-authoritarian and anti-society, indiscriminately destructive, and downright insane. He's unquestionably evil, though sometimes his antics are meant to expose hypocrisy or evil in other people.
- Marvel Comics'
*Crystar Crystal Warrior* is about a war between the magical forces of Order and Chaos on the planet Crystalium. While the good guys are all allied with Order, and the demon lord Chaos is indisputably evil, it's worth noting that the Order wizard Ogeode recognizes that if Order were taken too far, it would be just as destructive as Chaos (his bosses don't like it when he talks like this); while Chaos's Dragon, Moltar, was railroaded into the job and clearly doesn't really believe in it wholeheartedly, either. ||Moltar finally does a HeelFace Turn at the very end of the series.||
- Doctor Strange villains Dormammu and Shuma-Gorath have both been described as Lords of Chaos. There is also the God of Chaos Chthon, the source of power for the Scarlet Witch, who is more of a general Marvel-wide villain; he created Chaos Magic which causes Reality Warping and other chaotic-style stuff, but he also represents conquest. The personifications of Chaos and Order represent more of a Balance Between Good and Evil.
- Vampirella has a cosmic conflict between Order and Chaos with the Conjuress representing the Balance Between Good and Evil. By and large, Vampirella sides with Order as that is associated with good and justice. However, she has several friends on the side of Chaos. It is also noted that Chaos, the Satanic Archetype ruler of Hell, is insane and not really doing his job well.
- Marvel also has Lord Chaos and Master Order, two Anthropomorphic Personifications of the concepts. Usually Lord Chaos serves the role as the antagonist, or they both team up to protect the universe against a greater threat. An exception was when the cosmic being Edifice Rex planned to revert the universe back to a point singularity - all of the other cosmic beings opposed him, except for Master Order who thought it was a wonderful idea.
- Subverted in
*V for Vendetta*: V fights to bring down the oppressive government, but is careful to tell to Evey that it's law, rather than order, that he opposes. He also makes sure to explain that anarchy is not the same as chaos. This is because in oppression a resistance will always exist, while in anarchy it will not, as there is nothing to resist.
- According the comics, the Cenobites are order. In one of the more comedic stories, an obnoxious, lazy office worker spends all his time tinkering with one of the puzzle boxes, distracting his fellow employees and annoying his borderline Clock King boss, who easily solves the puzzle for him, summoning some Cenobites. The Cenobites prepare to take the boss to the Labyrinth, only to be told off by him; the boss says he only solved the puzzle because it was disrupting the order, productivity and perfectionism he constantly strived for, which the Cenobites are now doing. The Cenobites mull this over for a bit, eventually decide the boss is essentially "doing Leviathan's work" and decide to take the employee, who the boss had earlier described as "a gear that has become misaligned", in his place.
- The theme of Jonathan Hickman's
*S.H.I.E.L.D.* is a war between science as a force for change (represented by Leonardo da Vinci) and science as a means of control (represented by Isaac Newton). The lead character, the son of Nikola Tesla, initially sides with Leonardo, before deciding both sides are wrong because they're locked into the idea there must *be* a war.
- Modern
*Green Lantern* comics have shades of this with emotional spectrum.
- Green in the middle represents Order and the further you go from it, the more chaotic the corps become. Each color represents emotion, except for Green, which is willpower - the ability to overcome and control your emotions for the greater good, so the further you go from it, the less control you have.
- Blue and Yellow, hope and fear respectively, represent how you can use the emotions to affect and shape the world. Their goal is to establish order, but Blue Lanterns see it as harmony that can be built only in cooperation with Green, while the Sinestro Corps tries to impose tyranny and rule the Universe with an iron fist.
- Orange and Indigo - greed and compassion - represent what happens when you let your emotions define your life. Indigo Tribe sacrifice their individuality for the common good, but it makes them detached and borderline sociopathic. Larfleeze, on the other hand, is completely selfish and cares only about himself.
- And finally we have Pink and Red - love and anger - who represent Chaos. Members of both corps lose their minds, taken by the representative emotion. Star Sapphires want to spread love through the Universe and are willing to go to extremes to do so, as well as tending towards yanderish behavior. Red Lanterns are a horde of berserkers destroying everything in their path and often fighting between each other, when not provided with better (as in, any) targets. In the beginning they were mindless and bestial, but Atrocitus allowed them to regain some degree of self-control since then.
- It should be noted that Order isn't presented as completely good and Chaos as completely evil. The White Entity is composed of white light, (formed when all of the seven colors are combined), and represents life, which is a combination of all emotions, as well as order and chaos in all their forms. Meanwhile, Black represents absence of emotions and life, the state of emptiness and stasis. The Guardians' actions to purge emotions from the Green Lantern Corps allowed the forces of Black to infiltrate them, as their actions have bought them too close to this cold, emotionless state.
-
*Nemesis the Warlock* pits the titular powerful alien wizard in service of Kaos against the tyrannical bigot ruling humanity, Torquemada. At first it looks like Chaos/Nemesis is good and Order/Torquemada is bad, but as the series goes on it becomes clear Nemesis is manipulating both people around him and readers as well to portray himself as a hero, but in reality is a cruel, bored god prolonging the war for his own amusement, because Torquemada is the only man to give him any challenge. At the end it's clear they are both bastards.
-
*Asterix* fits this theme. The Romans are well-organised (the story occasionally lampshades their beautiful maneuvers as a form of history-porn), trained, dress in uniforms, live in elegant villas or tidy little fortified camps, and are cultured and structured — although the characters given to the individual Romans show the cracks in the façade. The Gauls, on the other hand, have long, wild hair and facial hair, live in ramshackle huts, actively resist authority even if that authority might have a point and charge into battle anyhow with no plans and their biggest men at the front. It's worth observing that when the Gauls beat up the (ordinary) Romans, they tend to look messed up, but quite happy about it, as if they're just relieved to be liberated from the oppression of order. The Gauls export their particular brand of Chaos to the camps, eventually — a new centurion arrives to discover that no-one is in uniform and the soldiers, all bruised and missing teeth, have completely given up attacking the village and are now just hanging around enjoying food, drink, games and basically having a relaxed, good time. On the other hand, the Gaulish chaos isn't entirely good, since if they have no-one to fight against they just argue constantly with each other. Some later Goscinny stories, such as *Asterix and the Soothsayer*, and *Asterix and Caesar's Gift* (to name just a couple) make it very clear just how annoying it would be to live in the village if you are anything close to being a normal person.
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*The Gigantic Beard That Was Evil* has the orderly world of Here haunted by the chaos of There lurking "beneath the skin of all things" that eventually invades in the form of the titular beard.
-
*PS238* does this, complete with angels of order and demons of chaos along with the fact that their conflicts are "mostly political nowadays," may be explained by the fact that *PS238* is intended as a children's comic. There's also Malphast, whose parents are on opposite sides of this war.
- Invoked in
*Birthright* by God King Lore who is universally branded as an evil overlord. Lore claims that the affected people spend all their time warring already, but if he conquers all the combatants then he can finally deliver peace.
- The
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*'s fan works typically make more use of this than the TV show itself, most notably in the background characters. You have the obviously chaotic ones, or at least the ones most closely associated with any form of chaos (those usually being Derpy Hooves, Vinyl Scratch/DJ Pon-3, and Lyra Heartstrings), and you have their opposites, the ones portrayed as the more level-headed, orderly ponies (respectively, those usually being Doctor Whooves or Carrot Top/Golden Harvest, Octavia, and Bon-Bon). More often than not, you will typically find them serving as foils to each other in many a fanfiction, fan comic, or fan video.
-
*Chronicles of Harmony's End* features the gods of these forces, and as you'd expect, they *really* don't get along.
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*Contraptionology!*: This is the nature of the conflict between Discord and the Nightmare — or, as they were known in ancient days, Change and Constancy. Constancy used to rule over the prehistoric world, keeping it in a constant, stable state of simplistic nature beneath a static moon and sun; then Change came, bringing motion to the heavens and seasons to the world, and setting existence into the cycle of constant progression and evolution that it has known since. They have warred ceaselessly against each other ever since, Discord seeking to bring randomness and constant novelty while the Nightmare drives ponies to grasp onto something, anything, to preserve in eternal and unchanging stability.
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*Pony POV Series*: This contrast is embodied in the Alicorns, representing Nature's Law, and the Draconequi, representing Nature's Fury (although they favor Chaos, even though Discord is the Anthropomorphic Personification of it). However, while they did have a war at one point, they generally don't *hate* each other and are meant to balance one another out. During the Dark World Series, we find out that Discord and Grogar went to war, forming an all evil version of this trope.
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*A New World, A New Way*: Discord (who is connected to the natural chaotic forces of the Everfree Forest) clashes with Zygarde, the Order Pokémon, when the latter starts to remove that Chaotic energy and replace it with Order.
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*The Immortal Game*: The backstory involves constant warfare between Titan (Order) and Discord (Chaos). And given that Titan is a Knight Templar of the highest order, this is another all evil example.
-
*Lines and Webs*: The conflict of order and chaos is extremely important for the beginning of the series, with Celestia and the Order she represents being portrayed as evil while Twilight and the Chaos she represents portrayed as good — although the series is heavy on Greyand Grey Morality. Eventually Order and Chaos unite against and even greater threat.
-
*The Borderworld*: The whole story collection centered around this conflict, with Discord for Chaos and Order being for, well, Order, and the Tree of Harmony for, of course, Harmony. The conflict is called the Eternal War because it spawned ever since all three sides were born, and has spanned across the universe and time itself. However, the Tree of Harmony at some point decided to re-brand herself as a bridge between Order and Chaos; while she opposes both sides' negative attributes, she has come to appreciate their good qualities.
- The Origins of Sentient Life as Narrated by Discord has Discord and his kind fighting Order based members of their kind before most life forms evolved in the universe. This led to different worlds being dosed in massive amounts of Chaos or Order Energy, such as Earth and Equestria respectively, affecting their evolutionary paths. This war only ended when a neutral race ||the 13 Primes of Transformers|| trapping them on worlds where their natural Chaos and Order energies would balance out a world that was leaning the other way.
- In the
*Tamers Forever Series*, this is represented by the millenia-old conflict between ||the Archangels and the Archdemons||.
-
*The Dark Lords of Nerima* has this in form of the Sailor Senshi (heroic Magical Girls who fight for love and justice and work to preserve the peace of the world), and Ranma and the Wrecking Crew (crazy Martial Artists with so many different fighting styles that can blow up mountains at their best, plus they're Chew Toys). They only reason why both sides are at war is because Ranma and Ryouga tricked the Senshi into thinking that they are both Multiversal Conquerors to protect a Youma that Ryouga befriended. The said thing is that the Senshi are *very* insistent on believing that they're evil, which given how twisted their villains were it's not surprising.
- Many of Occam Razor's works, like the
*Shadowchasers Series*, feature this. For example, devils are creatures of Law and Order who mostly aim to enslave the world, while demons are creatures of Anarchy and Chaos who mostly aim to destroy the world. Both races are evil and hate each other. As it is based after *Dungeons & Dragons*, this is to be expected.
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*Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights*: ||The war between the Morning Lights, the faction of MagicalGirls from across the multiverse, and Dead End, the Legion of Doom composed of their enemies, is an extension of the eternal conflict between Cosmos and Chaos. Each is a Sentient Cosmic Force, and it's made clear that *either* claiming final victory over the other would be a disaster for all of reality. Instead, the Morning Lights seek to restore the balance between them both.||
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*Sonic X: Dark Chaos*: Despite having created the *Chaos* Emeralds, Maledict Maledict firmly believes in imposing absolute order upon the universe - courtesy of his Demon Empire - and he will do anything to accomplish his goal.
**Maledict**: That is why the universe belongs to me. We bring order upon the chaos. Without it, life and civilization would not exist. Brother would fight brother, parents would destroy their children. Darkness would swallow all.
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*Son of the Sannin*:
- Jinin Akebino leans more to the "order" side, which is why he's loyal to Yagura as the Mizukage, even though it's lead to Kirigakure be known as the Bloody Mist, and thinks that Mei Terumi's rebelion will plunge their village into chaos.
- A more personal example happens to ||Yakumo Kurama||. The chaotic nature of her powers caused her to accidentally kill her parents, leading her to cross the Despair Event Horizon. Then, Danzo showed up offering her the means to control them, leading her to become one of his puppet agents in Root.
- In
*The LEGO Movie*, Lord Business represents order, with his insistence on conformity and following the instructions, and the Master Builders represent chaos, with their unbridled (and sometimes counterproductive) creativity. ||Emmet succeeds by balancing the two, in a sense. But then the Duplo Aliens of the Systar System show up, being more of the destructive kind of chaos, setting up the sequel...||
- One of the underlying conflicts in
*Demolition Man*. Several characters represent different levels on the spectrum, and the two main villains of the movie lie on opposite extremes.
- Dr. Cocteau is a relatively benevolent dictator who has built a future world where anything that can offend or harm anybody is banned, and maintaining civil, peaceful coexistence has usurped the value of life in importance. To this end, the following things are banned: guns, alcohol, swearing, caffeine, sexual intercourse (apart from a weird neural link thing), contact sports, chocolate, non-educational children's toys, and spicy food.
- Simon Phoenix is a violent psycho who hates rules because they stop him from behaving like a violent psycho. ||After they murder Cocteau||, he and his unfrozen gang want to turn San Angeles into a lawless hellhole where they can commit crimes all day, everyday.
- Edgar Friendly is an iconoclast leading a gang in the sewers against the Cocteau regime. He fights so people have the right to eat real food, listen to real music, have real sex and generally make their own choices. Cocteau wants him dead for it, so much so that he unleashes Phoenix (albeit with a mental Restraining Bolt).
- All the
*Pirates of the Caribbean* want to do is sail around the world, drink rum and get saucy women at Tortuga. But noooo... The Company just has to have its Order.
- In 2008's
*The Dark Knight*, the Joker claims that he is a representation of chaos, going up against Batman who represents order. As a sort of justification, he says that chaos, for all that it does, is at least *fair.* note : Though really, he means "indiscriminate," not balanced or even.
-
*Beetlejuice*, the movie with the afterlife bureaucrat Juno and Mr. "It's Showtime", with the protagonists trying to find a happy medium (no pun intended).
- In
*Auntie Mame*, Mame Dennis represents chaos, and Dwight Babcock represents order. Babcock wants to give her all the responsibility of raising an orphaned kid while keeping all the power for himself.
- In the original
*Mad Max*, Max and the police force represent order, whereas the biker gangs represent chaos.
- Somewhat the point of
*The World's End*. ||What is better? An advanced, progressive society full of robots, or a crude, harsh society where individual freedom is preserved? Humanity chooses the latter. In fact the advanced society is only full of robots *because* humans instinctively reject their idea of order; when they did this on other worlds, they only had to replace a few people to achieve it, but on Earth it took damn near everyone.||
- In
*Cadet Kelly*, Kelly represents chaos, while Jennifer represents order. Kelly wants to express her creativity and individuality, while Jennifer just wants to enforce the rules. Ultimately, ||Kelly finds a way to be creative through the school's rifle team.||
- The dynamic between Owen (Chaos) and Claire (Order) in
*Jurassic World*. Which is why their off-screen date was an Epic Fail — she turned up with an itinerary, and he turned up in board shorts note : It's Central America! It's hot!.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Loki, The Trickster, is the embodiment of chaos in all his appearances, while Thor brings order to the Nine Realms. Lampshaded in regard to Loki in
*Thor: Ragnarok*:
**Thor**: Come on, [Sakaar] is perfect for you. It's savage, chaotic, lawless. Brother, you're going to do great here.
- Thanos believes that life is chaotic and unbalanced, which will inevitably result in extinction, so in
*Avengers: Infinity War* he puts it upon himself to bring order to the universe by destroying half of life and thus limiting it. One of his first victims ||is a self-proclaimed God of *Mischief*||. Thanos also believes in destiny, i.e. predetermined and orderly course of events. ||By killing Gamora|| he rejects the chaos of emotions and submits himself to this course.
- In
*The Cat in the Hat*, there is a struggle between the fish (order) and the cat (chaos). The cat isn't strictly bad, since he brightens what would have been an otherwise boring day, but it's portrayed as a good thing when the house returns to order. When the Cat returns in *The Cat In The Hat Comes Back*, the children greet him with hostility and make it clear that, fun or not, the chaos he brings is NOT welcome.
- In
*One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*, McMurphy represents Chaos and Nurse Ratched represents Order. Chaos is definitely the good side here.
-
*Catch-22*— the protagonist, Yossarian, is Chaos; the military bureaucracy he's struggling against is Order.
- In
*His Dark Materials* chaos is good and order is evil. 'God' is the evil leader of a race that seeks to control and repress joy and passion, so the protagonists must Rage Against the Heavens.
- The works of Michael Moorcock, especially
*The Elric Saga* and *Corum* series, where the Lords of Chaos and the Lords of Law pick Champions to fight for them. Neither Order nor Chaos are portrayed as very nice. It's pointed out in the books: Chaos means that every possibility is allowed (symbolized by the eight-arrow symbol), but at the end, you'll just move back and forth and get to nowhere. Order (symbolized by a straight arrow) means that you have direction, but exclude some possibilities — in the worst case, all of them. A world gone too far in Chaos is one where shape cannot be maintained and horrible things will try to eat you. A world gone too far in law will eventually become a featureless white plane. And although Order has a superficial appearance of being Good, and Chaos of being Evil; the true Good is, in fact, the Balance, with Evil being the extremes of either Order or Chaos.
- In
*A Song of Ice and Fire* we have the Wildlings, who love their freedom, would never support the whole monarchistic system that is causing all the crap in Westeros, but have no real infrastructure or laws. On the other hand we have the Night Watch, which is honour bound to protect the country from them.
- Roger Zelazny's
*The Chronicles of Amber* also had Order and Chaos, respectively embodied by the Unicorn/Pattern and the Serpent/Logrus, as the main cosmological forces of his multiverse. In the second series, they were rather insistent on main character Merlin picking a side, much to his annoyance. Too much imbalance was especially said to endanger the existence of the universe. It's also noteworthy that families ruling Amber and Courts of Chaos both have elements of the opposite in them - Chaos is much more honorable and has complicated form of hierarchy within which all intrigues and schemes happens, while children of Oberon are more or less pragmatic, backstabbing manipulators constantly changing aliances between one another and don't even mantain illusion of hierarchy among them.
- Part of the world's magic system of Modesitt's
*Saga of Recluce* novels. His system is very complex but normally the Chaos side is evil. This is increasingly subverted in the later novels, but we have not yet seen an Order mage as a major villain. Ironically, the Chaos mages have (or had) a well-organized Empire, while the Order mages were generally either rebels or refugees for much of their history.
- The
*Illuminatus!* trilogy is largely about the battle between Chaos as good and Order as evil, but also suggests that Chaos is 'good' in this context because there is too much Order - too much Chaos is shown to be just as bad. One of the guiding principles of the Discordians (our Chaotic good guys) is that "imposition of order leads to escalation of chaos".
- Nonfiction example: Thomas Hobbes's
*Leviathan* is very pro-Order, characterizing totalitarianism as the only alternative to "the war of all against all".
- A semi-viral unpublished novel called
*The Cloven Accord* depicts Chaos as evil natural disaster-causing demons and Order as a mind-destroying cult. The happy medium, the Ilyarians, appears to be extremely metaphysical hedonism. Uniquely, all symbolism inherent in these concepts is helpfully listed at the back of the book.
- Mickey Zucker Reichert's
*The Last of the Renshai* series ties this trope to a modified version of Norse Mythology. Odin has been keeping the world as orderly as possible to delay Ragnarök. One of the main characters in the book decides the world needs a little bit more chaos. The efforts of other characters to stop him end up being counterproductive, tilting the balance the other way.
- On the Discworld, there's the constant competition between Fate and the Lady, the Lady being Luck — a chaotic factor interfering with Fate's order.
- The
*Old Kingdom* series has Charter Magic (Order) vs. Free Magic (Chaos), though the Abhorsen makes use of both.
- The
*Thursday Next* books have the Hades family as Evil Chaos and Goliath Corporation as Evil Order. Thursday tends towards Balance
- In John C. Wright's
*Chronicles of Chaos*, the central conflict of the setting is that of Cosmos vs. Chaos. The children are caught in the middle; indeed, one consideration when thinking of escaping back to their parents is that they aren't certain the forces of Chaos are right, even though the forces of Cosmos have been holding them hostage.
- In Gordon R. Dickson's
*The Dragon Knight* series of books the forces of evil are constantly trying to upset the balance between "History" and "Chance."
- In another nonfiction example, it was subverted by Pierre-Jospeh Proudhon's writings, namely by the statement "Anarchy is Order."
- Louise Cooper's excellent Time Master trilogy, along with the sequel Chaos Gate and prequel Star Shadow trilogies. Another example of Good = Balance, and Evil = Extreme; although none of the factions are quite that straightforward, and the nature of the universe is portrayed as a pendulum constantly swinging back and forth between the two.
- In Tamora Pierce's
*The Immortals* novels, the Big Bad turns out to be ||the goddess of chaos who fights against the other great gods. It's because of her that creatures like the stormwings got into the mortal realm.||
- It also is known in
*The Icelandic Sagas* which sometimes can seem to resemble the Western genre.
- R.A. Salvatore's
*The Orc King* has an interesting play on this; King Obould is motivated by bringing order to orcish society where as his rival Grguch firmly believes that chaos is the way of the orc and Obould should die for straying from that. This is demonstrated in parallel scenes where Obould subtly helps his generals plan for an assault with considerably more discipline and forsight than one would think an orc capable of(an attack he knew wouldn't happen, at that). Meanwhile, Grguch orders a raid on the orc's enemies without any planning at all, despite, when he's called on it, displaying considerable understanding of battle planning; he knows what to do but doesn't do it as he considers order and discipline contrary to what he believes orcs should be. The twist in all this, however, is how these two are percieved by the heroes. The Companions of the Hall have been fighting orcs for as long as they can remember, and are forced to chose between assisting the creation of Obould's stable kingdom, which completely disrupts their perception of the natural order, or Grguch's chaos, which is normal for them, but in practice will involve a long conflict that will surely cost many more lives before it is resolved.
- In Elizabeth Bear's
*The Promethean Age* series the Fae are definitely Chaos and the Promethean Society Order and neither is presented as very nice. Subverted in that|| The Promethean Society was originally founded by Lucifer who is a Magnificent Bastard and the original rebel against Order||.
-
*Paradise Lost* uses the standard notation where God is Order and Lucifer is Chaos. As a quirk of the way Milton wrote it, God is the stern version, while Lucifer decides in the first part to make the best of the bad situation he's been put in. It also points out Lucifer's hypocrisy. While he claims to stand for freedom, he very quickly becomes a despotic tyrant who rules Hell with an iron fist. Like many classics, the resulting work is still quite open to interpretation.
- In
*The Bartimaeus Trilogy*, there is Grey-and-Gray Morality. As such, the most prevalent conflict is between the magicians' order and the spirits' chaos.
- The
*Mistborn* trilogy has the gods Ruin (chaos) and Preservation (order). Ruin is the Big Bad, but it's noted that this is only because he's the one who's ascendant; if Preservation had its way, everything would stay exactly the way it was forever. In the end ||Sazed assumes both the Ruin and the Preservation Shard, becoming the new god Harmony.||
- Depending on the Writer and when it's not pure Blue-and-Orange Morality, the conflict between the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods in Cthulhu Mythos can be viewed as order vs. chaos. The Outer Gods are also often associated with Chaos, being essentially not-really-anthropomorphic personifications of primal forces, hence Azathoth often being called the Nuclear Chaos and Nyarlatothep's epithet "the Crawling Chaos".
- In
*The Lord of the Rings,*
- This is played out in the race of Ents: male Ents loved the wilderness and forests, nature untamed, while the Entwives cultivated gardens and loved orchards and farmlands. The two genders drifted apart over the years, and the Ents have since lost the Entwives completely. Less a war and more like contrasting life-styles and preferences that took them awya.
- According to J.R.R.'s notes and letters relating to
*The Silmarillion,* Sauron followed the chaotic Morgoth, paradoxically, out of a desire for absolute order. Wanting to impose his will upon everyone and everything, Sauron came to see tyranny as the easiest way to do so.
- Downplayed in
*The Moomins* stories, where the protagonists tend to be Chaotic Good and others such as hemulens are often Lawful Stupid. It's never a major conflict, but at least in one book we find Snufkin and his father waging a sort of guerilla war of annoyance against wardens of a park for children who are enforcing such strict rules that no one's having any fun.
- In Tad Williams
*The Dirty Streets of Heaven* Heaven is Order and Hell Chaos but while demons are definitely evil Heaven is implied to be a Crapsaccharine World with the higher orders playing Machiavellian games and the "saved" playing forever in the Elysian Fields at the cost of their memories and personalities which has led some on both sides to seek a Third Way.
- In Poul Anderson's
*Three Hearts and Three Lions*, the evil forces are Chaos — fairies, dragons, trolls, etc. — and the good ones, Law — humans, some fairies, dwarves. This is a Trope Codifier.
- ||Grundy|| from
*A Fable of Tonight* belives his mission is to ensure balance between Order and Chaos, with healthy dose of Balance Between Good and Evil, through The Multiverse. ||When he finds a world where either Order or Chaos gained too much of an advantage, he tries to balance it. But because he's a demon, his methods are both utterly evil - he brings terror to wacky, crazy world of magic and lets criminals from it into our, much more orderly, world, to spread disorder - and bound to upset the balance to much towards the other side. This is when the force Grundy calls the Adversary intervenies, creating a champion of good to truly restore the balance between order and chaos.||
- Patrick Tilley's
*Amtrack Wars* series pits the fascistically orderly Amtrack Federation against the chaos of the Mute tribes. it pretty much comes off as Gray-and-Grey Morality with the tribes being the the lighter shade.
-
*A Clockwork Orange* uses this to prevent Too Bleak, Stopped Caring, though it's subtle; the main conflict is between Villain Protagonist Alex, a young man who generally dedicates himself to rape, ultraviolence, narcotics, and Beethoven, and the government that wants to torture the criminal impulse out of him. Alex is Chaos; the government is Order. They're both pretty damn bad.
- Once you get past the Totally Radical slang, this is the main conflict in
*The Demon Headmaster* series. The title villain has no backstory besides "Lawful Evil on legs", while the heroes are unruly, fun-loving schoolkids who represent everything he despises. In the first book, Dinah notes that if the Headmaster cared about things like money he wouldn't be going to the effort of world domination - he genuinely believes the world would be better off his way.
-
*Atrocitology: Humanity's 100 Deadliest Achievements* by Matthew White is a non-fiction example. In the opinion of the author, "Chaos is deadlier than tyranny. More of these multicides result from the breakdown of authority than from the exercise of authority."
- In Idlewild, Fantasia has this worldview, dubbed Nutritious and Delicious. Her schizophrenia
*may* have played a role in its adoption.
- In
*The Quantum Thief* the Sobornost mind upload collective claims to represent Order and seeks to wipe out all death and uncertainty from the world, and preaches that every thought is worth preserving, but their inner workings are far less orderly than they claim. Their prime opponent is the Zoku collective, who in turn embrace the quantum uncertainty principles, and declare that change is inevitable and positive; the Zokus' identities are fluid and they only define themselves through their interests, which they are free to change any time.
-
*Journey to Chaos*: Order and Chaos are in a perpetual Divine Conflict for control over the multiverse contained within Noitearc, the Great Tree That Supports the Worlds. Elves call this "The First War". Chaos desires worlds of infinite possible change and Order desires worlds of permanent and unchangeable stability.
-
*A Mage's Power*: Eric reads a story that portrays the founding gods Order and Chaos as family in a multiverse origin story while glazing over their animosity.
-
*Looming Shadow* and *Mana Mutation Menace* see mana mutation become the latest front in the First War. If there is a magical illness in your world that can turn people into savage monsters, what is the best way to deal with it? Accept the danger and find a cure or reject it entirely and accept Order's domination?
- The centuries-long war between the Gun and the Line is the whole reason for the plot of
*The Half-Made World*. Neither side is particularly sympathetic — both want the West all to themselves, and everybody else gets caught in the crossfire.
- Representing Chaos are the Agents of the Gun, a small and disorganized group of superhuman gunslingers patterned after famous outlaws and folk heroes, each empowered by and in service to the demonic firearms they wield.
- Opposing them is the Line, representing Order, which combines all the worst aspects of Industrialized Evil with N.G.O. Superpower, and which is slowly but inexorably extorting, coercing, or outright conquering all civilization in the West. Notably, the balance is tilted decisively in favor of Order — as one Agent puts it, you don't join the Gun to win, but to lose gloriously.
-
*The Traveller in Black* by John Brunner is set in a magical land where the struggle between Order and Chaos underlies everything. The Traveller himself is an agent of Order.
- In
*The Dinosaur Lords*, Falk justifies to himself fighting against a divinely-ordered Crusade as fighting for Order as opposed to discord represented by the horde.
-
*The Elder Empire*: The central conflict. On the *Of Sea and Shadow* side, the heroes are mostly fighting for Order, as they know that letting the Empire fracture into countless mini-empires will result in nothing but war and bloodshed. On the *Of Shadow and Sea* side, the heroes are mostly fighting for Chaos, as they believe that the species has evolved past the need for a single omnipotent authority. The problems with both sides are discussed; if there's a single Empire that means there's a single point of failure that can be exploited, while if there are multiple empires there will be no way to force them to cooperate in the face of a major threat.
- "The Red Tower" is a force of undirected change and creativity, endlessly producing grotesque and meaningless mockeries of life, in petty rebellion against the surrounding wastes and their entropic return to their natural state of purity and emptiness. Attempting to ascribe moral qualities to such cosmic forces is futile.
- In
*The Ten Thousand Doors Of January*, there's a secret society dedicated to maintaining what they call order — the status quo that's comfortable to them while treading on others, particularly The British Empire, and progress in the sense of industrial and economic development — by opposing the change and disruption brought about by Doors leading to other worlds.
-
*Wraith Knight*: The primary conflict in the series is this rather than the Black-and-White Morality of Good versus Evil. The Lawgiver represents order with its tyranny, expansionism, and religious control. The Trickster by contrast represents freedom, chaos, and resistance. ||It's subverted when it's revealed that it is the Lawgiver and his brother Running Both Sides.||
-
*Our Miss Brooks*: At Madison High School, there was order represented by Osgood Conklin, the Dean Bitterman who ran the school in a orderly manner (in "Mr. Boynton's Parents", Miss Brooks has a nightmare of Mr. Conklin telling her to "stay on the ball", "hold the line" and "run the school in an orderly manner"). He goes so far as to hang signs such as "Respect through Power" ("Spare That Rod!) and "No Goldbricking" (The Movie Grand Finale) through the school. Opposed to Mr. Conklin was chaos in the form of High-School Hustler Walter Denton, who played pranks like making Conklin look like a drunk ("Cure That Habit"), blasting an ancient cannon ("Marinated Hearing"), and writing a fraudulent letter forcing Mr. Conklin to let the students act as teachers for the day ("Turnabout Day"). In between these two extremes was Miss Brooks, who disapproved of Mr. Conklin's strict and overbearing manner in running the school - once even calling Conklin the most "unprincipled principal in the country" ("The Novelist"). However, she indeed wanted to teach while shielding Teacher's Pet Walter Denton from the consequences of his more outrageous pranks. The conservative and shy Mr. Boynton, Miss Brooks' Love Interest, was between Mr. Conklin and Miss Brooks' in outlook, although a Nice Guy without Conklin's faults.
-
*Babylon 5* had the Vorlons and the Shadows. Originally they were portrayed as Black-and-White Morality (Vorlons projecting angelic images of themselves vs. the demonic and fear-inducing Shadows). ||Later, their millena-old conflict is revealed as rival philosophies run amok: the Vorlons believe the best way to promote growth among the younger races is through order and obedience, while the Shadows believe evolution is best served through chaos and conflict. The Vorlons and Shadows are eventually revealed to be similar, with both groups trying to force the younger races to choose a side or die.|| The idea was taken from Babylonian mythology, hence the name of the show. ||Sheridan ultimately has to lead the younger races into collectively telling BOTH sides where they can stick their rival philosophies, and to go away and leave the younger races alone to make their own choices.||
-
*Firefly*: The chaos-loving Independents (who lead The Heroes) vs. the order-loving Alliance (the antagonists, responsible for a number of nasty things in the name of the greater good, but still more noble-minded and sympathetic than, say, the Empire from *Star Wars*). The Unification War is a more complicated matter. note : The "Eternal Prohibition" was left on Earth-That-Was, everyone was permitted weapons, and taxes were both the lowest of any government in history and actually treated as *charity*. A lot of Independents weren't all that nice; thugs and debt slavers right out of Charles Dickens. It was when the war was declared that it got worse. . Then you have the Always Chaotic Evil Reavers ||who were created by the Alliance||.
- Quite a few pairs in
*House*. Cuddy's job requires her to be the Order to House's Chaos. The fact that House needs to ask Cuddy for approval of his methods doesn't affect much at all since according to House, Cuddy can never refuse him for one reason or another. If she does refuse, he usually gets around this via a loophole either he, Wilson, or one of his fellows can find around policy.
- Earlier seasons had Foreman (Order, because he followed policy more in earlier seasons) and Chase (Chaos, because he agreed with House just to kiss-ass).
- Pair Kutner + Defibrillator and anyone trying to deal with the subsequent mess. Or Kutner with anyone else really.
- In
*Get Smart*, the government spy agency the heroes belonged to was called *CONTROL*, while their enemies' organization was *KAOS*.
-
*House of the Dragon*: In the mind of the Hightowers, a consistently male line of kings is order, and a ruling queen means chaos to them.
- Classic
*Doctor Who* had the Black and White Guardians, cheerleaders for chaos and order, respectively. While the Black Guardian generally appeared as a villian, it was suggested (and confirmed in the Doctor Who Expanded Universe) that the White Guardian was just as bad. (The *Big Finish Doctor Who* arc "Key 2 Time" introduce the Grace, who seem to be Balance ||and are possibly worse than the Guardians put together||.)
- The new series and
*The Sarah Jane Adventures* has The Trickster and The Pantheon of Discord. Though an opposite Order aligned group has not been shown. As they share some dialogue, some speculate that the two may be related, if not the same being.
- The Doctor himself is a benevolent force of chaos (just look at the effect he has on his companions' lives), and many of his enemies represent cruel order. The Daleks believe in cleansing the universe of all that does not meet their standards of purity and perfection (i.e. themselves), the Cybermen want to achieve harmony and survival by eliminating things like race, gender, and those untidy emotions (by making everyone a Cyberman), and the Master is a counterpart to the Doctor himself, but instead of merely wanting to experience the universe, he intends to
*run* it.
- The rest of the Doctor's race, the Time Lords, were "ancient, dusty senators" who were afraid of change and chaos. While they weren't his enemies for most of the original series (though they had their moments), they were nonetheless very law-bound and the Doctor was considered a dangerous renegade, who was tolerated because he occasionally came in handy.
- In
*Yes, Minister*, Hacker tries to claim that the role of the government is to do good and fight evil. Humphrey dismisses that notion with a dry laugh, and explains that the government is *actually* there to maintain order amid chaos.
- Even
*Sister, Sister* had this! Tia and Tamera had very different personalities. Tia (order) was the neat, studious one, and Tamera (chaos) was the party girl.
- In
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* the Dominion's Founders viewed themselves as imposing order upon the chaotic galaxy of the "solids". In Odo, this is tempered somewhat by his upbringing among humanoids, sending him into Lawful Good instead of Lawful Evil.
- A mostly subliminal but ever-present theme on
*Game of Thrones*, referenced most directly during a conversation between Varys and Littlefinger. Varys works for the good of the realm, and because of his powerless upbringing understands exactly what happens to the weak when there is no order or realm to protect them. Littlefinger, on the other hand, rebels against a system that would relegate him to a life as an irrelevant hedge lord, and sees chaos as a way to ensure his rise to power. Varys describes chaos as "a gaping pit waiting to swallow us all," while Littlefinger describes it as a ladder for the strong to climb. They're both right.
-
*The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power*: Sauron followed Morgoth out of desire for order and control, but after witnessing what a chaotic, meaningless destruction a nihilistic force like Morgoth can cause, he started to regret the path he chose and felt relived when Morgoth was finally defeated. He than migrated in the Forodwaith with many Orcs and started experimenting on them, in the search of a power that could help him impose the order he so much wants on Middle-earth. And when than doesn't work, he starts projecting into Galadriel, who, in her relentless quest to hunt him down, proved to be just as ambitious and obsessed with control as him, even if their goals are fairly different.
- A reoccurring theme in
*Nowhere Boys*.
- In Season 1, the Big Bad is an entity known as the Restoring Demon, who is obsessed with restoring order whenever there's a magical disturbance.
- In the feature film
*The Book of Shadows*, the Big Bad is a girl named Tegan, who is ||revealed to be the personification of Chaos,|| and wishes to take revenge on "Bear", ||the personfication of Order.||
- In
*The Magicians (2016)* Umber and Ember are respectively gods of order and chaos. They joined forces in creating Fillory because their natures would balance out and allow for something greater than they could make on their own. So long as both remained in Fillory the world was stable. After Umber was driven out by the Beast there was nothing to stop Ember from indulging in his darker urges and bringing the entire world to ruin.
- The children's educational show
*Odd Squad* pits kid secret agents and the orderly powers of Math against a grab-bag of (silly) chaos-spreading villains and freakish (goofy) phenomena.
-
*Once Upon a Time*: Regina (the mayor and all around Control Freak) versus Emma (the woman who came to town and shook it from its foundations).
- Oddly enough, shows up perfectly in the country music song "The Reckless Side Of Me" by The Steeldrivers. "There's two angels sittin on my shoulders / All they ever do is disagree / One sits on the side of rhyme and reason / The other on the reckless side of me"
- The Rush song "Cygnus X-1: Book II" is about this. It details a war between Apollo (who brings wisdom and order) and Dionysus (of love and chaos) that decimates the human followers. This is ended when the astronaut from Book I (at the end of the previous album) shows up and tells of how he has existed after plunging into the titular black hole. They dub him Cygnus The God of Balance as a result.
- "Therein" by Dark Tranquility. From the lyrics: "Order stormed the surface where chaos set norm - had there always been balance?...surely not - therein lies the beauty..."
- This is a far more common dichotomy in ancient religions than concepts of "good vs. evil". Consider almost any ancient Pantheon (such as the Norse or Greek Gods) with flawed and often immoral dieties. They aren't exactly "good" in the sense of being moral and upright, but they represent elements of Order and human understanding and were almost always opposed to some rival group representing forces of Chaos and primordial nature. The Norse Gods fought the Frost Giants, the Olympian Gods defeated Giants and Typhon. Over time, and especially under the influence of medieval Christianity, Order became more associated with morality and the divine while Chaos became associated with evil, sin, (where applicable) the devil.
- This is the central tenet of Zoroastrianism. Followers worship Ahura-Mazda, the embodiment of truth, order and justice — and oppose chaos and disorder (the Lie). One of the offshoot sects, called Zurvanism, names the Lie as Ahriman, the brother of Ahura-Mazda, and holds that the two are always in conflict over the spirits of mankind. The two are both the sons of Zurvan (Time).
- In Egyptian Mythology, the god Set is considered to embody
*constructive* chaos (the forest fire that allows new growth, for example) while the... *thing*... known as *isfet* represents chaos taken to its potentially universe-destroying extreme.
- Order versus Chaos was the primary division in Egyptian culture, with the word
*ma'at* meaning not just order but also justice and rightness. *Isfet* meant both chaos and injustice. The Pharaoh was the "Lord of Ma'at" who upheld both social and cosmic order through his combined political and religious authority. Without this authority, the Egyptians believed that the primordial chaos which existed before Creation would overtake the world and dissolve everything.
- Discordianism. What else could be expected when the Goddess is Eris, Goddess of Chaos? (Actually, Eris is Goddess of Strife. The
*Principia Discordia* explains that the Greeks were somewhat "off" in their appraisal of Eris.) On the other hand, the Principia recognizes the difference between creative/destructive order and disorder, advocating the "good" version of each. Although it generally prefers the "disorderly" method, as Discordians believe the world is *far* too organized already.
- The Seelie and Unseelie courts of The Fair Folk represent Order and Chaos (or Light and Darkness) respectively rather than Good and Evil, although that is how many modern fictional treatments align them. Both tend to be equally dangerous and unpredictable.
- Many creation myths start with a primordial sea of chaos, from which gods and creatures are born that eventually bring order to the chaos and create the earth.
- The Taoist creation story from the
*Zhuangzi* is about a chaotic, bag-shaped god named Hundun ('chaos'), who lived before the universe existed, and two emperors called Shu and Hu (Brief and Sudden). Hundun treated Shu and Hu kindly, so they decided to repay his kindness. "All men have seven openings so they can see, hear, eat, and breathe," they said (nostril, nostril, mouth, ear, ear, anus, the other one). "But Hundun has none. Let's try drilling some into him!" Every day they drilled another hole, and on the seventh day, Hundun died. People like the emperors meddle with the primal world by trying to establish rules and regulations for it, thus killing it.
- In mythological studies, there is a trope called "Chaoskampf". It is always along the lines of "storm god fights huge serpent/dragon, representing order vs chaos". It appears in the form of Indra vs Vritra, Zeus vs Typhon, Thor vs Jormungandr, Marduk vs Tiamat, YHWH vs Leviathan (followed by Christ vs the Ancient Serpent Satan), and possibly Susano'o vs Orochi as well. Yu the Great killing Xiangliu during his work stopping the Great Flood may also count, although Yu is not a storm god.
- This was what came to define the Attitude Era, as the foul-mouthed, bellicose, and totally unpredictable Garbage Wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin feuded with Corrupt Corporate Executive Vince McMahon's slick, soulless media empire.
- Another, similar conflict from the Attitude Era was down-on-his-luck Psychopathic Manchild Mankind's running battle with the 'Corporate Champion', The Rock, which involved the clean-cut rising star (and corporate shill) of the WWE getting squashed under forklifts, thrown through tables, and repeatedly gagged with Mankind's Companion Cube, 'Mr. Socko'.
- The officials of Ohio Valley Wrestling took frequent measures to help tone down the cheating of the heels and were met with stiff opposition and/or creative interpretations of their new rules every single time. The most frequent offenders were Bolin Services and The Jersey Shore Crew (who existed before the television show).
- Every main member of the WWN family (including Ring of Honor but excluding Dragon Gate USA) took some measure to cut back on the "cliches" of pro wrestling and reign in heel cheats. In every case there was a group that formed in response to more or less do what they wanted without reproach, such as The Prophecy, Special K, Generation Next, The Rottweilers, The Embassy, Hangm3n, SCUM, The Kingdom, The Rebellion and probably a few others in ROH, YRR, and "The MSL Universe" Full Impact Pro, The Scene and Premier Athlete brand of EVOLVE, Valkyrie and C4 in SHINE, Christopher Daniels and SoCal Val being habitual offenders. And that's not even getting into outside groups seeking to bring chaos such as The Blackout, The House Of Truth, most obviously New Japan Power Stable CHAOS and most infamously Bullet Club. Although The Second City Saints, Age Of The Fall and Decade were
*orderly* heels, Bullet Club turned face and Las Sicarias were chaotic baby faces from the start.
- CM Punk has been on both sides of this in WWE. He's been a force of Chaos operating against the authority in the WWE in the form of John Laurinitis and Triple H from 2011 to 2012. However, in his earlier feud against Jeff Hardy, Punk played the role of Order, contrasting his personal dedication to the Straight Edge lifestyle against Jeff's excessive self-indulgence.
- The
*Old World of Darkness* had three cosmic principles in its setting, especially shown in the *Werewolf* and *Mage* games: Dynamism/Wyld as Chaos, Stasis/Weaver as Order/Technology, and Entropy/Wyrm as corrupted destruction. *Werewolf* especially tended to picture Chaos as good, but mostly because it was the underdog of that fight. *Mage* had the technomancers of the Technocracy to act as Order, the insane Marauders as Chaos, and the diabolic Nephandi to serve as Entropy, with the Player Characters supposed to stand somewhere in between.
- The cosmology in the
*Mage: The Ascension* setting stressed the importance of the Unity of these three forces. When in balance, they feed into one other in a perfect harmony of creation, existence, and destruction leading to new creations. The Crapsack World nature of the WoD is a result of that balance having been broken in favor of stasis and corruption.
- Incidentally, in the creation myth for
*Werewolf*, the Wyrm was originally supposed to be the blessed end brought to all things that had fulfilled the purpose. Then the Weaver, who'd already been driven batshit crazy by trying to define the limitless Wyld, tried to define the Wyrm, which twisted it and turned its purpose towards unending corruption.
- The Were-Spider source book details their more minute distinctions of each force in the way they determine their Auspice. Each were-spider has what amounts to a primary alignment with one of the three forces, and a secondary alignment which determines how they expressed it. An entropic-dynamic character, then, would thus be concerned with spreading/serving entropy and destruction in as chaotic a manner as possible, whereas a static-dynamic character might be more interested in creating and preserving new works.
- It is not as hard-written into the story as in the other gamelines, but
*Vampire: The Masquerade* has this kind of conflict too between the three core factions presented, with the Anarchs representing chaos, the Camarilla representing order, and the Sabbat representing destruction, based on their general demeanours and goals. This in itself gets twisted around a through the individuals of each sect a lot, however, so it's definitely not as prominent as the more solid examples in the setting. The Camarilla is generally presented as the good guys in this gameline, with some Anarchs shining through occasionally, though it leans more towards being the lesser evil than actually being good.
- In White Wolf's other Tabletop RPG,
*Exalted*, traces of this are also present. The Wyld is a place instead of a force, but one that The Fair Folk inhabit as the representatives of Chaos. Order is represented by the Sidereal Exalted and their Celestial Bureaucracy, as well as by the Realm of the Dragon Blooded.
-
*Dungeons & Dragons* has a similar system of moral alignment for characters that opposes Evil to Good, and Law to Chaos.
- In the original game, there were only three alignments: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Lawful was frequently equated with Good and Chaotic with Evil, so it's not much of a surprise that future editions expanded the system into the nine alignments that we know today — which many people
*still* have arguments about, in large part because of the popularity of Anti Heroes and Anti Villains in fantasy fiction. *C'est la vie.*
- Even in the original edition, the Monster Manual had creatures defined as "Chaotic but good" or "Lawful but evil". This most likely led to the two-axis alignments.
- The other alignments are also useful. A Dark Lord's just-following-orders minion or a heretic-burning priest is Lawful Evil (keep the rules whatever the cost to people.) A Thief character is Chaotic Good (screw the rules, be excellent to each other.)
- Fourth Edition pared it down to Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil, and Chaotic Evil. Players have hotly debated whether this means that Lawful Good is somehow "more good" than Chaotic Good, or whether goodness means being naturally chaotic. Wizards' own article on the subject appears here. To summarize for those who don't want the link; Word of God is that Lawful Good and Chaotic Evil are explicitly
*not* The Same, but More of Good and Evil. They simply represent very specific, focused views of good and evil — Lawful Good views law and order as being essential components to goodness, while Chaotic Evil is so psychotic and self-absorbed it goes beyond what even Evil considers appropriate. An "Evil" character has standards and is usually rational about their goals; a "Chaotic Evil" character has no standards and will do whatever they want to achieve their goals, which are often horrific even to Evil beings.
- In the older editions, the Blood War was a massive mashup between the demons and the devils on which kind of evil (pure rampaging destructive chaos vs brutal and cunning tyranny) should dominate the cosmos. Now its changed to war of Evil Versus Oblivion between the demons and the devils.Not only are the demons an infinite source of chaos and destruction but they cannot access the material plane until the devils are defeated. This makes the devils Necessarily Evil and are the only thing keeping the endless hordes of demons from overwhelming the cosmos]]. This handily explains why the devils who use order have not defeated the devils and why the forces of good have not intervened to destroy evil it is impossible with the demons and destroying the devils means that death of everything.
- In 4e, the equivalent of the Blood War of prior editions is being fought between Bane, god of war and conquest, and Gruumsh, god of destruction and slaughter. Bane is a strategist who plays by the rules of war, while Gruumsh cares only for slaughter. Gruumsh covets Bane's position as god of war, and Bane uses the war with Gruumsh as a cover to make the other deities think he's distracted, occupied, and generally less competant than he actually is, though Gruumsh's unpredictability and bravado keeps the war much more even than Bane would like.
- In the Basic/Expert/etc variant of
*D&D*, the Sphere of Matter was generally affiliated with Law, and the Sphere of Energy with Chaos, with Time favoring Neutrality and Thought combining some of each. The four all generally team up to oppose the Sphere of Entropy, a nihilistic variant of Chaos that's looking to eliminate life of *any* alignment, however.
- Curiously, that's how things are in Normal
*CD&D* reality. In the alternate Nightmare reality, it's Chaos (a.k.a. Freedom) that's generally on the side of the angels, and Law (there called Stasis) that's considered a menace.
- The Neverwinter campaign setting can get like this with the right Game Master and playing the cynical side of Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism. One interpretation of the campaign is do you let Lord Neverember rule knowing that he might use Neverwinter as a stepping stone to conquer the northern lands, or do you dethrone him and risk the rioting that could cause Neverwinter to never recover from the disasters? Tyranny or anarchy, take your pick.
- Two products from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, publisher of "Old School Renaissance" supplements for older D&D games, redefine Law and Chaos:
-
*Carcosa* defines Law as "sworn enemies the Old Ones" and Chaos as "servants and allies of the Old Ones".
- Their flagship RPG,
*Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role Playing* (whew!) defines Lawful beings as (oversimplifying a bit) conscious pawns in a cosmic plan, and Chaotic beings as those touched by magic, a random and amoral force that could overwhelm our so-called "reality" in the blink of an eye. Notably all Clerics must be Lawful, and all Magic Users and Elves must be Chaotic.
-
*Magic: The Gathering*: The conflict between White (the color of tradition, society, law and faith) and Red (the color of emotion, liberty, and impulsiveness) is at its heart the conflict between Order and Chaos. Since none of *MTG*'s colors are inherently good or evil, this can take many shapes over different stories, such as a heroic White society fighting back the chaos of Red barbarians and monsters that threatens to destroy it or Red freedom fighters and revolutionaries fighting against an oppressive and hierarchical White regime.
- Red and White are not however mutually exclusive, and some of the Guilds from the Ravnica sets explore the mixing of the two colors in some interesting ways.
- The Boros Guild, Red/White, is for instance extremely dedicated to promoting White ideals of justice, law and society, but rather than pursuing these goals stoically and/or emotionlessly like White tends to, they do so with a clearly Red passion, fervency and personal, emotional investment.
- This is taken a step further in the form of the Rakdos Guild, the Black (the color of selfishness, ambition and amorality) and Red guild; more or less a self-indulgent and frequently psychotically violent chaos incarnate. It is revealed that the entire reason the other nine Guilds allow the Rakdos to exist is to show to the non-guild citizens what a world without the guilds would be like. Furthermore, when a guild wants something done on a large scale that just isn't possible within their respected roles of the guildpact, they often commission the Rakdos to sow a little chaos and do it for them. Or, in the case of the Dimir, they set things up so the Rakdos take the blame.
- The Kaladesh arc is a clear example of a story focusing on good Chaos versus evil Order, focusing on the chiefly Red-aligned Renegades fighting against the stifling, tyrannical order of the chiefly White Consulate.
- While all the colleges in the Strixhaven Arc have similar oppositions in the vein of an academic debate, this is more directly shown when looking at the Lorehold college, the school that focuses a lot on the past and fittingly produces a lot of Adventurer Archaeologist students. Their outlook on history is a debate on whether it is a series of orderly events (white), or if it is a chaotic mess (red), and the deans that represent each aspect are Augusta and Plargg respectively.
-
*Warhammer* had both the Chaos gods and the Gods of Law, the later being obviously so obscure that they not only are barely mentioned, but pretty much absent from the main plot, although their followers are known to be extremistic. There's also several other gods who are either rather neutral, or that side against Chaos, but are not considered Gods of Order.
- The Chaos Gods themselves do not simply represent Chaos; they represent corrupted Chaos. All Warp gods are affected by the emotions of their worshippers and all four Chaos gods personify, in part, something much more positive than their normal nature- Slaanesh is the God of Love, for instance, and Tzeentch the God of Hope. The reason they are Chaotic Evil rather than Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good is largely because the Warhammer universe is just that screwed up. The fact that all the other factions are about as Ax-Crazy as each other is what makes Chaos the worst faction of the lot in the first place. Its not that there is no Good and Evil in this setting- it's that Evil exists, and it has
*won*.
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*Warhammer 40,000* typically defines itself as Order vs. Chaos (or rather, Order vs. Disorder, seeing as how one of the factions in the universe is *called* Chaos). There is no real Good vs Evil. Although there are some individuals who could be considered good, as a whole the sides are basically Bad vs *Worse*.
- Normal racial divisions are the Imperium, Eldar, and Tau for Order, and Chaos, Dark Eldar, and Orks for Disorder. Necrons and Tyranids are both off to the side a bit, but as Necron lore becomes more developed, they seem to be leaning towards Order. Their goal is wiping out sentient organic life in order to
*truly* starve the chaos gods.
- In the first Necrons codex, the C'tan are essentially the Gods of Order, as they're the complete antithesis of the Chaos Gods. The Chaos Gods exist in the Warp while the C'tan are wholly physical beings (well, energy beings, but they have no connection to Warp whatsoever) The Chaos Gods can substitute reality with their own, while the C'tan have mastery over the laws of physics, allowing both to do seemingly magical things. The followers of the Chaos Gods tend to end up controlled by their emotions and become more and more mutated until they turn into mindless Spawn, while the followers of the C'tan had their minds transferred into unchanging metal bodies and became the soulless and emotionless Necrons. The ultimate goal of the Chaos Gods is to consume the galaxy in chaos by turning it into a giant warp rift, while the ultimate goal of the C'tan is to seal off the warp, turning every sentient being into soulless cattle for them to feed on.
note : This angle was dropped in the second Necrons codex because Games Workshop came to the realisation that this made it very hard to give any meaningful character to the Necrons themselves and defined them solely by their relationship to the C'tan.
- Similarly to the C'tan mentioned above, in the Fantasy setting perfect order can be seen in the undead armies, the Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings, legions of mindless servants who thoughtlessly serve their masters in "the perfect, unending order of undeath."
- With the
*Warhammer: Age of Sigmar* sequel setting to Warhammer Fantasy, the Gods of Law have been dropped entirely (it is implied that they were either defeated by the Chaos Gods or were too weak to interfere during the End Times that ended WHF's world and didn't survive) and the stifling evil absolute Order role is take by the successor to the original undead factions, the Grand Alliance of Death. The healthy order is taken by the Grand Alliance of Order, the Chaos Gods and their followers in the Grand Alliance of Chaos and the Greenskins, Trolls (renamed to Troggoths), Ogres (renamed to Ogors) and Giants are placed in Grand Alliance of Destruction, still on the chaos side, just not capital C Chaos side.
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*Winterweir* has one of its main setting themes as the conflict between the Celestials (Order) and the Demons (Chaos) with neither side being especially good.
-
*F.A.T.A.L.*. It stresses that neither is actually related to good or evil. It also calls Order "ethical" and Chaos "unethical" in the Character Alignment section. You may clap sarcastically whenever you like.
- In
*Traveller*, the Interstellar Wars are very much about the conflict between Order and Chaos. The Vilani Empire is about ten thousand years old and has done almost nothing new in thousands of years. Yet at the same time, it has highly refined all its techniques and technology and has a political system designed to keep order. It is sometimes oppressive, but it holds thousands of worlds together. The Terran Confederation has a more or less democratic structure, as well as a large number of only half-controlled Intrepid Merchants and Space Cossacks, who are a great help against the Vilani Imperium.
- The Zhodani and the Vargr represent a much more extreme example of the "Order versus Chaos" confrontation. Zhodani nobles use their psionics to maintain a vaguely Orwellian police state, while the Vargr have an extremely fragmented society where authority is based on "Charisma".
- In the
*Empire of the Petal Throne*, Order and Chaos are called Stability and Change, respectively. They are not exactly at war, but they are often opposed. Interestingly, they tend to mirror each other. There's a Stability Sun Deity and a Change Sun Deity, for example. Neither is necessarily good or evil.
- A Meta Game version is the Pink Mohawk vs the Black Trenchcoat in
*Shadowrun*, where Pink Mohawks represents chaotic shadowrunners who goes in with plenty of explosions and gunfire while Black Trenchcoat relies on cold calculation to complete the runs.
- The main plot of
*AdventureQuest Worlds* is about Drakath, champion of chaos and the 13 lords of chaos. Order is less obvious, however the constant and stable conflict between good and evil seems to represent order (and considering that it's Lawful Good vs. Lawful Evil, and the predictability of their fight going into something of a tradition, would represent order, an order that Drakath shattered when he came into the story.
- In the
*Metal Gear* franchise, Solid Snake would do battle against both terrorists (representing chaos) *and* politicians (representing law), both of whom threatened to destroy the world with their war with each other.
- On a more thematic note, the war between Big Boss and ||Zero|| ultimately boils down to this. Big Boss's goal is to establish an anarchic perpetual battleground where soldiers are free to serve as mercenaries and do battle without allegiance to any government, ideology, or creed, whereas the latter hopes to unite the world under a One World Order government run by Big Brother A.I.s.
- The
*The Witcher* franchise, including both the books and video games, had three wars waged between the Northern Kingdoms (Neutral), the Nilfgaardian Empire (Order) and the Scoia'tael (Chaos). There is even a card game based after those three wars, titled "Gwent"!
- Geralt of Rivia, on the other hand, did his best to avoid their three wars with each other, remaining True Neutral to the best of his abilities, just to focus on two things: Killing monsters for profit, and rescuing his adoptive daughter, Ciri.
- The virtue system in
*Serpents Isle* is quite different from past games. Unlike the Britannia virtues, based on Infinity, Ophidian virtues are based on Order and Chaos. The Virtues of Order are Logic, Discipline, and Ethicality. The Virtues of Chaos are Emotion, Enthusiasm, and Tolerance.
- However, unlike the virtues of Britannia, Ophidian virtues are not good by themselves and must be practiced with its opposite counterpart to achieve balance, otherwise, wrongs are committed, called Banes. The Banes of Order are Ruthlessness (Logic without Emotion), Apathy (Discipline without Enthusiasm), and Prejudice (Ethicality without Tolerance). The Banes of Chaos are Insanity (Emotion without Logic), Wantonness (Enthusiasm without Discipline), and Anarchy (Tolerance without Ethicality). The Order and Chaos counterparts combined together form the Principles of Rationality (Logic and Emotion), Dedication (Discipline and Enthusiasm), and Harmony (Ethicality and Tolerance).
- Halfway through the game, the Banes of Chaos possess three major party members, which in turn annihilate the three major cities, which were guilty of practicing the Banes of Order. The three main cities were also notable in that they practiced bastardized forms of the three major Britannia Principles, Truth, Love, and Courage. Monitor practiced a bastardized version of Courage and the Bane of Apathy. With their courage just being merely words and not true actions, they were wiped out by the Bane of Wantonness when he sent goblin hordes to attack Monitor. Fawn, worshipped Beauty, a bastardized version of Love, which caused them to commit the Bane of Prejudice to anything ugly. The Bane of Insanity killed the city with plague and flayed the city's priestess alive (the Avatar restores her however). Moonshade (a bastardized version of Britannia's Moonglow, the city of Honesty) is a city of half-truths where the truth is only good when convienant. This leads them to commit the Bane of Ruthlessness. When the Bane of Anarachy arrived, he had the town's inhabitants kill eachother.
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*Ogre Battle*, *Ogre Battle 64*, and *Tactics Ogre*'s alignment system.
- Order and Chaos have been divided into separate worlds in
*The Longest Journey*. Although generally both sides try to leave each other alone, sometimes someone gets it into their head that their side is the superior.
- The
*Thief* games have the Hammerites, a particularly militant group of Knight Templars, as Order, and the Pagans, a demon-worshipping underground Cult of shamans and hippies, as Chaos. Neither are portrayed as particularly nice. The protagonist, interestingly, could be considered a representation of balance: he's a thief, but his livelihood hinges pretty heavily on the institutions of the society he lives in, and he frequently steps in to keep things from going all to hell.
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*Shin Megami Tensei* has this as its central conflict. Pick a game out of the series and despite ever-changing setpieces, backdrops and actors, the script remains the same. Unlike most examples neither side is shown to be better than the other, often becoming two types of evil depending on the game (Neutral is generally treated better and is the canon ending in all instances of direct continuations), but just has different trade offs for humanity and demons. Order tends to result in the eradication of all independent thought and the reduction of reality to a vast machine dedicated to the worship of YHVH, whilst Chaos tends to spawn a twisted world of Might Makes Right and endless war.
- It returned as a major mechanic in
*Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey*, up to and including several bonuses (extra attack combos, price discounts when recruiting demons) and losses (failed negotiations, harder to contact successfully a demon of opposite alignment) depending upon your stance on Order and Chaos.
- SMT is an interesting example in that although neutrality is often presented as canon, it is also often presented as not being that great of a choice, which ends up making the choice of endings seem like a 'shades of shit' kind of deal. Strange Journey in particular shows that allowing humanity to go on as it is could be a bad idea...
- Spinoff series generally portray the alignments in a much more positive manner. One example is
*Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon*, where it's not them being forced to pick a side but rather how Raidou wishes to live his life. The only game with a Social Darwinist outlook in the spinoffs is *Devil Survivor 2's* Meritocracy, but it's based on star signs instead of the typical alignments.
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*Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne* has an interesting version of this trope with the Reasons. As one might expect, the Demon ending(leave the Vortex World as it is) and the Freedom Ending (turn the world back to normal) are Neutral, while Shijima(a World of Silence) is Law, but one would assume Yosuga(Might Makes Right) is Chaos. That assumption, however, is incorrect, since following any of the Reasons, including Musubi(everyone lives in isolation) is essentially playing by Kagutsuchi's rules. The real Chaos ending is the True Demon Ending, in which you permanently destroy Kagutsuchi and team up with Lucifer.
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*Shin Megami Tensei IV* adds a fourth option: Nothingness. Screw Order. Screw Chaos. All of your options suck and nothing anyone does will bring an end to the neverending Crapsack World that is the MegaTen universe, so just end it all. ||Not that it'll help, as *Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse* reveals.||
- The entire premise of
*Primal* was this. Arella was the literal personification of order. Her polar opposite is Abbadon, who has begun to tip the balance of power towards chaos.
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*Grandia II* portrays the two Gods of the story (Granas and Valmar) as personifications of Order and Chaos, both supposedly created by humans who leaned too far one way or the other. It spells this out, *very* briefly, and the characters do not comprehend any of the implications. A little robot makes the remark in question. You see, ||Granas and Valmar were some ancient civilization's scientific researchers, who jointly discovered how to transmute matter and energy at will, i.e. the key to utopia, and promptly became as gods. Their partnership broke up when they realized their ideologies were split neatly along the line described by this trope — Granas wanted a perfect world full of happy people who never experience anything negative; Valmar insisted that life is made interesting by conflict... so he started one. The details are foggy, but we do find out that the war ended with Granas down for the count and Valmar (or at least his giant bio weapon) still hanging around. Gameplay ensues.||
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*Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn* (and *Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance*, the direct prequel) have Ashera, the Goddess of Order and ||Yune||, Goddess of Chaos. ||In an interesting twist, the Goddess of Chaos is depicted as a young child. The two also used to be one being: the original Goddess Ashunera cast out her own emotions, which became Yune, after accidently flooding the world. The Empty Shell that was left behind became Ashera, and lacking emotions causes her to make some... questionable decisions.||
- If the words of a certain traitorous bishounen priest are any indication, this may well turn out to be the most primal conflict in the
*Suikoden* series. There are many ways one could wax fauxlosophic about this, but so far most of the writing on the wall seems to be margin notes. For instance, the conflict that created the Suiko-verse was between two embodiments of protection and destruction. Refreshingly, the series chastises both extremes, showing the horrors of "true Order" (dharma, in the words of the aforementioned priest) at least as often as the horrors of "true Chaos."
- Indeed, the Empire of Holy Harmonia, the possible Big Bad of the game series, lives up to its name as the embodiment of strict order. On the other hand, recurring Psycho for Hire Yuber is Chaos's standard bearer (oddly enough, the two actually end up on the same side in at least one war).
- It's also implied that Pesmerga, whose sole purpose in life seems to be to eliminate Yuber, is Yuber's counterpart on the side of Order. The two look very similar (including their all-black wardrobes), have swords with the same name, and despite their human appearance are apparently immortal demons of some sort.
- While
*Suikoden Tierkreis* isn't connected to the main series, it pits the hero against The Order Of The One True Way, an empire with clear parallels to Harmonia, just nastier and with plenty of horror.
- In
*The Elder Scrolls*, this is heavily present (though at times significantly played-with) with the series' divine beings. To note:
- The primary Creation Myth for most religions of Tamriel generally follows a pattern that, in the pre-creation "void", there were two opposing primordial forces - Stasis (Order) and Change (Chaos). A few of the religions anthropomorphize these forces into beings most commonly known as Anu and Padomay, respectively. The interplay between these two forces led to Creation, sometimes anthropomorphized as the female entity "Nir". Nir favored Anu, which angered Padomay. Padomay killed Nir and shattered the twelve worlds she gave birth to. Anu then wounded Padomay, presuming him dead. Anu salvaged the pieces of the twelve worlds to create one world: Nirn. Padomay returned and wounded Anu, seeking to destroy Nirn. Anu then pulled Padomay and himself outside of time, ending Padomay's threat to creation "forever". From the intermingling of their spilled blood came the "et'Ada", or "original spirits", who would go on to become either the Aedra or the Daedra depending on their actions during creation. (Some myths state that the Aedra come from the mixed blood of Anu and Padomay, while the Daedra come purely from the blood of Padomay).
- One of these spirits, said to have been "begat" by Sithis (the embodiment of chaos and, for lack of a better term, Padomay's "spirit"), was Lorkhan (aka Shor, Shezarr, Shep, Lorkhaj, etc.). Depending on the version of the myth, he convinced/tricked some of the other et'Ada into helping him create the mortal plane, known as Mundus, to permanently disrupt the "stasis" of pre-creation with "chaos." (The races of Mer, or Elves, generally believe this was a cruel trick that robbed their ancestors of their pre-creation divinity while the races of Men believe it was a good thing.) Those et'Ada who sacrificed large parts of their being to create Mundus became known as the Aedra, while those that did not participate became the Daedra. For his treachery, the Aedra "killed" Lorkhan and tore out his "divine center" (heart), which they cast down into the mortal world he helped to create.
- The Aedra, meaning "Our Ancestors" in the old Aldmeri language, sacrificed a large portion of their divine power in order to create the mortal world. It is said that the et'Ada who would become the Aedra formed from the intermingled blood of Anu and Padomay, giving them some traits of both Order and Chaos. Meanwhile, the Daedra, meaning "Not Our Ancestors," did not sacrifice any of their power during the creation of Mundus and remain truly immortal. The et'Ada who would become the Daedra are said to have formed exclusively from the blood of Padomay, giving them purely Chaotic traits. (Though even this is heavily played with, as two of the Daedric Princes, Jyggalag and Peryite, both govern over spheres which contain elements of
*Order*.)
- This is heavily played up in some of the religions of the races of Mer (Elves),
*especially* the Altmer (High Elves). According to Altmer religious beliefs, the creation of Mundus was seen as an act of malevolence as it forced them to experience mortal suffering, loss, and death while removing their spirits from a place of pre-creation divinity. While most are content to toil in this mortal "prison" with "more limitations than not," some extremists, like the Thalmor, actively seek to *undo creation* to return to that state of pre-creation divinity. According to their beliefs, mankind was made up from the "weakest souls" by Lorkhan to spread Sithis (Chaos) "into every corner," ensuring that there could never be the "stasis" (Order) of pre-creation again. However, they believe that not just the *existence* of mankind, but the existence of the *possibility* of mankind keeps them trapped in Mundus. Essentially, the Altmer are oppressed not just by the existence of mankind, but the possibility of mankind's existence.
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*Oblivion*'s *Shivering Isles* expansion is based around this trope. Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness will periodically ||transform into his original form as Jyggalag, the Daedric Prince of Order, and level the Shivering Isles - Sheogorath's realm of madness, creativity, and free will||. The main quest of the expansion is to bring an end to this Vicious Cycle once and for all.
- The main villains of the game
*Anachronox* are revealed to be a species devoted to Chaos, who were sent back to a former universe by a species devoted to Order — though not much is made of this, since the sequel was never made.
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*Mortal Kombat* has the Order Realm/Seido, and the Chaos Realm, who are constantly at war with each other.
- Plus, a Lawful Stupid character from Seido and a Chaotic Stupid character from Chaosrealm. They're arch enemies.
- Tyrant conquerors Onaga and Shao Khan are associated with order and chaos respectively and are favored by the members of the realm of equivalent alignment.
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*Dungeon Master* features a group of heroes sent on a quest by Lord Order to defeat Lord Chaos. Complete the quest as stated and Lord Order thanks you, ||then murders you. To win, you have to defeat them both by merging them back into the one human they were originally created from.||
- Very much like the example above,
*Faery Tale Adventure 2: Halls of the Dead* evokes the "too much of either is bad" version. The Big Bad is ostensibly the personification of Chaos, but destroying him will only serve to ||allow Order to achieve a perfectly ordered state by encasing the entire universe in lifeless crystal. Destroying Order likewise makes the world uninhabitable, for the opposite reason. The correct solution is to unify them, bringing harmony to the world again.||
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*Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning* had two factions: Order and Destruction (since one of the races is Chaos). With Empire, Dwarves and High Elves on one side and Chaos, Greenskins and Dark Elves on the other. However, it has somewhat been criticised for making the Order side a bit too 'Good', although that could just be in comparison to the pure baby-murdering evil that is Destruction.
- In
*Disgaea*, it becomes clear that this is the true conflict, and the idea that it's Black-and-White Morality is some sort of in-universe ideal decay that has happened over millennia. Evidence of this is found in the fact that OTHER demons will chastize demons they see getting "too evil", e.g. Raspberyl's declaring Mao's intent to blow up the Earth, an act for scum. Also in the first game Etna insists on teaching Laharl kindness in her own warped demon way, and this trait was something she admired in his father.
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*Heroes of Might and Magic* series:
- The fourth has this
*and* Black-and-White Morality (though it's worth noting that Chaos hates "Life" and Order equally, and Life feels the same about Chaos and "Death.") Order is borderline good, but a spell to protect against that alignment references "what the self-righteous are capable of." Chaos . . . is just evil. Sorry.
- In the fifth and sixth games, Order is represented by Asha the creator goddess and her six children, as well as by the Necropolis faction who worship Asha as the 'Spider Aspect', while Chaos is represented by Asha's brother Urgash and the Inferno faction, which consists of the Demons that Urgash created to wage war on his sister.
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*S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl* has the very aptly named Duty vs. Freedom, Duty being a highly disciplined paramilitary organization that believes the world needs to be protected from the Zone, and Freedom being a loosely run band of stoners and anarchists who believe the Zone's gifts should be shared with the entire world.
- The famous Green Rocks of
*Sonic the Hedgehog*, are called the *Chaos* Emeralds. They wasted a perfectly bland plot in the scrapped game *Sonic X-Treme*, which would have featured the Rings of *Order*.
- This is one of the pairs of faiths in
*Lords of Magic*. Order is represented by the standard High Middle Ages style humans, Chaos is represented by barbarians.
- This is the most important conflict of the
*Dept. Heaven* series, where order is represented by the gods of Asgard and chaos by the Underworld and its demons. Both sides are far and away on the "extreme" end of what these things represent, and woe betide anyone who gets in the middle. Gray-and-Grey Morality also applies; the Big Bad of the series is a proxy of the gods, and the most messianic character who's appeared thus far is a demon.
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*Riviera: The Promised Land* has its hero Ein find a happy medium by telling both sides of the conflict where they can stick it if they're going to keep recklessly endangering the lives of ordinary mortal people in neutral territory for their own selfish warring.
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*Yggdra Union* and *Blaze Union* both deal with mortal affairs more than the huge conflict going on in the background, but they go a long way towards establishing the powers that be on both sides as incredibly callous. The antagonist of these games was born to be one of Asgard's soldiers, and was punished horribly for refusing to go to war and asserting his free will despite being what was considered a subhuman class, then exiled to a mortal world—and then completely ignored, even as he started manipulating events on that world for the sake of revenge. (These games, by the way, are the one with the messianic demon.)
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*Knights in the Nightmare* explains that the conflict between the forces of order and chaos has been so bad that a lot of worlds have neutral arbitrators to keep their fighting from damaging mortal worlds.
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*LEGO Universe* doesn't exactly have "order," but Imagination is a channeled chaos, pitted against the completely unfettered Maelstrom. The distinction is similar to that between building a tower of Legos out of bricks from a dozen different sets, and smashing the tower to bits.
- Though it (possibly) started out as an Good vs. Evil affair, the revelation of
*Soul Calibur's* true intent in *SoulCalibur IV* (to force the world into a state of peace and safety by crystallizing all its inhabitants) causes its conflict with Soul Edge to fall into this (because it slips into a "no matter who wins, we all lose" scenario). Fan theory suggests that this happened over the course of the series, rather than Soul Calibur having such a twisted objective from the start.
- The closest we have to Word of God on the matter is that Soul Calibur was
*originally* just as evil as Soul Edge, from whence it came, because Algol's Blue-and-Orange Morality gave its spirit no moral compass besides a directive to destroy Soul Edge at all costs. The sword's evil was eventually quieted and purged by its keepers (who are all long dead now), and is speculated to have reawakened after Soul Calibur was temporarily trapped within Soul Edge. Unlike a lot of video game examples of this trope, merging the swords together is *a very bad idea*, creating a godlike Eldritch Abomination that is pure evil.
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*Portal 2* plays the conflict between Master Computer GLaDOS and whimsical AI sidekick Wheatley as less Evil vs. Good and more as the aspect of game theory that pits a perfectly logical, experienced player against a completely random one who has no idea what he's doing, what the rules are, what the win condition is, etcetera. The random player can win not because he's good at the game, but because he's so unpredictable that the logical player cannot anticipate his moves. In fact, later in the game, Wheatley does a better job of ||being an actual antagonist|| than GLaDOS ever did. Interestingly, the randomness doesn't always work in his favour because, well, it's random. ||Even his "triumph" would have meant that *everyone* lost by *dying*, instead of just him losing by being deposed.||
- In
*The Colour Tuesday*, the Others keep everything in a state of mind controlled order so as to prey on humans. This makes the rebellious Alex a perfect candidate for trying to break the Others' control.
- In
*World of Warcraft*, the Titans aren't so much "good" as "ordered", and do some pretty morally questionable things in order to keep the balance. On the opposite side is the Burning Legion, which holds it as their sacred mission to bring chaos and destruction to all worlds.
- To demonstrate, the Titans created the Halls of Origination which functionally destroys the world by resetting it back to when the Titans first finished making/modifying it. From Algalon's words, it's to be used whenever things go wrong with the Titans plans and seemingly every world visited by the Titans has one.
- The Bronze Dragonflight acts much like the Titans, maintaining the "order" of the timelines. This also means ensuring some pretty horrible events happen, as the effects of them
*not* happening might be worse. Their nemesis, the Infinite Dragonflight, wishes to change the timelines greatly to achieve some unknown goal. They do so by disrupting that "order", threatening to destabilize the entirety of time.
- Kirby and Meta Knight often fall into this, with the former being carefree and chaotic (often causing a lot of trouble) and the latter imposing extreme order (often in an effort to counteract that trouble).
- This is the entire foundation of the
*Dissidia Final Fantasy*, with the Goddess of Harmony (Cosmos) vs the God of Discord (Chaos).
- In the first
*Mass Effect* game, Sovereign claims that the Reapers "impose order on the chaos of organic evolution". Two games later, a downed Reaper says something similar, arguing to Shepard that ||harvesting organics and uploading them into new Reaper shells|| is the only way to "preserve" them. Otherwise, they will eventually create synthetics that have the power to destroy them. ||This turns out to be the purpose of the unthinkably old AI overseeing the whole cycle.||
- The trio of gods in
*Runescape*, Saradomin, Zamorak, and Guthix represent Order, Chaos and Balance, respectively. While there are few sympathetic Zamorakian NPCs, and most heroes are Saradominists, the distinction isn't clear cut, as groups like HAM and the White Knights can attest to. Armadyl, the only objectively "good" god, was dethroned for being a Suicidal Pacifist, Guthix simply wants to preserve existence, though his followers often act Stupid Neutral, and Zaros is just power personified.
- A common theme in the Geneforge series. The Shapers have maintained a fairly peaceful and stable social order for centuries, and kept the worst excesses of their distinctive form of magic to a minimum. Scratch the surface, though, and you'll quickly notice that this relative peace and comfort masks a tyrannical society with next to no social mobility, kept afloat with healthy doses of Fantastic Racism, including the systematic extermination of most sentient nonhuman species. The rebellion against them, in turn, wants to tear down not just the tyranny and racism, but the peace and stability, and all the rules that made it possible in the first place. It doesn't help that the rebels are not exactly in agreement about what should come next, and many of the rebel creations hate humans just as much as humans hate them. Both sides are convinced they're right, and neither side is presented as overwhelmingly better or worse than the other when it comes to morality; both demonstrate plenty of willingness to punt a few canines over the horizon. And you get to choose which side wins. There are a few sides that try to compromise, but these tend to get killed off quickly, or become affiliated with the (chaotic) rebels by default.
- A theme in
*BlazBlue*. The game is a very complex Morality Kitchen Sink, but this is an underlying theme of the series. The conflict manifests itself primarily represented in series protagonist, Ragna the Bloodedge and his younger brother/rival, Jin Kisaragi being chaos and order respectively.
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*Catherine*, being a spinoff of *Shin Megami Tensei*, has this as a running theme but in a much more downplayed scope compared to the parent series, and the Ms. Exposition Trisha even brings up this trope on one occasion. The game follows Vincent, a bored thirty-something Everyman who finds himself in a Love Triangle with two women, with the two women representing Order and Chaos. The protagonist's choice between the two ||or not|| forms the central focus of his Character Development.
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*Assassin's Creed*: the long conflict between Assassins and Templars is essentially a question of whether the world needs more freedom or more control. The games are generally in favor of the Assassins, though Shaun (an Assassin) doesn't consider them to be "heroes" since they still kill people to accomplish their goals. Most Templars aren't portrayed in a favorable light, especially in the second game. The third game brings both sides closer together on the morality scale. William tells Desmond that both sides have made attempts throughout history to join together, but ultimately their ideologies are diametrically opposed.
- Furthermore, the Templars create chaos in their attempts to impose order whereas Assassins contain chaos by minimizing violence, stabilizing threats and building institutions and support systems. So no one side is pure Order or pure Chaos. They even have the same goal, a peaceful world, but disagree on how to get there.
- Very much the name of the game in
*Chaos Reborn*, where wizards with reality-warping powers battle each other for claims of godhood, and affect the balance of the entire universe around them.
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*Blade & Soul* has this theme running through its main Player Versus Player factions. The Cerulean Order is a well-intentioned dictatorship which believes society functions best when people are assigned to the role most suited to their natural talents and skill set. The Crimson Legion advocates complete social mobility and believes any form of stable government will naturally lead towards corruption and tyranny.
- In
*Civilization* *V*, you can choose one of three mutually exclusive ideologies as your Civ progresses into the modern age. Freedom (Chaos) represents capitalism, is all about empowering the individual, and is great for giving smaller, more peaceful Civs a much needed leg-up by giving bonuses to culture, happiness, tourism and diplomacy, and also gives some defensive bonuses to the military. Order (you'll never guess) represents Marxist-Communism, works by empowering the state, and is good for sprawling (but not necessarily aggressive) empires with lots of industrial buildings as it gives bonuses to food, production and population, and gives them out on a per-city basis. Autocracy (Omnicidal Neutral), representing Fascism, is all about empowering the great leader at the very top and giving huge bonuses to all things military, allowing you to build armies faster, more cheaply, in greater numbers and even improving the individual combat power of units. Civs tend to get along better with other Civs of the same ideology and some even have preferred ideologies: for example, the Americans and French prefer Freedom, the Chinese prefer Order, and the Germans unfortunately prefer Autocracy.
- The choices in
*Papers, Please* side you with the government or the revolutionaries. It's up to interpretation on how good or evil either group is. You can also decide to flee from both of them.
-
*Stellaris*:
- The Ethos system originally featured, amongst others, the Collectivist-Individualist dichotomy. The exact ideology represented by any given ethic is left intentionally vague for roleplaying purposes, but from what could be gathered, Collectivists favoured autocratic governments and didn't take happiness penalties from slavery and Individualists favoured democracies and personal liberty, gaining bonuses to energy production. This proved to be so controversial that the Collectivist-Individualist axis was eventually replaced entirely by a new Egalitarian-Authoritarian axis.
**Fanatic Collectivist description**: "The purpose of the individual is simple; strengthen the collective. To enter the blackness of space we move as one, and we shall not be weakened by wanton separatism." **Fanatic Individualist description**: "We must recognise that 'society' is but a convenient fiction, the by-product of individuals working toward parallel, overlapping, and contradictory goals. As it should be."
- The
*Nemesis* expansion provides the opportunity to reform the Galactic Community into the Galactic Imperium. In case of a significant weakening of the Imperium's authority, it is very likely that a large-scale uprising will begin, which can quickly turn into an all-galactic Civil War between two hostile coalitions. Conceptually, this conflict directly refers to this trope, since the loyalists defend the Imperium as a bulwark of stability, unity, and development of the galaxy, as well as peace in it, while the rebels want to return to a much more democratic format of the Galactic Community, accusing the Imperium of tyranny and oppression. The war between them can end in victory for either side, or with the signing of a peace treaty, which will lead to the political independence of the two power blocs from each other, and also to a continuation of their conflict in a cold war manner.
- The trope forms the main backbone of the conflict between Symmetra (Order) and Lucio (Chaos) in
*Overwatch*. Symmetra believed that order has to be upheld to create a better community. Unfortunately, due to her upbringing and working for Vishkar Corporation, widely believed to be an evil, corrupt company, some tends to miss that she's not a big fan of their underhanded tactics, only interested with order and was led to believe that Vishkar is doing things for an eventual greater good, the restoration of order. On the other hand, Lucio was a victim of Vishkar's attempt to impose their order (with a little help from Symmetra), and as a believer of people's freedom, he rose up by stealing Vishkar's technology and using it against them, granting freedom to the oppressed people and allowing him to do a dual-job between an international DJ by day, a freedom fighter by night. Symmetra obviously do not get along with Lucio, her doubts with Vishkar aside, she still saw him as no better than a thief, a street rat that rose to fame with dubious, unorderly manners and he should at least return the technology he stole, while Lucio justifies himself with how Vishkar was asking for it for oppressing his people first and it's for the oppressed people that needs freedom (which was dubbed by Symmetra as 'anarchy') and generally, he is not aware of Symmetra's personal doubts and thinks that she's just the same as the other corrupt Vishkar guys that oppressed his people, therefore, she has no validities in chastising him when she's showing blind obedience to what he thinks to be Obviously Corrupt company.
-
*SWAT 3* briefly touches on this with the recurring euphemism (deadly or otherwise, depending on how you play) of "bringing order to chaos" - i.e. removing, whether by arresting or neutralizing, any armed and antagonistic individuals who are currently threatening the safety and well-being of your squad of SWAT officers or any civilians.
- In
*WildStar*, this is ultimately the conflict between The Dominion and The Exiles; Those that join and become citizens of the Dominion and obeys their laws are granted rights like education. If you don't obey, you get swept aside. The Exiles consist of those who got "Swept aside" and are trying to live their own lives free, but they've become criminals just to survive.
- From
*Melee* onward, the Master and Crazy Hands of the *Super Smash Bros.* series imply this (Master with Order, Crazy with Chaos). But then *Ultimate* takes it a level higher with ||*World of Light*'s Big Bads, Galeem and Dharkon. The hand they control and copy enforces this theme.||
- The concepts of Master & Crazy Hands compared to that of ||Galeem & Dharkon|| shows both sides of both ways Order & Chaos can be taken. Master Hand represents the Order of creation and structure, while Crazy Hand is the Chaos that exists for the sake of change. ||Whereas Galeem is Order for the sake of control and tyranny, and Dharkon is Chaos as a purely destructive influence that seeks to erase all life.|| The difference is that the Hands can put aside their differences to work together for the good of the universe, while ||Galeem & Dharkon|| cannot, making this more akin to a Black-and-White Morality story in a way.
- In
*Chivalry: Medieval Warfare*, the Mason Order want to overthrow the monarchy for their peasant populist, pseudo-Communist, Social Darwinist ideology, while the Agatha Knights fight to uphold peace, legitimacy, honour and the feudal system. It's an Excuse Plot, just go fight people, it's really fun.
- The major factions of
*Fallout: New Vegas* are on sort of a sliding scale of Order vs. Chaos.
- Caesar's Legion is a brutal, totalitarian military state dependent on raiding weaker tribes (Evil Order). The New California Republic is an idealistic aspiring democracy ("Good" Order, though not immune to corruption or political exigency). There is no option to make them get along.
- Choosing to remain independent of either gets both out of the Mojave and leads the region down the path to anarchy (Chaos, for better or worse).
- The fourth option is Mr. House, who's also Order (he desires control, but based on economic monopoly rather than Caesar's military conquest or the NCR's negotiation), but exploits the Chaos between Caesar and the NCR and is largelyp content to take a fairly hands-off approach.
- The final Splatfest of
*Splatoon 2* was themed around this, with Pearl championing Team Chaos while Marina lead Team Order. Rather than influence the next game's story mode, as the final Splatfest of the first game did for *Splatoon 2*, *Splatoon 3* uses Chaos's victory as the basis for its overall setting instead, shifting from Inkopolis to the more blatantly post-apocalyptic wasteland that is the Splatlands and its overcrowded hub city, Splatsville.
- In
*Puyo Puyo Tetris 2*, this is the conflict between Marle and ||Squares||. The former is a downplayed representation of chaos, since she embraces the spontaneous nature of fun; the latter ||goes as far as to take control over Marle and threatening to erase the main cast from existence in his efforts to maintain his idea of "order", all a result of him thinking the Puyo and Tetris worlds merging isn't "right"||.
-
*Indefensible Positions* (a finished webcomic) is largely about a group of heroes dealing with a war between Idiotic Order and Idiotic Chaos Knight Templar demigods. The issue with having "Forces of Chaos" is referred to when one of the main characters says to the Chaotic demigod, "I will serve Chaos" — then adds under his breath, "but not you".
-
*Last Res0rt*
- The series dances around this with the Chaotic Djinni-si (a collection of vampires, shapeshifters, telepaths, and other Things That Go "Bump" in the Night) and the Orderly Celeste (a hybrid species of angels and demons who are "often" associated with the good side, even though they're collectively the Villain with Good Publicity).
- Veled, the Big Bad, is a Celeste best defined as a force of Chaos and Evil.
- Word of God also says that the bullethole-and-skull logo of
*Last Res0rt* is *named* "Chaos". No clue what an alternate logo for "Order" might look like...
-
*Codename: Kids Next Door* had the Delightful Children From Down the Lane and their Father as Evil Order, and more widely, the adult world in general. Interestingly, the KND could themselves be highly Knight Templar-ish, erasing the memories of their own operatives once they got "too old".
- To quote
*The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy,* "The world has almost completely fallen into order. It's up to us to restore chaos." Eris, the goddess of chaos, is a recurring character. The one time she was ever calm, life was becoming so routine that it might as well not exist. However, her plans are as chaotic as she is, varying from pranks to antagonizing people to massive upheaval of all life, and involving everything from brainwashing dolls to giant flying babies to giant alien zombie lobsters.
-
*Æon Flux* is all about order vs. chaos to the point of being a gender-flipped version of Moorcock's Cornelius stories, with Aeon as chaos/Jerry and Trevor as order/Miss Brunner.
-
*ReBoot* has a case of Evil Versus Evil, as Hexadecimal is The Queen of Chaos and Megabyte represents Order in the form of tyranny. The one time that Hexadecimal executed a successful Evil Plan, she snapped her fingers and undid the damage because Victory Is Boring. Megabyte, with the same opportunity, imposed an eternal dystopia. note : Dot saw a vision of it and prevented it from happening. Interestingly, Hexadecimal was never portrayed as Capital E evil in the same sense as Megabyte, but more as a force of nature with a dark sense of humor.
- In
*The Simpsons*, Bart is Chaos while Lisa is Order. In one of the Simpsons comics (Issue 111) the kids even represented them.
- On
*Batman: The Brave and the Bold,* Equinox has the powers of both Order and Chaos Magic. Eventually it's revealed that ||the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos made a deal, tasking him to keep balance between the two forces||. Finding this impossible, he decided to restart the universe from scratch.
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic* is *weird* about this trope.
- In place of standard Order, it has "Harmony," which emphasizes unity and compromise rather than strict discipline. Opposing it is "Disharmony," which is occasionally referred to as Chaos and emphasizes arbitrariness and strife. Discord, its primary representative, acts according to random whims.
- Fittingly, this means that the Mane Six have actually battled against both Chaotic foes, such as Discord or the magic-eating monster Tirek, and Orderly ones, such as the tyrannical King Sombra and Starlight Glimmer.
- The episode "Feeling Pinkie Keen" has Twilight Sparkle as Order and Pinkie Pie as Chaos. Twilight is the Element of Magic, and firmly believes that everything has an explanation, even magic (since works in ways you direct it in, and creates the expected effect). Pinkie is the Element of Laughter, and despite being an earth pony, is seemingly able to bend space and glimpse the future due to the Rule of Funny.
- The 2-part opening episode of season 5 is based on this, with the villainess, the aforementioned Starlight Glimmer, having determined that even so minor a form of chaos as "ponies having individual talents and specialties" is an evil she cannot tolerate. Leading her to strip all ponies under her rule of their cutie marks and with these, their special talents. Naturally, the Mane Six have to stop her and give them all back.
- Subverted in
*Phineas and Ferb*. Candace *thinks* of herself as representing order but her own behavior is at least as chaotic as the boys'. Played straighter with the regimented OWCA versus the whimsically evil Doofenshmitrz.
- As revealed in
*The Legend of Korra*: *Beginnings*, there were two major spirits: Raava the order spirit, and Vaatu the chaos spirit. Each 10,000 years, they wrestle around, the former keeping the latter in line just in time for the Harmonic Convergence. But it was thanks to Wan ||accidentally releasing Vaatu|| that the balance of the world gets out of control. So he spends the rest of his life working with Raava to fix what he accidentally did.
- Season three has the Red Lotus, a splinter group of the White Lotus who are essentially anarcho-primitivists that revered Vaatu and wish to destroy all governments and establish a new, more spiritual world. In the words of their leader, "The natural order is disorder". Season 4's main villain is Kuvira's Earth Empire, a force of absolute order.
- Depending on the region, the game Pai Sho, which both Lotus groups draw their names from, is considered either a fast-paced and exciting game, like the Red Lotus, or one about strategy and waiting for the proper time to make a move, like the Earth Empire (and as presented with Asami and Bolin, order beats chaos almost every time).
- In
*The Owl House*, Belos and ||the Collector|| basically represent the extremes of Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil villains. Belos is a ||genocidal|| fascist dictator, while ||the Collector is a deranged maniac who would rip apart the world for a chuckle.||
- This is the conflict in physics between the theories of General Relativity, which describes an orderly and predictable universe, but is only applicable to large scales, and Quantum Mechanics, which describes a chaotic, random, near-nonsensical universe, but is only applicable to small scales. Both theories are correct, even though they contradict each other. The purpose of a Unified Field Theory would be to resolve these conflicts and unite both theories.
- Real life asymmetric/guerilla wars tend to be this trope. Although the chaos is usually less of a choice than in most fiction, and more of a necessity, born from a lack of options.
- Judging vs. Perceiving preference pair in MyersBriggs tests. Judgers prefer more order in interactions and frequently lay out plans, Perceivers have more flexible rules and do not keep plans as much. In the Big Five Personality Traits, people high in conscientiousness lean more toward order, and those who are lower tend toward flexibility.
- The order-chaos dynamic is what the dimensions on the political compass amount to, designed in order to illustrate a slightly more complex graph of political ideologies compared to the traditional left-right spectrum. The X-axis measures the extent to which economic enterprise is controlled (far left is extreme central market planning, far right is extreme unregulated market capitalism), the Y-axis measures the extent to which moral norms are enforced (the far top is extreme authoritarian social control, the far bottom is extreme atomization of social mores). It has been derided as too simplistic, and is more popular for memes than any serious discourse. Attempts to amend it include adding new axes such as one for social conservatism and progressivism with the extremes representing flat out racism and/or anti-LGBT behaviour and potentially self destructive multiculturalism against integration in that order. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrderVsChaos |
Ordered to Cheat - TV Tropes
**Kreese:**
Bobby, I want him out of commission.
**Bobby:**
But, Sensei, I can beat this guy.
**Kreese:**
I don't want him
*beaten.*
This is when a character who wants to compete fairly and honestly is told not to do so by someone else. Sometimes, the character will be told to cheat in order to win. Other times, they will be told to deliberately lose. Both heroes and their antagonists can be in this position all that's required is that their superiors or colleagues want the competition to be rigged for some reason. This reason is often just greed or pride, but doesn't have to be there may be something genuinely important riding on the contest.
If the character is being asked to win dishonestly, it implies that their ability is being questioned (or else they'd be able to win fairly). Whether or not this lack of confidence is justified is variable - sometimes, it will be plain that cheating is the only way to win, but other times, the character will genuinely believe in their abilities, and may well say "I know I can do this!" before getting overruled by someone who disagrees or who wants to play it safe. Sometimes, one side thinks they have no choice but to cheat because the other side will.
When it's a hero who is ordered to win by whatever means necessary, they're quite likely to refuse. They'll often go ahead and win
*without* cheating, demonstrating skill and honesty like the proper hero they are. This sometimes plays out with the hero initially *appearing* to lose, only for the bad guys to be exposed as cheats and stripped of their win. Less commonly, the hero will refuse to cheat and will *really* lose, preferring to keep their integrity intact even at the cost of their goal.
If a hero is ordered not to win, for some reason, their decision to comply will probably be based on whether it really is for a good cause. In some cases, especially ones where the hero is being tempted with bribes or threatened with retaliation, refusing to throw the game will be presented as honourable and courageous. Other times, though, deliberately losing may actually be presented as the morally correct choice, as the hero may be sacrificing their pride for a greater goal.
When it's a bad guy who is ordered to play dirty, their reluctance to do so may help build them up as a Worthy Opponent they have genuine skill, and might even get along with the hero if they weren't on opposite sides. If ordered to cheat to win, they might perform at least a partial HeelFace Turn by defying their orders at the last minute and giving the hero a fair shot.
The competition involved is often a sports event of some kind, so this often turns up as the main moral dilemma in a sports story. See also Unnecessary Roughness.
Compare Secret Test of Character.
## Examples:
- In
*Kitchen Princess*, the director of the school Najika attends tells her to deliberately lose a competition between her and Seiya Mizuno (an up-and-coming young chef), promising to save the orphanage she grew up in from being torn down if she does.
- In
*Yu-Gi-Oh!*'s Battle City Finals, when ||Odion posing as Marik|| duels Joey, he at one point is poised to win the duel, before ||the real Marik|| orders him to use his (fake copy of) The Winged Dragon of Ra. ||Odion|| reluctantly complies. This does not end well, as the God (card) rains lightning on the duel, knocking them both out. They both recover, but Joey does fast enough to win the duel by TKO.
- In
*Dragon Ball*, during the 22nd World Tournament, Tien Shinhan finds that their master, the Crane Hermit, has been having Chaozu use his telekinesis to paralyze Goku during their fight. The Crane Hermit then orders Tien Shinhan to kill Goku while he's paralyzed. Tien Shinhan refuses, because he wants to win legitimately, causing him to break away from the Crane Hermit as his master. He then allows Goku several free hits in order to level the playing field again.
- An issue of the
*Tenchi Muyo!* manga has Sasami attending an *Iron Chef*-like contest and is confronted by the assistant of a restaurant owner who wants to pass it over to his son if he won three in a row. He *begs* Sasami to throw the match because he wants the whole ordeal over with. Sasami can't live with the idea of giving up and keeps going. Sasami wins, but the son is so impressed by her skill that he vows to keep practicing his own cooking until he's good enough to win three times in a row with his own ability.
- In
*The Prince of Tennis*, while Yuuta Fuji plays against Ryoma Echizen, team manager Mizuki, determined to win at any cost, tells Yuuta to focus his attacks close to Ryoma's left eye (where he had suffered an injury in a previous match). Yuuta refuses to do so, and decides to end the game fairly.
- Used during the Chuunin Exam in
*Naruto*. The written exam was designed to be very difficult (although some people could do it the old-fashioned way, such as Sakura), but the Instructors left hints that punishment for cheating would be rather lenient. Many discover that you're actually *expected* to cheat, as the exam is testing your intelligence gathering skills without getting caught.
-
*Speed Racer X*: Speed entered a race against an opponent who wanted to win fair and square but the Big Bad coerced him into trying to get rid of Speed.
-
*Daredevil*: Matt Murdock's father was told to throw a boxing match. He initially agreed to do so, only for his pride or self-respect to get the better of him, eventually winning anyway, which caused him to be killed by the Mob shortly afterwards.
- In
*JLA/Avengers*, two Cosmic Entities are gambling on whether the JLA or the Avengers can collect a set of MacGuffins first. While most of the teams pursue the artifacts, Captain America and Batman do some digging and figure out that it's actually to the advantage of both teams if the Justice League wins. In the brawl over the final MacGuffin, the Avengers almost win so Cap has to order his team to Throw The Fight. More specifically, he grabs the last MacGuffin and gives it to Batman, then orders the Avengers to stand down and let the League win.
- In one issue of
*Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew!*, gangster Fatcat orders high school athlete Chester to throw the Big Game. When he doesn't, Fatcat has his father murdered. ||Unfortunately for the gangster, Chester becomes the superhero Little Cheese as a side-effect, and together with the Zoo Crew brings Fatcat to justice.||
- In
*Diabolik*, the boxer Big Bolt was once ordered to throw a match by the mob. As it wouldn't affect his career and chances to fight for the world championship, Big Bolt agreed... Then on the ring he changed his mind right when he was supposed to go down and massacred his opponent. In his old age, Big Bolt admitted it had been a stupid idea, as the mobsters reacted by having his leg broken and ruining his career, but remained someone even his enemies would respect.
-
*The Karate Kid*:
-
*The Karate Kid (1984)*. The students at Cobra Kai Karate are basically the neighborhood tough guy/bullies. John Kreese's philosophy of Karate can be summed up as "No Mercy". Daniel LaRusso, the titular *Karate Kid*, learns a much more balanced philosophy of karate from Mr. Miyagi. When it looks like Daniel is going to take the All Valley Under 18 Karate Championship away from Johnny Lawrence, Kreese first tells Bobby Brown (who Daniel will fight in the semi-final round that decides who will compete against Johnny) to take him "out of commission", which Bobby does by wrecking Daniel's left knee. The kid adamantly doesn't want to do it and apologizes afterwards... and he is disqualified on the spot. In the final bout, Kreese tells Johnny to "sweep the leg," intimidating Johnny into going through with it. Naturally Daniel wins anyway.
- The Continuity Reboot version of
*The Karate Kid (2010)* was much more brutal about this, though. When Dre is taken down, the other kid holds his leg and does nothing but land elbow strikes repeatedly until the one spot is almost black with bruises. Unlike the example above, the kid doesn't directly apologize. Then the other instructor tells the next kid to break Dre's leg. Guess what happens.
- Appears twice in the first
*The Mighty Ducks* movie:
- Early on, Gordon Bombay trains the entire team to cheat, but Charlie Conway refuses to go along with it. This leads to a What the Hell, Hero? moment and the beginning of a mild HeelFace Turn (Bombay wasn't all that much of a heel to begin with).
- During the championship game, Coach Reilly orders McGill to take out Adam Banks, which he's only too happy to do.
-
*The Color of Money*, where Fast Eddie Felson tells Vincent to "dump" in one of his road matches, so as to prep him for a rich guy easy mark. Vincent, being the hothead egotist that he is (played by Tom Cruise), wins the match and loses the mark.
-
*Akeelah and the Bee* near the end of the movie at the national level, one of the the competitors gets yelled at by his father due to him nearing ageing out.
-
*The Princess Bride*. Vizzini orders Fezzik to kill The Man In Black with a boulder to the head while he's not looking; Fezzik, thinking it's unsportsmanlike, disobeys him and fights the Man In Black in a wrestling match instead.
-
*The Longest Yard:*
- The Warden orders guard captain Knauer, who, while cruel, still believes in fair play, to play dirty. Specifically, he wants the guards' team to get a three touchdown lead and just kick the inmates' asses for the entire rest of the game.
- The other version of this trope occurs too. The Warden, whose team of guards is losing to Paul Crewe's team of prisoners, tells Crewe to blow the game, threatening to frame him for the death of Caretaker and lock him up for life if he doesn't comply. At first Crewe goes along with it, but when the guard team keeps piling it on and he realizes he's hurting his friends, he starts to play for real again. His team wins, and the captain tells Crewe that he'll testify for him against the Warden in the case of Caretaker's death.
- In the first
*The Bad News Bears* movie, Buttermaker orders Rudy to lean in, get hit by the pitch, and "take one for the team". Rudy doesn't like it, but he does it.
- A similar sequence happens in the second
*Major League* movie, as Taylor puts in Dorn specifically because he knew this pitcher liked to bust him inside, so he had him step into one. Dorn does, then tries to stay in the game as a pinch runner is then brought in.
- In the 2008
*Speed Racer* movie, the rival racer is a little ticked to find out that his sponsor installed an illegal hook on his vehicle. He ends up using it against Speed anyway. Indeed the whole plot of the movie revolves around the big corporations strictly controlling the finishing order of the races; Speed himself refuses to sign that kind of deal partway through the movie, instead choosing to stay indie and try to beat the system.
- Butch (Bruce Willis) in
*Pulp Fiction* is a boxer that has to run for his life because his ass didn't go down in the fifth as ordered.
- Played with in
*Slumdog Millionaire.* The host of the show slips Jamal the answer to a question during a bathroom break after Jamal has used his fifty-fifty lifeline. Suspicious of the host's motives, Jamal chooses the other remaining answer, guessing that the host deliberately gave him the wrong answer. Turns out Jamal is right.
- The movie
*Diggstown* has this in spades, on both the heroes' and villain's sides each trying to outdo, outbribe, and outcon the other in the protagonist's series of ten fights with amateur boxers. Two brothers are bribed by the protagonists to take a dive, but the first one does such a poor job that the second one is forced to try to win, or his brother will die. Another boxer is forced to leave the arena before stepping into the ring, tricking the protagonists into assuming that he forfeited. Two ringers are brought in to fight, sneaking through the loophole that, as inmates in the local prison, they are legally "residents" of the area. However, the final ringer has actually been bribed the protagonists to blatantly take a dive.
- A non-sports example is the entire premise of the movie
*Quiz Show*, which is based on the quiz show scandals of the late '50s in which it was revealed that many of the biggest game shows of that time, including *21*, *Dotto*, and *The $64,000 Question*, were being rigged by the producers and sponsors. All the contestants willingly and enthusiastically went along with the cheating, both in real life and in the movie. (Especially in real life.)
- In
*Little Giants*, Spike is ordered by his dad to take out Junior, the Giants's star QB. He does so in a way that would've gotten him kicked out of Pee-Wee football in Real Life, but this only gets him a 15-yard penalty...and his dad a severe dressing-down by his head coach. Oh, and it spurred the Giants's *other* star player (who happened to be a girl) out of a 10-Minute Retirement to kick Cowboy butt.
- The second
*The Cheetah Girls* movie has this done by the Agent mother of one of the competitors. This includes having her daughter interact with Chuchi in order to split her off from the other girls, and even arranging for them to be paid at a performance in order to get them kicked out of the competition that they're in Barcelona for (which is only for amateurs; receiving payment makes them professionals). Her daughter ultimately calls her out on her behavior, saying that she doesn't want to win by cheating.
- Implied in a throwaway scene in
*Hot Shots!* Two characters are watching a boxing match and one comments to the other that both boxers work for the same promoter. The "fight" is over after one whiffed punch.
- In
*The Boys in Company C*, a group of US Marines are told that they can stay behind the lines, playing soccer (and presumably avoiding combat) if they *lose* to their South Vietnamese opponents, since this would help build public confidence in the South Vietnamese Army. After they deliberately give their opponents the lead, the other team starts taunting them. The Marines then proceed to kick their butts, and then line up to go back to their base, for reassignment in the field.
- In one
*The Three Stooges* short, the Stooges, as managers to a boxer, are ordered by the Mafia to have the boxer take a dive. The boxer refuses, and the Stooges have to concoct a Zany Scheme to sabotage his training. Slapstick Ensues.
- Central to the boxing subplot in
*Snatch.*. Turkish is under strict orders to make his boxer take the dive, which he passes on to Mickey... who is *terrible* at it. ||Because he has his own game in play that involves *not* diving.|| 'Orrible things ensue.
-
*Million Dollar Baby* has a rare sympathetic example of this. When it becomes clear that the referee is not going to disqualify Billie the Blue Bear for her repeated cheap shots, Frank tells Maggie to even the odds by going for Billie's sciatic nerve from an angle that the ref won't see. It seems to work. ||But then Billie gets an even dirtier hit in after the bell, knocking Maggie down onto her stool and breaking her neck.||
- In the first of Robin Hobb's
*The Soldier Son* books, the military academy to which the protagonist belongs has a policy of failing whole units based on their overall performance, rather than simply failing the individuals who perform poorly. One of the cadets therefore comes under considerable pressure to cheat in an exam for a subject he is known to be weak in. His resistance is resented by the cadets who believe that they'll be turned out of the academy if and when he fails.
- Inverted in
*Unseen Academicals*. Mr Hoggett would like nothing more than a fair game, but his team happens to be full of compulsive cheaters. He apologizes for his team's actions, and when the game is done he decks Andy Shank, the worst of the bunch.
- In the
*Young Bond* novel *SilverFin*, George Hellebore is ordered to cheat by his father to ensure that he wins the Hellebore Cup. He does so because he is terrified of disappointing his father.
- Reconstruction in
*X-Wing: Wraith Squadron*. Wedge Antilles "cheats" to win a race against his subordinate Falynn Sandskimmer note : He ramps his vehicle off a rock, skips off the top of hers, and gets ahead while she tries to regain control. They hadn't actually agreed on any rules of the race, Falynn just assumed it would only be a contest of speed and maneuvering., to teach her an object lesson about Space Fighter dogfighting.
- In the
*Babylon 5* episode "TKO", the boxer Walker Smith says that he was driven out of the sport because he refused to lose a fight when told to.
- Directly parodied during the Board Breaking Guy's Web Redemption on Tosh0. Bonus points for bringing back Martin Kove from
*The Karate Kid*.
- In one episode of
*Police Squad!*, Frank was going undercover as a boxing coach. The Villain of the Week kidnapped the wife of the man Frank was coaching to force him to throw the fight. Frank rescued the girl, inspiring the boxer to win the match.
- In one episode of
*Smart Guy*, TJ becomes the coach of his high school basketball team and becomes increasingly competitive and cruel. This culminates in ordering Marcus to injure an opposing player and act like it was an accident.
- In
*Porridge* old lag Fletcher is forced to tell his cellmate that the prison baron wants him to take a dive in the fifth round of the prison boxing championship. Godber says he can't do it; before proving he has become more prison-smart by revealing that's because he's already promised a rival gangster to go down in the third.
-
*Daredevil (2015)*: "Battlin' Jack" Murdock was paid by Roscoe Sweeney to throw boxing matches. He eventually got fed up with the dishonesty of it and won a match he was supposed to lose to Carl "The Crusher" Creel after making a bet on himself to leave his son Matt financially set, knowing the mob would kill him in retaliation.
- In an episode of
*Happy Days* Richie gets on a local TV game show and is given the answers to the upcoming questions by the MC. After some soul searching he decides not to look at the answers and loses.
- This was a virtual mirror image of Kristen Falke, a 16-year-old contestant on the original
*Tic-Tac-Dough*, who was fed answers to questions before airtime and felt her victory would be tainted so she threw the game. The entire Quiz Show Scandals incident was this in essence.
- In
*Cobra Kai*, Johnny Lawrence goes to great pains to subvert this trope: He instructs his Cobra Kai fighters to fight fairly in the tournament. ||Zig-zagged in that they are so used to the idea that there is no such thing as a fair fight that they cheat instinctively *anyway,* resulting in several injuries to opposing fighters. He is not happy with Hawk for deliberately injuring Robby Keene, or Miguel for targeting that injury. But his own sensei Kreese *definitely* is.||
-
*Law & Order*: In "Haven," the victim of the week was a community organizer who had been secretly bribing the professors of a local youth who had gotten into an Ivy League school but was in way over his head. The youth couldn't stomach the cheating and dishonesty anymore, but the organizer said his continued "success" was symbolically important and good for raising donations. They quarreled about it and the youth killed the organizer in a fit of anger.
- The
*Karate Kid* example is directly referenced in the No More Kings song "Sweep The Leg."
- In the
*Mahabharata*, Bhima is only able to win his climactic mace duel against Duryodhana by striking his opponent in the thigh (which the Pandavas's mentor Krishna advises him to do by repeatedly slapping his own thigh). Duryodhana calls the Pandavas out for this, since strikes below the belt are illegal. Older Than Feudalism.
- Interesting in that Krishna is an Avatar of Vishnu, one of the three most important gods in Hinduism. So basically, God ordered him (or gave him the idea to) to cheat.
- The reason why Bhima had to strike Duryodhana's thigh to win in the first place is because Duryodhana's mom gave the rest of his body Nigh-Invulnerability by staring at him unclothed (the thighs were still vulnerable because Duryodhana did not want his mom staring at his naked groin). So Duryodhana himself was sort of cheating as well, and Bhima's cheating was really the only way for him to win.
- In
*Hey Arnold!*, Arnold is told to lose a spelling bee by Helga's father, in exchange for a check for the prize money. That's because Helga's dad had said that if she doesn't win the spelling bee, he'd have a huge sale at his store. When it comes down to the final round, Helga's dad gets nervous and tries to bribe Arnold. Helga catches him doing it, and proceeds to lose on purpose to humiliate her father.
- Subverted in
*King of the Hill*, Season 12, *Suite Smells of Excess*. Hank was told to give misleading orders to a rival football team, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, so that his football team, the Texas Longhorns, would win. Hank was reluctant at first, but then went on with it when he remembered that it was to help Texas. ||The rival football team won anyways.||
- He also did it because his son, Bobby, started liking football and he wanted him to continue liking football. Plus, he already broke a lot of laws (buying tickets from a scalper and taking over a retired Nebraska football player's VIP suite) trying to get Bobby to like football so he had nothing to lose.
- Seen in the
*Simpsons* episode where Lisa is in a spelling bee. The organizer tells her to throw her word that could win her the bee (with the promise of a fully paid college education and a hot plate), because the governing body wants to use her adorably geeky rival in advertising. In a bout of defiance, she exposes the con, then proceeds to lose anyway.
- In the
*Rocket Power* movie "Race Across New Zealand", the protagonist's rival is told by his dad to cheat by taking a shortcut to the finish line during the last event (just like he did when he competed years ago). He does so and wins the event. However, he ends up confessing what he did immediately afterwards, causing his dad to snap at him and unintentionally confess in front of everyone that he cheated the same way years ago.
- In
*The Owl House* episode "Covention", Eda and Lilith cheat on Luz and Amity's behalf during their witch's duel; Eda against Luz's wishes, Lilith without even informing Amity. Amity (who prides herself on having earned her top student status through her own blood, sweat, and tears) is driven to a brief Heroic BSoD when she finds out what her mentor has done, terrified that she may have ruined her chances for joining the Emperor's Coven. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrderedToCheat |
Our Orcs Are Different - TV Tropes
*"Wesnoth Orcs are brown; a portrait showing them as green is inconsistent."*
—
*Artistic Guidelines for Contributing Artists*
from the open-source game
*Battle for Wesnoth*
Ever since Tolkien, the worlds of fantasy literature and video games have been overrun with tribes of ugly, bellicose humanoids, whose main purpose for existence is to serve as the Mooks of the Forces of Evil. Trolls, goblins and/or hobgoblins (and such) are usually also closely associated with them, or may just be different names for the same thing.
The word
*orc* comes from Old English and shares linguistic roots with *ogre*, borrowed from French. Both terms are related to the Latin word Orcus, the name of an Etruscan/Roman god of The Underworld which came to denote the place itself (like Greek *Hades*). Later, *Orcus* was glossed as a term for a demon or hell itself. Thus, the Old English word *orc*, as attested by medieval glossaries — as well as cognates in other languages like French *ogre*, Italian *orco* and Portuguese and Spanish *ogro* — denoted a kind of demon or monster. However, the only appearance of *orc* in surviving Old English literature comes from *Beowulf* in the form *orcnéas*, "demon-corpses", sometimes translated as "living dead" — ghouls, perhaps? *Orcnéas* are said to be evil creatures descended from Cain, together with *eotenas* (giants), *ylfe* (elves) and *gigantas* (giants, again, so *eotenas* is sometimes translated as ogres or trolls). note : Confusingly, a homonym of *orc* also exists in Old English with the meaning of "cup" or some other sort of "vessel", with the plural *orcas* appearing in *Beowulf*. This is also derived from Latin, but is completely unrelated to *Orcus* since it comes from *urceus*, much later *orca* — which itself has a homonym meaning "whale", hence killer whales are called orcas.
In modern fiction, Orcs come in two general flavors: the original model developed by J. R. R. Tolkien who borrowed the word from
*Beowulf* and used it for his version of goblins, and a revisionist model best exemplified (but far from invented) by Blizzard Entertainment's *Warcraft* series.
There are also orcs IN SPACE!!!
## Tolkienesque or "traditional" orcs:
- Are Always Chaotic Evil.
- Often have pig-like snouts or upturned noses that resemble pig snouts. (Sometimes taken one step further by actually giving them
*pig heads*, like in early editions of *Dungeons & Dragons*.) May have tusks. This is possibly drawn from the fact that "orc" is Welsh for "pig", and Welsh was the inspiration for Tolkien's Sindarin; alternately, it comes from the illustrators misunderstanding Gary Gygax who supposedly told them to make the orcs look "pig-headed"; or, simply, that "orc" rhymes with "pork". This look was popularized in Japan by RPGs like *Dragon Quest.* Often called "Porcs" on the internet.
- If they're not porcine as mentioned above, they'll have a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth due to their meat-heavy diet.
- Are usually carnivorous or hypercarnivorous, often cannibalistic. If not, they may instead be Extreme Omnivores.
- Are of varying colors; ranging from sallow to gray to red. Green is not unknown, though generally not the vibrant green of "Blizzard" orcs (
*Dungeons and Dragons* orcs are grayish-green).
- Are most likely to be Faceless Goons/Mooks.
- Are dumb, either using only primitive technology or with an affinity for industrialized production, lacking craftsmanship and having Creative Sterility.
- If these orcs use any magic at all, it would be Black Magic.
- Have little or no culture outside of raiding/war parties and worshiping gods of war or the local Evil Overlord.
- Usually have oppressive, patriarchal societies, with females being treated as property (if female orcs are even shown or mentioned).
- Are oftentimes made solely as artificial creatures rather than reproducing naturally (since Creating Life Is Bad), thus explaining the aforementioned lack of females and making the dehumanization and extermination of these creatures less morally questionable.
- Are of variable strength and size, but usually shorter than humans or elves but taller than dwarves.
- Are often hunched or stooped in build or posture with awkward musculature and proportions, and may lope like a great ape when running.
- May or may not have a British cockney accent (as popularized by
*Warhammer* and *Warhammer 40,000*).
- Are a Proud Warrior Race with an extensive honor system partially inspired by the Japanese, the Norse, or other "warrior" cultures. They've been referred to as "green Klingons" in the past.
- Have intelligence on par with humans and other races (though other races might not see it that way). Their technology and magic might even be on par with humans and elves, though their magic will be more shamanic than arcane, and their technology will be more "earthy".
- Are far more likely to have a more fully fleshed-out culture than Tolkienesque orcs. But unlike other races, they rarely have a direct real-world counterpart, but are instead a mishmash of various tribal cultures, although most can be summed up as a Proud Warrior Race.
- Have an animist and/or shamanistic religious structure.
- Are more likely to be omnivorous.
- Are more likely to have cities or settlements beyond war camps, although other races will likely still consider them barbaric and primitive.
- May appear rugged and violent to other races because historically they lived in dangerous environments that have very few resources available so they resort to a spartan way of life.
- Are more likely to have females portrayed, gender equality or even female leaders. Although sexual dimorphism
*does* exist, Orcish women are expected to fight to exactly the same degree as men, and usually also have the same degree of martial ability. More fearsome females may exemplify the Beast Man trope.
- Have bright green skin and are physically similar to (some) trolls from European folklore.
- Aren't necessarily repulsive. They can even be quite attractive, with the women shown as Amazonian beauties and the men burly and ruggedly handsome.
- Will have large tusks jutting out from their lower jaws, though if the orcs are portrayed as attractive, these will be reduced to inverted Cute Little Fangs (though female orcs tend to have small "cute" tusks even when the men's are still large and imposing). This is the one holdover from when orcs were more pig-like in appearance. Even if they have human noses, they'll
*always* have the tusks.
- Are larger than humans and nearly always stronger. An Orc will be probably about 6-8 feet tall, and much more stocky and robustly built. Limbs are close to a foot thick. Competitive Balance usually ensures that this does not make them superior to other races in battle: elves are still much more agile and attuned to nature or magic, dwarves have comparable strength, toughness and superior equipment, and humans have superior logistics, tactics, and coordination on the battlefield.
- May have incredibly thick muscle, broad chests and shoulders and somewhat elongated arms, but generally stand upright and appear undeniably humanoid.
- Are vastly more likely to be protagonists or at least supporting characters as opposed to rank-and-file Mooks.
Although the two interpretations differ significantly, they broadly share both a monstrous, primitive appearance and conflict with humanity and the other Standard Fantasy Races. The author's choice of which model to emulate usually depends on whose perspective the story is written from, the story's relative position on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, and whether or not the author intends to explore ramifications of killing sentient beings. In any case, expect humans to treat revisionist orcs as if they were Tolkienesque orcs, at least initially. Also both types are generally mooted to reach maturity faster and to have a lower life expectancy than even humans, though this isn't universal. Around half human lifespan seems to be common, with half-orcs bridging the difference. You average orc will be an adult at ten, in their prime at twenty, be middle aged at thirty, old at forty and venerable at fifty, in the unlikely event they live that long - orc lives tending to be dangerous, brutish and short.
In modern fiction, "orc" is sometimes spelled as "ork", both to make the orcs that much more different and for Xtreme Kool Letterz appeal. 'Orc' is usually the spelling in medieval fantasy, while 'ork' is the norm in modern or futuristic settings, as popularized by
*Warhammer 40,000*. The form "orke" appeared in early modern English during the Renaissance period, perhaps influenced by the French "ogre". Tolkien considered spelling it "ork" late in his life, but never got around to revising his published stuff for it.
Orcs typically share a close relationship with goblins, and indeed Tolkien originally used the words "orc" and "goblin" more or less interchangeably. Modern fantasy typically separates them into distinct species, with goblins usually being smaller and more lightly built. Orcs are also frequently associated with other monstrous humanoid races. See: Our Ogres Are Hungrier, All Trolls Are Different and Our Giants Are Bigger, as well as Standard Fantasy Races. The trope often overlaps with Pig Man, especially in Japanese media, though the pun on "pork" is linguistically coincidental. They are often the "adopting" parent when a child is Raised by Orcs. In many cases, Space Orcs will literally be fantasy orcs IN SPACE!, although it's somewhat more common for them to be an original species with a Tolkienian orcish personality added on.
## Examples:
-
*Delicious in Dungeon*: Orcs are tall, stout, and porcine (plus small horns and tusks), but are primarily Blizzard-style, respecting courage, living in communal villages, and despising cowardice. They have a wholly justified reputation as murderous raiders, but the humans and elves they target can't be called innocent, having historically committed their own fair share of atrocities against the orcs. They're actually pretty amiable around non-orcs who somehow get on their good side.
-
*Monster Musume* being a Japanese work, the orcs are Pig Men of human-level intelligence. Typical for the series, while the males closely resemble the "Boar-men" orcs of *Dragon Quest*, the females shown in spinoffs are attractive, curvy humanoids who are a Little Bit Beastly instead. The first orcs shown in the series are the first truly hostile liminals introduced; terrorists who take a comic book store hostage to make ridiculous demands for the publication of orc-centric pornography.
- In
*Interspecies Reviewers* Orcs are the ruling political party of the setting due to the fact that they apply their lifestyle of "Eat, Sleep and Fuck" to politics (a focus on agriculture, low taxes, public support for sex industry). Otherwise aside from looking like pig men and a high sex drive/stamina there's little separating them from other species. In one notable scene, a "Raid Party" consisting of 100 orcs saves the Reviewers from Out with a Bang.
-
*Dark Tower*: The Brigands, although bearing antlers and beaks, clearly serve the function of Tolkienian orcs.
-
*Magic: The Gathering*:
- Orcs had a presence in early sets, before growing out of focus due to goblins taking over the niche of small Red-aligned creatures, leaving little need to maintain orcs as a separate creature type. They made a reappearance in the
*Khans of Tarkir* expansion after being absent for about fifteen years. While early orcs were exclusively aligned with Red mana (the color of impulsivity, emotion, chaos and ferocity), modern orcs are split fairly evenly between Red and Black (the color of self-interest, ambition and amorality).
- Early orcs don't fit the Tolkensian archetype or the
*Warcraft* archetype very well. Rather, they are sort of "goblins, but bigger (and somehow even dumber)". Their primary distinguishing characteristics are their supreme cowardice and complete incompetence; early orc cards were printed with abilities that made it difficult or impossible to force them into any combat that would kill the orc, while others had ridiculous drawbacks for minor effects that made them a bigger liability to their controller than the opponent outside of overly complicated combos.
- The orcs of Dominaria were mainly found in the isolated island continent of Sarpadia, where they lived in tunnels within the continent's mountains alongside the local goblins. They warred extensively against Sarpadia's dwarven, elven and human nations — especially the humans — and alongside the thallids (fungi farmed by the elves as food sources that ended up developing sapience) and the thrulls (creatures bred as living sacrifices and meat shields by human necromancers) ended up destroying Sarpadia's nations. However, after the humans, dwarves and elves were gone, the thrulls' deep-seated paranoia led to them attacking the orcs and goblins once the other threats were gone, eventually wiping them out as well. Other orcish populations survived on other continents, such as the Ironclaw orcs of Aerona, but they're not particularly common or prominent. Physically, they chiefly resemble burly humans with green skin and pointed ears.
- Orcs on Tarkir are much closer to Blizzard's orcs, and tend to be portrayed as proud, aggressive brawlers and warriors. They tend to have heavy frames, greyish-tan skin, triangular ears and flattened, almost absent noses. They are often found as warriors in the Mardu hordes and the Abzan houses. In the reforged timeline they are found almost exclusively among the followers of the dragon Kolaghan, and like the rest of Kolaghan's clan are ferocious, warlike barbarians and often cannibalistic.
- Ixalan's orcs, found in the Brazen Coalition, are Blood Knights who have been known to
*raid their own ships* if they go too long without plunder. They have much more human-like proportions than the orcs of Tarkir.
- Orggs are a rare creature type created from the crossbreeding of orcs and ogres. They're characterized by their large and pointed ears, four arms and incredible stupidity.
-
*2000 AD*: In *Kingdom*, a race of grey-skinned dog-human hybrid warriors is officially designated "Aux". Given that their human creators had a love of Punny Names (individual Aux include Gary the Old Man and Val Kill-More), this may have been deliberate.
-
*Birthright* portrays orcs as one of the native races from Terrenos. Despite fitting the Tolkien mold as they are mostly servants of God-King Lore, the most prominent orc character in the narrative is Rook, who serves the Blizzard mold being an heroic warrior and the main protagonist's mentor.
-
*Black Moon Chronicles*: Similar to Warhammer orcs, with the same sense of tactics, only usually with more humanlike skintones and racial hatred of elves.
- The DCU: The Khunds are, in many ways, the setting's Klingons, so all the comparisons of Klingons to orcs apply equally well to the Khunds. They're a big, muscular, ugly Proud Warrior Race who have a strong code of honor but still generally act like imperialistic bullies who get into fights with the good guys.
-
*Drago Nero*: Gmor follows the Blizzard example, being a Boisterous Bruiser and Bash Brothers with the titular character.
-
*ORCS!* and its sequel *ORCS! THE CURSE* concerns a tribe of orcs who are fun loving and always eager for a dance party. They are also extremely fierce fighters in defence of their own, and their tribal witch is a very powerful magician. The characters are drawn in a rounded cartoonish style with a wide variety of body sizes, skin and eye colours, and clothing.
-
*Orc Stain* depicts a world populated by Warhammer-ish orcs who rely upon Organic Technology. They're an all-male species who reproduce by ejaculating mobile plant seeds that grow into vegetative wombs full of new orcs and who use coins made from sliced up, petrified pieces of orc penis as money.
- In
*Rat Queens*, most orcs are more Tolkienesque, though the only orc main character, Braga, left her people after she realized they would never accept her goals to reform their culture and end the constant bloodshed (||also her coming out as Transgender||). note : She's now a Destructive Savior Hero For Hire with the Rat Queens, so she's not a pacifist by any means.
-
*Bright*: Orcs live integrated with humans and other races in a modern-day Earth. Orcs are pretty normal people for all of their racial differences. They maintain some vestiges of being a Proud Warrior Race, with the idea of being "blooded" having a central role in their society. They have intelligence roughly on par with humans, though they're stereotyped as dumb. The main orc character, Jakoby, is frequently slow on the uptake, but much of this might just be a combination of "doesn't understand human verbal play" and "inexperienced cop who hesitates," and he's more thoughtful, serious and idealistic than his human partner. They are apparently larger, heavier, stronger and slower the humans on average, and Jakoby exhibits some extraordinary toughness. They are extremely clannish and generally discriminated against by other races, making them second-class citizens in the wider society — so no wonder they're big on their own clans/gangs.
-
*In the Name of the King* features the Krug, who are mindless humanoid monsters for the heroes to slaughter.
-
*The Lord of the Rings* and *The Hobbit* have orcs as sharp-toothed humanoid monsters ranging from the very impish-looking goblins of the Misty Mountains to the hulking and brutish Uruk-hai of Isengard. Those that do speak do so in low-class British accents, with screechy or grating voices. Fitting with the pro-nature theme of the series, orcs are focused on ruthless industry, shown tearing down trees and building crude, jagged weapons of war in service of their dark masters.
- One abandoned film treatment turned orcs into avian-like creatures with wings and beaks, causing Tolkien to comment that "Orcs is not a form of Auks." .
- The script by John Boorman also had orcs with avian features, and threw in some reptilian ones for good measure. They also apparently spend time not fighting in a form of suspended animation, likely forced on them by Sauron. Notably, they are
*not* serving Sauron of their own free will.
-
*Star Wars*: The Gamorreans, first appearing in *Return of the Jedi*, are brutish, strong, green, pig-snouted and tusked, matriarchal, violent brutes with low intelligence, often used as minions and low-level grunts by Hutt crime lords.
-
*Warcraft 2016*, being based on a game made by the Trope Codifier of Blizzard-style orcs, obviously has a multitude of examples of the latter type. There's a lot of women, and orcs have friendships, families, a Code of Honour and sacred traditions. The orc protagonist Durotan is treated as just as important as humans and questions and then opposes the actions and motivations of Gul'dan, the Sorcerous Overlord who commands the Horde.
- In
*NERO*, orcs are green and tusked. Half-Orcs generally look exactly like orcs but can be PCs. Whether they are of the Tolkienian or Blizzard variety seems to vary from tribe to tribe.
-
*Angel*: The demonic army at the end of "Not Fade Away" is meant to look like Tolkien Orcs. Indeed, there is an interview where Joss Whedon calls them "Orcs".
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*: The Turok-Han are basically Tolkenian Orcs crossed with vampires.
-
*The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power*: The orcs are pale and cover their entire bodies to shield themselves from sunlight, as they have been hiding literally underground for centuries. In the show, they are an Always Chaotic Evil corruption of elves.
-
*Star Trek*:
-
*The Wheel of Time (2021)*: The Trollocs look very much as they are described in the books, with a largely humanoid frame but also beastial features, often horns, plus hooves in some cases. However, as of season 1, they had no chance to show any free will beyond killer instinct and a fear of water.
-
*Clamavi de Profundis*: Orcs are present in the world of Hammerdeep, where they're a barbaric, warlike people whom other species fear and hate. They're almost invariably evil and destructive people, but it's implied that this is something instilled in them by a cruel upbringing rather than innate nature.
- In
*Dungeons And Dragon Wagon*, Orcs are called Orccans and were created from Swamp Mud by the goddess, Rasa. Though, they have green skin, are large, and have tusks, they may just return to mud if Rasa ever falls from power, as Suggested by Ugu-ta (Michele Specht) in Chapter 8.2.
-
*13th Age*: Orcs are the classic evil variant. They can't breed with humans in the standard setting (half-orcs arise spontaneously), and sometimes just spawn from the ground. Orcs can be green-skinned, big, pig-snouted, snake-eyed, bandy-legged, leather-faced or cinder-skinned, but only the orcs themselves care about the different varieties. They're also becoming steadily more united as the new Orc Lord rises to prominence.
-
*Age Of Ambition*: Orcs are one of the 5 subtypes of the Ogre race. Their main distinction being impulsive to a fault, and a mild healing factor that gives them an increased appetite. Unlike most other fantasy settings, they are mostly accepted in most civilized nations.
-
*Burning Wheel* Orcs are Tolkien style for the most part. The game plays up the brutal and vicious aspects of Orc society by giving orcs a 'hate' attribute. Orcs are more likely to be killed or maimed by another Orc than by their real enemies. Naturally, Orc campaigns mostly deal with power, treachery and deceit within a group of Orcs.
-
*The Chronicles of Aeres*: Orcs are what happens when goblins manage to live a particularly long time. They're still Made of Evil, but the prolonged lifespan allows them to grow larger and stronger and marginally smarter — and considering Aeres orcs are still Dumb Muscle, that says something for how dumb Aeres goblins are. They're rarely seen, and because lesser goblins obey them instinctively, they're commonly known as "Goblin Kings".
- In
*Chronopia* the Blackblood orcs are a mixed between Tolkien and Blizzard-style orcs with Mongolian themes. They also specialized in Alchemy.
-
*The Dark Eye*: Orks are smaller than humans, but stronger. They are covered in black fur (Blackpelts) and have tusks. Normaly nomadic, they have begun building cities in recent years. Due to a coming choosing of a race that will govern a new age, they could overpower humans. They believe in Brazoragh, the god of males, power and war, and Tairach, the god of death and magic. Brazoragh killed his father Tairach, becoming the new godly chieftan. The orkish culture is just like that, constant fighting for the highest place. The only reason they have begun buidling cities, instead of killing themselves and everybody else, is their new leader, the Aikar Brazoragh (Chosen of Brazoragh): as strong as a giant (meaning amongst the strongest creatures on the planet), more magical power than three archmages and, being the sole chosen of a god, having more clerical power than all human high priests together. He had to beat every single chieftan though until his people accepted him as leader.
-
*Deadlands*: Two of the three settings use orc-like characters.
-
*Dungeons & Dragons* was highly influential in making orcs a standard part of fantasy settings. The game's characterization of orcs varies widely based on the edition and campaign setting, (to say nothing of dungeon master interpretation). One of the monster guides gave a picture◊ showing the different interpretations of the monsters including a Tolkien-inspired orc.
- Early editions of the core game follow Tolkien model fairly closely. Orcs are violent humanoids who dwell underground and find sunlight uncomfortable. They are said to be highly competitive and good tacticians. Earlier editions had them as Lawful Evil, but later editions made them Chaotic Evil. Half-orcs are also a playable race, receiving extra strength but lower charisma. In the first edition, Orcs were drawn as piglike creatures despite the description not mentioning this. As many early and popular JRPGs, most notably
*Dragon Quest*, based their monsters off of first edition *D&D* illustrations, this helped popularized the "porc" look in Japan.
- Second Edition and subsequent editions are largely Tolkien model, but include hints of the Blizzard model. Orcs are violent, stupid creatures who typically serve as fodder for low-level heroes to slaughter. They have a shamanistic (albeit violent) culture, and a more troll-like appearance. They are typically drawn with green skin, though this can vary. 3rd Edition explicitly states that they have grey skin, though this is not borne out in most of the illustrations.
- The 3.5th Edition
*Races of Destiny* book also introduced the Sharakim as a sort of orcish subrace, gray-skinned, tusked, flat-nosed brutes who go beyond orcish ugliness by sporting a pair of curved horns on their temples. They're the descendents of early humans who were cursed by the gods for killing and eating a sacred silver stag. Sharakim are taught from birth that they were created from sin, and thus go out of their way to compensate by being fastidious about their dress and hygiene, and always friendly and well-mannered in their interactions with other races... except in the case of true orcs, which they utterly despise.
- Fifth Edition has given the orcs more character by focusing on their pantheon and increasing its importance, turning the race into borderline Religious Bruisers fighting to appease their savage gods. Gruumsh remains the orcs' primary war deity, but also important are Ilneval the strategist, the barbaric Bahgtru, the rotten Yurtus, and the dark and sinister Shargaas. These gods' followers all serve specific roles in a tribe, so Gruumsh's chosen act as leaders, Ilneval's followers as tacticians, and Bahgtru's as berserkers. Yurtus' priesthood operates on the fringes of orc society, only interacting with the rest to claim the bodies of the dead or to tend to plague-ridden orcs, while the followers of Shargaas only emerge from their unlit caverns to cull the weak members of a tribe or assassinate its foes. And while previous editions treated female orcs as mere chattel, in 5th Edition the importance of the orcish mother goddess Luthic has been increased so that her worshippers are the ones holding the tribe together, crafting their weapons and armor, constructing defenses and expanding their cave lairs, and viciously defending their homes and children from invaders. One archmage even believes that the divine war between the orcish and goblinoid pantheons will end with Luthic as the last deity standing, who will go on to rule over the orcs.
- One trait that has remained consistent throughout editions is the ability to successfully interbreed with other races. Known orc hybrid races include the Tel-amhothlan (half-orc/half-elf) from
*Kingdoms Of Kalamar*, the Dworg (half-orc/half-dwarf) from *Midnight (2003)*), the Losel (half-orc and half- *baboon*), the Orog (orc father/ogre mother, resulting in an orc with increased stature, vigor and intelligence), the Ogrillon (orc mother/ogre father, a violent, dimwitted brute whose skin is covered in bony armor), and Tanarukks (half-orc/half-demon). This trait has become somewhat less pronounced as time has gone by — Orogs were presented as a smarter subrace of orcs originating from the Underdark in the 3rd edition *Forgotten Realms*, whilst in 5th edition Orogs are the recipients of a divine blessing from the orc mother-goddess, Luthic.
- The
*Forgotten Realms* setting deviates from the above in that while the orcs can interbreed with most other races, and a significant number of orcs are actually half-breeds with humans, goblinoids, or giants, they *cannot* interbreed with elves. This is because Gruumsh explicitly forbids it due to his burning hatred toward the elves and their pantheon,
- For the most part, the
*Forgotten Realms* has followed the usual D&D variety straight, but it has been played with over time. *The Legend of Drizzt* series eventually saw the founding of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, a legitimately recognized orc kingdom founded by a Visionary Villain, Obould Many-Arrows. In 4th edition, the Many-Arrows kingdom had been enjoying a real peace with its formerly hostile neighbors for decades, implying orcs in at least that part of the world were finally climbing out of their Always Chaotic Evil niche... and then 5th edition came in and had Many-Arrows destroyed and orcs cast out again, with Salvatore's novels having traditionalist orcs denounce Many-Arrows' existence as an aberration in the natural order . Before Many-Arrows, there was Thesk, which wasn't a orc kingdom but as a result of a grand coalition involving a Zhentarim orcish mercenary army had a significant and mostly non-evil orcish minority from a while into 2E onward.
- The
*Forgotten Realms* are also home to the Ondonti, a rare group of pacifistic Lawful Good orcs who prefer to tend their farms and mind their own business. They're believed to be descendants of orcs who were saved by the clergy of a minor goddess of peace and agriculture who chose a third option to the traditional Orc Baby Dilemma.
- Orcs in
*Eberron* are somewhat "Blizzard orcs," but somewhat fulfill the role of elves in other settings (Eberron elves are a Proud Warrior Race). They have little actual conflict with the other races, are the best druids in the setting (despite a fullblooded orc getting a Wisdom penalty) and actually have a sort-of company that finds Dragonshards — crystals that are *essential* to create magic items. The shamanistic culture of the orcs of the Shadow Marches is responsible for keeping one type of Cosmic Horror from causing The End of the World as We Know It. However, there are also other orcish cultures — the Jhorash'tar orcs of the eastern mountains, separated from the Marches by hundreds of miles of land occupied by other cultures, don't have much in common with them and are closer to "Tolkien orcs" - although they're still generally portrayed as people whose long-running enmity with the dwarves of the Mror Holds is just an awkward result of two cultures in close proximity but without much in common, and not just generic enemies to stab for money.
- In the
*Spelljammer* setting, there's a villain race called the Scro, who are tougher than normal orcs, and are also more "civilised" (i.e. "usually *Lawful* Evil).
- The
*D&D* Adventure *Drums on Fire Mountain* introduced the kara-kara, a primitive race of green-skinned, island-dwelling orcs who possess a Polynesian-based culture (while still being brutal savages). Their primitive weaponry and garb are logical enough for humanoids living in such an environment, but they also have afros. The race has been swept under the table for years due to the Unfortunate Implications surrounding them.
- Hobgoblins in D&D sit at a juxtaposition between this and Our Goblins Are Different. They
*also* derive from the original Tolkienish model of the orc as a bestial humanoid dedicated to war and conquest, but more strongly take up the Hordes from the East aspect — the earliest hobgoblin artwork even depicts them wearing distinctly Japanese styled armor. The main difference in early versions of the game was that hobgoblins were more proactive and organized, whilst orcs tended to usually be busy fighting amongst themselves until somebody else took charge. From 3rd edition onward, the two races took a greater divergence; orcs became a Chaotic Evil Proud Warrior Race and hobgoblins became a Lawful Evil Proud Soldier Race.
-
*Eon*: Gûrds, Tiraks and Trukhs are the setting's stand-in for Orcs, (being roughly analogus to Goblins, Orcs and Ogres respectively, or even D&D's Goblins, Hobgoblins and Bugbears) and are further culturally differentiated from each other depending on which family lineage they belong to: Frakk and Bazirk, while adhering to a culture based on might-makes-right, are not evil, though they are often brutish and savage, with the former being a Barbarian Tribe of Proud Warrior Race Guys and the latter primarily being either pirates or merchants, traders and fishermen. The Marnakh family, on the other hand, have comepletely assimilated into human society and behaves like the culture they're part of. The Frakk and Bazirk families, while barbaric and brutal, are also among the forefront opposers to all things demonic.
-
*Fellowship*: Orcs are one of the playbooks available to players. All orcs are known for being tough, warlike, and industrious; Blood is their core stat, and they have the ability to break something and fashion it into a weapon, or break their weapon to pay a price for a move or to finish off an opponent in "glorious combat". Variants available include Spawn of Darkness (mushroom-people who are resistant to poison and disease), Daughters of Chaos (aggressively free-spirited warriors who can shrug off all attempts to influence, control, or scare them), Children of Fire (basically orc-like fire elementals), and Sons of War (fighters with a knack for making improvised weapons in the heat of battle).
-
*Fighting Fantasy*: Orcs generally adhere to the Tolkien model of orc, although they have a few notable differences. Fighting Fantasy orcs are known for being able to eat almost anything, including, wood, rocks, and metal, although they prefer fresh meat. They also stand out due to their violent team sports, such as a variation on volleyball where the players of the losing team are eaten by the winners, or a variation on rugby played with a live slave at the ball that has no restrictions on play, often turning into a bloodbath as a result. One notable exception is *Daggers of Darkness* (set in an area with a Mongol-like culture) in which Orcs appear to have near-human intelligence and mingle freely with humans; some are servants of the Big Bad, but there's also one illustration (opposite section # 346) which shows Orcs mixed in with the human warriors of one of the villages you visit.
-
*Flintloque*: Orcs are a civilized race like any other, and in fact the *main* race of the setting, since it's a barely disguised Naopoleonic wargame with the Orcish kingdom of Albion as the Fantasy Counterpart Culture of England.
-
*Hack Master*, as a Darker and Edgier Affectionate Parody of old-school *Dungeons & Dragons*, presents its orcs as a race of violent, vicious, filthsome humanoid swine who are incredibly physically mutable because they rely extensively on kidnapping women from other races and raping with them to produce biological half-orcs, which are considered true orcs in orc culture.
-
*Heroscape*: The local orcs are Tolkien style, but are bright blue. And they ride dinosaurs.
-
*Iron Kingdoms*: While the setting has no races actually *called* orcs, there are races that fit both the Tolkien and Blizzard models.
- Trollkin have many elements of Blizzard orcs, being large, physically powerful creatures with a sophisticated tribal culture, a shamanistic religion, and history of being screwed over by other, more advanced cultures. They're significantly more Scottish than most orcs (or trolls, for that matter), though.
- Ogrun, although their name suggests ogres, also are pretty much Blizzard orcs. They're a proud people, but have no real enmity with the other races of Immoren, although a corrupt and evil subrace called Black Ogrun are allied with The Necrocracy of Cryx — they effectively sit somewhere between the Tolkien and Blizzard models. In a particularly unusual twist, in contrast to the standard dwarf/orc enmity, ogrun often
*serve* dwarves as loyal servants, as their feudalistic culture relies heavily on a distinct chain of hierarchy and dwarves make excellent masters in their eyes.
- The skorne, meanwhile, are heavily based on Tolkien orcs, with elements of the Easterlings. Appearance-wise, they have the upturned noses, and human-like build of Tolkien orcs, and their culture is abhorrent to the other peoples of Immoren: They make extensive use of slavery, Blood Magic and torture, to the point of having a dedicated torturer caste, and one of their models in
*HORDES* is a baby elephant-like creature tortured into insanity so the skorne could weaponise its screams. They also take on the role of Hordes from the East. *D&D* players will probably identify the skorne more with hobgoblins, although their cultural basis in pain-fueled Blood Magic is very distinctly different.
- In
*Kings of War*, Orcs are typical evil barbaric green skinned savages. They're almost the same as the Orcs of *Warhammer Fantasy*.
-
*Legend System*: Hallow Orcs were originally the shock troops of chaos gods, kept stupid and unquestioning to serve their gods' purposes. Once introduced to Hallow, they were freed from their mental shackles and started their own (still militaristic) society, becoming Hallow's most prominent mercenaries. In other words: Blizzard orcs who were forced to act like Tolkien orcs for most of their history.
-
*Ork* has all player characters be Orks. In this game, the Orks are boar-faced, green and furred humanoids that usually go naked aside from armor they scrounge off of killed opponents (or each other). They live in tribes ruled by a Shaman and have strange biology — for instance, baby orcs burst out from growths on an Ork's body in a process known as "The Urg!". They are also mostly omnivores, but they explode if they eat broccoli. Only their shaman is allowed to be smart and magical. As in; "If I catch you doing card tricks or not talking like you got hit with a shovel as a baby I will straight-out murder your ass." Orks aren't given a name when born, but have to earn it. Finally, they worship the local God of Evil, a deity that alternatingly grants them victory and punishes them for metely existing.
- RPG creator John Wick created a small-press RPG titled
*Ork World* in direct rejection of traditional tropes about orcs. The orcs of the RPG are a peaceful, tribal society who are slowly being hunted to extinction by imperialistic humans and elves.
-
*Pathfinder*:
- Orcs seem to
*look* more like the Blizzard variety. However, to say that they act like the Tolkien variety would be to vastly underestimate their sheer batshittery.
- They have varying appearances, with different bloodlines with more or less human blood. Because of this, they vary between Beast Man and Green-Skinned Space Babe, depending on the individual. Even the sourcebooks on them and their homeland of Belkzen pretty much portray them as irredeemable savages.
- They served Tar-Baphon, the setting's main Evil Overlord, and filled the ranks of his living armies the first and second time he tried to conquer the world. During his third rise during the cross from 1st to 2nd edition, though, the orcs refused to rally to his banner again and remained an independent force, and now find themselves in the delicate position of being stuck between several human factions that hate them for having spent millennia raiding their lands and Tar-Baphon himself.
- Half-orcs don't look quite as monstrous and do not have penalties to their Intelligence or Charisma.
- Hobgoblins, as in 3E canon, are the Lawful Evil Proud Soldier Race to the orcs being a Chaotic Evil Proud Warrior Race. They were an attempt to engineer a Living Weapon against the elves from goblin base stock, though. As a result, elves and hobgoblins profoundly hate each other even in the modern day.
-
*RuneQuest* has the Tusk Riders, who are pretty much traditional orcs, down to riding boars and having a culture of evil that really loves to torture. What makes them different, is that they were a one-time experiment made from crossbreeding trolls and humans. Unlike orcs of any other variety, they aren't prolific — in the bestiary, it says there's only at most 10,000 Tusk Riders in the world.
-
*Shadowrun*: Orks are one of the four main metahuman types that emerged from humanity during the Awakening. Much like trolls, they mostly arose when humans spontaneously transformed into new forms as magic surged back into the world. They tend to be more belligerent than and not quite as bright as humans, but not to the same degree as Tolkienian orcs; more to the degree of the redneck shit-kicker one might meet in their local bar. Being descended from humans, they show the full human range of pink-to-brown skin tones rather than the green skin typical of fantasy orcs. They do, however, retain *D&D* features such as tusks.
- Orks have developed their own culture and language which seems to draw many parallels with African-American and Hispanic "Gangsta" cultures. There are such things as non-orks embracing ork culture and becoming ork posers. Lacking the prettiness of the elves, the non-threatening appearance of the dwarves, or the sheer scariness of the trolls to keep people off their back, and the fact that they reproduce abundantly (twins and triplets amongst orks being the norm, not the exception) ensures that the orks get the worst of the Fantastic Racism, as they are often seen as threatening to take over Humanity's place due to their expanding numbers. They tend to get along with Trolls better than the other metatypes do, as the two find common cause in the discrimination both habitually face.
- Orks also tend to be one of the shortest-lived metatypes, with an average lifespan around 40 (for natural-born orks, that is; orks who Goblinized from baseline human have a longer lifespan). However, this is noted to be a combination of lifestyle factors (see the racism above) and orks' dependency on purer background mana; ork lifespan estimates are taken from orks in crowded, violent, polluted urban environments, whereas orks that live in more "pure" environments (e.g., the wildlands of Nigeria) tend to live much longer.
- As with the other metatypes, a number of distinctive variants have emerged from ork stock as a result of genetic variance and secondary awakening events. These are hobgoblins, wirier Middle Eastern orks distinguished by greenish skin and a strong sense of personal honor; ogres, shorter and heavily built European orks with reduced body hair; oni, magically adept Japanese orks with blue, red or orange skin; and satyrs, Mediterranean orks with slighter builds, furry legs, cloven hooves and goatlike horns
-
*Talislanta's* Kang are Blizzard style, but are bright red. And much like Heroscape's orcs, they ride dinosaurs.
-
*Tenra Bansho Zero* depicts Oni as Blizzard orcs in contrast to their usual Always Chaotic Evil portrayal, being a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of the Ainu who are hunted by humans because their crystalline hearts can be used to power Magitek. Oni also look enough like humans that they can pass as human by cutting off their horns, though this causes them to lose their racial Psychic Powers.
-
*Traveller*: The closest thing to space orcs is the Ithklur. These are a reptilian Proud Warrior Race that serves in a Gurkha-like role to the Hivers. They have an innate love of combat in their psychology, but are not evil per se. Rather their hat is as a Boisterous Bruiser race.
-
*Victoriana RPG*: Orcs are one of the Human Subspecies of the setting, subject to Fantastic Racism from the others, being ostracized and pushed to the outskirts of civilization. They have a strong sense of spirituality and a knack for mechanics.
-
*Warhammer*: The Orcs occupy a strange space between the Tolkien and Blizzard models, as they're warlike enough to serve as The Usual Adversaries but have more character than most orcs. Physically they are larger, stronger, and tougher than humans, with skin tones ranging from bright green to nearly black in the case of the brutally-disciplined Black Orcs. There are no female orcs; instead, the species reproduces by shedding spores. Their "kultur" revolves entirely around fighting, so much so that the army has the "Animosity" special rule, meaning that most Greenskin units have a chance to ignore orders and squabble amongst themselves while the boss cracks some heads to impose order, shoot at a rival making funny faces at them, or break formation and charge the enemy with an almighty "WAAAGH!" Their Shamans worship Gork and Mork, one of whom is "cunningly brutal" (he hits you when you aren't looking) and the other "brutally cunning" (he hits you *really* hard even if you are looking). They're also cannibalistic, and will gladly eat both their enemies and weaker members of their own kind. Orcs make poor minions, but a Greenskin army can be made up of a mixture of Orcs and Goblins, as well as Trolls and Giants. Finally, they have thick Cockney accents written phonetically in flavor text. There are also a number of distinct kinds of Orcs in-universe:
- Savage Orcs live primarily in the depths of the Badlands and in the Southlands. They are primitive even by the standards of other Orcs, and only craft and use weapons made from bone, stone and wood. They are also extremely superstitious and have the largest number of shamans of any Orc kind, and wear no armor — they instead rely on magical warpaint for protection.
- Black Orcs were created by the Chaos Dwarfs are slave soldiers, but rebelled and broke free. They are larger, stronger, more intelligent and more disciplined than other Orcs — while most Orcs make do with patchwork armor and ramshackle weapons, fight in disorganized mobs, have a very limited grasp of tactics or self-control, and fight constantly among each other, Black Orcs are clad head to toe in thick plate, use high-quality and scrupulously maintained weaponry, fight in organized and well-drilled ranks, and are extremely disciplined in battle. Luckily for other peoples, Black Orcs are too few to form their own tribes and instead tend to be the leaders or elites of tribes of other Orcs. They have no shamans of any kind among their ranks.
- Old editions include Half-Orcs, which rather than being actual crossbreeds are the result of humans growing more orc-like and Orcs more human-like until a sort of in-between point is reached, something speculated to be due to evil magic blending the traits of the two races in the distant past. There is also mention that Orcs and Goblins have interbred in the past to create multiple Orc variants, including the "Pig-Faced Orcs" that were numerous in the past but have since declined
note : a reference to how older editions of *Dungeons & Dragons* depict orcs with porcine heads, but newer ones drop this trait.
- The Beastmen are arguably closer to Tolkien Orcs than the actual Orcs of the franchise. They're an Always Chaotic Evil race of mutants born from humans corrupted by the dark magic of Chaos, usually brown or red skinned and physically identifiable by their animal-like traits like hooved feet, horns, and fangs; size is variable, but averages around "broad human." They are omnivores but particularly prefer human flesh, and organize in simple, primitive, hyper-violent societies with a great deal of intraspecies Fantastic Racism, with the larger and more mutated Beastmen treating the weaker ones as slaves. Their "culture" is entirely based around the Black Magic of the shamans, raiding, and reverence for the Chaos Gods, and while they can reproduce among themselves they also depend on infecting (or raping) human women to replenish their numbers. They are incapable of building true civilization and actively detest any kind of technology beyond the bare minimum of needed to equip their Iron Age war bands. Functionally they're total Cannon Fodder for the hordes of Chaos, and considered inferior to humans in every relevant way, even by the gods they worship, but their sheer numbers make them threatening to the protagonists regardless. Also in keeping with the Tolkien inspiration, the Wood Elves consider them their Arch-Enemy.
-
*Warhammer 40,000* uses Orks, which are Orcs from Warhammer IN SPACE with Funetik Aksents and Xtreme Kool Letterz. *40K* is such a Crapsack World that, due to their straightforward attitudes, hooligan-style Funetik Aksents, and Insane Troll Logic, these bloodthirsty, amoral monsters are the *comic relief*. Although they are Tolken style, 40k Orks can be considered to be the prototype of the Revisionist Orcs and among the very first non Chaotic Evil Orcs albeit a violent Blue-and-Orange Morality brand Chaotic Neutral.
- The Orks were genetically engineered by the Old Ones to be living weapons during a desperate war against star-eating void entities, and are as such genetically hardwired to want nothing more than to be fighting. Any Ork that's not participating in a Waaagh! against aliens is probably participating in some intra-ork civil war. They also have Oddboyz, Orks born with the unconscious Genetic Memory and special powers that let them play specialized roles in the hordes — Mekboys have an instinctive knowledge of technology, Painboys are natural (if brutal) doctors, and Wierdboyz are powerful but unstable psychics. All Orks generate a gestalt psychic field that bolsters their morale in battle, can be channeled by Weirdboyz to dramatic effect, and even allows some of the Meks' stranger devices to function because the Orks expect them to.
- Orks are extremely durable and persistent, and able to survive things like partial dismemberment, most diseases, and having large chunks of their skulls shot off. Because they reproduce by shedding spores, especially upon death, Ork infestations are hard to eliminate once they have set foot on a planet. They're also technically the most raucous part of a complex invasive ecosystem — their spores first sprout into several varieties of mushrooms later creatures eat or cultivate for various purposes; then produce a variety of fungus/animal hybrids known as Squigs, which Orks use as Attack Animals, beasts of burden, livestock and pets; Grots emerge next, and establish the basic structure of Orkish society; Orks emerge last, once the rest of the ecosystem and necessary infrastructure has been worked out, and get started on the business of finding things to fight.
- In
*Wicked Fantasy*, a third-party setting for Pathfinder, orks *were* the standard Always Chaotic Evil raider race... until they decided that they hated it and murdered their malevolent creator-gods to try and forge their own path. Now, they've made a tentative peace with humanity. They're still war-like and rather creepy, with their religious philosophy about the value of pain, but they're not *evil* all the time anymore. ||Also, they weren't created by evil gods, but by a malevolent race of amoral scholarly Snake People called the Hassad.||
-
*Zweihänder*: The Orx are exactly the Orcs from *Warhammer Fantasy Battle* with something more for the an extra helping of Grimdark. Orx can spawn from spores but they can also breed sexually. As in the case of the other mutant races, female Orx are rare but Orx can mate with almost anything. So Orx will make a captive female into a Sex Slave when they go Rape, Pillage, and Burn.
- Orcs in
*Allods Online* and *Evil Islands* are gray-skinned Blizzard-types (and dimorphic as hell). The otherwise unthinkable "Orc Paladin" also exists in-game.
-
*Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura* mix Tolkien and Blizzard Orc traits. While Orcs are primarily Tolkienian outside of cities, serving as Random Encounters (unless you play as a half-orc; then they'll just apologize for bothering you) or being seen in bandit gangs on the outskirts of towns, in industrialized cities they appear as a unjustly oppressed underclass working poorly paid jobs in factories. One Sidequest centers around this, as a group of workers are in a standoff with the police when they take control of a factory to demand better rights. How things work out in the end depends on how you handle the situation.
-
*Battle for Wesnoth*: In most campaigns, orcs are the Tolkien type. They are mostly portrayed as pretty much Evil, but sometimes they have motives beyond that as well. Some orcs are also allied to the (generally) good Knalgans. Appearance wise they have simian characteristics and brown or grey skin. Their massive numbers are explained by orcs being born in large litters, the runts being called goblins. Strangely, the average orc soldiers seem to have better armor and weapons then the regular human soldiers. Due to Wesnoth's decentralized development structure, the portrayal of Orcs and Trolls suffers from a touch of Depending on the Writer.
-
*Blackthorne*, an early game by Blizzard, features the grag'ohr, green skinned humanoids who closely resemble the orc grunts of Warcraft, being burly and fanged humanoids, usually with greenskin and horned helmets. In this setting, Grag'ohr were once humans who fell under a curse. They are one of the main enemies in the game and use automatic rifles. Blizzard even calls them orcs in later material for Blackthorne.
-
*Dragon Age*:
- The Darkspawn are twisted corruptions of the races of the world with poisonous, tainted blood who live underground in perpetual war with the Dwarves. They are normally fairly mindless Always Chaotic Evil but are capable of forging and using metal weapons and armor and intelligent enough to kidnap others to propagate their species. They are drawn by the call of Archdemons, constantly digging to find them and when they do, it leads them on an organized warpath to conquer the surface, known as a Blight.
- The Qunari fit into the Blizzard Orc archetype. They're large horned humanoids stereotyped as violent conquerors by humans, are technologically advanced compared to every other race in the setting, and have a distinctly alien culture.
-
*Dragon Quest*: Orcs are often found as random encounters and default to the Tolkienian model, being humanoid boars with spears. Interestingly, they (and their variations) tend to be rather powerful, usually being encountered mid- to late-game.
- In
*Dungeon Crawl*, no official description of orcs is given beyond "[they] combine the worst features of humans, pigs, and several other creatures." Cave orcs (mooks) err towards the Tolkien model; they're Always Chaotic Evil, worship the proud but ruthless (and canonically evil) god Beogh (who refuses to accept non-orc worshipers). Hill orcs (playable) are a bit more Blizzard-like; they can play as any class, though their priests follow Beogh instead of Zin. Those who do serve Beogh can attempt to become the Dark Messiah of the orcs.
-
*Dungeon Keeper*: The orcs are this In Name Only. Long white hair, purple skin and wrinkles all over make them look more like trolls. In fact, the trolls in the game look more like orcs than the orcs themselves.
-
*Dungeon Maker II: The Hidden War*: The orcs are neither Tolkienian nor Blizzard variety. They're actually humanoid boars with a love of spears. They also like to hang out in kitchens, since in orc culture using metal cookware is considered a sign of sophistication.
-
*Dwarf Fortress* has creatures that serve as orcs in all but name. Like much of the game's weirder creatures, they're procedurally generated and vary wildly from generated world to generated world. Necromancers can experiment on sapient creatures to create entities with names like "night's warriors" or "Tooltwist's eyes" note : Tooltwist being the name of the necromancer that created them that basically fill the "orc" role. They're the big, powerful minions of dark magic wielding villains who hole up in towers. They're not, however, Always Chaotic Evil, and can escape to join other civilizations; if able to reproduce (some have No Biological Sex), they can even produce independent populations.
-
*Elden Ring* Demi-Humans are the closest equivalent to classical orcs, being a race of sapient but savage humanoid creatures that tend to form tribes of bandits and murderers and have a Might Makes Right mentality; Boc, the only positive Demi-Human encountered, was cast out of his tribe for being well-spoken, weak and wanting to be a seamster instead of a fighter. They come in four forms: low-ranking demi-humans that resemble more humanoid pale-furred chimpanzees, 'brutes' that are more classically orc-like, Chiefs that are bigger and more lupine in appearance, and finally Queens, gigantic lupine matriarchs of their tribes.
-
*The Elder Scrolls*:
- Within the
*TES* universe, the Orcs are another race of Mer (Elves), known as the "Orsimer" or "Pariah Elves/Folk," and to say that they have undergone Characterization Marches On is an understatement. As with most of the races of Mer, their split with the Mer Precursor "Aldmer" was over religious differences, though in the case of the Orcs, it was not voluntary. They were originally the worshipers of the Aldmeri spirit Trinimac, but Trinimac was "eaten" by the Daedric Prince Boethia and later excreted. Trinimac's remains became the Daedric Prince Malacath, while his Aldmeri followers, who continued to worship him as their central diety, were transformed into the Orcs. The Orcs possess strong, muscular builds and green skin. They are known for their ferocity and courage in battle, as well as their skill as armorers and smiths (especially with the rare metal Orichalcum), making them some of the finest heavy infantry on all of Nirn. They are a Proud Warrior Race who believes that Asskicking Leads to Leadership, which leads to their chieftains gaining that position via Klingon Promotion. They exhibit a number of other Blood Knight and Death Seeker traits as well, having a Martyrdom Culture. They've long been victims of Fantastic Racism due to their bestial appearance and perceived barbaric culture, and have been Fighting for a Homeland (or fighting to *keep* their homeland) for ages. Details per game:
- In
*Arena*, the Orcs are an Always Chaotic Evil enemy race. Essentially, flat out Tolkein Orcs.
- In
*Daggerfall*, the Orcs begin to receive some greater characterization. In fact, they are Blizzard Orcs before Blizzard invented Blizzard Orcs. One of the game's possible endings is to hand over the MacGuffin to the Orcish leader, which allows him to establish the first Orcish state in Tamriel.
- In
*Morrowind*, the Orcs are Promoted to Playable. Rather than just being dumb/barbaric, it is shown that the Orcs have been severely marginalized for ages. Emperor Uriel Septim VII began to use the Orcs as elite heavy infantry in the Imperial Legions, which gained them greater acceptance throughout the Empire.
-
*Oblivion* features a lampshade when you talk to one of the Orcs at Malacath's Daedric shrines. He says something like: "People think we're evil. Do I look evil?" There is also Dark Brotherhood member, Gogron Gro-Bolmog, who takes an unsubtle approach to his contracts but "has his heart in the right place".
- By
*Skyrim*, the Orcs have been driven back into a diaspora in the years since the end of the Septim dynasty. They now have tribal strongholds dotting Tamriel, worship Malacath and raid as bandits, although many are still Imperialized as smiths or soldiers for the Empire. (One Orc even implies that this is the norm for those that leave their stronghold.) There are couple others that stand out, like several Orc bards note : A quest for the Dark Brotherhood involves killing an Orcish bard because of his terrible singing, though this doesn't seem to apply to all Orcish bards. and even one of the faculty at the College in Winterhold known for its strong, but small population of mages. He's the archivist/librarian, to boot, and gladly threatens to sic Atronachs on you if you mistreat his books, but still.
- Falmer in
*Skyrim* stand in for Tolkienian Orcs, or more specifically Moria Goblins, both in appearance and in backstory (they used to be a race of Mer called "Snow Elves", but were enslaved and blinded by the Dwemer). ||With one (technically two) exception.|| They also overlap significantly with The Morlocks.
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*Endless Legend* has Orcs in the form of the minor race, the Urnas. Visually they are Blizzardian, with tusks, green skin, and a bodybuilder physique. They are belligerent by default — like all minor races — but can pacified and absorbed into an another empire. They are excellent archers and are hardy, being unaffected by the movement penalty caused by the brutal winters that are destroying the planet.
- In
*The Fairyland Story*, orcs are basic cutlass-wielding Mooks with pointed ears sticking out of their helmets. Like all characters in the game, they're cute and Super-Deformed.
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*Fallout* has the Super Mutants. They're big, they're green, a few of them eat humans, and all of them can kick ass. Regardless of whether they're portrayed sympathetically or not, they're usually portrayed as more aggressive and warlike than other in-game factions (as they indeed are created to serve as Super Soldiers in Pre-War times) and are rarely very bright. They all start out as humans, becoming Super Mutants after being exposed to the Forced Evolutionary Virus, a mutagen that turns their skin green, massively increases their muscle mass, eliminates their secondary sexual characteristics, drops their IQ a notch or three (though some strains have a small but non-zero chance to instead *increase* intelligence) and, as an unintended side-effect, turns them sterile as mules.
- They come in two broad groupings, differentiated by what specific strain of mutagen was used to make them and by where that strain originated from: East Coast Super Mutants are almost always vicious Tolkien-esque monsters, while West Coast Super Mutants are more likely to be Blizzard style.
- The art book for
*Fallout 3* puts even more emphasis on the Tolkien part as well as the "ogre" aspect as they are shown to make their own cobbled-together armor and guns, as well as forge melee weapons such as axes, swords, maces, and flails/meteor hammers.
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*Final Fantasy*:
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*Final Fantasy XI*: Orcs are one of the more consistently evil beastmen in the game. According to a guide that was only ever released in Japan, martial ability is so prized that orcish mages hide their faces in shame. Like Tolkien's original orcs, they have good technological ability. Physically, XI's Orcs are green skinned Lizard Folk.
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*Final Fantasy XIV* replaces the previous MMO's orcs with the Amalj'aa. Most Amalj'aa are Tolkienesque, in that they are constantly raiding civilized settlements and merchant caravans in service to their deity, the primal Ifrit. As the story progresses, though, the Warrior of Light can ally with the Brotherhood of Ash, a tribe of Amalj'aa who adhere much more to the Blizzard model, being Proud Warrior Race Guys who oppose the worshippers of Ifrit because their culture dictates that honor is found in battle against strong warriors, not by victimizing the weak.
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*Golden Sun*: There's an Orc monster resembling a shirtless pig-headed man with a sword that lives in the desert.
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*Gothic*: Orcs are intelligent, nomadic members of a Proud Warrior Race. They attack Myrtana (the land of the Humans) to capture slaves and perform archeological excavations on the sites that bear religious importance to Orc Shamans. Also, unlike many other games, they aren't low-level mooks — they're among some of the more powerful enemies in the game.
-
*Halo*:
- The Brutes are orcs in everything but name. They're big, bulky, and
*very* strong, to the point where the Hunters are the only known contemporary species capable of physically overpowering them. They even resemble several different Earth beasts (mostly gorillas), complete with fur and tusks. As their name implies, they are very brutal, to the point where they commonly eat other sapient races (they openly discuss eating an Elite in one of the first cutscenes of *Halo 2*). In the bonus material, it's revealed that they managed to make their way into space only to nuke themselves into the stone age, and had just rediscovered radio and rocketry when the Covenant found them, without having learned anything from their past mistakes. In fact, they are the most directly violent of the races of the Covenant; the Elites have honor, the Prophets are power-hungry, the Grunts are enslaved, the Hunters and Drones are enigmatic, the Engineers are neutral, and the Jackals are Hired Guns, but the Brutes seem to just like killing people. All that said, a lot of Expanded Universe media have shown that they're *not* Always Chaotic Evil, with a number of individual Brutes even being somewhat sympathetic.
- Also, the weapon designs of the Brutes are orc-like. The rest of the Covenant use sleek and curvy guns of fantastical design that shoot plasma and other energy projectiles. The Brute weapons however, are angular, awkward-looking, and all shoot metal projectiles (except for their version of the plasma rifle, which is just the same, except painted red and a little more rapid-firing). Also, they have bayonets on all their guns (and even their
*hammers*), except for the aforementioned plasma rifle which they hardly ever use. Their vehicles also differ from the standard Covenent designs, and follow their own angular and primitive design (in fact, one of them is repurposed farm equipment), and they have names like "Prowler" and "Chopper", compared to those of standard Covenant craft like "Ghost" and "Shadow".
- It should also be noted that due to the relative recency of their induction into the Covenant, the Brutes had a traditionally less restrictive attitude towards modifying technology than the other Covenant races, though most of that advantage has been lost thanks to ||the Great Schism forcing the other former Covenant species to quickly rediscover their old technological creativity||. Still, between that and their status as primates, the Brutes are one of the more humanlike aliens in the Haloverse.
- The Grunts serve as orc-esque equivalents as well, particularly before the introduction of the Brutes. While the Brutes embody the savagery, strength and ferocity of orcs, the Grunts are reminiscent of lesser orcs and goblins. They make up the brunt of Covenant infantry as swarms of cannon fodder, are diminutive, slow-witted and cowardly, but tenacious in groups. Some can even be found
*sleeping* at their posts if Master Chief sneaks into an area unseen.
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*Heroes of Might and Magic* games usually featured orcs as part of Stronghold faction.
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*Heroes of Might and Magic 1* and *2* featured orcs as Barbarian troops. These orcs were orange-skinned and porcine, and attacked with crossbows.
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*Heroes of Might and Magic 3* featured orcs primarily as Stronghold troops. These were greenskinned and attacked with throwing axes. The game also featured orcs who rode on wild boars and wielded maces as a neutral troop.
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*Heroes of Might and Magic 4* featured orcs as part of the Chaos (Asylum Town) faction, with their design especially boar-like and first orcish heroes being mostly *sorcerers*.
- The second expansion of
*Heroes of Might and Magic 5,* *Tribes of the East*, introduced them as a whole new faction. Apart from having brown skin (or sometimes spreckled with red, and having horns) and being created a la Tolkien by the Wizards as slave warriors to fight the demons (by injecting demon blood into human criminals), they are very close to their Warcraft counterparts in almost any conceivable way.
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*HEX*: In *Hex: Shards of Fate*, the orcs are actually members of the Ardent faction alongside humans, elves and coyotle. They have a Mayincatec-styled Religious Bruiser culture that favors an aggressive playstyle in-game.
- The Orcs from
*Kingdom of Loathing* are primarily Frat boys. They're a parody of frat boy stereotypes, but the stereotypes (being big, muscular, unpleasant and thuggish in personality, lack of culture aside from breaking other people's stuff) make them pretty close to the Tolkienian version. A second group of orcs called the smut orcs were introduced several years into the game. Their culture seems to be designed around building things out of materials with awful double-entendre names (e.g. "raging hardwood plank" and "thick black caulk").
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*King's Quest: Mask of Eternity* has shaggy, blue-skinned ice orcs in the Frozen Reaches.
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*Knight Orc* is an extremely snarky Interactive Fiction game where you play a genuine Tolkien Orc. Solving the puzzles and defeating opponents requires you to think like a cruel, underhanded cheating bastard, since in a fair fight you are a weak, sword-fodder mook. A third of the way through the game, a malfunction reveals that you're actually a robot orc in a futuristic virtual-reality MMORPG, and the objective becomes breaking the game to escape.
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*Kohan*: The Drauga are technically Orcs (just like the Haroun are elves and the Mareten are humans). They're large, decidedly simian, warlike and posess a shamanistic culture. They follow Darius after he defeats their former leader, and become his powerful supporters later in the game (though some of them will insist that you beat them to earn their respect).
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*Last Armageddon*: Orcs are one of the monster races of the underworld, looking like humans with blue pig-like heads. One Orc acts as one of your party members.
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*The Legend of Zelda*: Whereas the moblins fall more under "ogre" and the bokoblins under "goblin/troll", the green-skinned bulblins in *The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess* were full-on orc, complete with their leader having a Proud Warrior Race Guy attitude.
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*Lineage 2*: Orcs are both Tolkenien and Blizzard-type. The player controlled orcs generally follow the Blizzard version closely, being Proud Warrior Race Guys and following a shamanistic culture based around their progenitor Pa'aagrio, god of fire. There are some aesthetic differences, mainly that they don't generally have horns or tusks or really big teeth, just hairstyles that look like horns. Their melee classes essentially fill the role of the big, muscular Scary Black Man, except with green skin. Their women are something else entirely. Only Dark Elf women are bustier. The orc Mooks you fight, which by the way the player orcs HATE, are nearly always Tolkenien in most ways, being mostly dumb, savage tribal guys who generally pillage their neighborhood.
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*Master of Magic*: Not much is explained about orc society, but worth noting is that orcs are the Jack of All Trades of the races, having access to the entire tech tree (they are also devoid of any extra-special units or interesting characteristics, making them fill the role humans usually take). To elaborate, Orcs can build Universities whose students help in the player wizard's research, Alchemists' Guilds to produce magical weapons for the troops, War Colleges to produce Elite Mook squads, Merchants' Guilds, and Engineers. They seem to be a blend of Tolkien and Blizzard varieties, though they predate the latter; they're *as* strong as humans and have civilization and engineering equal to High Men, but while they can build cathedrals, their clergy are shamans rather than priests.
- In the 1.16 Nether Update
*Minecraft* introduced the Piglin, which the closest vanilla Minecraft has to Orcs. They are a race of pig beings that live in the hostile dimension. Being barbaric and belligerent, they will attack you on sight, making it an interesting case where the zombie variant is actually *less* hostile. Thankfully, they have a massive fondness for gold, and wearing any gold armor will make them neutral towards you — as long as you don't open any chests or mine gold around them. Once neutral, the player can barter items with them using gold ingots.
- Piglin Brutes go a bit further and make them more hostile and aggressive, unwilling to barter and unafraid of the fears of their lesser kin
- Zombie Piglins actually subvert this, being more docile and neutral to the player... unless you hurt one of them
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*Mutant Football League* has "Monster Orcs" among the player races, fat green-skinned creatures that vary greatly in size. Fluff states they're tough to coach and each generation of orcs is less intelligent than the last, "like a VHS copy of a VHS copy of a VHS copy." In Dynasty Mode, it's extremely expensive in both XP and cash to increase their Intelligence stat, which determines reaction time, field awareness, and self-preservation instinct. On the field they're typically slow but strong and sturdy, and are thus mostly linemen on either side of the ball, but a handful are nasty linebackers, bruising receivers or tough running backs.
- In
*Of Orcs and Men*, Orcs are of the Blizzard Orcs variety and are at war with the Human Empire, who wants to use them as slave laborers due to their strength. They're actually the heroes of the game, specifically Arkail.
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*Okiku, Star Apprentice*: They're in the Mountain Pass of the Isle of Tamuro, as enemies.
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*Oracle of Askigaga*: A guard in the bottom left of the starting area mentions their existence, and the following dialogue implies they're intellgent enough to form bases of operations:
**Guard:** You preparing for a journey? I've heard stories from merchants about viscous snakes and orcs along the border with Hachisuka. **Oharu:** The snakes are one thing, but, have we not pinpointed a base of operations for the orcs? **Guard:** Sorry, ma'am, I don't know anything about that. **Hiroji:** Don't you have other matters to attend to? **Oharu:** Of... of course.
- In
*Orcs Must Die!* and its sequel, the Orcs and the rest of the Horde are Always Chaotic Evil. Interestingly, they *do* have rather a sympathetic motive for trying to invade Earth: their own world is a barren wasteland. They can also be pretty Laughably Evil at times.
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*Paladins*: Grohk the Lightning Orc is a blue-skinned eccentric support champion who heals allies with his healing totem and fries enemies with his lightning staff. He's definitely not brutish like Tolkien Orcs, and very into his shamanistic side like Blizzard Orcs... but he's just bizarre.
- In
*Pillars of Eternity*, they're a race called the aumaua. They're musclebound and sharp of tooth, but have multicolored skin similar to tropical fish instead of the usual green or brown. The typical orcish hats are also defied; aumaua have a warmongering history, but are more civilized about it and you don't really encounter any "Proud Warrior" types. In fact, they actually have a strong *seafaring tradition* and the one who joins your party is a Badass Bookworm.
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*Serious Sam 2* features Orcs as one of the many variety of mooks for the Big Bad. Mostly used as Cannon Fodder, and are not really shown having any sort of intelligence other than basic ability to operate military equipment like the Kozak Helicopters, laser rifles, plasma ball launchers, and propellers that they use as jetpacks. Background material states that they are actually a primitive alien race drafted by Mental and given training and weapons.
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*Soulcalibur VI*: The Malefic are green-skinned humanoids with red eyes and tusk-like teeth that were originally primeval warriors corrupted by Astral Chaos energy.
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*Spellforce*: Orcs lean largely toward Blizzard-style orcs but have Tolkien-orc elements. They're explicitly darkness-aligned and willing to do the ravaging horde routine, and are pretty much always at odds with the light races of humans, elves, and dwarves; but they have a culture based on honor and clan allegiance, with an animistic religion.
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*Spyro the Dragon*:
- The platform series has the Gnorcs, which are mostly green, have protruding teeth that look like fangs or tusks, and vary in size (the Big Bad Gnasty Gnorc and some of the mooks are very large, but most Gnorcs aren't much bigger than Spyro). Their name is supposedly a combination of "gnome" and "orc" but they're much more like orcs than like gnomes.
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*The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon* features Orcs as the main servants and army of Malefor in a pure Tolkenian role. They however differ in appearence, being a race of grotesque lizard-like humanoids with elongated heads, gangly limbs and bodies made of earth, grass and rock and armed with either axes or crossbows attached to their arms. Stronger and bigger variants known as Orc Heroes also exist. Other creatures in Malefor's army include the goblinesque Grublins and the humongous Trolls, all made from earth and vegetation like the Orcs.
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*Thunderscape* came close to having Blizzard orcs before *Warcraft* and *Daggerfall*. One of player races is the juraks, fur-covered brutes with large fangs, who made good warriors but can just as well be Combat Medics, mages or mechanics.
- Orcs, goblins and trolls in
*Ultima* are straight-up Tolkien-style, in the first three games, they could even be unmade by magi using the Repond spell.
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*Vagrant Story* features orcs of porcine "porc" variety though they are well-muscled rather than running to fat and they're decently equipped with regards to gear. Their leaders can use magic to augment them.
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*Warcraft*: The orcs were initially a brown-skinned, peaceful, hunter-gather society, but were manipulated by demons and turned into a ruthless army of green-skinned monsters. Further demonic influence turns them red, invoking Good Colors, Evil Colors. In the earliest games, orcs were portrayed as stupid and Laughably Evil in unit quotes and like, but they were still ruthless killing machines.
- By the events of
*Lord of the Clans* and *Warcraft III*, the orcs have returned to their original ways and are now as intelligent and well-rounded as humans. Current lore portrays them as going from a primarily hunter gatherer society to a full on industrial war machine within a matter of decades, although they most likely had help from the goblins. By the time of *World of Warcraft*, they've become one of the Horde's most important member species.
- The first orcs descended from ogres, who in turn arose from a species of hulking cyclopean humanoids native to Draenor known as the ogron. The ogron further descend from a lineage of increasingly gigantic cyclopes leading back to Grond, a mountain given life by a Titan in Draenor's earliest days, making the orcs technically a species of very, very small giants. It should be noted that they share this trait with one other race: their erstwhile rivals —
*Humans*.
- Another interesting caveat to the Warcraft orcs, is that they take to water very well. They are very competent sailors and maintain a vast fleet of warships. They even pulled off a Flaunting Your Fleets manoeuvre in the intro to
*II*. They also avert Klingon Scientists Get No Respect in that a shaman who wields great magical power is respected just as equally as a powerful warrior.
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*Warlords Battlecry*: Orcs are of the Tolkienian type. They're a bunch of Always Chaotic Evil thugs with no redeeming qualities other than the fact that they fight each other as often as they fight other, more civilized, people.
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*Wizardry*: The Gorn in *Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant* in all but name. Green, porcine features, and tusks. Xenophobic, militaristic, and live mostly underground on account of living directly in between two powerful races that hate each others' guts, but honorable and have an Asian-influenced art design.
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*Xenoblade Chronicles X*:
- The Prone are essentially Space Orcs — their skin colors include pink and purple rather than green, and they have tentacles hanging off their faces, but aside from appearance they are essentially Blizzard orcs. They come in the Cavern and Tree Clan varieties, and tend to have aspects of both Tolkien and Blizzard orcs, usually depending on how likely they are to shoot you.
- Meanwhile, the Marnucks, being one of the primary Mook races (alongside the Prone) for the Ganglion, are essentially Tolkien orcs, aside from their blue skin, being reptilian, preference for guns, and having invented their own military technology. What little we know about the Marnucks is that they don't just love war; their chief deity is their god of death, and they think killing people in battle is an honorable act. Their homeworld was destroyed by a global civil war, and the only ones left are the ones that sided with the Ganglion.
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*Sword Daughter*: The orcs might have been lifted directly from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, with all the usual trappings: they're green-skinned, brutish and cruel, not very intelligent, and in most story paths they're working as Mooks for the main villain.
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*Ananthalos*: Gruvalg is intelligent and rational as opposed to the barely-articulate orc archetype still found in a lot of fantasy stories. With his green coloring and bald head, he also appears more like an ogre. The comic's creator acknowledges that Shrek was an inspiration for Gruvalg's character design.
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*Daughter of the Lilies*: Orcs are green, hunky, occasionally axe-wielding and inexplicably Russian-accented, but besides that, they're just another sapient species, and no less civilized than any other race. They do have a history of warfare with elves, but note that *the elves started it*.
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*Dominic Deegan*: Orcs, muscular and green-skinned humanoids with prominent tusks and about a head taller than humans, lean towards the Blizzard model with a lot of Fantasy Counterpart Culture traits for Native Americans (not to mention being completely *obligate herbivores*), but most of the clans are still heavily patriarchal. They are also heavily shamanistic, with their magic being a "gift from the land", tapping entirely to the natural elements, which include life and death itself.
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*Drowtales* has kotorcs in the Blizzardian model, being a tribal culture with a heavily honor based society. They're considered "goblins" along with humans, with hints of a common ancestor. There's also a sub-species known as Noz who have more in common with the Tolkien orcs and appear much more wild, and can best be described as looking like humanoid hyenas.
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*Gaia Online*: The orcs look somewhat like the Blizzard kind, but dress and act like they belong in a Dungeon Punk story. Apparently, they lived under the mountains near the city, until they were discovered and subsequently employed in Factory Town of Aekea. Why you would need to hire orcs in a city that already has an ample supply of *robots* is questionable...
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*Girl Genius* has the Jaegermonsters, who — other than their nigh-immortal Super Soldier by Mad Scientist origin — fit this trope very nicely. They mostly resemble the humans they used to be, but adorned with a variety of tusks, claws, horns, odd skin colors, shaggy mane-like beards, and similar things — no two Jaegers look truly alike — and they become larger and more monstrous as they age; their oldest generals have grown into towering, ogre-like beings. They have a code that defines them to the point that there are "former" Jaegers. Their loyalty to the (Mad Scientist) Heterodynes and ludicrous strength tends to lead them to be Europa's bogeymen. They also have an interesting culture around (comedic) violence and hats, which are evidently a combination of status symbols and a sign of worthiness. Also, when we see a bar for (patched-up, too wounded to fight) Jaegers at one point in the story, it's a pretty typical rowdy establishment... until the nightly bar fight starts, at which point everything becomes a massive Improvised Weapon brawl.
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*Goblins*: Orcs are large humanoids with gray-green skin and part of the traditionally "evil" races alongside ogres, goblins, kobolds and so on. One of the few orcs who's appeared so far, "Biscuit", *is* a big hulking brute... who speaks politely and exaggerates The Stoic personality: tribe been dead for 200 years? "Meh." His people, the Roak, made a very big deal about rising above loss and personal attachments.
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*Guilded Age*: Orcs have little political presence in the world and are largely used for slave labor by both the Gastonians and Savage Races. Both parties view them as little more than labor animals with sub-human intelligence, and though nothing has yet *explicitly* disputed that, the main authority on the subject is so racist and unreliable that it's impossible to take this assumption at face value.
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*Linburger* has the Trokks. They're a savage race that roam the wilderness and kill anybody they meet. The main character, Lin, encounters them on occasion whenever she searches the junkyard for spare parts. There's also an alcoholic beverage made by them and only them, nobody knows the secret ingredident, and the only way to get the beverage is to live among their tribe for a set amount of time.
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*The Order of the Stick*:
- Unsurprisingly, subverts the usual "Tolkienian" characterization of
*Dungeons & Dragons* orcs. The orcs shown in the webcomic are just a primitive tribe; and those of the paperback prequel are just mistaken for hostile by townsfolk because they are heavy metal fans.
- Several characters are also half-orcs. While technically all of them are bad guys, Thog is a Psychopathic Manchild who's mostly Obliviously Evil, Bozzok is a business-minded gangster who negotiates with the heroes, and Therkla is more of an Anti-Villain with a good dose of Villainous Valor. Therkla also subverts the trope of halfbreeds being born of rape: her orc mother and human father were happily married.
- There is a race of green-skinned goblins that are more civilized, if still stuck living at the edges of civilization. Unlike most recent portrayals of goblins, they are the same height as humans, making them much like Blizzard model orcs. The conflicts between the goblins and the humans drive much of the backstory of the current conflict and are integral to the goblin villain Redcloak's Start of Darkness.
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*Sluggy Freelance's* *World of Warcraft* parody naturally has its own version of orcs, called Gorks. The only notable thing about them is the joke that they're the race of choice for players who like to pretend they're playing as monsters when they're really green humans with tusks.
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*Tales of the Questor* orcs are nomads or traders, although even merchant clans are pretty darn tough. They have a strong code of honor and stick up for their friends (against almost all enemies) and are generally fairly Blizzardish. Their appearance is fairly distinctive, though: they basically have the faces of long-eared blue bulldogs.
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*TwoKinds*: The Basitin hybridize this with Our Dwarves Are All the Same and Beast Man. They're a highly orderly Proud Warrior Race who can't (or at least *reeeeealy* shouldn't) use magic, tending towards Charles Atlas Superpower instead. They also seem to do the Games Workshop orc thing where they start smallish and grow bigger the more authority they gain. Immune to most poisons and illnesses, slightly regenerative, and perpetuate a Forever War because it's so much fun.
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*Zukahnaut*'s protagonist rejects the descriptor of "orc" despite his appearance, but his one-page origin story hints that his people may have lived up to the brutal stereotypes inherent in it.
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*Ash & Cinders*: While not specifically called orcs, the Stonewights show various orcish tendencies. They're brutush, stupid, killing machines. The Rock Lord's first appearance is even reminiscient of Tolkien's description of the Great Goblin from the Hobbit.
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*Codex Inversus*: Orcs are green-skinned, tusked humanoids who once served the Djinn in the World Before. They sided with Heaven during the ancient cosmic war and thus retain a strained relationship with the Infernal Empire. Their society is highly rigid and caste-based, with each family being expected to follow a specific profession or vocation. They are also highly militaristic, and are famous for practicing a martial art that uses complex sword flourishes to quickly inscribe spells in combat to produce devastating effects.
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*Critical Role*: In Exandria, the standing of orcs and half-orcs seems to depend on the region.
- In the Mighty Nein campaign, prejudice against orcs and half-orcs was common enough throughout Wildemount that they predominantly live in the drow-ruled Krynn Dynasty with other stereotypically "evil" races, but the villainy of the Dynasty turns out to be a case of Grey-and-Gray Morality colored by the propaganda of their enemies.
- By contrast, in the continent of Marquet, orcs and orc-blooded hybrids enjoy a better reputation. The orcish patron of Bell's Hells ||until his death at the hands of one of their enemies,|| Ariks Eshterhoss is a wealthy and erudite Retired Badass who uses his vast resources to support the budding adventurers and others who work toward the betterment of the region. They also later venture to the city of Yios, the City of Flowing Lights, which has a primarily orcish and orc-blooded population, and is renowned in the region as a center of learning and enlightenment.
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*Gaia Online* introduced orcs for the 2008 Rejected Olympics event, but they've never been seen since. The only thing we really know about Gaian orcs at present is that they're basically cave-dwelling greasers that were recently discovered.
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*Graven Hunter Files*: Orcs are are the typical tolkein-esque orc, with greenish-gray skin, tusks, and a bad temperament. Sye encounters a trio of vampire converted orcs working for the Zemrelt clan, the most aggressive and warlike of the clans.
- In
*The Midgaheim Bestiary*, orcs are a type of boogeymen, a family of The Fair Folk which also includes goblins, bugbears and trolls and specializes in forming connections between Fairyland and the mortal world, allowing the fairy world to consume small portions of mundane reality to maintain some measure of internal stability. Orcs themselves are sapient, humanoid boars — their legs end in hooves, and their hands have only three, distinctly hoof-like fingers — and were explicitly bred by other fairies to be a race of soldiers. While garrulous, short-tempered and militaristic, they aren't the mindless Mooks humans tend to see them as — they're noted to have strong poetic traditions, and even have some epics that *aren't* about epic wars they've fought.
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*Tales From My D&D Campaign*: The orcs were once standard Tolkien/D&D orcs, brutish, stupid, cowardly, and only dangerous through their vast numbers. But when the orcs pissed off a goddess by killing her mortal lover, the goddess cursed them and turned their homeland into a desert. Within a couple of generations, the orcish numbers fell from tens of millions to just a few thousand, but the survivors became unparalled warriors. These days, two or three orcs could easily burn a small city to the ground and two-three orc bands regularly slaughter hundred-man patrols.
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*Tales of MU*: Orcs have not been seen, perhaps because they're not native to the continent on which the story takes place, but they form part of the cultural backdrop. "Going orcshit" is a common expression, and a history class revealed that orcs occupied the role of Hessian mercenaries in the equivalent of the American Revolution: mooks for hire with a vicious rep. The same class revealed their racial Berserk Button: attacking orc women and children. There's also one character (||Coach Callahan||) who appears to be part orc, and who is the biggest badass in the series.
- The Tolkienesque type is discussed on
*Terrible Writing Advice* in the "Fantasy Races" episode, in which he advises writers to avoid talking about the implications of an Always Chaotic Evil race in terms of morality, and just use them as generic bad guys (despite how Tolkien struggled with these questions).
-
*Disenchantment*: The Bozaks and their unseen relatives, the Borcs, are a brutish warrior race with horns and sharp teeth. Rather atypically for this trope, they're also seafaring pirates... and the Bozaks are also some of the kingdom of Dreamland's closet allies.
-
*My Little Pony 'n Friends*: Ice orcs are beings of living ice with bodies that are almost all head with stumpy limbs, who live underground, can shoot freezing Hand Blasts and are ancestral enemies of the lava demons with whom they share their subterranean home.
-
*Voltron: Legendary Defender*: The Galra are basically Blizzard orcs IN SPACE!. They're large, proud, purple-skinned Proud Warrior Race with appearances that range from shaggy and brutish to ruggedly attractive. On their homeworld, they were just one of many tribes, but rose to prominence on their planet and beyond through martial conquest. They also display an ability to breed with other species note : Keith, one of the heroes, is half-Galra on his mother's side. Likewise, Prince Lotor is half-Altean. that is either unique to them, or simply more prominently shown with them because of the vast scope of their empire. On the more noble side, the Blades of Marmora are a secretive faction of Galra who oppose the empire and assist the heroes. Even King Zarkon, ruler of the empire, was once a true hero before he was corrupted into a genocidal monster.
-
*W.I.T.C.H.*: Most of Prince Phobos's minions are orc-like humanoids; they're initially portrayed as the Tolkien variety. They are revealed, though, to have been fed on propaganda and aren't necessarily that bad; most of them do a collective HeelFace Turn after Phobos is defeated, and the main orc who remains villainous, Raythor, is nonetheless an honorable Noble Demon. The lurdens, Phobos' more monstrous and bestial minions, are Tolkien orcs played straight.
-
*X-Men: The Animated Series*: Wolverine is predictably depicted as a Blizzard variant (though he's referred to as a troll), in a fairytale told by Jubilee in one of the series' later seasons.
*It's not easy bein' green....* | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Orc |
Orcus on His Throne - TV Tropes
"
*Sorry, Kimmie. The Supreme One always delegates.*
"
Deep in Mordor, at the top of the Evil Tower of Ominousness, the Evil Overlord awaits. He has his Legion of Doom, the Artifact of Doom, and any other Doomy Dooms of Doom you can think of. His power is vast and he is poised to strike and destroy all we hold dear at any moment.
Any moment now.
Aaaaaany moment...
No? Okay, never mind. Looks like we have a case of Orcus on His Throne. A villain with great power and the potential to wipe out the Forces of Good turns out to be an awfully retiring sort. Sure, they're out there somewhere being evil, probably oppressing someone else, but they don't actually seem to do much; they just sit about resting on their laurels or at most maintaining an active training regimen, waiting for the heroes to come and overthrow them. One wonders how they ever mustered the ambition to climb to their position of power in the first place.
Named for a line in the Third Edition
*Dungeons & Dragons* Manual of the Planes, where it mentioned that Orcus, the lord of the undead, might once more be on his throne, one bony hand clutching his terrible rod. The original justification for this was based on the way *D&D* works; by not having Orcus (or any other given major villain) actively doing anything, but prepared to strike out against the forces of good, the dungeon masters who were buying the source books and playing the game could have the villains do whatever they wanted or needed them to do for their custom-built campaigns.
Relatedly, this is a very common trope in Video Games, where the villain waits passively in their throne room while the hero is leveling up, killing increasing tiers of their minions, Storming the Castle, occupying each base and methodically foiling their plans. If the Big Bad is coming, why not just wait and prepare yourself? But if the Big Bad is sitting by their Lava Pit of Doom, for whatever reason, just waiting for the Hero to arrive, then of course the Hero has to make their way all the way there.
In the villain's defense, maintaining order in one's domain can be a really time-consuming task, what with all those Rebel Scum, stupid henchmen, backstabbing lieutenants, and the other daily tasks an Evil Overlord has to face every day. And any tactician will endorse the benefits of a fortified position surrounded by your most powerful servants. Then again, what kind of Evil Overlord doesn't take the time to smell the roses, pillage a village, and give a hero a good Final Boss Preview every once in a while? They deserve a little "me" time, too!
The Big Bad might also be spending all their time offscreen searching for a Plot Coupon (Lost Superweapon, Artifact of Doom, etc.) that would render conventional means of conquest unnecessary. Why waste time and effort commanding the Legion of Doom when you could conquer/corrupt/destroy the kingdom/world/galaxy with the push of a button? Still, it's easier to send their minions out to do this instead, which is probably another reason they never have to leave the castle. In the case of a Non-Action Big Bad, the villain acts like this because personally, they
*don't* have power, or at least not the sort that would be useful in direct combat, and they primarily work through their subordinates. It could also be that the hero is already doing something the villain wants, so why interrupt the enemy when they're making a mistake?
Villainous counterpart to Take Your Time. Compare Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering. Contrast Royals Who Actually Do Something and Frontline General. The opposite of this is Risking the King. Not to be confused with — though principally very similar to—Greater-Scope Villain. See also The Pawns Go First for when the Big Bad chooses to let their minions fight a particular battle for a while before intervening, or Villain No Longer Idle for when Orcus gets
*off* his throne. Similar to Offstage Villainy, where we only know the villain is evil because the author says so; with Orcus On His Throne, we only know the villain is *dangerous* because the author says so. May lead to It's Personal with the Dragon, since if the Big Bad is spending all his time offscreen seemingly doing nothing, then his enforcers who are doing the work may become the target of the hero's ire. Can be justified if it's a Dark Lord on Life Support. Lazy Dragon is sister trope unique to literal dragons. Can also overlap with Unknown Rival if the villain simply isn't aware of the heroes for some reason.
For narrative purposes, an author may deliberately write his archvillain in this way. A Big Bad that is defeated by the heroes in every episode will lose its dramatic effectiveness.
This is not to be confused with Sealed Evil in a Can, where an abomination, demon king, or other powerful villain is not interfering because it has been sealed away (or "mostly" sealed away).
## Example subpages:
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## Other examples:
- In
*Happy Heroes*, the Commander of Planet Gray gives Big M. and Little M. their orders through their television (or other device) from the comfort of his chair and is never seen getting off of the chair to do much else.
-
*Apocalypse*: It's sometimes been pointed out that with his massive power, Apocalypse should've been able to take over the world personally long before the modern era (since his powers emerged back in Ancient Egypt). However, he's generally been content with observing and provoking conflict behind the scenes (when he isn't in hibernation). This can be justified by his Social Darwinist worldview.
-
*The Clone Saga*: Norman Osborn was introduced very late in the game. He doesn't even enter the picture until all of his subordinates have been snuffed out, apart from the Scriers (who later came to his rescue after he was captured by Spider-man). He explains that he'd been living sumptuously in Europe and rubbing elbows with the Scriers, spending years gradually usurping the organization and converting it into a tool for personal revenge.
- Darkseid from The DCU, despite being a major Big Bad who ruled an entire planet with an iron fist, had access to incredibly advanced technology, and possessed divine powers that could smite just about anything in the universe, didn't get around to committing much actual villainy (outside of the original New Gods series anyway). Justified by his obsession with the "Anti-life Equation", a formula that removes the free will of anyone that hears it. In
*Final Crisis*, when ||he finally has a chance to use the Equation, he immediately enslaves the population of Earth, has his son Orion killed, launches a campaign to subdue the Earth's remaining heroes, and nearly conquers the Multiverse.||
- In
*Fables*, Mr. Dark originally comes to Earth to wreak revenge on the Fables who he thinks have abused his power. But after he discovers they have fled their New York place of residence, he decides to build his domain there and wait for the Fables to come looking for him. However, this trope is subverted in ||issue #100. After Frau Totenkinder has learned how to Box him, she comes to New York to face Mr. Dark and almost defeats him but not quite. This near-defeat makes Mr. Dark finally abandon his throne and come after the Fables, who are forced to flee Earth altogether.||
- Subverted in
*Hellboy*. The Osiris Club is a fraternal order that is supposedly "waiting for the right moment" to seize control of the Oghru Jahad and rule the world... but they've done nothing of importance for so long that most of the other players in the occult underworld consider them a Brotherhood of Funny Hats. ||They were *literally* waiting for the right moment - the minute the Apocalypse begins, they reveal *they actually have a working ritual to bind the Oghru Jahad*. The only thing stopping them from conquering the planet is that they didn't plan far enough ahead to stop the heroes from undermining said ritual.||
- The Kingpin is a street-level version of this trope. He can and has fought the likes of Daredevil and Captain America but prefers to keep the illusion that he is a legitimate businessman (or at least a fat mob boss) and has his mooks do much of the fighting. When it comes time to throw down, however, it turns out that all that weight is pure muscle and despite his size, he is a skilled and even agile martial artist.
-
*Judge Dredd*: Judge Death in the *Fall of Deadworld* storyline. Whenever he shows up elsewhere, he's always The Brute since he likes to "dispense justice" personally, but in *Fall* he has an army to command and doesn't leave his HQ.
-
*The Korvac Saga*: The titular villain does not take an active role during the story outside of killing the Collector; he mostly stays at his luxury house and uses his omnipotent powers to avoid detection.
- The Big Bad of
*Loki: Agent of Asgard*, ||Old!Loki||, who has Story-Breaker Power, and the benefits of foreknowledge, but no real inclination to use it for anything more than trolling. For a long time, they were quite content to kick back in their cell. The explanation for this is that ||Old Loki|| is a time traveller and when they actually mess with the present they could very well derail it into something else or even better.
-
*Raptors*: Don Miguel Y Certa, the master of the vampire order, doesn't really play an active role in the day-to-day politics of vampirekind and lets the Council of Vampires bother with such things, instead contenting himself with feasting on the food his servants bring him. In total, he makes about three appearances in the entire comic.
-
*Sinestro Corps War*: Superboy-Prime sits on the Moon watching Earth for much of the conflict. When he finally gets involved, he does whatever he wants including punking his own teammates. The only reason Sinestro picked Superboy-Prime as a teammate, plus two other Omnicidal Maniacs, at all, was that he knew they'd eventually try to kill each other but not before advancing their own plans by hurting their mutual enemies.
- Empress Gandelo spends most of
*The Killers of Krypton* storyline doing nothing but sending her minions after Supergirl and complaining when they are unable to kill her as they were instructed to.
- The Goblin King in the
*Superior Spider-Man* saga is this, acting behind the scenes and building up his army but not actively attacking Spidey in any meaningful way. It isn't until the final arc, "Goblin Nation", that he finally does something. And he does it in a *big way*.
- In Simon Furman's
*The Transformers Megaseries*, Nova Prime and the other Dead Universe inhabitants need to eventually kill Optimus Prime for their evil plan to work. However, Nova hangs back and works behind the scenes through agents in Real Space instead of using his immense power to easily do so. This is because Dead Universe inhabitants can only survive for brief periods outside of it, so he doesn't want to risk ruining the plan to take out a single enemy. ||Except that's just what Nova tells his henchmen to avoid looking weak. In reality, he could easily kill Optimus and be back within the time limit, but he's scared that if he faces the guy directly then the Dead Universe will see Optimus as a better physical avatar and abandon Nova in favor of possessing Prime's body. When the two finally fight by necessity that's exactly what almost happens.||
-
*Ultimate Galactus Trilogy*: Yahn Rgg sends killbots and soldiers to attack, but he does not do much of anything by himself. By the time the heroes get to him, he has locked himself into an escape pod, ready to start the self-destruct behind him.
- Guthrum from
*The Ballad of the White Horse*, as a result of his Fatal Flaw being Despair. He's sufficiently tired and certain of victory that he doesn't bother even raising his eyes to the battle until his army's already routed.
- Justified in
*The Belgariad*. Torak, the Big Bad of the *Belgariad*, was critically wounded in the backstory, and literally cannot rise until the appointed time. Averted in the sequel series the *Malloreon* though; Zandramas keeps busy, continually attempting to sabotage the Child of Light's efforts. The heroic B-team even unknowingly runs into her at one point, whereupon they watch her eat one of her rivals for Big Bad status alive.
- In the
*Bridge Of D Arnath* quartet, this is true for ||two of|| the Lords of Zhev'na. Notole and Parven almost never leave their fortress; the former can usually be found conducting research in her library or building powerful artifacts, and the latter in his war room telepathically coordinating Zhev'na's armies. ||Averted by the third Lord, Ziddari, who is prone to getting out and about gathering intelligence and undermining the Lords' enemies; he's actually nicknamed "the Exile" because he spends so much of his time away from Zhev'na in various guises||.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Blackout*: Due to his large number of vampire enforcers, it has been a long time since Moses "Reet" Weldon needed to do his own fighting and dirty work (his right-hand man hasn't even seen his Game Face in a decade). Consequently, he is out-of-shape and highly outmatched during his battle against Spike.
- Justified in
*The Candy Shop War*. Magicians cannot leave their lairs without instantly reverting to their true ages, so they have to work through minions and apprentices.
- Lloyd Alexander's
*The Chronicles of Prydain*. Arawn, despite being the "Death Lord", works primarily through proxies like The Horned King, Morgant, Magg, Achren, and Pryderi and leaves Annuvin just once to steal ||Dyrnwyn||. It's Justified, and even borders on Reconstruction, in that Arawn can be killed if he leaves Annuvin and takes a mortal shape, and would rather not risk his own life when he has a horde of deathless Cauldron Born to go out and do the dirty work. Further, while he *is* willing and able to fight if he needs to, Arawn is more of a trickster who gets what he wants through manipulation and guile and his actual offensive power isn't really anything special, which gets proven in the finale when ||he takes to the field personally for the first time when his hand is forced
and promptly dies in battle. He puts up an *okay* fight before going down, but you can really tell just why exactly he was delegating to minions up until now||.
- Lord Foul the Despiser from the
*Chronicles of Thomas Covenant* almost never leaves his lair (though where exactly said lair *is* varies depending on the current sub-series); Word of God notes that he does his best work through proxies. Basically, Foul's not the kind of guy who just *kills* you, he manipulates events long-term so you end up killing *yourself* for him. His chief minions, the three Ravers, on the other hand, are disturbingly good at showing up *exactly* when they're least convenient.
- High Lord Kalarus, a major villain in the middle three books of
*Codex Alera*, develops a bad case of this is book four, *Captain's Fury*, despite having been a highly active and proactive villain in the previous two volumes. ||Completely justified. He survived the fight he got into with Bernard and Amara at the end of the previous volume, in which they dropped him out of a high-speed mid-air chase directly into a dense forest, and its strongly implied he was no longer in good enough physical shape to be getting out and about under his own power.||
- The Crimson King in
*The Dark Tower*. Until Roland and his gunslingers destroy Algul Siento, Randall Flagg is either fleeing the gunslinger or trying to frustrate his plans, but the King does nothing. Then when the King *does* get off his throne, it's only to run to the titular Dark Tower, where he is then trapped and can only attempt to frustrate Roland's attempted entry.
- In the
*Discworld* novel *Sourcery* we learn that Unseen University was more or less created to invoke the trope because "the plural of wizard is war". The university exists to give wizards something to do other than trying to kill each other, or at least *structure* the killing to reduce collateral damage. Wizards are forbidden to marry (and are implied to be bound to chastity) because the eighth son of an eighth son is a wizard, but the eighth son of the eighth son of an eighth son is a Sourcerer with access to magic as far beyond wizards as wizards are beyond, say, CMOT Dibbler. Sourcerers eventually fall into Orcus-on-his-throne-itude because reality pretty much reshapes itself around their whims so they don't *have* to do anything, and those that aren't killed by their peers wind up just getting bored and going ... elsewhere.
- Otha of
*The Elenium* is a literal and justified example — he's a The Caligula who lives for excess and has been around for millennia (and was never terribly bright on top of that). The end result is that while he's the most powerful sorcerer who's ever lived and The Emperor of half the continent, he's physically too fat to even stand up and *has* to rely on minions if he wants to accomplish anything. Of course, the real main villains of that series are the God of Evil who Otha worships and the Magnificent Bastard who acts as The Dragon anyway.
-
*Empire of the East*:
- At first it's more a case of "Orcus Stuck In His Prison Cell", since the demon- Orcus himself!- was tricked into confinement millennia ago. Then once the Big Bad has finally decided to summon him (and discovered that Orcus, rather than just another demon you can force to serve you, is actually the Biggest Bad there is), Orcus takes an active role in the final battle of the story, attacking his enemy Ardneh.
- The other Big Bad of the series, Emperor John Ominor, is quite happy to remain in his capital for the first two books and let his agents deal with La Résistance. This is quite sensible, however, since Ominor has an entire empire to manage, with rebellions and insurgencies going on in many places at once, with the rebellion in the West not being obviously more serious than any other until the third volume. Once the West has made clear that it is the primary threat to the empire, Ominor takes personal command of the armies fighting the West.
- In Isaac Asimov's novel
*Foundation and Empire*, it turns out the Galactic Empire has become this, thanks to psychohistory. A strong Emperor cannot allow strong subjects (who will certainly depose him instead). A weak Emperor will be deposed by strong subjects. And, a strong Emperor can't get involved on the galaxy's fringes (where the nascent Foundation is) since civil war will draw him back home.
- In
*Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix*, Voldemort puts world conquest on the back burner for a year while he tries to get hold of the prophecy. Averted from the end of that book onwards, however: though of course most of the "grunt" work goes through his minions, Voldemort starts kicking ass ||after he is revealed to the wizarding world|| and doesn't stop (notably, tracking down and killing a few witches and wizards his Death Eaters might find troublesome, like ||Amelia Bones||). The only times he gets "lazy" are when he's a powerless ghost and when there's a job he has a good reason to avoid doing. In the case of *Order of the Phoenix*, this is also justified: since Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge is running a smear campaign against Dumbledore and Harry as part of his Head-in-the-Sand Management, Voldemort decides it is within his best interest to allow Fudge to weaken his enemies.
- In
*The Hunger Games*, Thresh is probably the best example of this. He's the largest and strongest of all the tributes but spends most of the Games waiting in a wheat field and living off of the food that he finds there. ||But then his district partner Rue dies, which finally forces Thresh to go on the offensive and hunt down the remaining Career tributes.||
- Galbatorix from the
*Inheritance Cycle* spends forty years preoccupied with ||his Eldunarya, which he has to break and control to use the full power of||. His unwillingness to fight the Varden directly is lampshaded in the second book when La Résistance leader Nasuada reflects that "Galbatorix's pride" is the best defense that she has against him. It's commonly accepted that should he ever decide to ride out on his dragon to crush them there's nothing anyone could do about it. It's suggested in the third book that Galbatorix is inactive because of ||his obsession to find the name of the Ancient Language which would grant him near omnipotence.|| The fourth book reveals that this is ||correct. He gets defeated because of his failure to account for the possibility of Eragon having learned an even greater secret: the ability to use raw, untamed magic *without* language.|| Of course the book offers no real explanation why he continuously sends out armies and agents to battle the rebels rather than easily dealing with them himself and then returning to his work.
- J. R. R. Tolkien does this with most of his villains in his
*Legendarium*, but only towards the ends of their careers, in keeping with his theme of deliberate Villain Decay and The Dark Side Will Make You Forget, with smart people with real goals turning to evil but evil itself corrupting them and gradually turning them into cardboard cutouts. Together with this, they start out going out and kicking ass by themselves, but eventually become throne-bound.
- Morgoth fights Tulkas personally at the dawn of time, and later personally destroys the Two Trees and steals the Silmarils. He also personally handles the corruption of the first Men. But after he's been beaten by Tulkas, then nearly killed by Ungoliant, he becomes something of a coward. The last time he appears in public is when he duels the elvenking Fingolfin, who leaves him severely wounded and unable to heal. In the War of Wrath, he flees into the deepest of his mines and begs for pardon rather than fighting the Valar.
- Sauron is actually a subversion, if you look at his life story in chronological order. In the First Age he is a powerful, active Enemy, at least until he's defeated by Huan the elvish hound - after that he flees and hides for the rest of the First Age. In the Second Age, he takes an active role in forging the Rings of Power and personally corrupts the Numenoreans. However, he loses a
*lot* of his power in the fall of Numenor, and after his defeat by the Last Alliance (and the loss of the One Ring that holds much of his power), he becomes an Evil Cripple, able to watch events and influence events with his will, but unable to actually *do* anything.
- Although he's the weakest of the three Enemy warlords, Saruman manages to avert this, staying active until his death. Even just days before his fall from power, he's still leaving Isengard on occasion. After his armies and Isengard are destroyed, he leaves Orthanc, travels to the Shire, and tries to ruin it with his ruffians.
- Smaug zig-zags around this as well. In his youth, he fought some great battles and won the prizes every dragon desires — a big pile of treasure and a secluded lair in which to sit upon it. Having succeeded in this goal, he mostly just lies around and sleeps, to the point where he hasn't even been seen in decades. That said, he flies to deliver some immediate retaliation when someone is stupid enough to provoke him.
- Lampshaded in
*The Return of the King* by Denethor, who comments that all great lords rule and fight by using others as their weapon. That is why he sends his sons to fight and die for him. He predicts that Sauron will only appear for the final battle when all else has been conquered.
- Fulbert from
*Malevil* sits in his fortified manor in La Roque. He tricked the villagers into letting him keep the food and weapons, there isn't much they can do but suffer his abuse and cruelty. For the most part, he is content to live a lazy life of post-Apocalypse "decadence" at the expense of others. He also takes no real action against Malevil itself, ||until the end when he convinces a rogue military commander who captured La Roque that the castle would make a better base of operations.||
- The Autarch from
*Masks of Aygrima* is only seen outside his palace once (aside from the prologue) and never leaves the capital city.
- The Lord Ruler from
*Mistborn* seems to have a bad case of this, hanging around in his palace and not exerting himself even when his whole capital is going up in flames. ||Justified because he's a borderline Physical God so powerful the rebellion was never a threat to him at all. The Sequel Series show just how absurdly powerful Compounding a single metal is, and he has the ability to do so with ALL of the metals. He could easily put down an entire army of regular Allomancers himself, and has historically allowed his minions to fight among themselves or get killed in revolts for a while before acting, just to remind them why they needed him.||
- In the
*Rainbow Magic* series, most of the time, Jack Frost is content to dispatch his goblins to retrieve or protect the artifacts. It's only when they fail at the tasks repeatedly that he goes to do something himself. This is played for drama in the movie, where the fact that he does this while the snowman army does all the work makes them turn on him.
- In
*Septimus Heap*, DomDaniel spends his day sleeping on a throne on the *Vengeance* while Jenna and Boy 412 are stealthily going around on his ship.
-
*Shannara*: Uhl Belk from *The Druid of Shannara* literally cannot move from where he stands note : Belk can move around when he really wants to — such as when he went to steal the Black Elfstone — but being, after all, the *Stone* King, it's against his nature to do so except in dire need, but his son slowly pushes the boundaries of the domain every day.
-
*Star Wars Legends*: Supreme Overlord Shimrra from the *New Jedi Order* is like this, though it doesn't stop him from playing politics in his court and having an impact on the plot in that matter. ||Probably also justified in that Onimi can't let Shimrra get too far away from him for long without risking his Mind Control slipping.||
-
*Sunshine*: While vampires grow Stronger with Age, they also grow more vulnerable to light in proportion to the total amount of evil they have committed over the course of their undead existence. As such, the ancient "master vampires" are astonishingly powerful but cannot tolerate even moonlight or starlight (some can't even *speak words* related to light) and must work through younger (and thus weaker) minion vampires whose karmic debt is still light enough to let them go out under moon and stars. It's noted that part of the reason the book's Big Bad is trying to get rid of Constance is that his Vegetarian Vampire ways allow him a very high level of mobility for a vampire of his age and power, and the masters are worried about his example catching on.
-
*The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign*: Very much averted; the Big Bad, ||The White Queen||, is active in every single volume. The only reason ||the Queen|| doesn't immediately curb-stomp the main character Kyousuke is ||because she's in love with him, and considers it fun to let him win||. In the afterword of the first volume, the author even notes that this is one of the main themes of the series.
-
*The Vagrant* (first book of *The Vagrant Trilogy*): Heroic version. After Gamma fell, the remaining members of the Seven retreated to the Shining City to mourn, leaving the infernals to rampage unchecked across the land. If they banded together and fought back, they could drive them off easily. ||Even mostly dead, Gamma manages to kill the Uncivil and the Usurper with the tiniest remnant of her power left behind in her corrupted Knight-Commander||.
- Zig-zagged in Michelle West's High Fantasy saga (sub-series
*The Sacred Hunt*, *The Sun Sword* and *The House War*). The overall Myth Arc is kicked off in the first series with the reveal that Allasakar, local God of Evil and Big Bad is *not* on his throne in the Hells, raising the question "Where is he and what's he up to?" Turns out Allasakar and his demons are gearing up to invade the mortal world. Then played straight in the second series; ||Allasakar made it over, but the heroes of the first series managed to frustrate his plans somewhat and weaken his power. He spends most of this series hanging out in his new stronghold in the mortal world, bringing more demons over and playing chessmaster from the shadows without personally involving himself until he knows he's ready.||
-
*Worlds of Shadow*: Shadow. For most of the series, Shadow's exact nature is not even known to the heroes and never leaves the palace. Though some monsters are sent out to stop the heroes, Shadow never just intervenes to crush them personally. It turns out that ||she|| is bored and doesn't view them as a threat, concentrating on conquering another universe, with ||her|| power on the world of Faerie basically absolute, so this is not surprising.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*:
- The Mayor did precious little villainy, even counting what he delegated to his minions or Dragon; hell, the second Dragon came to
*him* looking for work. Being a Non-Action Big Bad limits his options, and by the time the heroes even know he's a villain he's already unkillable and just needs to wait for the time of Ascension, but this doesn't explain why he did nothing about the Master or Angelus, given their plans would have severely wrecked his plans.
- Glory was like this in the fifth season. She was powerful enough to kill Buffy easily, but she spent most of the season hanging around her penthouse and sending ineffective minions out to do her work for her. In her defense, she was established as not being mentally all that stable (she needed to eat people's sanity on a regular basis just to maintain any sort of coherent thought) and it's implied that Ben is the dominant of the two beings for most of the season, so Glory was
*unable* to come out to play most of the time. Only by the last few episodes of the season is she able to come out for more than a few hours before her energy was depleted, and she spent that time being much more proactive.
- ||The First Evil|| was like this in the seventh season. The entire season is spent warning, warning, warning that eventually an army of uber-vampires will arise to destroy the world, but it never actually happens. Finally, in the last episode... they
**still** don't arise. Buffy and the potential slayers decide they're simply tired of waiting for them to attack and go attack them instead. In its case, being Made of Evil means it has no physical form, and *must* rely on its minions to actually do things.
-
*Daredevil (2015)*: Wilson Fisk heavily insulates himself from his criminal dealings on the street, his underlings primarily speaking only to James Wesley. To the point that before he makes himself a public figure, it's impossible for Matt to find anything on him, and even harder is finding a witness who took a direct order from Fisk. And the only times Fisk personally dirties his own hands rather than have someone else do it for him are when he's really pissed off. In Season 3, Fisk is technically under FBI house arrest, so he spends the entire season confined to a Midtown penthouse under the guard of FBI agents who are secretly in his pocket. It's those agents, Dex especially, who do the brunt of his dirty work for him.
-
*Game of Thrones*:
- While Tywin and his bannermen are out fighting the war in Seasons 2/3 and Tyrion and Cersei are scheming for power in King's Landing, Joffrey does nothing except abuse peasants and engage in emotional abuse of Sansa. Justified because:
- He's certainly not a warrior, no matter how he may posture, is a terrible battlefield commander, and is too stupid to be a schemer like the rest of his family.
- Leaving King's Landing
*would* be political suicide, as it would be easy for another aspirant to the crown to take control of the region in his absence. As pointed out by Tywin, the only (other) reason Joffrey is considered more than a "claimant" to the Iron Throne is that he physically sits on it.
- For all his talk about "I take what is mine", Balon hasn't actually left Pyke in his campaign to conquer the North. So far only his children have done any actual fighting and conquering.
- Arthur Petrelli from
*Heroes* gained practically godlike power in the first few episodes he appeared in. After that, he spent most of his time sitting in his base, drawing pretty pictures and sending out his incompetent minions occasionally. You'd think an unkillable guy with power over time and space could be a bit more proactive. Admittedly he thought he already had everything he needed for his master plan, and when he found out that he was lacking the last component of the formula for the Super Serum he wanted to make... he and the rest of the cast were Brought Down to Normal that same episode, so he couldn't use his powers to get it.
- While
*Kamen Rider* doesn't do this trope much due to how their villains are structured, they do fall for this trope occasionally, though these reasons are justified.
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*Kamen Rider Fourze* has the Big Bad not do anything while his loyal Horoscopes do the work for him. Justified because he doesn't really care if they live or die, provided that their Switch is intact so that ||he can invoke the Dark Nebula||. Though it's only when it gets close to the end ||after he mortally wounds his dragon when he realizes the latter's double life|| that he manages to kick the heroes' asses.
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*Kamen Rider Wizard* subverts this trope. The Wiseman can actually just zap away the mana from Haruto *on his throne* (really, it's a stone bed thing but still), ensuring he won't be defeated easily. He still sits on his throne and lets his mooks do the work for him, but ||he does do stuff when he's the White Wizard.||
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*Kamen Rider Dragon Knight*: Despite having all the means to get things done in a short time and with little effort, Xaviax prefers to scheme and recruit people to fight for him rather than get his hands dirty. He runs out of proxies eventually and his love for power and theatrics finally come to bite him when toying with the protagonists gives them enough time to recover and prepare a counterattack.
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*Power Rangers* in general has Big Bads who subscribe to this trope. Sometimes they have a reason for this; other times, however, they're content to sit around and berate their underlings' continual failures until the final five episodes or so. The villain division of labor being such that the Big Bad doesn't go out and punch things like a common Mook every single week (and thus lose street cred by being seen defeated over and over and over.) Rather, it's the Big Bad's job to run the operation, coming up with plans, while The Dragon is there when you need someone to keep the Rangers distracted while the Monster of the Week kicks puppies and the Putty Patrol isn't enough. A Non-Action Big Bad like Lord Zedd or Venjix who runs the operation competently, casts the occasional spell or builds the occasional weapon, and shows you now and again just why the minions are so loyal/terrified/both, but leaves the fisticuffs to the season's Goldar type isn't necessarily an unimpressive one. However, you've got a few villains whose stated badassery is never proven and they do nothing until the final episode, where their admittedly impressive combat powers still make them seem like "really strong monster of the week" rather than "Diabolical Mastermind and author of everyone's troubles." And that's how a red light on a pole can be the franchise's *most* competent villain and an incredibly powerful fighter like Xandred can be the franchise's *least.*
- Lord Zedd from
*Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers* is one of the most egregious examples of this; he's been shown to be capable of clobbering Tommy with little effort but spends most of his time sending ineffective minions after the rangers and yelling at everybody.
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*Power Rangers Operation Overdrive* had Flurious, the smartest and most powerful of the four competing factions of enemies attacking the Rangers that season. After being a major threat in the first three episodes, he spends the next 27 lazing around in his arctic base, letting the other villains do all the work. It isn't until the finale that he swoops in and attempts to make a grab for victory.
- Lothor from
*Power Rangers Ninja Storm* is indeed *very* powerful, just not quite powerful *enough* to carry out his ultimate plan, so he deliberately plays up this trope ||and sending monsters and generals to their deaths just to fill up the abyss of evil so he can absorb that power once it overflows.||
- Justified in the case of Venjix of
*Power Rangers RPM*, a computer virus inhabiting a hard-drive cylinder. Once he builds a robot body, he starts to have a more active role.
- Master Xandred of
*Power Rangers Samurai*. He has a good reason for staying in the lair (he'd dry out and die in minutes if he crossed over to the human world) and he gets more active later, but in the early episodes he didn't even do any scheming; he just spent most of his time saying "Yeah, do whatever; I need some medicine for this freakin' headache." The first time he enters the human world he dries up rather quickly forcing him to return to the Sanzu River, but he was able to get around this by absorbing Dayu becoming half-human and not dry up like last time. Still, aside from his two fight scenes (the Grand Finale basically being a really long fight scene), he's still not very active after leaving his lair.
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*Power Rangers in Space* has the Ultimate Alliance of Evil, composed of every one of the series villains. All they ever seemed to do was throw parties for themselves. Even Astronoma, who took command of assaulting Earth, played this role, however, she did participate in battle against the Rangers more often than her predecessors. That being said, they shook it off with a vengeance in the series finale, where they launched a coordinated assault on the entire universe. They defeated the Rangers and all their allies very quickly, ||and required a Dying Moment of Awesome from Zordon to lose.||
- Dark Specter might be the worst example of this in the series. He's portrayed as the The Man Behind the Man for all of the Zordon-era villains (Rita, Zedd, The Machine Empire, Divatox, Astronema, etc.). Sadly, he never once fights the Power Rangers, and he never
*does anything* other than give orders/make idle threats, and spends the entire season being unknowingly plotted against by his subordinates. In Part 1 of the Grand Finale, he's killed by The Starscream, though to his credit he at least takes him down too.
- In a somewhat literal example, the Big Bad of
*Power Rangers Megaforce*, Emperor Mavro, is confronted by the Red and Silver Rangers and considers them so beneath his attention that he actually sits down and claims that he can beat them without standing up. He then proceeds to deliver an almost effortless smackdown to the heroes without standing up.
- This applies to almost half of all the Big Bads in
*Super Sentai*, *Power Rangers*' parent show; they spend most of their screen time in the show in their throne, sitting like living furniture, and only get off their asses in the Grand Finale to fight the heroes in giant form.
- Star King Bazoo, the Big Bad of
*Dengeki Sentai Changeman*, at least has a justification for staying on his throne: ||he's just buying time until his real form arrives and allows him to destroy Earth.||
- Great Professor Bias of
*Choujuu Sentai Liveman* is another justified example. As his generals are all effectively his students, Bias lets them take turns handling the Evil Plan each episode and stays back in the Brain Base to grade them on their performances.
- The Gorma Emperor of
*Gosei Sentai Dairanger* is a lazy Manchild who spends almost all of his time playing with toys. He hardly does anything in the story besides one time he takes action to resurrect a single minion he particularly liked even though he probably could have revived far more. There is no real reason why he never bothers to fight the rangers himself since he is as powerful as all the rangers combined. ||It later turns out that the Gorma Emperor had died a long time ago and been replaced by a duplicate made of clay. The duplicate may have had its personality altered to make him easier to manipulate.||
- Daimaou of
*Ninja Sentai Kakuranger* has a good reason for usually not fighting himself. While he is the most powerful villain in the show, by the time he is revived, the rangers are already strong enough that they are capable of defeating him, and they actually do beat him several times when he takes to the battlefield, and only survives due to being tough enough to only be wounded by attacks that would kill any other monster.
- Dark Spectre's counterpart, Javious from
*Denji Sentai Megaranger*, also competes for the title of most inactive Big Bad ever. Despite being powerful enough that he could easily wipe out his generals in an instant if he ever found out they betrayed him, he barely even gives commands and lets generals do whatever they want. He ends up being killed by his traitorous generals before the rangers ever even learn that he exists. After his death however, it is revealed that he had a reason for never fighting himself. It turns out that he actually was a Genius Loci, the consciousness the Neziregia dimension, and so it was not possible for him to leave.
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*Operation Overdrive*'s Flurious seems to be in keeping with *GoGo Sentai Boukenger*, in which Gajah (the villain Flurious essentially replaced) mostly winds up hanging back, only really doing anything of significance after one of the other factions has one of their plans fail, in at least one case using the flaming wreckage of the failed plan as the foundation for his own. This ends up proving to his benefit however as he ultimately outlasts all the other members of the Big Bad Ensemble and becomes the Final Boss.
- You know what we said about Master Xandred above? His
*Samurai Sentai Shinkenger* counterpart, Chimatsuri Dokoku, is the same, only he's not taking medicine — that's *sake* and he spends all his time drinking himself into a stupor instead of commanding his minions, *without* the excuse of constant pain from the previous generation's attempt at permanently sealing him.
- Another lazy villain is Ginis of
*Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger*. He spends most of the series drinking and sitting on his throne, which, very fittingly, is actually part of his body. He is content to watch his minions fight for him for most of the series because his main motivation is entertainment and he doesn't care if his minions win or lose. It turns out however that his power is greatly reduced outside of his ship and it is eventually revealed that he acts like this because he is deeply ashamed of his origin and is doing everything he can to make everyone see him as a superior life form.
- Dogranio Yabun kickstarted the events of
*Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger* by declaring his intention of retiring and letting whoever conquers the Earth be his successor. As such, him fighting *or* planning would defeat the purpose of the whole exercise. But after watching countless members of this criminal syndicate be defeated by the heroes, he began to have serious doubts about his original plan. ||After his right-hand man Destra falls in combat, Dogranio finally to take matters into his own hands. Sadly for him, those years of sitting on his ass and letting his Collection powers do all the work has left him aged and out of practice. Once all his Collection pieces are removed, his remaining might, while still nothing to sneeze at, isn't enough to stave off defeat from the Patrangers. To top it all, unlike all the main Super Sentai villains series, Dogranio was not killed by the heroes after his final defeat but he received A Fate Worse Than Death: he was imprisoned in an underground maximum-security cell for the rest of his, presumably very long, lifespan.||
- Boccowaus from
*Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger* spends most of the series as just a face and an arm sticking out of the wall. While he apparently is powerful and feared, he doesn't take to the battlefield himself because he can only move around on tracks in his base. Mostly he just gives orders and pounds on the ground when he is mad. It isn't until he is completely fed up with his minions failing and finds out that the rangers are spying on him that he decides to power himself up into a form that can move freely. During his transformation into his battle form it is revealed that the giant wall wasn't his real body and his real form inside is tiny until he powers up.
- In
*The Wire*, drug lord Avon Barksdale plays with this trope. The justification is that if he never touches drugs, money, or guns, and he doesn't meet with his underlings in the field, he becomes difficult to prosecute. Until Jimmy McNulty stirs up a crusade against him, most police have never even heard of him, and they have a very difficult time digging up any intel or even a physical description. In contrast, Stringer Bell does and says plenty in the course of running the gang, though he is likewise very careful about it. A lampshade is hung on it in the scene where D'Angelo teaches his dealers the rules of chess; they liken Avon to the king and Stringer to the queen. After Avon returns from prison in Season 3, he wants to war with Marlo Stanfield and lead personally but gets resistance from his colleagues and Stringer, who aren't eager to risk the king.
- Egyptian Mythology: Ra of all people. He pretty much sits on his solar barge while every other god does their work against Apep and other demons, and has his enemies slaughtered before his throne.
- Even though he is the main antagonist in
*Destroy the Godmodder*, the titular Godmodder doesn't actually do stuff that often. Usually he either summons entities or blocks attacks. Averted in 2, where the Godmodder's DPS was often enough to wipe out the entire Anti-Godmodder entity list if the players didn't support them or summon new ones.
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*CthulhuTech*:
- Hastur. Sure, the Rapine Storm does all of his dirty work, but if a Great Old One — even a weakened one — actually entered the Mêlée à Trois himself, it would be over very quickly. It's implied that he's actually
*unable* to leave his domain on the Plateau of Leng, but he's an Eldritch Abomination, so it's hard to say for certain.
- Nyarlathotep assumed a human form and runs a Mega-Corp which secretly helps almost every cult in the setting. He could probably drive a small country mad all by himself, but for some reason he lets his secret network of cultists do all the heavy lifting.
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*Dungeons & Dragons*: Happens an awful lot when the writers need to fit in fair challenges for lower-level players that are still suitably epic, need to leave options open for DMs to use the character, or both. Though to be fair, they usually offer some sort of justification or Hand Wave, such as the entity being kept busy by other matters, stuck in a can somewhere, or being on a different plane of existence entirely.
- Orcus, of course, through most of his history. Justified, in that not only is he in an Evil Versus Evil war with various other Demon Lords, but also with the Fallen Devils as well. Back in First and Second Edition however he was a real terror; first he died, then he came back from the dead, terrorized the planes, killed a bunch of gods nobody cares about, and died again. He hasn't been the same since his second resurrection. In 4th Edition, Orcus is fully statted out for combat in the Monster Manual. Clearly he's gotten a bit more active if he needs epic-level heroes to face him. What's more, he's not only the most powerful monster in that book, but he got himself put on the cover.
- Asmodeus' was badly wounded during his fall from heaven, so his avatar can't go far from the hells for long periods of time, and he is enough of a Magnificent Bastard that he doesn't have to leave hell to be the dangerous creature in the multiverse. 4e offers another justification for Asmodeus; Hell is his prison and he can't leave. It's worth noting that he wasn't imprisoned there to protect the mortal world from him, but to protect the other gods from him. He became a god through deicide, and the other gods are scared shitless of him (and potential copycats).
- Orcus' arch-rival Demogorgon tends to do the same thing. His excuse is that he considers the wars with devils and other demons a necessary annoyance, and his true interest is researching the nature of the Abyss. For the record? Demogorgon is said canonically to be more powerful than Orcus, and at least in some versions, was the demonic equivalent of Asmodeus himself.
- Many, many Darklords in the
*Ravenloft* setting. The most extreme example is Soth, who spent decades literally just sitting on his throne because he didn't care anymore. It has been theorized that the Dark Powers let him escape Ravenloft because he ceased to be of any interest, in contrast to Darklords like Strahd, Drakov, or Azalin whose existence is a constant cycle of Yank the Dog's Chain. Ironically, the original *Ravenloft* module completely defied this trope — the vampire lord Strahd has spies looking out for you when you invade his castle, and if he knows where you are and you linger too long in one area, he *will* attack you and try to kill you rather than wait for you to find him, and on top of that the game randomises where the final battle with him is supposed to take place so rather than finding him on his throne, you have no idea when and where you will run into him. He'll also have multiple social interactions with the party long before then, safe in the knowledge they're no real threat to him.
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*Eberron*: Used as a consistent part of the setting. Every major power, good or evil, has *some* reason not to just send out their strongest people out conquering. The big limiting factor is the Draconic Prophecy, a constantly changing series of Either/Or Prophecies. The demons of the Lords of Dust are all completely immortal and many of them could fight armies by themselves, but they only want to release the Overlords—and the only way to do that is through very specific manipulation of the Prophecy. They can't just start a war to release the Rage of War, they need to start a war in Aundair using a disinherited prince of a dead nation who murders his aunt. That has to be set up very carefully through agents, and *stopping* it likewise requires mortal agents. This was an intentional design choice, as the point of the setting is "Eberron needs heroes."
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*Forgotten Realms* has Larloch, a lich archmage of unsurpassed power who's spent 2000 years accumulating magical artifacts and undead servants, including dozens of lesser liches. He prefers to spend his time doing research in the depths of Warlock's Crypt, only occasionally acting to secure interesting magic items or information... or to unleash sixty liches on a nearby town to see what happens.
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*Exalted*: The Deathlords once unleashed the Great Contagion, a plague that wiped out 90% of all life in Creation. Then they did nothing but plot for millennia. Somewhat justified, in that their Neverborn masters really hate failure and have dolled out some nasty punishments already; if one of them's going to come up with a fiendish plan to destroy Creation, they're going to make damn sure it *works* first. Additionally, they all want to be the one to destroy the world themselves, which means they spend a lot of time keeping an eye on each other to make sure no one else gets the glory. (Some treatments, such as Eye and Seven Despairs, or the Lover have been presented as being more interested in the distractions and satisfactions of existence, and have strayed from the path of seeking Oblivion as anything other than lip service.) This, more than any other reason, is likely why the Neverborn have deliberately set about having the Death Lords unknowingly train their own replacements (that being the Abyssal Exalted).
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*Magic: The Gathering*:
- Oloro, Ageless Ascetic sits in his chair, in the Command Zone, gaining you life, all game long. Most decks that play Oloro consider
*casting* him very low on their priorities list, especially as it leaves his signature life gain ability more vulnerable to being taken out of play.
- Nicol Bolas does a lot of prep work but during the
*War of the Spark* itself is so confident in his plan and contemptuous of his opposition that he spends the entire invasion sitting on his throne, occasionally giving an order to a minion, mostly ignoring his enemies and never focusing his immense magical might upon them. Ironically the one time he acts directly before the end, intervening to save Liliana Vess (presumably simply to spare himself the bother of commanding his Eternals personally) ||it ends up backfiring as Liliana betrays him and uses the Dreadhorde's God-Eternals to strip him of his power.|| It's especially glaring because in his previous appearance in *Hour of Devastation*, he had personally handed the Gatewatch a humiliatingly one-sided beatdown even though he was clearly Just Toying with Them purely for the joy of it.
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*In Nomine*:
- God comes across like this. His hand will appear in small ways through Divine Intervention, but He's not taking the field personally till Armageddon — he's only communicated with angels at all twice since the Fall.
- Lucifer, meanwhile, plays with the trope. He is quite active both in Infernal Interventions and in maintaining Hell's hierarchy, but he doesn't personally involve himself in the fight against Heaven — he spends more time judging his inferiors' success instead. Nonetheless, he can pop up whenever he wants — even if he just happens to wander by and open a stuck door for demons (though this should only happen in a more comedic campaign). He also sometimes speaks to angels and is rarely openly hostile toward them (though that doesn't mean that that angel isn't now in very serious trouble).
- The Superiors from both sides to varying degrees. Yves, Archangel of Destiny, Kronos, Demon Prince of Fate, or Malphas, Demon Prince of Factions, prefer to work through others.
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*Pathfinder*:
- This tends to happen to liches. Powerful evil spellcasters who have achieved immortality, and thus have all the time in the world to discover even
*more* powerful magic, along with the additional powers their undead state grants? They should be ruling the world, right? While it's true that many start out with Evil Overlord ambitions, as the centuries pass the concerns of the mortal world matter less and less to them. Lacking the need to eat and sleep, they spend all their time on their research, until even that bores them, and a creeping lethargy sets in. Eventually they may cease to function entirely and become barely sapient (though incredibly powerful) *demi*liches.
- In the description of Wormsmaw in
*Undead Unleashed*, the legendary undead warlord Erum-Hel is found sitting on his throne in the depths of his fortress, waiting for the intruders to come to him and ignoring their progress through his lair until they do.
- Kevoth-Kul, the Black Sovereign of Numeria, is a justified example of this trope. He's a powerful and dangerous barbarian king who conquered the throne of Starfall by force, but these days he never leaves his palace because the
*real* power in Starfall, the Technic League, keep him drugged and distracted so they can run the show. The game's second edition reveals that after the Technic League's destruction in *Iron Gods*, he becomes a much more proactive and effective ruler.
- Justified for the Dethroned of
*Princess: The Hopeful*. Despite being the most powerful of the Darkness's servants, Dethroned are so consumed by their own despair and self-loathing that, left to themselves, they simply remain in the Dark World, endlessly reliving the events that stripped them of their Belief. And since any lesser creature of Darkness who gets too close to a Dethroned risks being subsumed into the Dethroned's self-flagellation, Darkspawn rarely seek to awaken a Dethroned save in extreme circumstances.
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*Warhammer 40,000*:
- Of the daemon Primarchs only a handful have left their daemonworlds and attacked the Imperium on a regular basis. Mostly because they don't actually give a crap about the Imperium anymore; they have godlike powers and rule entire worlds that are shaped according to their whims, so they have very little reason to leave their homes and go kick some mortals around. Angron, the most active, is a bit different as he exists to kill things, and mortals are more fun to kill than demons (as demons can't truly die). And it takes an enormous amount of energy to actually summon them to the physical world... and every time poor Magnus the Red ventures out, the Space Wolves stab him in the eye. This goes double Lorgar and Fulgrim. Every other daemon-primarch assaulted the Imperium at least once. Lorgar has spent the last ten thousand years meditating on the nature of Chaos, while the Word Bearers are ruled by his lieutenants. Fulgrim left his legion shortly after Horus Heresy and even the Emperor's Children can't find him. The Emperor's Children no longer have any kind of unified command structure after that incident with World Eaters, Kharn and a flamethrower.
- Thanks to Twin Switch antics, it's ambiguous as to whether Alpharius is alive, whether his twin brother Omegon is alive, or whether they're both alive. Whatever the answer is, they haven't been heard of in ten thousand years.
- The Emperor is effectively sustained by life support on his throne and has been for ten millennia. He's
*less* of a villain, but this is WH40K we're talking about.
- The Chaos Gods, when they aren't stuck in their literally eternal Enemy Civil War, rely on their daemons and mortal followers to cause havoc in the Materium. In their case, they're just
**so** powerful that they physically can't manifest in or influence the Materium in any way. Their ultimate goal is to permanently merge the Materium and Immaterium, which would give them free rein over everything.
- Fanon interpretations strike Khorne particularly hard with this trope, referring to him as a particularly lazy slob who won't simply stand up and start spilling some blood himself. This is partly due to the "SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE" part of the infamous warcry, which leads to interpreting him as really loving that throne too much to leave it, and because every other god seems to be doing
*something* in their wait: Tzeentch keeps weaving plan after plan, Slaanesh spends time murderfucking Eldar souls for eternity, and Nurgle continually brews new plagues, and even if he were fully idle at least his domain justifies it. Khorne, whose domain would expect more activity than any of the other three, does nothing of the sort, and apparently all he does is watch his servants fight everyone forever, with only the occasional gift to a powerful warrior. Thus, as impressive as his servants are, the God himself ends up coming off as less of an unstoppable force of violence and more of a "paraplegic sociopath".
- Asdrubael Vect, ruler of the Dark Eldar, is an
*in-game example*. His model is a floating open-topped tank, which he's had a throne installed on, and while there are rules for him leaving the vehicle he's very expensive, so doesn't get to go out in person much. In the lore, he's The Chessmaster and Evil Overlord, so it's justified that he doesn't get stuck in all that often.
- Ilya from
*Fate/stay night*. Her Berserker is the strongest of the servants currently participating in the Holy Grail War and she's an extremely powerful magus on top of it — but besides her first appearance in which she almost effortlessly subdues both Shirou and Rin combined, she never takes another offensive action afterwards, in any of the three routes, despite how that she could probably flatten all the other participants ||except for Kotomine and Gilgamesh||. This is probably because ||she is the vessel for the Holy Grail, which takes over her body when it activates, so she has no reason to even try.||
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*Red vs. Blue*:
- The Director of Project Freelancer and the man behind all the atrocities said operation committed, never directly confronts the heroes, even when they storm his hideout, he just lets his ||army of robot Agent Texas doppelgangers|| deal with them. ||Justified, as he is revealed to have become a washed-up shell of his former self by the time the series gets to him, who's
*ready to kill himself* by the time Agent Carolina and Church finale confront him face to face.||
- ||The Chairman|| spends almost all three seasons of the Chorus arc sitting in his heavily guarded flagship,
*far* away from the real action and leaves all the dirty work to his Co-Dragons Locus and ||Felix|| and their army of Space Pirates. ||Subverted in the finale of season thirteen, after The Blood Gulch Crew exposes his corruption to The Federation and he has nothing left to lose, The Chairman personally flies his ship to Chorus with an army of Humongous Mecha and the remainder of his infantry, in an attempt to take the BGC and as many of the people on Chorus with him as possible.||
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*RWBY*: Salem prefers to work from the shadows and let subordinates act in her stead, as it enables her to turn humanity against itself and leave them pointing fingers at each other instead of her. She directs her forces remotely from the remnants of the Domain of Darkness. ||After she learns in Volume 6 that her subordinates failed to obtain the Relic of Knowledge, which is being carried to Atlas by a newly reincarnated Ozpin, Salem decides to personally take action, crafting an aerial Grimm army and leading the attack on Atlas. In Volume 8, she is temporarily taken out by a Fantastic Nuke from Oscar, in a one-shot explosion from Ozpin's cane, just long enough for the kingdom's people to be evacuated to Vacuo.||
- Fire-Human, from the
*Water-Human* series, spends the entire series sitting on his throne and playing Nintendo DS games. When The Hero is captured and delivered to his fortress, he just sends the captors away because he's too busy playing, and never realizes whom they brought.
- In
*Adventurers!!*, Khrima is frequently shown waiting like this. Sometimes he gets impatient when Karn's out Level Grinding instead of advancing the plot, and wishes he'd brought a Game Boy or something. He's occasionally shown researching lasers or playing Scrabble or something. Subverting this forms the basis of a short arc: Khrima says he's tired of waiting for the heroes to do stuff, and along with one of his lieutenants, decides to go steal a mini-Cosmic Keystone to use as a water cooler.
- Emperor Kreedor from
*Dubious Company*. Throughout the story he has personally done NOTHING to carry out his evil plans, instead relying on his elite squad of goons to carry out his goals. In the meantime, the only things Kreedor can be counted on to do are issue orders, yell at his minions, and call out every so often for whatever bit of pampering he wants to undergo next. Even gaining immense, world-threatening godlike powers has done nothing to convince him to actually get off his throne and actually *do* something.
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*El Goonish Shive* has Lord Tedd, an evil alternate-dimensional version of one of the main characters who hasn't made any significant actions since his introduction (although it is later learned that he did ||create the Goo Monster that the first story arc was centered around||).
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*Homestuck*:
- The Black Queen doesn't really do much except sit on her throne and make Jack Noir wear silly outfits. ||Subverted later on, as Jack completely shakes the game up as soon as he kills her and takes her power and has shown no signs of stopping||. It is implied that the Royalty in Sburb are limited in what they can do till certain conditions are met as it is part of a "game". Jack in the B1 universe and DD and the Condesce in the B2 universe demonstrate just how broken the game can be if the royals start acting Genre Savvy.
- Subverted with Lord English, who doesn't enter the story until fairly late in the comic, but not because he's just sitting around. ||He has to prepare everything so that he can even enter the universe in the first place and has been manipulating nearly everyone since the very beginning to do so. When he finally
*does* make his presence known he more than makes up for sitting around.|| It also turns out that he's been part of the story from the very start ||observing everyone through the eyes of his Soul Jar, Lil' Cal.||
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*The Order of the Stick*:
- When Xykon is first introduced he appears to be this, sitting down in his lair waiting for the heroes to arrive (and watching them on his crystal ball, with picture-in-picture for when the party gets split up). However, after his defeat, he becomes a
*much* more proactive villain. But then he goes back to warming the seat on his throne (in a manner of speaking; he's a bone-cold lich) after ||conquering Azure City||. He explicitly states that even crafting magical items takes up only 8 hours of his day, and, for lack of anything else to do, he has taken to offbeat torture of his prisoner, forcing gladiatorial sport on his slaves, and has developed a liking for Zombie Gladiators. Xykon states in *Start of Darkness* that, with the immortality of lichdom, time is on his side, and he can afford to dilly-dally as much as he wants.
- Later subverted when it's revealed that Redcloak manipulated Xykon to spend more time in the city they'd conquered since Redcloak was trying to turn it into a new goblin city-state and needed time to get it to where it could handle Redcloak being gone. Xykon eventually gets sick of waiting after his favorite prisoner to torture is broken out and forces Redcloak to get ready to leave to get going on the rest of their quest for the gates.
- Subverted again when they arrive at the desert gate. Xykon is furious to see that the heroes beat them there and the gate is destroyed and decides to just kill the whole party then and there. However, The Monster in the Darkness recognizes the party as friends of his friend O'Chul and tricks Xykon into letting them live and hurrying on to the next gate instead.
- Nale sees his father Tarquin as an example of this and resents him for it. He doesn't understand why his father is content to spend his dwindling days in the lap of luxury when he has the resources and skill to conquer the world and rule it forever. Although from Tarquin's point of view, it's entirely reasonable, as he's a very active Chessmaster ||who is actually constantly expanding and reinforcing his empire through an elaborate continent-wide campaign of manipulation.||
- Played for Laughs in the
*The Perry Bible Fellowship* comic "Zuthulus [sic] Resurrection".
- In
*Sluggy Freelance* the Dimension of Pain demons were a recurring threat for several years, had their own B-Side Comics for a while, and became major antagonists during the "That Which Redeems" storyline. Yet the Demon King, the guy who's in charge of the dimension and bosses Horribus around barely appears, and actually seems barely interested in or even aware of the demons' actions. That is until Torg interrupts him on the toilet.
- Justified in
*Swords*: The demon king fell into depression after being stabbed with the Boredsword, which is still embedded in his chest.
- In
*Tower of God*, Jahad, the King of the Tower, is gradually revealed to be more and more of an evil ruler, but in the meantime, all he himself does is hibernate or something. You have to look in the background material to know even this, and that there are people called the Three Lords who rule in his stead. ||Until he becomes aware of the protagonist's existence, and the heroes are suddenly faced with a whole army division sent just to get them.||
-
*The Witch's Throne*: The Witch, even though she has enough powers to destroy all living things, waits atop her throne to fight the four warriors from the prophecy.
-
*The Wotch*. Melleck Xaos pretty much subscribes to this philosophy. When he does bother doing anything, it's usually to banter with his minions or create some new Fallen. The few times he *does* get involved in a fight he usually stomps a mudhole in his enemies. Furthermore, it's revealed early in the story that one of Xaos' few limitations is that ||he can't escape the dimension he rules due to a powerful curse. He spends most of his time either sending his minions to "test" the Wotch or hunting down the artifacts that will allow him to circumvent his imprisonment.||
- In the
*Metamor Keep* storyverse, Nasoj is quite content to just bide his time instead of making another attempt to destroy the keep and conquer the midlands. However, zig-zagged in that there is one arc dedicated to him assaulting the keep.
-
*Avatar: The Last Airbender*: Fire Lord Ozai filled out this trope to a tee for two and a half seasons. "You must defeat the Fire Lord before he takes over the world" was the mantra. In the last season, he makes up for it, however. Word of God comments that he was designed this way from the start, saying the first villain they designed for the show was Ozai and that they imagined him "leading from the comfort of his own throne" up until the end.
-
*Barbie in a Mermaid Tale 2* has Eris in the finale—though it's justified in that she *has* to stay on the throne or she won't gain the power to spin merillia.
-
*The Bots Master*: Corrupt Corporate Executive Leon Lewis Paradim, despite being the Big Bad, has his Co-Dragons Dr. Hiss and Lady Frenzy deal with the heroes rather than doing things himself, to the point where he appears in fewer episodes than they do.
- In
*Castlevania (2017)*, Dracula spends a year gathering forces for the extermination of humanity. But when it comes time to actually execute the war, he seems surprisingly disinterested and just delegates everything to his generals. Even some of those generals begin to question his inaction, seeing him as having become a senile old man who's no longer fit to lead.
- Darkseid in the DC Animated Universe is a bit more active than his comics counterpart, but he's still pretty passive for an evil alien tyrant. This is justified in that after his first attack on Earth it was under the protection of New Genesis. The final episode of
*Justice League Unlimited* has Darkseid coming back from the dead and so angry that he's decided being passive is for wimps. He immediately decides to invade Earth, and when an aide reminds him that New Genesis will retaliate, Darkseid tells him that's where he's going next after he's done turning Earth into rubble.
- Zordrak of
*The Dreamstone* is a gargantuan Eldritch Abomination who could probably trample the Land Of Dreams under his foot, let alone with any of his dark spells (such as the power to place his spirit into another being). For some reason however his duties rarely exceed sitting on his throne and chewing out his far less fearsome mooks, the Urpneys, who he instead charges with the duty of stealing the title MacGuffin the large majority of the time. There was at least one case when his throne was equipped with a jet engine; he Curb Stomped the good guys, they Summoned a Bigger Fish — an entire living planet — the two engaged in a Beam-O-War, which Zordak was winning... then the good guys pulled the plug on that engine.
-
*Fangbone!*: Despite his status as the setting's most powerful and dangerous Evil Sorcerer, Big Bad Venomous Drool pretty much never leaves his fortress and prefers to just send monsters after Fangbone and Bill to get his magic toe back from them. This is more justified than others however as Drool's magical power is severely diminished due to his missing toe, so he actually poses far less of a threat to the heroes than he normally would. ||Additionally, the finale reveals his powers are linked to Skullbania itself, so if comes to Earth, he becomes completely powerless.||
- The Queen of the Crowns in
*Galaxy Rangers* rarely leaves her well-appointed palaces, instead making use of Slaverlords, paid mercenaries, and Mooks to do much of the heavy lifting. Justified by the fact that she *does* have an Empire to run and that her palaces have the necessary equipment to mash her enemies down for Life Energy. Why waste time going to them when you can trick your enemies into coming to you?
- Van Kleiss of
*Generator Rex*, though with good reason: his powers only work if he is in contact with his native soil of Abysus. Most of his plans involve him trying to avert this somehow, with varying degrees of success. As long as his powers are active (or he has some plan in the background that will *get* his powers active), he's perfectly willing to leave home to fight the good guys directly. After Van Kleiss ||got a new powerset that doesn't tie him to Abysuss||, he became quite the Mobile Menace, helped out by how one of his minions has impressive teleportation powers.
- The Sorceress from
*He-Man and the Masters of the Universe* has formidable magic that could help He-Man in his fight against Skeletor. However, she is unable to leave Castle Greyskull without transforming into a hawk.
- Inspector Gadget's foe Dr. Claw is the
*embodiment* of this. The closest Gadget *ever* got to a face-to-face confrontation was the opening sequence of the show (and even then, it was a booby trap left by the villain). Other than that, Claw didn't seem to leave his dark control room or his fancy limousine for even a minute, where he directed the actions of his minions remotely, keeping the good guys — and the viewers — from even seeing his face.
- In
*Kim Possible*, Shego does this during her stint as The Supreme One during *A Sitch in Time*.
- Mr. Selatcia of
*Metalocalypse* is notorious for always ordering his secret tribunal to wait and observe Dethklok without interfering... despite how the tribunal's stated purpose is to get rid of Dethklok. Eventually this annoys two of his underlings so much that they begin secretly attempting to murder the band. When Selatica finds out, he is VERY unhappy. Selatica's plans require Dethklok to be alive, and the real reason he's leading the tribunal is to *prevent them* from carrying out their mission.
- Hawk Moth of
*Miraculous Ladybug*, despite being the Big Bad, never confronts the heroes directly and just stays hidden in his secret lair. This is because his Miraculous is the Moth Brooch, which is used to grant powers to *others* while also making them his brainwashed servants. Therefore he just finds civilians who are suffering to turn them into supervillains in a deal to get revenge. Since Hawk Moth can keep creating minions over and over again at no cost to himself, there's no real need for him to personally risk himself in the field. Also, he has a Secret Identity as ||rich businessman and fashion designer Gabriel Agreste|| and needs to protect his secret and never do risky moves. Furthermore, one episode implies that he simply lacks the stamina to actually face the heroes in one-on-one combat, though that turns out to be untrue later on.
- He usually never left home in his civilian identity as well, but changed his mind and went back to appearing in public without his villain costume.
- In the second episode of Season 2, through Loophole Abuse he uses his power
*on himself*, to give him another set of powers and costume, goes to cause mayhem, and gets defeated by the heroes with no problem, because they were close to finding out his secret identity, so he creates a Second Super-Identity to hide suspicion by pretending he is another victim of Hawk Moth.
- In the Season 2 finale, Hawk Moth finally leaves his hideout and appears in public, because he managed to boost his own power to make an army of supervillains made from his previous victims, and is an advantage, which was his ultimate plan, even when the whole army is defeated, it's shown that he can fight against the heroes on his own.
- In Season 3, finally he leaves his hideout in the Hawk Moth costume and without a plan because he needed to save his right-hand woman Mayura from getting defeated and captured by the heroes after she recklessly tried to confront them without talking to him. Not only does he genuinely care for her, but if he didn't save her, he would lose a Miraculous, and Mayura being unmasked would risk his own identity since without costumes, she is ||his secretary.||
-
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*'s premiere for its third season portrays King Sombra in this way during the flashback to his oppressive rule over the Crystal Empire. This case is more justified than most considering his 0% Approval Rating; all of his subjects are kept enslaved by him and his Black Magic, with no army of mooks to shoulder the grunt work for him.
- This is averted in one of the potential Bad Futures shown in the season five finale, where he personally leads an army of Slave Mooks in a long and brutal war with Equestria. Averted again in season nine opening two-parter, where the resurrected King Sombra, lacking any army of his own, marches on the Crystal Empire and Equestria himself and starts tearing through everything while brainwashing ponies left and right to serve as his minions.
- When Grogar shows up in the final season he does nothing
*but* bark orders at his Legion of Doom from their headquarters. ||Justified as Grogar is actually Discord in disguise pulling a False Flag Operation to trick the villains into attacking Equestria to give Twilight Sparkle a confidence boost||.
- Emperor Belos from
*The Owl House* rarely leaves his palace, partially due to suffering from a rare affliction that he's trying to cure. ||At least until "Hollow Mind" revealed that the actual reason is that he is a Witch Hunter with a genocidal hatred for witches, thereby indicating that he stays in his castle to have as little interaction with the witches and demons of the Boiling Isles as possible.||
- In
*Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures*, Betrayus is this. Losing his body and being reduced to Sealed Evil in a Can seems to have made him really lazy. Despite having powerful Playing with Fire abilities, he just sits on his throne watching his minions on TV. He says it's his *job* to do so! The fact that he's *terrified* of the thought of Pac eating him and spitting out his eyeballs helps.
-
*Samurai Jack*:
- Jack's sword is the only thing that can kill or even hurt Aku, so he mostly hides in his lair and sends minions out to do his dirty work, and he only ever attacks Jack personally if Aku has some advantage he's sure will let him win. By the time of season five, Aku hasn't even been seen outside of his lair in years. He destroyed all the time portals, so there's no reason to confront Jack and risk being killed by his sword (he didn't know that Jack lost the sword during their last confrontation).
- Even before Jack came back on the scene Aku was having minions created to do work for him, minions just as mortal as he is not. One of them speculates that the work was too slow when he did it on his own. Given the scope of Aku's powers and the total Lack of Empathy he has for his minions, it's also possible he just gets bored of doing all the killing himself.
-
*She-Ra and the Princesses of Power*:
- Hordak, who delegates his minions to go conquer the world for him while he rests on his throne... partly because he's spending most of his time building new minions, but mostly ||because he's Secretly Dying, and needs to stay within easy reach of his laboratory if he's to keep himself alive, and also because hes working on portal technology that will let him return to the side of his master, Horde Prime. Hes a busy man. He does strap a BFG to his arm and begin leading from the front in Season 4, some time after his armor gets an upgrade to its life support, but this happens mostly off-screen.||
- In season 5, ||Horde Prime is an interesting subversion. While he really does spend the whole season on the throne of his space station, sending clones, robots, and mind-controlled Etherians to do all his dirty work, his ability to perform a Villain Override on any of his minions allows him to personally menace the heroes anyways. Justified in that he himself seems to have no powers or abilities suitable for combat; he's already in the most useful place he can be.||
-
*Steven Universe* has Blue and White Diamond. Blue is too caught up mourning the assassination of Pink to lead, and White never leaves her throne room/ship, instead having White Pearl act as her voice in all matters.
- On
*Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!*, Skeleton King spends the entire first season never leaving his throne aboard his fortress/ship, the Citadel of Bone. Justified, as we find out he's linked to the place and literally *can't* leave. After its destruction at the start of Season 2, however, it's averted, as he's now free to move about and be more active.
- General Mudula fills this role in
*Sym-Bionic Titan*, sending monsters and mooks after the protagonists but not bothering to go after them personally. However, it's quite justified since he's too busy managing his new empire and crushing rebellions to be bothered to chase after three measly enemies, regardless of how important they are.
-
*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)*: For all his faults, Shredder does *not* have this problem. Krang, on the other hand, does. While a couple of episodes show he's more than capable of fighting physically, he rarely leaves the control room of the Technodrome, letting Shredder and the "gruesome twosome" do the dirty work.
- Mumm-Ra, in the original
*ThunderCats (1985)*, rarely leaves his citadel, except when powered up into Mumm-Ra the Everliving, and even then he can't bear to spend much time away from it. Justified when it turns out that the "Ancient Spirits of Evil" are either bound by unbreakable arcane laws or else major-league jerkasses; they will grant the power that Mumm-Ra uses to become Mumm-Ra the Everliving to *anyone* who stands in the mystical chamber and invokes them in the proper manner. As proven when *Snarf* does so and becomes "Snarf-Ra the Everliving". Also, Mumm-Ra cannot survive outside of his coffin for more than 24 hours.
- In the
*The Transformers* episode "Triple Takeover", Blitzwing makes a football stadium his new headquarters and has the Constructicons build a giant highway maze around it. He then gets the Autobots' attention by firing into the city. He then waits in the stadium for the Autobots to come to him, occasionally sending the Constructicons into the maze to deal with them. By the time they finally reach him, they're exhausted and injured, and he casually tramples them and makes a throne from their bodies.
- During the second season of
*Transformers: Animated*, Megatron could have left the underground base of operations he'd set up any time he wanted, and there was no one on Earth who could stand in his way. But Earth didn't interest him, nor did going out of his way to kick around a lowly Autobot repair crew. In fact, Megatron stayed in not because he was taking it easy, but because he had a project in the works that he intended to use to bypass Cybertron's defenses, and it kept him too busy to go out.
- Emperor Zarkon in
*Voltron: Legendary Defender* doesn't bother personally chasing down Team Voltron despite being immensely powerful even without his army backing him up. Justified, as he's managing an empire and doesn't really have time to run off after a single group of enemies. Further he's not exactly worried about being unable to find the heroes, as ||he used to be the Black Lion's paladin and still has some connection to it, allowing him to figure out where the team is anytime he wants.|| Further he would actually prefer it if the team *did* get past his minions and reach him since that would give him a chance to ||reclaim control of the Black Lion; while he wouldn't be able to form Voltron, neither would the heroes which, combined with the Black Lion's power, would be a pretty good consolation prize.||
- Averted with his son Lotor, who's much more proactive.
- Lord Darkar in
*Winx Club* is initially active, nearly killing Aisha and freeing the Trix, but he then spends the rest of the time scheming in his castle and operating through minions.
- Prince Phobos of
*W.I.T.C.H.*. This becomes a plot point in the second season finale. ||The Guardians are trying to lure him to a place that will rob his powers if he enters, but he throws a wrench in that plan by simply being too lazy—or as Raythar puts it, "doesn't want to muss his hair"—to leave his throne room until his forces are victorious.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrcusOnHisThrone |
Organic Bra - TV Tropes
No bra, no problem.
Sometimes, when you need to create a human-looking alien, a female member of a race of Unscaled Merfolk, or a Draconic Humanoid, bras or simple breast coverings may look awkward, as she isn't supposed to wear any clothes at all. Well, what should a writer do? The answer is, in this case, covering the mammaries with a natural fleshy appendage, wide enough to hide cleavage and nipples from a view from above. In a few cases, it can also cover a good part of the belly and the waist, forming a shell-like composition. Usually it will be thick enough to hide the nipples underneath, which consequently leads to Nipple and Dimed. Bonus points if the creature either looks like an adolescent or appears in children media.
This trope may be used to avoid Fan Disservice moments.
Subtrope of Clothing Appendage. Sister trope of Seashell Bra and Barbie Doll Anatomy. Compare it to Non-Mammal Mammaries and Exposed Extraterrestrials. Can sometimes overlap with Nonhumans Lack Attributes. Not to be confused with Fur Bikini, though it can overlap in case the character's nonhuman biology is based on a fur/hair-covered mammal (e.g. a Catgirl).
## Examples:
-
*Blue Submarine No. 6*: Mutio and her sisters have fleshy bits growing out of their shoulders that hang down over their chests and cover their breasts most of the time. Though there are a couple of scenes where Mutio's movements cause her breasts (and nipples) to be visible anyway.
- Lisanna Strauss, in
*Fairy Tail*, has magic that lets her take on the form of animals. During the Tartaros arc she uses it to create a bra and underwear when she suffers from a lack of clothing, although technically she just transformed those parts of her body into a cat. She's still 100% percent nude, just part cat.
- Kino the matango (mushroom girl) in
*Monster Musume* has "frills" covering her private parts that are actually a part of her body.
- Ursula, along with her sister Morgana, from
*The Little Mermaid* franchise: her waist, buttocks and breasts are covered by a patch of black skin that forms a sweet-heart neckline. Furthermore their backs lack the black covering, making their skin look like part of a slinky evening dress.
- In both the original
*Clash of the Titans* and the 2010 remake, Medusa has black plates covering her nipples.
- In
*The Little Mermaid (2018)*, Elizabeth has scales that cover her breasts in her mermaid form.
- The live-action
*The Little Mermaid (2023)* ditches the Seashell Bras from the animated film in favor of scales covering the chests (and in a few cases the entire torso) of Ariel and her sisters.
- Marishka, Alena, and Verona (a.k.a Dracula's brides) from
*Van Helsing* have their chests covered with ridged leathery white skin whenever they turn into vampires. Justified, as their human forms possess Stripperific clothes.
- In the
*X-Men* film series, shapeshifter Mystique is nude when not shapeshifted. She has scaly parts over her naughty bits.
-
*Darkstalkers* has Cat Girl Felicia with a strip of fur that both censors her nipples and acts as a Fur Bikini.
- In the
*Disgaea* series, the Nekomata class has patches of fur on her chest, giving her the appearance of wearing a Fur Bikini.
- Despite being a human-like creature, the fury Alecto from
*God of War: Ascension* has her breasts covered by a naturally produced, black, tar-like substance. Her cleavage is quite visible, though.
- Nami, the Tidecaller in
*League of Legends* has this as well as Navel-Deep Neckline formed with *her scales*. Word of God states that she actually did this when she found out about the indecency of this in Runeterra, the ingame world, after a certain Noodle Incident and used her magic to cover herself.
- In
*The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D*, Princess Ruto has fins on her chest that have the appearance of a dress top to cover her Non-Mammal Mammaries. This carries over into *Hyrule Warriors*. In the original release of *Ocarina*, she tends more toward Barbie Doll Anatomy.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess*: ||Midna's true form|| has exposed breasts, although a lack of features and dark patches of skin make it appear she has an undergarment of some sort beneath her shawl. The effect worked so well most fans didn't even realize she was technically topless until she got a higher-resolution render for *Hyrule Warriors*.
- Bowser/Bowletta from
*Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga* possesses two large plates on her chest.
- Suzuka Gozen from
*Onmyōji*, already Ms. Fanservice in her normal skins, has this in her exclusive Golden Voyage alternate skin, where she's completely naked above the waist, with only a thin pattern of golden scales running up her torso to cover her nipples.
-
*Pokémon*:
- Nidoqueen sports two massive chest plates.
- Jynx has what looks like an opera singer dress on, with a red bra-like structure on its chest.
- Swanna from Gen V has tufts of feathers on its chest designed to evoke the chest of a ballerina costume.
- Alexia Ashford's Tyrant Form in
*Resident Evil Code: Veronica* has vine-like growths that cover her nipples and groin.
- The Queen of Blades from
*Starcraft* franchise has purple colored skin that covers her breasts. Furthermore, everything but the breasts is covered with bone-like bumps.
- In
*Star Trek Online*, Fek'Ihri Ravagers have a blobby patch of flesh over the breasts. Very much Fan Disservice.
- The female naga from
*World of Warcraft* have their breasts covered by scales (their models in *Warcraft III* simply have Barbie Doll Anatomy, but that's probably due to the lower graphic resolution). Some of them wear armor over their chest, though.
- In
*Adventures of the Gummi Bears*, Aquarianne the mermaid's fish scales cover her upper body all the way up to her chest, as if she was wearing a long dress. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrganicBra |
Ordinary High-School Student - TV Tropes
*"I am Kenichi Shirahama, an extremely ordinary first-year high school student who loves reading books and growing flowers. But, for some reason now, *
**I'm locked in a desperate battle on top of a speeding bus!"**
The most common protagonist of a show targeted at teenagers.
They seem like a teenaged Everyman, but they have special powers. Whether or not they discover their Powers in the First Episode or merely receive a Call to Adventure that sends them on a quest for their true nature, it usually quickly becomes apparent they are anything but ordinary. Or even if they really are as ordinary as they seem, they won't
*stay* ordinary for much longer.
They're revealed to be reincarnated ancient heroes or alien princesses Raised by Humans. They suddenly find a use for the obscure skill or art they've been practicing since they could walk, or they discover their entire life has been a Secret Test of Character to prepare them for a great responsibility. They find out their Secret Legacy as heirs to a Badass Family of demon hunters, wizards, or Yakuza. They find an ancient mystical MacGuffin in their attic, buy one for a few coins from a junk dealer, or are given one by a mysterious stranger on their Dangerous 16th Birthday. They suddenly gain a Trickster Mentor or a Magical Girlfriend. They establish secret identities as a Henshin Hero or a Magical Girl Warrior, find a way to channel Ki Manipulation, summon a powerful Guardian Entity or fall into the cockpit of a Humongous Mecha.
Sometimes, instead of gaining superpowers or Taking a Level in Badass, they merely become a Weirdness Magnet: for example, they gain
*something* that makes the opposite sex flock to them, and possibly the odd member of their own, whether they want the attention or not. Or they are a Cosmic Plaything who frequently find themselves in the unenviable position of having to save the world without any special powers.
Sometimes they're actually gods. And sometimes they are truly average joes who simply lead truly ordinary lives.
Protagonists based on this trope are typically invoked to provide an Audience Surrogate. Considering the demographic works with these protagonists are generally aimed at, the Ordinary High School Student is someone every young person can easily relate to and place themselves into. By extension, such a character also appeals to older viewers for a similar reason. The character may additionally be The Everyman or a Ridiculously Average Guy.
Look for the kid in the fully open button shirt over a T-shirt, jeans and Converse sneakers. If Japanese, an open blazer with slacks or a sailor fuku/gakuran will do.
See Farm Boy for their rural counterpart. Many, MANY Japanese media live off this trope. For ordinary high school students doing ordinary things, you're better off looking for a Schoolgirl Series or a Slice of Life than one of these guys.
## Examples:
- Subverted in
*Bleach*. Main character Ichigo Kurosaki protests frequently in the beginning of the series that he's an Ordinary High School Student... who just happens to be able to see ghosts. This proves to be a crucial distinction.
- Ichigo's more-ordinary friends do have an unusual tendency to turn out to be not so ordinary after all, including a girl whose hairpins can raise the dead, a huge foreigner with a demonic arm, the last remaining member of an ancient order of magical warriors, and the secret concealed by Ichigo's father's Obfuscating Stupidity: ||he's a Shinigami||.
- In later episodes, a random classmate developed the ability to sense the spirit world, after showing no such ability before.
- Saya from
*Blood+* is an ordinary high school girl on the surface, but thanks to almost a lifetime's worth of amnesia, she has no idea of her vampiric abilities... until a Chiropteran shows up at her school and starts messing things up, and she's forced to kill it.
-
*Buso Renkin*: Kazuki was just a normal, if overly energetic, high school student until he got killed while trying to save a girl from a monster and was brought back to life by implanting a Kakugane into his chest as a replacement heart.
-
*A Certain Magical Index*:
- Kamijou Touma's Imagine Breaker certainly makes him look like an ordinary student compared to people like his lightning-wielding Unknown Rival Mikoto under most circumstances. In their first onscreen confrontation, Touma protests to a sparking Mikoto that he's "just a Level 0" esper. Mikoto makes a compelling rebuttal in the form of a giant blast of (ineffectual) electricity. He's "Level 0" only because his power is impossible to quantify.
- Like Touma, Kakeru Kamisato is an ordinary high school student ||who possesses World Rejecter and an entire Unwanted Harem of girls. Despite this, Kamisato continues to
*insist* he's the kind of normal high school boy that can be found anywhere, accrediting all his achievements to World Rejecter||. ||But in a subversion, prior to receiving World Rejecter, he really *was* just an ordinary student.||
- If you're looking for the
*truly* normal students, there are Saten Ruiko, Hamazura Shiage and Wataru Kurozuma, who do not have the benefit of anti-magic or anything of the like, they really have no abilities. The latter two are Badass Normal, but even normals can outdo espers and mages where it counts.
- Though even a Level 0 is technically an esper, emitting their own AIM fields and as well as experiencing harmful backlash if they attempt to use magic. It's just that their ability to bend reality is so insignificant it's practically nonexistent. The only people that could be truly called ordinary are those who have not gone through the power curriculum program.
- Taken to extremes in
*Code Geass*. Lelouch is an ordinary high school student... who is an outcast prince, genius military strategist chessmaster, and all around Magnificent Bastard (with freaky mind-control powers) biding his time to jump at a chance to destroy Britannia. Kallen and Suzaku are inversions, being ace mecha pilots (with inexplicably superhuman physical abilities, especially Suzaku) for their respective sides who in the first few episodes come back to high school.
- This can also be said of fellow student Nina, who starts the series as an above-intelligent but otherwise normal student and ends up a Psycho Lesbian Gadgeteer Genius. Shirley and Milly are also fairly normal, but start to really get wrapped up in events later in the series... really, the only character in their group of friends who stays absolutely normal throughout the show's run is Rivalz.
- A hilarious aversion in
*Daily Lives of High School Boys*, where all the characters are indeed entirely ordinary highschool students.
- Light Yagami from
*Death Note* is a perfect example of this trope, until it's derailed by the fact that he's both incredibly smart and megomaniacally insane. Though all indications are that said insanity would never have manifested had not been granted the ability to kill anyone just by writing down their name; during a Memory Gambit he's legitimately horrified by the notion that he could be the infamous serial killer Kira.
- The heroes of
*Dreamland* are all this in real life and have special powers in their dreams. Especially Terrence. You can't be more ordinary than that.
- Notable among these incarnations is Kazuki Yotsuga from
*Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure*, who is also the Humongous Mecha Zinv.
- Mikado, Masaomi, and Anri in
*Durarara!!*. ||And yes, they're all hiding some pretty serious secrets or abilitieseven from each other.||
- A good quarter of the cast in
*El-Hazard: The Magnificent World* (the ordinary Earthlings who develop extraordinary abilities). Well, Makoto Mizuhara and Nanami Jinnai were ordinary high school studnets, and Mr. Fujisawa an ordinary high school teacher. Katsuhiko Jinnai, on the other hand, was hardly "normal" when he was a high school student, given his tendency to start ranting upon any slight to him or breaking out into crazed, maniacal laughter.
- Asanaga Shun is a completely normal high school student in
*Endride*, but his Genki Guy nature sure helps when he gets Trapped in Another World where suddenly he has a magical sword and is on the run with a prince. He remains very ordinary regardless.
- Saito Hiraga of
*The Familiar of Zero* was one of these until he was summoned by Louise to her world.
-
*Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA*: Illya is an ordinary elementary school student living an ordinary life when she gets a talking magical wand that tells her she needs to become a Magical Girl and collect the Class Cards. What makes this notable is that in *Fate/Stay Night* (below) she was very much *not* ordinary. She was a Master of the Holy Grail War, actually eighteen, and fully prepared to kill anyone besides her adopted brother Shirou (who didn't know they were related). *Fate/Kaleid* implies very strongly that the only reason Illya was able to live a normal life was because her parents slaughtered the rest of the family, who would have used her as a tool.
-
*Fate/stay night*: Emiya Shirou is sort of this. Sure, he's the adopted son of a magus and (unknowingly) possesses his own magic circuits, but his own magic isn't useful for anything other than fixing radios. Until such time as it makes him a candidate to summon Saber...
- Kaname Chidori in
*Full Metal Panic!*. And Sōsuke, being a militaristic nut. At least that's what she thought until it turned out that he's actually a mercenary working for an anti-terrorist organisation. His age made him a perfect candidate for being a bodyguard, even though he had no idea how an ordinary student behaves at all.
- Miaka Yuuki, Yui Hongou, Suzuno Oosugi, Takiko Okuda and ||Mayo Sakaki|| of
*Fushigi Yuugi* all started out as examples of this trope.
- Mikan Sakura from
*Gakuen Alice* who suddenly discovers she has a special ability called an alice and is admitted to the Alice Academy. Though she is younger than a high-school student at the time.
- Kei Kurono and Masaru Katou (and, in fact, all high school-aged characters) in
*Gantz* are bona fide Ordinary High School Students until they get hit by a train and resurrected to play the Gantz Game. They're still *technically* Ordinary High School Students after that, they just have super-powered combat suits and deadly weapons—and Kei is *extremely good* at using them.
- Yasuhara of
*Ghost Hunt* puts an unusual twist on this trope. He was a relatively normal high-school student until the rest of the main characters showed up and kind of absorbed him into their group. Out of the eight main characters, Yasuhara is one of only two characters who has no powers at all ||though the other "normal" character is actually just hiding his identity and amazing powers, though we don't find that out until the last episode||. The twist? The series does not focus on him. In fact, he doesn't even show up until halfway through the series. He's there more to do the off-screen research for the group, which means that the assholish-yet-somehow-charming character who had been doing the research previously now gets more screentime.
- Mai is a more typical example—she's the "normal" girl interested in ghost stories who gets involved with the ghost-hunting group and early on wonders what it would be like to have psychic/spiritual/etc powers. Turns out she has quite a few.
-
*Girls Go Around*: All of the characters seem like this at first, albeit with the power to create time-loops.
- Kyon from
*Haruhi Suzumiya* is *certified* as ordinary by Itsuki. If it weren't for Haruhi's liking him, he wouldn't be worth looking at twice. Some fans have different theories, and there is some support for them in the novels.
- Ordinary or not, he has leashes on two of the most powerful beings in the area who can ||destroy the universe at will, one with merely a subconscious whim||—or, rather, ||holds the keys to the molly guard over the nuke button, as it were||. ||And the third girl trusts him to keep her secret from herself.||
- Ayase Yuuto, the male protagonist of
*Haruka Nogizaka's Secret*, found out the female protagonist's secret and the two of them became friends because of this since he didn't look down on her for this. Her fans can't understand what she sees in him.
- Hayate and Ayumu started off as this in
*Hayate the Combat Butler*, the rest of the cast being between Child Prodigy and Teen Genius, and a few Ojou just to top off the cake.
- Tomoki Sakurai from
*Heaven's Lost Property*. He is just a completely normal high-school student who loves his ordinary life, but one day he becomes the master of an Angeloid who fell from the sky and his normal life seems to come to an end.
- Takashi Komura, the main character of the anime/manga
*Highschool of the Dead*, is a pretty ordinary average high school student, prone to skipping classes and accused by his childhood sweetheart of being lazy... that is, until ||the school's professors, then students, start being turned into zombies, and the aforementioned childhood sweetheart's current boyfriend starts turning into one. Takashi bashes his head in with a baseball bat||.
- Natsuki in the manga
*Houkago×Ponytail* seems pretty normal, but she's a hardcore Shoujo-manga otaku, and got black belt in both karate and taekwondo.
- Takumi from
*Initial D* delivers tofu in an old beater; and in the process, has learned drifting techniques that racers take years to master.
- Kagome Higurashi in
*Inuyasha*. In fact, this trend was specifically mentioned in the Anime. "It's been a while now since this *every day average school girl* has been crossing back and forth between the warring states era and modern times!" Unlike many anime where this is eventually eliminated, Kagome retains most of her School Girl-ness, to the point of always wearing her school fuku in the warring states period of Japan. Like *Sailor Moon*'s Usagi, her gifts are related to a jewel or crystal, she's the reincarnation of the powerful miko Kikyou, keeper of the Shikon Jewel, and her greatest strengths personality-wise are her kindness, love for others, and ability to make friends. This can bite her in the butt with such characters as Kouga the wolf prince who just doesn't take the hint, and Hojo, who like-wise can't take a hint.
- Ayumu from
* Is This A Zombie?* is a student killed by a Serial Killer before the start of the series and revived as a zombie.
- Jotaro Kujo and Noriaki Kakyoin from
*JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders*. Jotaro was a genius student before developing Star Platinum and travelling the world to defeat Dio, and Kakyoin beecome embroiled in the plot after being controlled by Dio to kill the Joestar Group, but he later joins them following his defeat and removal of the mind-control.
- Similarly, Josuke Higashikata, Okuyasu Nijimura, Koichi Hirose and Yukako Yamagishi from the next part
*JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable*, getting mixed up in the Stand business after Okuyasu's brother gave him, Koichi and Yukako their powers, and them later joining to thwart the Serial Killer rampaging in Morioh. They are mentored by Jotaro himself, now Older and Wiser.
- Yashiro Isana of
*K*, thinks he's this at the beginning of the series, even though he's already had his cat turn into a naked girl, and an anachronistic Bishōnen swordsman after him because he's been framed for a murder. ||He ends up being one of the more extreme cases of not-so-ordinary - a 90 year old immortal scientist, body-swapped and memory wiped. He's actually only been in school for under two weeks, and all of his memories before that are fake, courtesy of that psychic cat girl.|| Averted with everyone else - the few under-20 characters in the rest of the class aren't in school. ||Shiro himself ends up as a teacher||.
- Nanami from
*Kamisama Kiss* starts out as one before being unwittingly turned into a Physical God before the end of episode one. Even after this she still tries to act like one and maintain the illusion that she is one.
- Kenichi Shirahama in
*Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple* is explicitly stated in the manga/anime to be completely ordinary and to have no talent for martial arts. His *only* talent is being a hard worker. Eventually, they're able to beat skill into him.
- Hitohito Tadano from
*Komi Can't Communicate* is so average that in a school full of weirdos, his weirdness is being smack dab in the middle of the bell curve in basically everything, even matching the national average in every fitness exam category. He makes a point of wanting to be normal and not draw attention to himself due to shame over his Chuunibyou phase in middle school, and his name is even a pun on his averageness, translating roughly to "just an average guy". This goal is quickly torpedoed when he ends up sitting next to and later befriending Komi Shouko, the prettiest, most popular girl in school.
- Shibuya Yuuri, in the manga
*Kyo Kara Maoh!* is an average high schooler, while he's suddenly ||summoned through a toilet seat to another world|| where he ||is the ruler of the whole thing.|| Again, average.
- The title character of
*Lyrical Nanoha* was an ordinary elementary school student, which shocked her students in the third season when they visited her home planet during the first Sound Stage and discovered that the legendary mage Nanoha had a completely unlegendary past and civilian life. Well, an unlegendary past before she was 9 years old. note : She does come from a family of samurai bodyguards, but has only received training in a single continuity.
- Kouji Kabuto from
*Mazinger Z* was an ordinary student sometimes skipped classes, drove bikes and took care of his little brother. Then he found out his grandfather had built a Humongous Mecha and wanted him piloting it to save the world of a Mad Scientist. His friend Boss also counts: before Kouji moved to his school, his life was completely normal. If we check the sequels, Tetsuya and Jun from *Great Mazinger* averted this trope, but Hikaru Makiba from *UFO Robo Grendizer* did not. She was a pretty normal high-school student lived in a ranch and loved riding horse... until she found out the cute boy worked at the ranch run by his father was an alien prince in disguise and a Humongous Mecha pilot. ||Maria Fleed|| believed she was an ordinary high-school student, raised by her grandfather... until her *grandafather* revealed to her that ||she was the last survivor—as far as he knew—of the royal family from planet Fleed||.
- Nanami Lucia in
*Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch*, although she already had a Secret Identity—she just didn't know half her own secret.
- Kira Yamato of
*Mobile Suit Gundam SEED* averts this trope—he's actually a genetically-enhanced superhuman who wants to be a normal high school/college student. It's later revealed that he was designed to not just be genetically improved but genetically "perfect".
- Tachibana Shingo from
*Musashi #9*. Ultimate Blue agents often appear as such, but are anything but.
- Nagasumi of
*My Bride is a Mermaid*. Then, through a series of incidents, he was rescued and engaged to a mermaid Yakuza princess, whose family promptly takes over his school. Hilarity Ensues.
- Izuku Midorya in
*My Hero Academia* started as this. He was the only kid in his high school class without a quirk, or superpower. Then he meets his hero, All Might, and gets superpowers passed on to him just after graduating. Now hes going to superhero school as the only kid with no idea how to even control his new powers. At least in the early part. He gets better later on.
- Almost all of the HiME from
*My-HiME* start out at this stage (although a few of them are dead set on staying that way). Those that aren't (||Midori and Sister Yukariko||) were Ordinary High School Teachers.
-
*Negima! Magister Negi Magi*:
- Negi thinks early on that he'll need to hide his being a Magister Magi from his class of ordinary middle school students... who just so happen to include an Anti-Magic-capable princess (||Asuna||), two
*Magistra Magi* (Evangeline, ||Chao||), a Magic Knight ||Half-Bird Tribe|| (Setsuna), two children of *Magi* (||Konoka and Yuna||), a *Ministra Magi* (||Misora||), a mercenary, former *Ministra Magi*, ||and half-demon|| (Mana), ||a full demon|| (Zazie), a vampire (Evangeline again), a time traveler (||Chao again||), a ghost (Sayo), a magic puppet/robot (Chachamaru), and a Ninja (Kaede); meaning that roughly a third his 31 students are already in on his secret or have one of their own. One can just imagine Haruhi Suzumiya kicking herself for not enrolling in Mahora Academy.
- The animes didn't wait as long, being only one season each (compared to the Long Runner manga), and made all the Muggles abnormal in the season finale.
- If you stop and think of it, there were only
*four* Ordinary High School Students (Nodoka, Haruna, Misa, and Madoka) to start with, although exactly how involved they were varied greatly. Yue, for example, didn't know anything about magic but knew that Mana, Kaede and Ku Fei were some type of mercenaries who would be able to help fight monsters.
- As of 34 volumes in, only ||two|| characters in his class are not supernatural, either due to the above list, training from another, or a pactio.
- Shinji Ikari from
*Neon Genesis Evangelion* is a very intentional Deconstruction. An ordinary student put in an extraordinary situation, Shinji faces a lot of issues and difficulties when facing off against the Angels, and because he suffers from a crippling lack of self-esteem and doesn't have any extraordinary abilities or skills, he's frequently out of his depth.
-
*Nichijou* literally means "my ordinary life" but the events that happen during that life are anything but...
- Kaede of
*Ninja Nonsense* was one of these. Until a Highly-Visible Ninja attempted to sneak into her room to steal her panties.
- One of the ending themes to
*Nurse Angel Ririka SOS* outright says that Ririka is an ordinary girl like any other (though in her case she is an elementary schooler). That is, until she puts on her Angel Cap and becomes a Magical Girl Warrior.
- Mahiro Yasaka from
*Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!* is one of these who just happens to be in a Love Dodecahedron, and lives with, a group of literal Lovecraftian horrors, without somehow going permanently insane. It's revealed early on that his mother is a part-time Evil God Slayer, and he inherited her skill with forks. ||The novels take it a step further, revealing that Mahiro can perceive and resist distortions in space-time, an extremely rare ability.||
- Ayumu Mikoshiba from
*Otasuke Miko Miko-chan* was one before his mother passed down the title of Miko-chan onto him. He still is one, in many respects.
-
*Ouran High School Host Club*s Haruhi, who is the subject of a reverse harem situation, for reasons she doesn't understand. The normal(-esque)commoner put in a school of rich kids with trope personalities. She just wants to study. Lampshaded by the fact that she is only revealed as a girl at the end of the first episode.
- Sorata from
*The Pet Girl of Sakurasou*, a pretty average boy, was first sent to the local Quirky Household for keeping a cat, then had the responsibility of looking after an Idiot Savant dumped on him...
- As with most Magical Girl series, the main characters of
*Puella Magi Madoka Magica* fall into this category (mostly in the Ordinary Middle School Student variant) before gaining supernatural powers. The Weasel Mascot, Kyubey, even mentions that it's strange ||how much karmic potential the Title Character seems to have, since girls who fall into this category really shouldn't be that significant||. As with most typical genre tropes, ||the show brutally deconstructs this. It turns out that ordinary teenagers aren't the greatest fighters and actually tend to die horribly and/or be psychologically traumatized when forced to fight monsters- which is all part of Kyubeys plan to harvest despair for energy. Then reconstructed when one particularly ordinary student, who constantly berates herself for being ordinary, becomes a goddess and destroys Kyubeys system, followed by her friend/possible lover who destroys/enslaves Kyubey itself. Somewhat re-deconstructed when its shown that young girls may not be the best at running an entire universe..||.
-
*Re:Zero*'s protagonist, Subaru, is an ordinary student Trapped in Another World. One of the main Deconstructions of the series is actually to show how an ordinary person with no special abilities will struggle in a fantasy setting rather than thrive, and how they will cope with this realization.
- Yukari Morita of
*Rocket Girls* is an average student at a high-class girls' finishing school, whose exploits during her summer break find her suddenly becoming the world's youngest astronaut. She's initially pretty intent on going back to an ordinary life after fulfilling her deal with the space agency of making one trip to orbit, but even before circumstances force her into staying on board, it's implied that said trip is making her start to reconsider.
- Tsukune from
*Rosario + Vampire* is a normal high school student, at a distinctly not normal high school, with not normal high school friends. He eventually becomes not normal himself.
- Shuji in
*Saikano*. (One of the few examples on this page that doesn't have powers, and ultimately, is powerless to change *anything.*)
-
*Sailor Moon*:
- Tsukino Usagi, junior high student and reincarnated moon princess. And indeed all the Sailor Senshi.
- In particular, Tomeo Hotaru a.k.a.
*Sailor Saturn*, who when introduced is a small sickly girl who made friends with Chibi-Usa, only for us to discover that not only is she the host for the Big Bad of the season, Mistress 9, but is also the as-of-yet unawakened Sailor Saturn, the senshi of destruction and rebirth that Rei had been having visions of destroying the world. In the manga she then is aged back to a baby and adopted by Sailors Pluto, Uranus and Neptune only to age at an incredible rate when their presence is later needed by Sailor Moon.
- Lain in
*Serial Experiments Lain*. She gets progressively less ordinary (along with the show), ending with The Reveal that ||shes basically *God*||.
- Sakai Yuuji of
*Shakugan no Shana*. All extraordinary traits he has he owe to an artifact he received out of luck. Unusually, we never learn how long he's had it. ||Also unusually, he winds up fusing with the Big Bad Snake of the Festival and becomes Shanas opponent (and *wins*, but its not that horrible).||
- Rin Tsuchimi from
*SHUFFLE!*, who just happens to be liked by five beautiful girls all at the same time. Two of which are princesses of *worlds*. Another two aren't exactly normal either.
- Amu Hinamori from
*Shugo Chara!*, though in elementary school, is a good example. After she obtains her guardian characters, she ends up with a couple of friends and a somewhat reluctant membership of the Seiyo Elementary Guardians.
- Luluco of
*Space Patrol Luluco* tried so *hard* to be this in the beginning of the show, and for the most part it worked. ||Her plea for normalcy isn't unfounded, since most of her childhood was her father and mother fighting 24/7.||
- Aoi Mitsukuni thinks he's an ordinary high school student until he learns his mother is really
*Space Pirate Mito*. Which makes him both a Half-Human Hybrid and the Hidden Backup Prince of the entire galaxy.
- Taken to its logical conclusion in
*Star Driver*, where evidently *every* student of the Elaborate University High is an Ordinary High-School Student that's anything but ordinary. The new guy? He's The Chosen One. That girl he befriended on the first day? The Living MacGuffin. The resident adviser for the dorms? She's one of the villains. Same goes for the school bicycle , the head of the boxing club, and the Class Representative. As for the Drama Club, it turns out they're all in La Résistance...
- Tenchi Masaki in any of the incarnations of
*Tenchi Muyo!*. Turns out he's an alien prince, and his family never bothered to tell him. Then there's Sasami, who tries to *become* one of these in the manga volumes. Being that she is an alien princess (and, unlike Tenchi, knew all along), it doesn't quite work out. She should be glad that the goddess she's symbiotically fused with didn't decide to show up.
- Ken Kaneki in
*Tokyo Ghoul* is an Ordinary College Student who wants to go on a date with a cute girl. Then she turns out to be a ghoul and tries to eat him. One accident involving steel beams and an organ transplant later, and Kaneki is now a one-eyed ghoul- the most powerful kind of ghoul. He soon gets dragged into a turf war between an Anti-Human Alliance and a ghoul-hunting organization. However, unlike most examples of this trope, this is played for *tragedy*- poor Kaneki endures a horrifying Trauma Conga Line, and its frequently pointed out that all this horror is happening to *an ordinary guy who just wanted a date*. ||Furuta|| even confirms that Kaneki happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, and was not personally a factor in his plans at all. Kaneki is less The Chosen One whos destined to save the world and more the Unlucky Everydude who undeservingly became the worlds punching bag. ||That being said, he *does* ultimately become the new One-Eyed King, defeats the villains, and saves the world, after taking a dozen levels in badass.||
- Rito from
*To Love Ru* wishes he was still an unremarkable Ordinary High School Student instead of the center of a complicated Love Triangle with at least half a dozen points on it, including three or possibly four Alien Princesses—||Lala, Run, Lala's little sister Momo, and maybe Momo's twin Nana||.
-
*The Tower of Druaga*. As Kai said about her hero king husband who slew a god and united two warring nations under one rule: "Even Gil was just a ordinary boy in love."
- Tohno Shiki in
*Tsukihime*, whose attitude to mystic eyes that let him kill anything is to politely thank the person who gives him a Power Nullifier for them so he can go back to his normal life - and, for several years, succeeding. Arcueid even comments on it even lampshades it. The best thing about Arcueid: she's being completely earnest without a trace of irony.
- Youko from
*The Twelve Kingdoms* objects that she's just an ordinary high school student word-for-word during The Reveal.
- Ataru Moroboshi of
*Urusei Yatsura* started the series as one. Then he arrived at home and discovered he had to foil an alien invasion by chasing down and touching the horns of the cute daughter of the leader of the invasion force, and normality went down to the drain.
- A later manga episode lampshaded it. When the principal organized a contest of physical prowess among the classes one student immediately protested that one class had an unfair advantage due to the presence of students with superhuman abilities. Ataru, Lum, Mendo and Ryunosuke agreed that those students had to be equalized... Only to realize too late they were speaking of
*themselves*: Ataru was incredibly fast, Lum could fly (to be fair she's an alien, and on her planet it's normal), Mendo's arms were so strong he could break a bronze bell from the inside and Ryunosuke had Charles Atlas Superpowers!
- An anime episode brought the trope Up to Eleven by adding
*Kenshiro Kasumi* to the class rooster!
- Emma Grayson of
*The Elysium Project* is an ordinary teenage girl who happens to be the daughter of the creator of the eponymous Elysium formula, a Super Serum which grants people reality-bending powers, and as a result ends up getting exposed to the formula and targeted by the villains.
-
*Spider-Man*:
- Peter Parker, which was revolutionary at the time. A
*sidekick-aged* protagonist?!
- Inverted in
*Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane*, however, in which Mary Jane—the protagonist—actually *is* an ordinary high-school student.
-
*New Mutants*: Doug Ramsey was a kid from suburban New York who was good at languages and didn't know any different until he was informed by an acquaintance from the odd boarding school nearby that he was in fact a mutant the with powers of... comprehending languages... and dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to come establish communications with a potentially-hostile alien.
- The
*Runaways* were all normal teenagers... who in the course of a night watched their parents kill a young woman, discovered superpowers/super gadgets/a telepathic dinosaur, fought off their parents, and ended up becoming runaways living in an underground mansion.
- Jaime Reyes, the current Blue Beetle in The DCU. One day he's just hanging out with his friends, the next he gets bonded to an alien symbiote, helps Batman save infinite universes, and goes missing for a year, yet he
*still* manages to come off as more of a normal kid than 90% of other teenage superheroes in comics.
- For a while Tim Drake was this being just a regular, although brilliant, kid who through diligent detective work uncovered the secret identity of the first Robin and through him Batman and the second Robin. Even after taking up the mantle and becoming the third Robin he still fit the mold for a good portion of his career; his change didn't come until
*Identity Crisis* led to his father's death.
- Putri from an Indonesian comic
*Satu Atap* is an ordinary human who lived with a demon, elf, forest fairy, a were-tiger, and a merman.
- Dave Lizewski from
*Kick-Ass*, supposedly. He makes it very clear in the beginning that there's nothing special about him that would lead him to become a superhero. He just does it because he's bored. But he makes the case that he's so ordinary by listing a bunch of things that normal high-schoolers do and then pointing out that he's ordinary because he *doesn't* do any of them.
- Kamala Khan, the current Ms. Marvel, was a normal sixteen-year-old from Jersey City until an encounter with the Terrigen Mists.
-
*Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)* attempted this during its Dork Age by shoving Sonic, Bunnie and Rotor into a high school. It didn't last at all.
- Justin is one in
*Kira Is Justice* besides for the fact he is a Shrinking Violet and a little smarter than normal... until he receives the Death Note.
- Mary Jane Watson of
*Ultimate Spider-Woman* was an Ordinary College Student when she began to develop her bizarre superhuman abilities, and continues to be one even as she tries to juggle a superhero career along with it.
- Jorge from
*The Secret Life of the Backyard Kids.* Except he's not in high school, he's in middle school.
- Fan fiction for
*The Lord of the Rings* has a genre of stories about ordinary girls who fall into Middle-earth. Some stories use a high school student. Some stories are Self-Insert Fic by a high schooler. When a student arrives in Middle-earth, she no longer goes to school.
-
*The Awkward Adventures of Meghan Whimblesby* are about a nineteen-year-old high school student from South Carolina. Meghan was in class when she Fainted from the sight of blood and somehow woke in Middle-earth.
- In
*How to Survive in Middle Earth When You're a Teenaged Girl*, Priscilla is the teenaged girl of seventeen years from a cattle ranch near Magnolia, Texas. The story did not show Priscilla in school, but it was summer, when most schools have summer break.
- In
*Time Will Tell*, Jorryn is sixteen years old when she falls into the Shire. This happens, not during school, but during the summer holiday of 2001. Jorryn is only four feet and five inches, short, but taller than a hobbit. Other than that, Jorryn is a generic girl from some small town in the USA.
- There are few of these floating around about these kinds of people being thrown into the world of
*RWBY*. The fanfiction * RWBY: Reckoning* is considered by quite a few to be surprisingly well written.
- In the
*Soul Eater* prequel *Soul Eater Zeta*, Kami (the unseen mother of Maka Albarn in canon) starts out this way.
- Suzaku in
*My Mirror, Sword and Shield* is ordinary high school student making average grades who ends up time-travelling in his adoptive fathers time machine and ends up as an Ace Pilot for the Evil Empire warring with his native people. Despite the hints of Suzaku having his canonical relations and backstory, he retains his backstory of being a normal person and ||willingly goes back to normalcy in the end||.
- In
*Let Us Be Your Poison*, Ruby Rose is a normal teenager who goes to Southtown High. After stopping a criminal, she's accepted into Beacon Academy, a prestigious huntsman academy, despite the fact she is two years too young and wasn't already enrolled in a huntsman school.
-
*Superwomen of Eva: Legacies: True Blue*: Well, junior high school student. Hikari is one of the few teenaged superwomen in the series to actually serve as an example of this trope, since most of the others were already mecha pilots, part Angel, child soldiers, child prodigies, or some combination thereof before ever getting superpowers.
-
*Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse:* Nabiki Tendo was originally just your ordinary everyday 17 year old high school girl. She worked out to keep her figure nice, she liked playing tennis and, okay, she was very greedy and an incorrigible scam artist, but still normal. Then she wound up in the Grand Line. For added contrast, most of her sailing companions are extremely *un*ordinary high school students, being crazy skilled (and just plain crazy) practitioners of Supernatural Martial Arts.
- In
*Turning Red*, Mei was just an Ordinary Middle School Student until she discovered the women in her family gain the ability to turn into giant red pandas when they come of age.
- The film and book of Stephen King's
*Carrie*, and the film sequel, *The Rage: Carrie 2*. At the start of the story, Carrie is only notable for being one of the school outcasts. In reality, Carrie has supernatural powers that even she was not entirely aware of.
-
*Transformers*: Sam Witwicky was just an Ordinary High School Student until he bought his first car. Turns out it was an alien robot. Who knew? His special quality is just being the great-grandkid of the man who found Megatron.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*. The movie, unlike the show, starts with Buffy not even knowing about vampires and Slayers.
-
*Clockstoppers* features an Ordinary High School Student who stumbles upon a device that allows him to functionally stop time.
- Carmen and Juni Cortez in
*Spy Kids*.
-
*The World of Kanako*: The narrator starts out as just a normal high school boy with the wish to make a difference in his life, but he's weak and gets bullied constantly. When he meets Kanako, he falls in love on first sight and he wants to run away with her. Little does he know which pains are still in store for him...
- Hal Beck of
*Adventures On Trains* really is pretty ordinary - except for his talent for drawing. He knows it helps him think; soon it helps him solve crimes, too. It's a natural talent, but he works on getting faster and more accurate over the course of the series. He becomes very self-conscious if anyone claims he's special, though.
- In the
*Alex Rider* series, British teen spy Alex Rider gets a lot of flak from his teachers after spending too much time "off sick"—though the obliviousness of everyone else does stretch credulity after Alex, having used a school trip to investigate a GM facility, ||escapes by jumping onto the roof of the coach as it leaves the now-badly-damaged building. When he uses a toilet break as a way of getting on board properly, the teachers barely say a word||.
- The Animorphs. Ordinary middle/high school kids whose lives are changed forever when they decide to take a shortcut through a construction site.
-
*The Eyes of Kid Midas* (also by Neal Shusterman) stars an Ordinary Middle School Student. Close enough.
- Inverted in
*Harry Potter*, as everyone knows that he's special from the start— *except him*.
- Subverted in Garth Nix's
*Keys to the Kingdom* series, in which the protagonist essentially becomes the heir to the House (the "epicenter of creation", the denizens of which give our universe about the same casual interest as a rather exciting zoo) simply because he almost died on the right day. That's right, kids. ||This kid essentially becomes *God* by nearly dying at the right time||.
- The
*Percy Jackson* series does this. Although, to be fair, he is an Ordinary Middle School Student for most of the books. In fact, almost all the demigods fit into this trope. Why? Because most of them don't survive longer than that. *Ouch*.
- Mia from
*The Princess Diaries* is an Ordinary High School Student who turns out to be a princess of a minor European principality.
- Kaylee in
*Soul Screamers* until she realises she is a banshee.
- Bella Swan in
*Twilight*. Until she falls in love with a vampire—or, more to the point, the vampire falls for *her*.
- In the lovely juvenile novel
*Wings* by Bill Britain, the main character is an Ordinary High School Student who inexplicably develops a huge pair of fully-functional bat-like wings.
- The DHIs in
*The Kingdom Keepers*
- Neal Shusterman's
*Scorpion Shards* trilogy features a group of ordinary teenagers who turn out to be ||shards of a far-off star born as humans to eventually save the world||.
-
*Stuck*'s Tre Listman is also an Ordinary Middle School Student. At first, anyway.
- Ben was this before he was Trapped on Draconica—and, in defiance of what almost always happens next, he
**stays** ordinary. ||By the time he finds out that he has a unique power to travel between worlds, at the end of the story, Dronor says he has to take it away from him to make sure a villain never gets their hands on it again.||
- Tsuruhara Iori and Aragaki Koji in
*War and Snowflakes*. ||Aragaki, it is revealed, is not so ordinary: he had been conscripted to be a titan pilot until a training accident made him unable to be a pilot, and left him with uncanny mechanical abilities.||
-
*The Exile's Violin*: When the story begins, Jacquie is on her way home from school. The school itself is never seen because her life is blown up and she goes straight to vocational training, so to speak, under her foster father. Occasionally, she'll reflect back on this time with regret, thinking of lost opportunities.
- David Rain from
*The Last Dragon Chronicles* is an Ordinary College Student. ||For awhile.||
- Played with in
*Strength & Justice*. The story starts with Jeremy Itsubishi's role as a law enforcement cadet with Improbable Aiming Skills as his superpower. It's only after that we find out he's a high school student as well. Then he's pulled into the main conflict, playing the trope straight.
- Initially subverted, then played straight in Un Lun Dun. Zanna is said to be obviously special to all who see her, and she is the "Shwazzy", the prophesied savior of UnLondon. Until ||she is attacked and her memory of UnLondon is removed||. Then her friend Deeba—the completely normal, non-prophesied high schooler—must save the city instead.
-
*Buffy the Vampire Slayer*: True of the Scoobies (Xander, Willow, Cordelia, etc.), but not so much Buffy herself; she knows at the start of the series that she's the Slayer.
-
*H₂O: Just Add Water*: three ordinary teenage girls suddenly realize they have the ability to turn into mermaids whenever they're splashed with water, and this is accompanied by elemental powers.
- Claire Bennet of
*Heroes*.
-
*iCarly* on Nickelodeon has ordinary high school students hosting an internationally-popular hit webshow.
-
*Joan of Arcadia* talks to and does missions for God.
- The opening narration of
*Kamen Rider Zi-O* calls Sougo this trope verbatim until he graduates half way through the story. Ironically, school is usually out of picture, because most of Sougo's time is occupied by trying to prevent the future where he becomes an all-powerful, world wrecking tyrant.
-
*Our Miss Brooks*: Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin meet the bill, although Harriet's somewhat atypical in the fact her father is the high school *principal*. Neither are the program's protagonist, that honor goes to English teacher Miss Brooks.
-
*Power Rangers*:
- The original Rangers were the trope namers for Recruit Teenagers with Attitude. By
*Turbo*, the founders had all graduated, and by *Space* the high school concept was left behind. It wasn't revisited until *Dino Thunder*, which brought back an original Ranger as a *teacher*.
- A good chunk of Ranger teams are implicitly in their early 20s - and in some cases, such as
*Power Rangers Time Force*, are full-time heroes who only have to maintain a civilian identity for the purpose of blending in.
-
*Roswell* had this as the main hook for the series (and helped pioneer the genre). Max in particular strives to appear as "average" as possible.
- Pete, Linda and Bronson in
*Round the Twist* turn out to be Weirdness Magnets—a lot of the supernatural shenanigans they attract happen at their local school.
- Sabrina from
*Sabrina the Teenage Witch* was just a normal high school girl until her sixteenth birthday, when her witch half manifested itself.
- Maria, Kelsey, Clyde and Rani from
*The Sarah Jane Adventures*. Clyde and Rani do have distinct talents, however—Clyde's a splendid sketch artist and Rani has great journalism skills. Maria is more the average protagonist until actor Yasmin Paige's own academic life persuaded her to leave the show. Kelsey was just a pilot-only character who got a Second Episode Substitute in the form of Clyde because there were too many females in the cast... and she was a bit bratty, too. Luke and ||Sky|| don't fit this trope because they were created to be extraordinary. In fact, Luke ends up going right into college because of his high intelligence.
- Alex from
*The Secret World of Alex Mack*. She even says "I was just another average kid until an accident changed my life" in the opening credits. It's also worth noting that she wore a similar outfit to the one described above on the day she was soaked with the chemicals that gave her superpowers.
-
*Spellbinder*: the main character, Paul, gets trapped in a parallel world during a school field trip, and his arrival is a catalyst that causes political upheaval in the otherworldly society. His friends Alex and Katrina have to juggle school as they work to bring him back.
- Scott McCall from
*Teen Wolf* was an ordinary high school student (and asthmatic, no less, which severely curtailed his attempts to make the lacrosse team) until he was bitten by a werewolf.
- Nickelodeon's
*The Troop* plays this straight and hard with Jake.
-
*The Vampire Diaries*: Elena, Matt, Bonnie, Caroline, Tyler, Jeremy. This all changes when all of the characters start to develop their own individual identities.
-
*Veronica Mars*: a normal high school student... and a private eye.
- Ben in
*Wayward Pines* fits the trope remarkably well for a character whose parents are also major characters.
-
*Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior*
- Hao Xuan, or so he claims, from
*School Shock* when the school is over run with terrorists and he finds himself in a hostage situation, only to be saved by Liu Lu who's new mission (after defecting the terrorists) is to protect him as he is a "Child of Eden", something that a lot of dangerous people seem to be after.
- Kyo Kusanagi in
*The King of Fighters*, although as the series went on his high school student image was dropped entirely (it's also been implied that he never attends high school at all due to his constant fighting). And according to the *Maximum Impact* series, he's spent so much time fighting and training that he still hasn't graduated from high school.
- Soma Cruz from
*Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow*. The game specifically says he is a high school student on a foreign exchange trip to Japan. He turns out to be ||the reincarnation of Dracula||.
- While just about everyone of the Raimon members in
*Inazuma Eleven* can easily count, it is most notably Handa Shinichi's main gimmick. He's in fact so normal, that it has become a meme in the fandom.
- Kazama Jin from
*Tekken* started out somewhat ordinary, but things haven't been exactly going well since. Ling Xiaoyu is a milder example. The *Tekken 5* ending for Kazama Asuka suggests she might be more than just a brawler, too.
- Kasugano Sakura seems like a typical schoolgirl enamored with a rough famous fighter. Aside from the fact that instead of trying to date him, she prefers mirroring his moves as best she can. Including martial-arts fireballs.
*Everybody* in *Rival Schools*.
- Fei from
*Xenogears* plays almost every part of this troupe. Yeah, he knew martial arts, but he thought it was just "normal" martial arts. Besides ||knowing martial arts that can destroy God and giant robots||, he's also the only one that can pilot a special gears, which turns out to be the super-ultra-special one in the title. ||He is also secretly one of the most powerful beings in the game's universe, whom "God" gave his power to.|| While he is utterly oblivious to all or this at the beginning, ||he has several split personalities, one of which has shut himself off from the world, and another of which is an utter sociopath who makes full use of his godly power||.
- Many (though not all) recent
*Shin Megami Tensei* games feature Ordinary High School Students as protagonists. Something usually happens to make them considerably less ordinary, such as finding a computer that can summon demons, learning to call forth entities from the inside of their mind, being forced to share their body with a Devil Summoner, or being turned into a demon after witnessing the end of the world.
- The
*Persona* series centers on Ordinary High School Students and the friends they make along the way dealing with paranormal phenomena and in general trying to protect the world from otherworldly entities. To wit:
-
*Persona*: A group of Ordinary High School Students test an urban legend, only to find the world around them thrown off-kilter as demons invade.
-
*Persona 2*: Ordinary High School Student Tatsuya Suou and his friends must get to the bottom of a strange force that causes rumors in Sumaru City to become reality.
-
*Persona 3*: A group of Ordinary High School Students (plus a dog, an android, and an Ordinary Elementary School Student) investigate a mysterious tower crawling with monsters that appears from beneath their school every night at midnight.
-
*Persona 4*: A group of Ordinary High School Students (plus a bear mascot) investigate an alternate dimension hidden within televisions, which a serial killer is using to conduct their murders.
-
*Persona 5*: A group of Ordinary High School Students (plus a talking cat, a shut-in and later a detective|| who is actually a criminal|| and ||a mockery of|| an accomplished gymnast) investigate an alternate dimension formed by the twisted desires of those who abuse their power.
- Lan Hikari and Geo Stelar, but the latter fits better the description. None of them are high schoolers, but close enough.
- Even
*Disgaea* can't stay away from this one. *Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten* introduces Fuka Kazamatsuri, a human girl who thinks that her adventures in the Netherworld are just an elaborate dream, including the part where she's actually dead and supposed to be a Prinny.
- Link and Zelda start out as students at a knight academy in
*The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword*.
-
*Valis* heroine Yuko Ahso is an ordinary high school student in the human world who becomes a Valis warrior in a Magical Land.
- A few protagonists are this in the
*Super Robot Wars* series. Most notable is Touya Shun of *Super Robot Wars Judgment* who was an Ordinary High School student (who went to school with the protagonists of *Mazinkaiser* and *Full Metal Panic!*) until a Humongous Mecha crashed into his school.
- Max in
*Life Is Strange* comments on how she is "just some geek girl in a small town"- with the ability to rewind time.
- Hyde Kido from
*Under Night In-Birth* was just a normal 2nd-year high school student living alone when he ended up in the Hollow Night, an event which nearly saw him killed by the invisible entities known as the Voids. Saved by the timely intervention of the wandering Rebellious Princess Linne, Hyde was given a month's sword training (supplemented by what he remembers from the kendo training he did as a kid) and pledged to help Linne in her mission to end the Hollow Nights. In his appearance in *Blazblue Cross Tag Battle*, Hyde's relative inexperience and his youthful Trash Talker tendencies are highlighted against the other protagonists, especially against Ruby Rose - he offers a poorly-worded Declaration of Protection to her unaware (or forgetting) that Ruby grew up in the wilds of a world overrun by soul-eating horrors and has trained since early childhood to be a Huntress.
- April Ryan from
*The Longest Journey* starts out as an ordinary art student. Soon it turns out that she is a "shifter", meaning that she can travel between the two worlds: Start (our world) and Arcadia (a Medieval Fantasy world), making her The Chosen One to Save Both Worlds.
-
*ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal*: Amy is an ordinary teenager who is transported into a world of magic that she is prophesied to save from evil.
- Hiroyuki in
*To Heart*.
- Played with in the Nasuverse, where Shiki and Shirou know they are not ordinary, yet fail to realize the full extent of how extraordinary they are.
-
*Muv-Luv*: Takeru is a typical harem protagonist ||who is dragged into an alternate crapsack universe||.
- Battler, from
*Umineko: When They Cry*. All his powers to "fight" witches were granted by the witch herself, ||at least at first||. The "student" part of him doesn't get much focus, though, as the story takes place on his off day, ||what with him getting killed and all||.
- Ethan Kairos in
*Time Hollow* is completely ordinary. He just happens to be the latest in the line of his family to receive the power to adjust history via a special pen.
- The English manual quotes this trope exactly, describing him as an "ordinary high school student".
-
*Danganronpa*:
-
*Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc*: The Ultimate Luckster, Makoto Naegi, considered himself one, since he was picked to go to elite academy Hope's Peak by winning a lottery. His only outstanding trait is that he tends to be more optimistic than others. And while he *can* be said to be pretty lucky (except for the whole 'trapped in a killing game' bit), ||it's his optimism that helps defeat the Big Bad Monokuma/the Mastermind/Junko Enoshima/the True Ultimate Despair.||
-
*Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair*: Hajime Hinata and Nagito Komaeda, ||at least initially. Despite Komaeda's title being the same as Naegi's and the fact that he got into Hope's Peak under the *exact* same circumstances (lottery), his luck is *very* real and present in his life, on top of being a rare villainous example, having a personality that is anything but ordinary. Hinata, however, is revealed to have *no* outstanding talent, and is *actually* an Ordinary High School Student from one of the reserve groups. At least, before his transformation that he underwent out of hatred for being ordinary||.
-
*Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls*: Komaru Naegi tops them all: she's not even *associated* with Hope's Peak, thus making her the most truly ordinary protagonist in the series. Heck, she was supposed to have died with her parents in the beginning. Probably the only thing that makes her stand out from other targets is the fact that she's a Naegi, specifically the sister of original protagonist Makoto. Kanon from the *Ultra Despair Hagakure* spinoff also fits the mold, with her standout trait being she's related to one of the first game's students.
- Akira from
*Spirit Hunter: NG* *is* a little out of the norm, being a prized underground fighter for the Yakuza on top of a high school student, but he considers himself and his life to be average and boring until he's marked by a supernatural spirit. On top of that, he discovers at the end of the game ||that he's the son of the spiritualist that was keeping the Big Bad at bay for years||.
-
*Matt 'n' Dusty* has Matt. No magic powers, no super-intelligence, no respect from anyone.
-
*Darkbolt*: The lead three characters (Naoko, Mariko, and Yun) start out as this before being force-bonded to demons trapped in small little orbs.
-
*Megatokyo*: Sonoda Yuki is actually a Magical Girl.
- Kanzaki Kei from
*Circumstances of the Revenant Braves*, more so than any other character.
- Sarah from
*El Goonish Shive* is, to her regret, the only member of her group of friends who isn't a shapeshifter, magic user, mad scientist, or martial artist of some kind.
- For most of the first story arc, Elliot seems to be an ordinary student with a weird friend, but it's progressively revealed that he's far more unusual than that.
- Catalina appears to be pretty normal, too. Her girlfriend Rhoda
*was* normal until ||she got a magic mark that she doesn't know about||.
- Ash and Emily from
*Misfile*, until Rumisiel got stoned while in charge of the Celestial Files. Wackiness Ensued.
-
*Divided Sky*, like so many other tropes, lampshades it.
- Uma from
*Everyday Heroes*. To everyone else, she's perfectly normal.
- Iris Kolrick and Jacob Freeman from
*Shadownova*. Iris is later revealed to be an ESPer with pyrokinesis, but Jacob is truly ordinary.
-
*Girl Genius*: Agatha Clay is an ordinary (if exceptionally clumsy) student at Transylvania U, raised by completely ordinary parents. Until it turns out her father is a famous hero, her mother is some kind of evil goddess, the most powerful man in Europa wants to imprison her (while his son would like to "form a mutual alliance" with her), and she might cause an apocalyptic disaster just by existing. She stops being "ordinary" pretty fast.
- Hatsune Rondo of
*Mayonaka Densha*, until her transportation back to Victorian London.
- In
*Yokoka's Quest*, Grace is an ordinary (aside from being a conspiracy theorist) student at the University of Las Vegas before she travels to Cisum.
- Yuri Mikagami in the round-robin story
*Dark Heart High*. A bit of a subversion as its revealed in the very first scene that her father is a retired Evil Overlord. (A nonhuman one at that!)
- As far as
*Survival of the Fittest* goes, it would be easier to list *exceptions*, since everyone in the entire cast is an Ordinary High School Student. For example, Johnathan Michaels of V2 was a world champion boxer and Renee Valenti of V3 a burgeoning movie star. In fact, this trope is actually encouraged when it comes to designing a character for the site. Most people feel that the more average a student is, the more interesting Character Development they'll have once the terrorists abduct their school.
- Nick Reilly, Bill Wilson, Tony Chandler... a lot of the kids who become mutants and then go to Superhero School Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe.
- Yu Jin of
*TAL*. ||Partly subverted, however, when Ei Mae Tal tells him he likely is older than he thinks.||
-
*Amphibia*: Main characters Anne, Sasha, and Marcy before they are transported to the titular world.
- Terry McGinnis in
*Batman Beyond* until he was chosen to become the new Batman when Bruce Wayne became too old and weak for it.
-
*Ben 10*: Ben was this, but was the star of the (apparently hugely popular for high school) soccer team at the end of the Time Skip. Well, he was the goalie anyway.
-
*Code Lyoko*: Every member of the group is an Ordinary Student. Jeremie is the only one who can use the supercomputer, Aelita is the only member who can deactivate towers, and the other three are her protectors.
- Aelita's status is a lot more complicated; she didn't start out ordinary in any sense.
- Oddly enough, William is an actual Ordinary Student until Season 3. Debate has been going on for quite some time on several fan forums as to whether he's still a Warrior or an Ordinary Student in the series finale.
-
*Danny Phantom*: Danny Phantom was one of these before gaining his powers, and during the brief periods he's Brought Down to Normal.
- Lee Ping, protagonist of
*Detentionaire*. He's a level-headed straight-A student who doesn't care much for the cliques that dominate his school and just tries to get by. However, this ends up being flipped on its head at the start of the series when he gets framed for pulling a massive prank and ends up getting a reputation as a rebellious troublemaker for it.
-
*Freakazoid!*'s Dexter Douglas—"nerd computer ace, when surfing on the internet he got zapped into cyber space! He turned into the Freakazoid! He's strong and super-quick!" is an excellent example, as Dexter didn't ask for his powers and Freakazoid is an entirely separate personality from Dexter.
- Kim Possible... sort of. Right from the start she's insanely overachieving, even without the Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World stuff. Her sidekick Ron fits the trope a bit better.
-
*Miraculous Ladybug*: Both Marinette and Adrien were these until they were chosen to become Miraculous guardians Ladybug and Cat Noir.
- In
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic*, Twilight Sparkle grew up a student studying in magic and friendship. In "Equestria Girls", however, she is sent on a mission to another world through a Magic Mirror, and the accompanying metamorphosis left her as a powerless human in high school.
- Virgil from
*Static Shock*, until the Big Bang gave him (and a bunch of other people) superpowers.
- Bloom from
*Winx Club* started out as this, until she discovered she's a fairy and eventually the princess of her true home realm Domino. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrdinaryMiddleSchoolStudent |
Organic Technology - TV Tropes
There's a good reason that helicopter looks like a whale.
*"They've got technology, sweetheart. They just build it in different ways."*
If a society in Science Fiction isn't either following Technology Levels or magic, then you can rest assured that they're making use of organic technology.
Cars, planes, phones, computers, buildings, space ships, weapons (including artillery and war vehicles) and everything else required for a proper Sci Fi story will be provided in the form of something that is warm, moist, skooshy and drips goo everywhere. Often, this will go so far as to include a convenient thought-based interface. Manipulation of organic matter may be part of the technology as a whole, or even what enabled the tech in the first place. Advanced nanotechnology, when not depicted as the classic blobs of liquid metal, will often be depicted in a similar but decidedly more synthetic fashion.
note : think androids made of milky-white artificial flesh and the like instead of something more overtly meaty
This type of tech is a common feature of sea-dwelling sapients. Not only are cities entirely made out of cool-looking coral, it's a technological evolutionary path that does not start with the step "set something on fire" or "throw wheels on it", which for a species that lives entirely underwater would be, respectively, impossible and generally useless. Likewise, excessive humidity wouldn't cause important stuff to short out.
Civilizations who use this technology are also frequently users of Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology. Depending on the aesthetic choices of the depiction, the organic technology may seem Ambiguously Robotic as well. Organic technology is sometimes portrayed as especially advanced. If the organic technology is a staple of the setting or theme, compare Bio Punk.
Often crosses over with LEGO Genetics and is depicted as a Sculpted Physique. Often used by a Horde of Alien Locusts. See Living Ship for one specific example. Compare Bio-Augmentation, which could be Organic Technology applied to the human body in new and fun ways. Contrast Mechanical Lifeforms, which are organisms that happen to be mechanical in nature. Often creates the Womb Level in games. A Hive Caste System is based on using naturally evolved biology rather than technology made from biology. Applied to agriculture, the end result of this trope is often a Multipurpose Monocultured Crop.
This is becoming an actual thing. Interestingly, Real Life synthetic biology
*seems* to be going the reverse direction of this trope: making biology look more like chemistry and nanotechnology, rather than making technology more like biology. Whether we'll get our meaty jetpacks remains to be seen.
## Examples
- The aura machine of
*Aura Battler Dunbine* are constructed using body parts from Byston Well's mythic beasts. Aura muscle come from tissue, armor from carapace, etc.
-
*Bleach* seems to mix this in from normal advance tech to living tech.
-
*Brain Powerd*, which used "organic" more as a bizarre form of Applied Phlebotinum than anything else.
-
*Ceres, Celestial Legend* reveals that the celestial robe of the maidens is not a robe, at all. It's called Mana and ||is a large... bally thing... that looks like an organism, which allows them to sustain their existence and allows rapid alteration of their cells, to take on any form they want||.
-
*Dragon Ball Z* has the Androids, which range variously from wholly mechanical (like #16 and 19), Cyborgs (such as #17, #18 and #20 a.k.a Dr. Gero himself) and...Cell, who is purely organic and, unlike the other ones, has the ability to actually permanently increase his strength through absorbing other humans and his fellow Androids. He's also essentially the culmination of the various DNA of every fighter in the series with their most advantageous traits at his disposal.
- The ||31 Primevals|| from
*GaoGaiGar* are much like this, and even have the ability to turn organic lifeforms into Mechanical Lifeforms via Zonderization.
- The eponymous
*Bio-Booster Armor Guyver*.
- The Raalgon from
*Irresponsible Captain Tylor* appear to have gone this route with their technology; their motherships and battle cruisers appear to have been *grown* rather than built.
- Despite metallic technology being just as, if not more efficient than organic, the Vajra of
*Macross Frontier* have very good reasons for using extremely advanced organic technology as ships: ||the Vajra *are* the ships. Each drone, though stupid individually, are linked together by fold quartz, to form the entity known as Vajra, a massive Hive Mind. The Vajra (at least in the Milky Way) is not a species of individuals, but an individual spread out over a species. It makes sense for each cell of itself to wish to remain organic, but efficient||.
- The God-Warrior in
*Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind* is essentially a robot made of flesh; ||having to fire it's Breath Weapon before it's fully mature causes it to slough apart||. In the manga, it's an organic being that grows over an essentially metal or ceramic skeleton. No reason is ever given for why the God Warrior skull Nausicaa climbs at the very beginning of the manga has a cockpit. ||The ecosystem of the forest and the Crypt of Shuwa are also examples.||
- The eponymous 'robots' from
*Neon Genesis Evangelion* are actually semi-organic cyborgs ||with their organic parts cloned from an alien creature||.
-
*One Piece* has the Den-Den Mushi (official English translation: "Transponder Snail"), a ridiculous example of this trope : all means of long-distance communication in the series are *snails*. If that's not ridiculous enough for you, try the snails that can project images from their eyes and onto walls. Or the white one that emits psychic waves to act as a jamming device so the speaker has a secure channel.
- This is likely based on a real life attempt at this trope, Jacques Toussaint Benoit's Pasilalinic-Sympathetic Compass aka the "Snail Telegraph". He believed that snails that have mated form a permanent telepathic link and can be used to send and receive long distance telegrams by manipulating their bodies. It didn't work.
note : It was possibly a scam all along. He had managed to convince one person he demonstrated it to but not the other. The other called him out and demanded a stricter test to be performed. Benoit failed to arrive to the second test and was never taken seriously again, dying as a penniless drunk on the streets of Paris less than two years later.
- Dials might also be this, being somewhat uncommonly found sea shells possessing various and useful abilities to store things like sounds or explosions.
-
*One Piece Film: Gold* introduced red eyed owls which act as a laser alarm grid. Anything that passes under the owls' sight causes them all to start shooting loudly alerting their owner to a trespasser.
- In an episode of
*Pokémon: The Series* an Electabuzz is used to power a chainsaw. In another episode Pikachus were used to power a treadmill. Pokéballs also qualify, as they're created based upon Apricorns.
-
*Tenchi Muyo!*: Jurai technology has a rare variation in being plant-based instead of animal-based, including spacecraft and log-shaped guardian robots. Justified by the fact that they have a very powerful patron goddess, who decided to experiment and turned herself into a tree a while back. So, naturally, the seeds of the tree that is technically a deity grow into very, very powerful and useful plants. The trees that form the basis of Jurai technology are therefore technically lesser gods or at least demigods, though the Juraians themselves don't think of it that way. Which is a point of contention with one of their major rival nations, the theocratic Airai, who think Jurai doesn't deserve the blessing of gods they don't even worship.
-
*Tokyo Ghoul* has Quinque, the weapons wielded by Ghoul Investigators. They are made by harvesting the predatory organ from a ghoul, altering and reprogramming the organ to generate a set weapon upon command. Swords, knives, spears, and guns are all popular choices for the design... but some maintain enough of the original kagune's shape to be easily recognizable to loved ones of the "donor".
- Played with in the
*Witchblade* anime: the title semi-sapient artifact got a few series of Black Box bionic knockoffs, including Cloneblades. Cloneblades aren't too choosy in accepting wielders, their performance seems to be superior to Witchblade with a novice host (if not to the full limits of a thing whose raw power blast can ||ruin half a city||), but they have a small problem: as not really living, they do not regenerate. So while the true Witchblade may overload the host's body more, Cloneblades sooner or later drag their wielders into rapid and fatal decay.
-
*Batman*: Part of the weaponry possessed by the Super Soldiers in the *Legends of the Dark Knight* two-parter "Infection" are biological guns built into their forearms that use bio-gas to launch super-sharp bone fragments at high velocity, organic "bullet racks" that stretch across the chest, and organs that allow them to cannibalize human corpses to convert the bones into new bullets.
- Implied to be the case with the demons' technology in
*Clean Room* since the wreck Astrid salvages has bone plating, insect wings, and clawed limbs alongside its engines.
- Most of the town of
*Copperhead* is standard construction, but Budroxifinicus' house has a root construction growing from the ceiling that serves as both a comfy chair and chandelier.
- Taken to the Logical Extreme in
*Orc Stain*, where nearly *all* technology is like this, even when its totally unnecessary and makes no sense; we see stuff like axes with blinking eyes, living bear-like strongboxes that attack you if you open them wrong, birds used as air horns, and even a *soda can* that begs for mercy and screams in agony as its opened.
- In
*Ronin (1983)*, this form of technology plays a critical role.
-
*Star Trek: Early Voyages*: In "Flesh of My Flesh", all Ngultor technology is organic in nature. They regard the purely mechanical *Enterprise* as a dead ship. They are able to reshape their ships at will, which Captain Pike compares to flexing a muscle. The Ngultor also infect the *Enterprise* with an organic virus which uses the ship's systems as a feeding ground. Spock and Dr. Boyce are able to create a viral antibody which proves successful in defeating it.
-
*Star Trek: Untold Voyages*: In "Odyssey's End", Spock determines that the Abductors' mothership is partially organic.
- The alien VXX199 of
*Strikeforce: Morituri* arrive in a ship that's half the diameter of the moon, a giant conglomeration of living tissue, and directed by its own biological AI.
- In
*Supergod*, Morrigan Lugus is identified by the narrator to possibly be a mycological computer on a meat substrate, essentially a fungal computer. To wit, when not deciding to use sound to speak, it sometimes would communicate by emitting radio signals, and other times would "eject spores, a 4-phosporolated indole full of digital code".
- The Elite
*What's So Funny About Truth, Justice & the American Way?* and the animated adaptation have a bio-organic starship that even features a nifty and easily spammable teleporter. It's actually a living bacterial colony from another dimension who the Elite enslaved by removing her higher-brain centers. ||When Superman restores her sentience at the end of the story, she's all too happy to help him beat them at their own game.||
- In
*The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye*, creating organic technology is a major project for the Grand Architect and his minions. Deconstructed, as it takes a huge amount of trial-and-error to create even the most basic things, and most of their experiments in this vein end in failure; at one point we see a ship of theirs that had a biotechnological room... which proceeded to bleed severely and decay after taking enough damage, with the blood leaking into critical systems and tainting the fuel supply, causing the ship to crash.
- Venom is sometimes used this way, as is its offspring, Carnage, to provide replacement legs for their hosts. Scorn, another symbiote, has used a fragment of the Carnage symbiote to form a new arm for its host.
- The 1990s Jim Shooter comic book
*Warriors Of Plasm* was about an extradimensional civilization which was entirely biotech-based.
- This is a central trope of
*Dawn of X*, as all of the Krakoan facilities and machinery are made out of plant material integrated with nanotechnology, from their teleport gates to their famed resurrection chambers.
-
*Biomass Effect*: A *[PROTOTYPE]* × *Mass Effect* cross-fic, taking place in the Mass Effect setting. The Prototype setting was accidentally assimilated by the protagonist before the story even begins. The human race is technically extinct and Blacklight almost exclusively uses organic technology.
-
*GitS:SAC - The Collective Unconscious*: The Collective makes heavy use of biothetics, biological counterparts to prosthetics.
-
*Re: My Hostage, Not Yours*: The Valkians primarily use this, best depicted by their ship being a living creature, with its main computer core looking like a massive organ.
-
*With This Ring* has both technological and magic variants.
- The Dominion uses plant-based computers, so when preparing to assault one of their facilities, Paul buys a plant spacecraft from Alstair to study.
- The Sheeda, from Earth's far future, exclusively use magically manipulated organic matter, from rocket beetles to chitin data records. Even clothing has a proboscis to plug into the wearer's arteries. It turns out that they
*have* to do that, because their Vampire Sun rapidly destroys anything non-living. ||More specifically, it destroys anything without the Sheeda genetic markers derived from Starbreaker to protect from his draining effect||.
- In the
*Cars* series, plant life is the only nature in their world that isn't shaped like a vehicle. It does, however, have car-related elements if you look very closely; the bark of the trees resemble tire treads, leaves have tire tread and VW logo-shaped veins, and flowers are shaped like either tailfins, head-and-taillights, or cooling fans. In other words, organic fuel.
- Everything in the Cobra-La hideout in
*G.I. Joe: The Movie* is alive, even the things that aren't "technology" per sé, like bridges.
- Ecoban in
*Sky Blue* is stated to be based on organic technology, and is mainly powered by carbon mined by the Diggers. However, the parts we see look pretty mechanical.
- In
*Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie*, the Krang utilize organic technology that looks like masses of flesh. At one point Donnie must "interface" with the Technodrome to control it, and is freaked out by the thought of connecting with all the gooey tissue.
- In
*Trolls*, the forest dwelling trolls use local critters in place of conventional technology. Most of it comes to using the bigger ones as vehicles and small glowing ones as lights.
- In
*10 Cloverfield Lane*, ||the alien 'craft' that Michelle destroys appears to actually be a living creature, as it picks up Howard's truck with tendril-like appendages, and she kills it with a Molotov Cocktail into its 'mouth'||.
- The aliens in
*The Abyss* can shape water and even seem to have based all their technology around it.
- The Engineers from
*Alien* and *Prometheus* use this. In addition to creating life on barren planets (like Earth), pretty much everything they build seems to be at least partially alive. The spacesuits are made from some kind of bone (fueling decades of misinterpretation regarding their actual appearance) and blends into their skin. Buttons seems to be some kind of fatty nodule, and their architecture has plenty of rib-like ornamentation. The Aliens themselves grew out of their weapons program.
- Eywa of
*Avatar* either *is* this, or uses this to provide a comfortable standard of living for the "primitive" Na'vi.
- The Replicants in
*Blade Runner* are genetically engineered artificial humans. There are also a number of artificially created animals, ranging from snakes to owls.
-
*Captive State*: A lot of the Legislators' technology appears to be this. For instance, the "bugs" they use as tracking implants appear to be *literal* bug larvae, and they also use an explosive transparent gel stated to be organic. However, their ships appear to be made of stone instead.
- David Cronenberg really likes this kind of tech. In order of release:
-
*Videodrome* is rife with this; Max's television set starts to breathe and pulsate, he develops a gaping hole in his stomach that can double as a VCR player for video cassettes made out of living flesh, and his gun fuses to his hand in a revolting biomechanical fusion.
-
*Dead Ringers* has a Mad Doctor design surgical instruments that look like metal crabs and insects. And he's a gynecologist...
-
*Naked Lunch*: Bill's contacts in Interzone are giant bug-shaped typewriters that he writes his reports on.
-
*eXistenZ* features a number of rather icky biological machines, such as the tooth-shooting bone pistol and the biological computers which "plug in" to orifice-like "bioports" on people. ||Of course, that was only in the game. The actual rigs are straight tech.||
- The aliens in
*Independence Day* have biological Powered Armor. The rest of their tech appears to be purely inorganic though. In the novelization, it's revealed during the psychic communication with the captured alien that the "biological powered armor" is in fact an entirely different species that the apparently parasitic Big Bad aliens have harvested and turned into armor/utility apparatus and also that the material from which the alien fighters is made seems to have been grown like a tree or something.
- The Kaiju in
*Pacific Rim* are actually living weapons used by the Precursors to attack humanity. While they look like giant animals, they are assembled from parts like machines. This also applies to ||Obsidian Fury and the other Jaeger drones|| in the sequel, which are basically Kaiju flesh in ||Jaeger-shaped shells||.
-
*All Tomorrows*: The Tool Breeders, being an aquatic species, have no access to fire and so instead breed tools and machines for themselves. They build living cities of bone and shells fed by a system of nutritious fluids provided by heart-like organisms, bioluminescent lights, medicinal sea squirts, and gardens, televisions, breathing apparatuses, weapons and even companions from other undersea life or cultures of stem cells. In time, they even create living spaceships to visit the stars.
- The technology of the Graycaps in Jeff VanderMeer's
*Ambergris* books is almost completely based around various forms of fungus. They saturate their own bodies with fungus to make themselves almost impervious to harm, they fill the air with spores that can act as anything from organic cameras to neurotoxins that alter human behavior, and they make monstrous fungoid constructs that stalk unwary humans in the night. And their Great Machine beneath the city of Ambergris is mostly made out of living Graycaps.
- In
*Angel Station*, organic tech is pretty much the only tech the Beloved have as a race.
- Never a series to leave any science fiction tropes uncovered,
*Animorphs* features a Living Ship or two.
- In Kameron Hurley's
*Bel Dame Apocrypha* trilogy the planet it takes place on uses mostly this for everything. A lot of it centers around mutated insects controlled by "magicians" who have a psychic link with them.
- Michael Moorcock's
*Second Ether* book, *Blood: A Southern Fantasy*, includes "meat boats", living (and technically amphibious) river boats created by a coalition of fleshcrafters (who also seriously alter their own bodies in bizarre ways) from the bodies of other beings. They are unusual in that they're portrayed as having the same disadvantages as any other large animal: needing to be fed organic material, needing to excrete wastes, and possessing a rather unpleasant smell.
- The asteroid colony of Summer Home in Linda Nagata's
*The Bohr Maker* has, by the time of the book become a living thing and at the book's climax ||splits into cell-like segments to seed versions of itself throughout the Solar System and, in a few cases, equipped with solar sails, seek to go beyond the system||.
- In the
*Bounders* series, the Youli spaceships are mostly made out of some spongy orange bioluminescent material, which is used by some other species, including the Alkalinians. If the material has been programmed properly and activated, it turns into a VR simulation of any location the programmer can think of, complete with food that tastes almost like the real thing and provides all necessary nutrients.
- In
*A Confusion of Princes*, organic tech (called Bitek In-Universe) makes up one third of the Empire's trinity of teks, alongside Mektek and Psitek.
- Also featured in Herbert's
*ConSentiency* series, where its often used as living furniture, like Chairdogs.
-
*The Crucible of Time* is a Xenofiction about an alien species whose technology is based on bio-engineering.
- The squid-people in Raymond Z. Gallun's short story "Davey Jones' Ambassador" (1935) cannot use fire or concentrate much heat by other means, since they live miles beneath the sea. Instead, they bio-engineer organisms to serve as everything from transportation to weapons to architectural elements, and produce whatever substances they need as secretions from these creatures.
-
*Discworld*:
- The Magitek computer Hex uses ants for its operating system, and beehives for memory. It also has ram skulls in it, and a mouse has set up a little nest. The skulls seem to make it work faster, and they have no idea
*what* the mouse is for but it stops working when they take it out.
- Technically, imp-powered devices such as iconographs and disorganisers probably count as well, depending on how "alive" you consider the imps. (
*Making Money* says they're just a manifestation of a spell; *Raising Steam* refers to wild imps being caught and domesticated.)
- In
*Distress*, Stateless is an artificial coral island that was built from the ocean by genetically engineered invertebrates. Maintenance is performed by lithophilic bacteria. The whole thing looks so natural and organic on its own terms that when Worth finds a small park with trees and grass, it looks strange and unnatural.
- The short story "The Double Minds", from John W. Campbell's
*The Planeteers*, is set on Ganymede, where electricity was never discovered. Light bulbs are powered by fluorescent bacteria and cars have muscles instead of motors. Unlike most examples of Organic Technology, the story clearly states that Ganymedian gadgets are a poor substitute for electric-powered technology. A bit of an Unbuilt Trope, considered that it was written in 1937.
- In
*The Dresden Files*, the Fomor use this. Most of their weapons look like and appear to be made from undersea organisms.
-
*Dune* touches on this with:
- The Butlerian Jihad, which outlaws computers with the commandment:
*"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."* Several groups fill the space: Mentats, the human computers; the Bene Gesserit, the super-witch training program; and the Spacing Guild, which uses prescient drug-addicts to navigate hyperspace.
- Tleilax's major export is organic technology, raging from clones, shapeshapers, and even rogue mentats. The Tleilaxu get a lot of crap for doing this, but it doesn't hamper business too much. ||According to the prequels done by the son of the author, they got a bad rep for stealing organs, while there was a big-ass demand in the war with the machines||. Even more jarring are their Axlotl tanks, ||which are Tleilaxu females forced in a vegetated state to create gholas||.
- Greg Egan introduces this in his inimitable style in a number of places... for example, the five-dimensional snail-squids in
*Diaspora* have organized their whole ecology to cater to their needs, and the far-side civilization in *Schild's Ladder* tend living cities using organic constructs that tailor the local laws of physics to their whims.
- Bio-rigged tech in
*Embassytown*. Literally everything produced by the Ariekei falls in this category, weapons to farms to power plants. This becomes a problem when ||the Ariekei become addicted to Ezra's voice, and the addiction spreads via the biological infrastructure of the city to infect everything they've built||.
- In
*E.T.: The Book of the Green Planet*, the novel that serves as a sequel to *E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial*, E.T. tries to return to Earth by building a spaceship almost entirely out of plants — the hull is a giant turnip, and more exotic alien plants collected by his race are used for lighting, life support, propulsion, etc.
- In one of the Dean Koontz's early novels,
*Fear That Man*, the protagonist awakens to an Ontological Mystery aboard at what first seems like a familiar spaceship. Only upon closer inspection does he realize that all of its functions are the result of carefully hidden blob-like organisms.
- The novel
*Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings* begins with a marine biologist trying to convince others that one of the Humpback whales he is trying to study and save has markings on his tailfin that remarkably resemble the phrase, "Bite Me". Turns out that the bottom of the sea is inhabited by a being known as The Goo, an ever-changing sentient mass of organic material. It is able to create organic devices from *itself* and has spawned anthropomorphic whale drones and Living Ships disguised as normal whales; Bite Me happens to be one of these. Oh, and it had sex with Amelia Earhart and the result of the tryst is one of the other protagonists.
- John Varley's
*Gaea Trilogy* mostly takes place within a huge organic construct called Gaea, who is a mostly Earth-like orbital habitat near Saturn, whose species was designed by some race many millions or billions of years past to create self-replicating space habitats. Being basically a god, the central "Gaea" mind can create or edit any kind of lifeforms living inside her using similarly advanced biotech.
- The Amnion in Stephen Donaldson's
*The Gap Cycle* novels are a Hive Mind who are all genetically engineered to serve specific roles, and whose equipment (although generally non-living) is processed, created, and assembled via organic processes. Interestingly, it's specifically noted that Amnion biotech is *much* less efficient than human technology, even though individual pieces are more advanced. It's for this reason that they haven't tried to assimilate humanity into their hive mind: they know that if it comes to a straight-up war they could not match our production capacity.
- In David Weber and Linda Evans' series
*Hell's Gate* the Arcanans use magical genetic engineering to create dragons, griffins, unicorns and big mean homing hummingbirds.
- In the
*Into the Looking Glass* Series by John Ringo and Travis S. Taylor, the main foes are a form of AI/The Virus with organic technology, including things such as 'Rhinotanks' a creature modified into a main battle tank role complete with the ability to shoot plasma bolts. Foes of these creatures go as far as creating tribble like spiders specifically attracted to their form of life (different types of sugar starches for different types of suns)
- In the
*Jacob's Ladder Trilogy*, following Cynric the Sorceress's invention of nanomachine colonies, most of the technological toolkits on *Jacob's Ladder* have been incorporated into living creatures. Gavin the Basilisk, for instance, was originally a welding torch.
- The novel
*John Dies at the End* has a lot of this tech in the last couple chapters, where the main antagonist is revealed to be ||a self-modifying organic computer|| from an alternate Earth where technological progress took a very different route.
- Played for both laughs and horror, often simultaneously. Notably, in the alternate Earth, doctors heal their patients by placing kittens all over them.
- The Darwinist nations in Scott Westerfeld's
*Leviathan* trilogy, so named because they follow in the footsteps of Charles Darwin, who pioneered genetic engineering alongside evolutionary biology. The books follow an alternate World War I pitting the Darwinist-aligned Allied Powers against the Diesel Punk-themed Clankers of the Axis. The title is the name of a famous British airship derived from a whale.
- S. M. Stirling's novel
*In the Courts of the Crimson Kings* is set on a Mars that was Terraformed and seeded with Earth life in prehistoric times by Ancient Astronauts. The Martians are human, or as close to human as Neanderthals, and highly intelligent. Almost all technology more complicated than a sword is biological, to a very high level, with living guns (recharging after firing takes time, which is why swords are not obsolete), living engines to supplement the sailpower of desert-crossing wheeled ships, rugs that crawl onto your feet to warm them, giant creatures that eat rocks and vomit road-paving material.
- The hydrites in the German SF series
*Maddrax* also use technology that has been organically bred.
- The Wamphyri in the
*Necroscope* series make extensive use of biotech.
- The Edenists in
*The Night's Dawn Trilogy* base most of their technology on living creatures; they have Living Ships, living space stations, and organic servitors. They aren't entirely organic though; most common technology is still inorganic/non-living (they use electric jeeps in their habitats), and their ships/stations use non-living technology (like fusion reactors) when using living versions would be impractical or impossible.
- In
*The Place Inside the Storm*, Tara's bed is on a platform that was raised from the floor with bacterial carbon frame construction.
- In
*Please Don't Tell My Parents I Blew Up the Moon* (sequel to *Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain*), Penny decides she needs a cloning tank. She has no idea what she needs it *for*, though at least she figures out that general bioengineering tools will work just as well.
-
*Professor Mmaa's Lecture*: Pretty much all of termite "technology" is made up of genetically engineered termites that function like machines.
-
*Rebuild World*: As a result of the Neglectful Precursors in this After the End setting having this, the world is filled with monsters grown from this to serve as security, usually in a hybrid form like giant Weaponized Animal dogs. These are controlled with (often corrupted) software via Nanomachines, as explored when a Mad Scientist injects said nanomachines into a subject making him a Tragic Monster with Horror Hunger for metal and human flesh to feed said nanomachines, which process the eaten resources for producing new monsters and replenishing ammo. This also lets the monsters evolve via You Are Who You Eat.
-
*Red Dwarf*: When explaining how the creation of the GELFs went from super-athletes to consumer products in *Better Than Life*, it is mentioned that some of them were developed to fulfill the role of electrical products, leading to living cars with bony exteriors and flesh interiors, and vacuum cleaners which also served as pets. Of course, GELFs were essentially modified humans that were being treated as slaves so they rebelled as a result.
-
*The Rook*: The Grafters, a.k.a. the Wetenschappelijk Broederschap van Natuurkundigen (or the Scientific Brotherhood of Scientists), are extremely advanced in the science and art of fleshcrafting.
- The backstory to Julian May's
*Saga of the Exiles* novels features The Ship, a spectacularly large interstellar worm controlled by The Power of Love. (The pilot of The Ship has the title "Shipspouse.")
- In Cordwainer Smith's novelette "Scanners Live in Vain" (written pre-Sputnik), outer space is suffused with a strange radiation that causes horrible pain to spaceship occupants. The original solution was to sever the nerves of the astronauts, which turned them into unfeeling creatures both physically and metaphorically. The eventual, more workable solution was to surround yourself with other living organisms, who would absorb the radiation. They built
*radiation shielding* out of *oysters*.
- In
*Second Apocalypse*, the Inchoroi are an interstellar race of aliens who have mastered organic engineering, which they call Tekne. Calling themselves "a race of lovers", they've spent the last few eons pursuing depravities of the flesh. When they land on Earwa, a planet of sorcery, they modify themselves to be able to wield sorcery as well.
- One short story in
*A Simple Survey* features a decidedly grotesque form of this. Many common tools now incorporate elements of human beings. Examples include: frying pans with skin to sense heat and prevent overcooking of food; ladles with lips to taste their contents; surveillance cameras with eyeballs to focus at long distances; lawnmowers that use nails and teeth to cut.
- In
*The Snow Queen* by Joan Vinge, the mers are ||a sort of living computer system||.
- In the novel
*Star Dragon*, mankind has passed through enough Technology Levels to achieve this level of engineering, along with mastery of genetic modification. Nearly all technology is organic in nature, including toilets, which feature *tongues* in lieu of paper.
- The Yuuzhan Vong in
*Star Wars Legends*, for whom this (along with rampant masochism) is their hat. They even declare a holy war against the Galaxy Far, Far Away for *daring* to create nonliving mockeries of what life can accomplish.
- This is played on part way in when Lando develops a droid so insulting to this belief that most warriors break cover and and attack, thus revealing themselves to fire.
- It's later explained that the Vong's original home planet was a Genius Loci, leading them to naturally adapt living things as tools rather than machines (originally the planet itself would have been responsible for this; later Vong scientists, or "Shapers", learned to do it themselves). Their extreme hatred for inorganic machines, particularly droids, has roots in the fact that early in their history they were nearly wiped out by a race of sapient machines.
- Another Genius Loci, the Rogue Planet Zonoma Sekot ||(the child of the Vong homeworld)||, produces organic starships.
- When the Vong land on Zonoma Sekot, ||their bio-engineered weapons revert to their natural state and refuse to kill anymore, proving that the Vong's extreme violence and war-mongering were in fact a deviation from their originally peaceful nature and a blasphemy against their own gods||.
- In
*Galaxy of Fear*, several of Gog's weapons from project Starscream are organic in nature, each designed to perform a specific function, including one similar to the Genius Loci mentioned above, with the last being a combination of all of the successful Starscream projects.
- In
*Veniss Underground*, most of the technology in Quin's lair is made of living creatures, including the maps and the boats.
-
*The Weakness of Beatrice the Level Cap Holy Swordswoman*: The Underworld faction uses technology based around marine organisms. The Underworld itself is an island-sized monster that's compared to a rotting shark or killer whale. It has a fin that is actually a broadcast tower, covered with giant barnacles that act as antennae. It uses Arachnes, Mini-Mecha that combine traits of spiders and crabs, to construct new structures and repair damage with their webbing. The Underworld Lord wields weapons that are likewise organic: a saw made of shark teeth, and a spear covered in coral and barnacles.
- The Yilanè in Harry Harrison's
*West of Eden* fit this trope to a T; they are even descended from seagoing creatures. *Everything* they use on a daily basis is a genetically modified creature. Their boats are based off ichthyosaurs, their microscopes are modified frogs, even their clothing is a heavily modified furry creature (the impracticality of this tech is lampshaded in a spin-off story where a fatal cold-snap hits and "we can't breed our cloaks fast enough"). Their weaponry is based off a marine lizard note : mosasaurs, to be precise — as a matter of fact, the very same marine lizards they are most closely related to. The mind cannot help but go down some weird avenues here...
- In
*Wild Cards* the Takisians are very adept at organic technology, including living, sentient, telepathic starships.
- The
*Wolfish Nature* duology has the dog-humans prefer organic tech to "dead" tech, although the latter is slowly replacing the former, especially in the field of computing. Pretty much everything they have (including buildings) is grown and needs periodic feeding. The few exceptions include firearms (try growing a living being that can survive constant explosions inside it), although those are rare, since the dog-humans are incapable of committing murder without going insane (||this turns out to be a case of global brainwashing||).
- The
*Xandri Corelel* novel *Tone of Voice* involves two species, the Hands and the Voices, that have developed a technology that allows them to grow buildings out of coral.
- The Oankali in Octavia Butler's
*Xenogenesis* trilogy rely on biological tech for everything (spaceships, buildings, etc.) and dislike using machines. They are actually able to use biological machines to grow replicas of simple human devices such as pens and paper. They have an innate biological drive to seek out new genetic material from other species and make use of it by adding it to their own genes. They have a natural ability to read and manipulate DNA, and this ability is especially strong in their third gender, the ooloi. ||They're also Planet Looters- after they find a planet and incorporate its novel DNA into their own, they seed a new lifeship into the planet, which renders it unable to support life when it finally matures and launches to seek out another life-rich planet.||
-
*Babylon 5*:
- The Vorlons and the Shadows both went this route. It's implied to be in some ways the ultimate form of technology, with ships which can heal themselves and think for themselves.
- The Ikarrans, a long dead race from a thousand years ago, also used organic tech, some of which still works and posed a serious threat to the station itself in "Infection".
- Cylon Raiders in
*Battlestar Galactica (2003)* are synthetic organic lifeforms in a armored metal shell. Their Basestars are also partially organic, and are controlled by a human-like organic 'Hybrid' permanently linked to the Basestar. And the Cylons themselves are Artificial Humans.
- The first glimpse of the interior of a Basestar was a horrible gooey Giger-esque organic landing platform. Subsequent episodes revealed the "living areas" of the Basestars are more Crystal Spires and Togas — possibly because they're less distracting/revolting/expensive for the longer, more complex scenes set in them.
-
*Better Off Ted*: in the episode "Bioshuffle" most of the episode's problems are caused by a malfunctioning biocomputer. ||It was literally getting a stress ulcer from overwork.||
-
*Doctor Who*:
- The Time Lords themselves — the new series states that the TARDIS is alive. "It's not built: It's grown." Like a coral. And the RTD-era desktop theme reinforces it. Furthermore, they are sentient, most famously being the Doctor's own TARDIS, whose state of sentience is explored in "The Doctor's Wife", where her matrix is implanted into a physical human body, allowing her to communicate with him for a while. This idea is further supported in the Expanded Universe novels. The "Cat's Cradle" arc in the
*Doctor Who New Adventures* novels has the Doctor needing to replace the organic material that the TARDIS uses for calculations that are impossible on conventional computers. *Lungbarrow* introduces the idea of sentient *houses* that are the ancestral homes of the different clans (kith) of the Time Lords. One Time Lord of each house becomes the "house keeper" and literally marries and has a somewhat symbiotic relationship with the house.
- The Axons from the Pertwee-era episode "The Claws of Axos" claim that their technology "had taken an organic turn". Considering that even their ship is part of the Axos Hive Mind, this makes sense.
- "Terror of the Zygons": The Zygons' tech is organic — their computers look more like coral than machinery. However, only the interior appears organic; the exterior seems to be a metal hull.
- "Smith and Jones": The two slabs ("basic slave drones") working for the villain are made of solid
*leather*, prompting the Doctor to comment that "Someone has got one hell of a fetish."
- "The Woman Who Fell to Earth": The "data coil" used by the antagonist is, as the Doctor puts it, not so much a lifeform as a collection of lifeforms repurposed into an advanced computer.
- "The Witchfinders": ||The sacred tree on Pendle Hill that Becka Savage chopped down and turned into a ducking stool was actually an incredibly old piece of alien biotechnology serving as the lock of the prison of the Morax, who were reduced to primal elements and buried beneath.||
- Taelon technology in
*Earth: Final Conflict*. Their ships and buildings are all grown out of an organic "bio-slurry". Their weapons, called Skrills, are actually creatures they've "domesticated". They resemble a bug growing out of the host's arm (always a human) and can be used to fire energy weapons. They aren't intelligent but have individual personalities. Taelons also grafted items that enhance senses and reflexes to poorly-trained human soldiers, sending them into combat with their arch-enemies, the Jaridians.
-
*Farscape* had Moya, a living ship with all the amenities you would expect on a space ship and all the comforts of home, including larva-like creatures that replaced toothbrushes. And artificial gravity was provided by gravity *bladders*.
- It should be noted that Leviathans are consistently described as "biomechanoid" rather than "organic" and they display very few of the common attributes of "organic technology" as we would think of it. Moya was unquestionably "alive," and sentient, but many of her systems were mechanical even if they were "grown," such as the beetle-like repair robots.
- Season 4 also introduced Bioloids — similar to robots, but organic. ||Aeryn|| is replaced by a Bioloid clone for part of an episode, and ||Sikozu|| is later revealed to be a Bioloid.
- The
*Lexx* also worked in the same vein, with a weird intestine like thing that excreted disgusting looking (yet edible and apparently delicious) food and further adventures involving toilets *with tongues*.
- Thodin's 'bug bomb' from Episode 1 might count, and the Moths.
- The title submarine in
*SeaQuest DSV* is implied to be organic in many ways.
- Only the outer hull cladding — according to the novelization, that is a bio-engineered compound that is both anechoic (sonar-defeating) and self-sealing. The rest of the ship is just a very, VERY big submarine. It's implied in several episodes that the organic skin is flexible and coats a normal steel shell.
- This becomes a problem in the episode dealing with a disease affecting marine life. The sub's hull also proves susceptible to it.
- The Wraith technology in
*Stargate Atlantis* relies on this. In fact it was said that because of the organic composition of their ships and general insufficient power utilization, if they had a significant power source their ships can "grow" and become near-unstoppable juggernauts. In the Grand Finale, one of these ships adapted a ZPM (the magical power sources that Atlantis cannot seem to find enough of) and it became powerful enough to lay waste to any ship it came across. And at this point Earth ships were capable of going toe-to-toe with the *Ori* ships. In the *Homecoming* novel, it's stated that Wraith tech ages just like any other living being, becoming worse with age. When Todd returns to his hive ship, he finds it in a sorry state, his clevermen struggling to graft new hull chunks onto damaged sections, and the ship rejecting the grafts.
-
*Star Trek* couldn't resist this one:
-
*Star Trek: Voyager*:
- Species 8472 seem to use entirely organic technology. They actually originate from Another Dimension called Fluidic Space, which seems to be some sort of organic area in of itself, which the Borg attempted to conquer, as established in "Scorpion". They found that it backfired on them because Species 8472 is impervious to their nanotechnology, which meant the Borg had no way to either assimilate or analyze their biology on their own.
- The USS Voyager itself has its circuitry embedded with bio-neural gel packs, an interesting idea (in that brain cells are supposed to be better at computing than the fastest computer) that is dealt with in a single episode in the first season — "Learning Curve" — and then pretty much forgotten. (The episode memorably involves a massive system failure which is traced back to the bacterial culture used to make some cheese infecting them.) The bio-neural gel packs are brought up again at least one more time much later, in the episode "One", involving a nebula extremely deadly to living things and very damaging to technology. With the crew in stasis chambers, and only Seven of Nine and the Doctor to run the ship for three months, keeping the ship going is a chore thanks in no part to these gel packs.
-
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine*: In their introductory episode, it is mentioned that the Breen species use partially organic systems in their ships.
-
*Star Trek: The Next Generation*:
- In the episode "Tin Man", our plucky crew encounters an entirely biological spacecraft ||whose crew had been killed off||, and it's pretty bummed out about it.
- The pilot episode, "Encounter at Farpoint", involves this trope as well.
- In the
*Star Trek: Enterprise* episode "Dead Stop", the crew comes across a near magical repair station that apparently used the brains of various unconscious aliens to enhance its computer system. It does have an adverse effect on the minds of those connected, and they tend to make the brain useless for any other purpose if connected for too long.
- Speaking of brains, there is "Spock's Brain" from
*Star Trek: The Original Series*.
-
*Star Trek: Discovery* bases its *Crossfield*-class starships around a "displacement-activated spore-hub drive", which allows a starship to travel the universe on a mycelial network of *Prototaxites stellaviatori*. This requires using both the spores of this fungus and an organic, sentient navigator to direct the ship through the network.
-
*The Twilight Zone (1985)*: In the episode "Quarantine", a future society uses genetically modified primates as telepathic CPUs. Members of this society call their organic technology a "biological gestalt".
- The Morthran from
*War of the Worlds (1988)* use a combination of crystals and organic technology. Note that the aliens of the first season (and of the movie) do not appear to use organic technology, though they do retain the reliance on crystals.
- According to the Gemara, King Solomon used something called a "shamir" to break down building materials or engrave gemstones. Exactly what the shamir is isn't clear, but one interpretation is that it's some kind of worm.
- In
*The Adventure Zone: Balance*, the Millers created a mascot for their line of elevators called Upsy, Your Lifting Friend. Despite being an elevator, his inside is fleshy, not unlike a mouth or stomach.
- Implied in Bally's
*Centaur*; the Centaur appear to be grown from pods, including their motorcycle parts.
- Many systems for tactical space fleet gaming, especially those with ship design rules and the option to do without the canon setting presented in the rules, usually have at least one bio-tech race.
*Silent Death* features the Bugs, which grow to fit into manufactured frames and become cyborgs; while *Full Thrust* have the Phalon, who build their ships from parts and units made of lab-grown tissues, and the Sa'Vasku, whose craft, and indeed anything they use, are usually fully-fledged living organisms in their own right.
- The Pentapods of
*2300 AD*, a *Traveller* spinoff, are big on Organic Technology, since their species evolved underwater and never had the option of using metal or fire in their industrial development.
-
*Call of Cthulhu*. The Mi-Go regularly use organic-based tech, such as a creature that can dig through the earth and extract metals and minerals, and a variety of giant fungi that maintain life support in an underground cavern.
-
*CthulhuTech* sees this with the Engels, extra-large mecha that are more or less just massive creatures covered in enough machinery to conceal their monstrosity (somewhat). They tend to have a detrimental effect on the psyches of their pilots.
- The
*Dark Conspiracy* supplement *Dark Tek* had a number of Darkling biological devices, such as the Antidoter (neutralized poison in the body) and Facedancer (a living disguise mask).
-
*The Day After Ragnarok* setting has the surviving nations developing early forms of organic technology in 1948, by harvesting flesh of the dead Midgard Serpent.
- The
*Dungeons & Dragons* Campaign Setting of *Dark Sun* had Halflings use this, either symbiotic creatures, buildings made from tissues, adapted wildlife, or types of organic automatons, such as the Scrubslug, which eats dust and debris and transforms it into organic floor wax.
- The Daelkyr of Eberron are very fond of this. Many of their creations are still around and usable by players, though this has risks.
- Tends to be something of a persistent theme with the Primordials of
*Exalted*, albeit in a somewhat unconventional manner; their world bodies tend to *look* inorganic (and, in Autochthon's case, actually mechanical), but follow anatomical logic; Malfeas' bones are buildings of brass and stone and the fluids in the sewers are his bile and digestive fluids, because he's a creature that is a city (he also has flora made of metal), and Autochthon's organs are gears and pistons, his nerves are cables, his lungs/stomach is a toxic junkyard, and his blood is lubricating oil. Exploiting the landscape by provoking anatomic reactions is key to life in those worlds.
- The backstory of the
*Forgotten Realms* has a quirky variant — the Sarrukh, one of the Creator Races has the natural ability to reshape other reptilian humanoids, granting and removing abilities. Naturally, one of the main uses of this was to create a new type of reptilian humanoid for any given task, with the end result of explaining why the modern Realms has such a wide variety of reptilian humanoids, some with very minor but bizarre variations to other types.
-
*GURPS Biotech* is all about this when discussing high tech levels. Aside from the various new pieces of tech presented in the book (including a sentient sponge-brain-tree-Neo Christian house) the writers also suggest that one can simply treat advanced technology from other sourcebooks as being organic in origin.
- The third edition sourcebook "Robots" includes rules for creating biological androids using biotech. This sourcebook also includes rules for combining traditional robots with biotech in the form of living flesh and intestinal power convertors.
-
*GURPS* has two takes on biotech depending on the setting/society in a setting — either it begins to show up (beyond the modern-day applications) around tech level 9 note : one level above the current modern day, or it is the result of a divergent tech level note : expressed 'x'+'y' where the sum is the equivalent tech level, x is the tech level shared with the standard — in extreme cases this can be 0 — and y is however far they've gotten on their alternate path that may well be equivalent to a *lower* tech level than the modern day.
- From
*Magic: The Gathering*, we have the Phyrexians. Even in their first appearances, they blur all sorts of lines between Organic Technology, The Virus, Magitek, Necromancy, and Cybernetics Eat Your Soul. Recently however, the Scars of Mirrodin block gave us Phyrexians in all five colors, not just Black. In particular the leader of the Green-aligned faction, Vorinclex, believes that Phyrexians should be grown, not built.
- A (slightly) Lighter and Softer version of this is present in the Simic Combine of Ravnica. Contributing to the Dungeon Punk element of the world, this guild uses magic to engineer new creatures to serve all kinds of roles, mostly in the form of this trope; living zeppelins are just one of the examples to appear in the cards. Based on the combination of Blue Mana and Green Mana, they believe the purpose of life is to evolve, and seek to use magic and experimentation to guide evolution towards a nebulous "perfection". The magical equivalent of organ-grafts and gene-splicing is their stock in trade, and they readily exploit their position as Ravnica's doctors to further their experiments. They experiment on themselves, too — in fact, the lower ranked members of the guild are known for a rather high mortality rate, as they tend to be forced to serve as experiment test subjects; if they're lucky, they gain a useful implant, mutation or other alteration. If they're unlucky, more often than not, they dissolve painfully into a mass of protoplasmic goo.
- This is one of approximately 9000 options for Humongous Mecha in one
*Mekton* expansion.
-
*Paranoia* is better known for Corpore Metal bots and bot-wannabe cyborgs, but The Bot Abusers Manual inverted it with Corporganic, a bot secret society that went so far as to practice "orgcybing" (replacing bot limbs with organic parts). Yes, pretty much everyone else thought it was disgusting.
- In
*Pathfinder*, both the mi-go and the Dominion of the Black make use of this, from "wands" of living flesh and crystal to oozes used as navigational computers.
-
*Rifts* features Organic *Magitek*; the Splugorth of Atlantic have their Bio-Wizardry, which takes things like Faries, giant eyeballs, and mystic worms to use as components in powerful magic items and weapons, as well as specially-grown microbes, parasites, and symbiotes; Meanwhile, the Lemurians and Jungle Elves both use Bio *mancy* which is more in tune with nature, and features things like living armor made of wood, coral, or shark blood; In Dinosaur Swamp(Florida and other parts of the former Deep South), the Barbarian tribes have developed a form of Eco-Wizardy, a variation of the more standard Techno-Wizardry that uses Stone-Age technology; finally, the dimension of Wormwood is a presumably Constructed World that is one massive organism that shapes itself to care for the people living on it, as well as providing worms symbiotes, and crystals to help them defend itself.
- Continuing expansions to the
*Phase World* setting give us Necrons, who hate non-organic technology and have living weapons and bio-ships they can use to spread that hate across the Three Galaxies.
- And in Spelljammer, elven spacecraft are actually living plants with photosynthetic sails.
- In
*Splicers*, the Human Resistance of this Robot War have no choice but to use Organic tech, due to a deadly nano-plague that causes any metal to try to *kill* any living thing that touches it. Among the technologies developed are customizable suits of Powered Armor, Beasts of Battle bred to replace tanks, and equivalents to regular *guns*. Of course, this stuff was first developed by the minority who are immune to the plague.
-
*Systems Failure* features a surviving government base developing armor and weapons to fight the Bugs, who can frequently take over hard technology. The new weapons are described as "like holding a cockroach that shoots".
- Several races of
*Talislanta* use plant-based technologies, including the barge-forts of the Green Aeriads (with live viridia trees for masts) and the d'oko lily plants used as houses by the Green Men.
- The Akashan Star Sphere or "Space Gods" from
*TORG* prefer biotech to the point that most available Akashan gear is some sort of lifeform (e.g. "kinetic armor" is a symbiotic bodysuit, "geomantic shuttles" are creatures with a natural gravity manipulating ability, "starshredders" are a weaponized cross between a starfish and a piranha). Even their hard tech items tend to lean on biotech; for example, "bataase rifles" are nonlethal weapons which fire a biological polymer, and Akashan Lightships are as much biotech as they are hard tech.
- The White Wolf RPG
*Trinity* had humans and a number of other races use living "bio-tech." Humans still used it alongside hard-tech and it was considered superior for some applications and inferior for others. Some human nations rejected bio-tech entirely, such as the Japanese, because they had determined the original source of human bio-tech was of unknown alien origin.
-
*Warhammer 40,000*
- The Tyranids from the
*Warhammer 40,000* universe epitomize the trope insofar as it relates to tools of warfare; their every military need, from weapons to starcraft, is met by complex interlocking creatures specially engineered for the purpose. Their 'technology' is not only suspiciously well-suited to its function, but suspiciously sadistic in its execution. The original and ancient *Warhammer 40,000* sourcebook, *Rogue Trader*, had "organic weapons" (such as organic chainswords) that were essentially bio-engineered duplicates of mechanical versions made of flesh and bone rather than steel and ceramics, apparently a curiosity widely used. The Tyranids were notable for always using them, but at this point the Tyranids were just random bugs rather than the galaxy-eating, wall-of-teeth Great Devourer. Since 3rd edition and the 'Nids new models, it is becoming increasingly difficult to spot where the bio-weapon ends and the Tyranid carrying it begins. The game also plays organic technology in the only way it would work, which is to dial it to eleven. Creatures have nothing they don't need to do their job, not even *digestive tracts* — they're expected to die before they starve. They just eat until they're completely full, then dive into "digestion pools" created by the Tyrannoforming of the planet, recycling the Tyranid and everything it's eaten into genetic material and other raw materials useful to the Hive Fleet. Their close combat weapons are forged in biological furnaces and then affixed to the creature in question and their bodies are almost entirely armored carapace. Even their soft tissues are built of materials similar to Kevlar. They are not your average squishy biological version of this trope, they are armored hell-beasts designed with one singular purpose — relentless assault. Tyranid bio weapons are notably inferior individually to their non-organic counterparts though, and their space fleets are noted to be inferior to every other faction's. It is their single minded purpose and sheer numbers that make the Tyranids so deadly.
- The Eldar make extensive use of a substance called wraithbone, which is a psychoplastic material that also possesses some self-regenerating capabilities. While not Organic Technology per se, Eldar vehicles, technologies, and buildings aren't built, they're grown.
- The Dark Eldar have a large swathe of Organic Technology, particularly in the Haemonculus subfaction. However, they cannot manipulate wraithbone since their Psychic Powers have atrophied.
- The Imperium also uses organic technology to some degree. Since they have a ban on artificial intelligence (after intelligent robots turned on humanity and nearly wiped them out) they use cybernetic slaves called servitors to perform menial tasks and some of the more advanced vehicles have either servitors hardwired to control weapons or Machine Spirits, which appear to be a form of "wetware" AI (although some sources state they are inorganic A.I.s modeled after animal behavior patterns).
- Depending on the writer, Machine Spirits have been anything from intelligences formed from hundreds of years of a complex program slowly evolving, an inherence within Imperial computing technology, an actual CPU core housing a legitimate AI, or a collective of the fragmented minds of the controlling servitors. While Games Workshop has called each of these excused correct at various times, when you are talking about actual Imperial AI, you are referencing the Cortex. This is a very advanced fragment of Lost Technology which parts of the Mechanicus can still make very well and understand fairly well in comparison to most other things. It is a single, large, solid, crystalline mass which acts like a light-based computer. It is extremely powerful for its size, and can fairly accurately re-create the neurological structure of biological creatures (mammals, birds, pets, fish, humans). Its "firmware" and processing power are set by a combination of predetermined crystal growth patterns and in-growth manipulation (probably electroshock therapy).
- A lot of Chaos technology merges meat, cybernetics and daemon bits into something kind of hideous. Consider, for example, the Helbrute.
- Of all creatures, Orks use organic technology in the form of squiggly beasts, AKA squigs. On top of squigs that are especially nummy (all squigs are edible but "eatin' squigs" taste the best,) they have squigs as toothbrushes and/or chewing gum (gob squigs), squigs as targeting computers (targetin' squigs), squigs as toupees (hair and beard squigs), and even squigs that inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, which the orks use as life support machines on their "Kroozas."
- Over the editions the Orks
*themselves* have evolved into being organic technology. Essentially, orks are what you get when a desperate race of precursors attempts to engineer a self-perpetuating Robot Soldier race out of biological material. Orks are actually a kind of hyper-developed *fungus*, biologically programmed with knowledge they need on an instinctual level; specialist castes, or "Oddboys" are literally born knowing how to do their job, and only grow better at it as they live longer and practice. Every indivdual ork constant sheds fungal spores which form a kind of fungal bio-factory wherever they take root; these "shroom-wombs" first provide basic ecosystem requirements such as oxygen generation. Then they start to produce complex organisms; first squigs, to provide the most basic biological needs (food, leather, bone, etc); then gretchin to serve as labor units, and finally fully developed orks. With time these fungi will literally take over and "orkiform" a planet.
- The Iskai in
*Albion* have two kinds of magic — which may have some hidden "scientific" explanation that's never given, since the story is at least as much science fiction as fantasy. Anyhow, one of the types, Dji-Kas, is largely just flashy wizard magic, but the other, Dji-Fadh, is used to grow organic plant technology — vegetable buildings as well as appliances like a plant acting as a toilet.
- The final stage of
*Assault Retribution*, set in the mutant planet, where *everything* is organic and *alive*.
- In
*The Conduit,* the Drudge weapons are all based on this trope, including ||the Drudge themselves||. Reloading a weapon is invariably accompanied by squishy noises.
-
*Chorus* has the Circle's Elder starfighters, a set of twelve sentient spaceships made with the power of the Void. Each of them was made for and bonded with one of the Circle's Elders, the Great Prophet's dragons. Nara's ship, Forsaken (or just "Forsa" for short), is one of them.
-
*Chrono Cross*: The Dragonians (descendants of the Reptites from the previous game) relied on organic materials to develop their civilization. Their creations include the Dragon God, a being used to harness the energy of the Elements, and Terra Tower, a coral-like structure that houses said Dragon God. This is to contrast them with humans, who harnessed more conventional technology instead.
- The Ark in
*Creatures 3* was grown organically by its creators; in fact, it's stated that the Shee use mostly organic technology, having even discovered DNA before the wheel. *Docking Station's* Capillata takes it further: the main hub is very organic-looking, the whole thing looks suspiciously like a giant jellyfish, the Backstory states it was literally grown in a vat, and then there's the slightly disturbing Muco the Egg-Layer.
-
*Dark Colony*: Everything the Taar use qualifies, with the exception of the Flying Saucer. Perhaps the most... amusing weapon is the burrowing turret. Guess which orifice the gun pops out from.
-
*Earth 2160*'s aliens, the Morphids, are actually a genetically-engineered army of biological von Neumann machines, which need only water to grow from a single crawling Mantian Lady to a legion of acid-spitting four-legged bear tanks and artillery insects. The trope is also subverted in that their Creators were unable to make biological units into a good airfleet, so they resorted to metal ships that use Nanomachines to clone and morph themselves, just like the ground forms.
-
*The Elder Scrolls*:
- The Numidium is a Dwemer-constructed Humongous Mecha designed to be powered by the heart of a dead god (and later powered by what is believed to be that god's
*soul*), which distorts reality around it whenever it is activated. Some of its blueprints/drawings depict it as having a ribcage and spine. (Akulakhan, another mecha built from Numidium's blueprints, also has these organic-looking components.) It's also theorized that its armor or other structural components are what all the Dwemer were transformed into after their mysterious disappearance. It played a major role in the series' backstory, where Tiber Septim used it to complete his conquest of Tamriel, and then shows up in *Daggerfall* as a major plot point. At the end of *Daggerfall*, it ||causes a Time Crash which makes each of the game's mutually exclusive Multiple Endings all happen at once, though none to the same extent they would have individually||.
-
*Morrowind*:
- Telvanni architecture is this plus Fungus Humongous. They magically grow fungi and mold them into Mage Towers.
- Players can employ Silt Striders: gigantic, domesticated arthropods that are used to rapidly travel from city to city in the game world. The striders essentially appear akin to enormous fleas. The striders have portions of their shell removed from their back so that the driver, or 'caravaner', can poke at the sensitive flesh underneath to goad the strider in the desired direction. Their shells are further carved or modified to hold cargo or passengers, based on need.
- In
*Skyrim*, the Falmer, a race of fallen elves, have a symbiotic relationship with insectoid creatures known as Chaurus. Much of their technology looks like Chaurus body parts that are still moving. Also, Telvanni technology returns in the *Dragonborn* DLC.
- The isolated Polaris in
*Escape Velocity: Nova* use incredibly powerful living spaceships. Coincidentally, the otherwise peaceful Wraith have an intense animosity toward the Polaris...
- Apparently the ships are so organic that the Manta fighter is about as intelligent as a smart dog based off of some text in-game, technically making it an Empathic Weapon.
- The Polaris do utilize
*some* mechanical technologies — the phrasing around their non-ship technologies suggests they aren't much more organic than the other civilizations, and the construction process for their starships starts with something perfectly mechanical: a metal framework.
- In
*Evolva*, the Parasite is able to create a good number of towers connected among them and a whole army from their *tentacles*.
- In
*Final Fantasy XIII*, this seems to be the design aesthetic of the game, most visible in the (utterly gorgeous) Gapra Whitewood area.
-
*Fracture* features the Republic of Pacifica, a breakaway nation of the USA. Their soldiers are covered in Bio-Armor, enhanced using genetic engineering and several of their weapons are more grown than manufactured. One such example is the Raptor Rifle whose main component is a bio-engineered organism derived from oceanic coral that grows around a titanium gun barrel. They literally manufacture them by dropping the coated barrels in a protected seawater area and dredge harvest the finished product a few days later.
- In
*Gears of War*, the Locust Horde utilizes some of this, including their various Beasts of Battle, Digger Launchers, Nemacysts (and the Seeders that spawn them), and even the Kryll grenades. ||It turns out that *human* technology works this way as well, since Imulsion, the miracle fuel on Sera, is actually a living parasite that's killing the planet from within. By extension, the Lambent and even the Locust themselves operate this way, since they are Imulsion-based mutants of humans and other species.||
-
*Geneforge* is based almost entirely around this, with the plot focusing on (sometimes sentient) magical creatures made by a caste of magi called "shapers" and the moral ramifications of their work. Aside from their more advanced creations, shapers have made biological equivalents of everything from guns (bone-shooting "thorn batons") to doorlocks.
- In
*Genesis Rising*, humanity developed the Organids, which are artificial lifeforms that are able to be grown into multiple forms, including space stations and Living Ships. Because of this, blood has become one of the most important resources in the universe. Organids also have LEGO Genetics, allowing for quick and easy modification of their physical structure, like growing more armor, engines and weapons. Originally, only humans had the technology, but the Defiance's leader, Loodweeg the Macabre managed to steal it and use it to build an army against those who conquered his homeworld.
-
*Half-Life*:
-
*Half-Life*: the Alien Grunts use a living creature called the Hivehand that literally fires alien bees at people (it's a lot more powerful than it sounds). They also breed explosive fist sized bugs called Snarks that they sometimes use like grenades. Their airships appear to be alive as well, and look like over-sized versions of bird-like creatures found in Xen itself. *Half-Life 2: Episode 2* implies the Xenian aliens also bred and used Antlions for war; at the very least, they explicitly practiced Antlion husbandry, and Antlion colonies prove to be a very effective biological weapon (unwittingly or no) following their transportation to Earth by portal storms. They kill off swaths of both humans and wildlife and rendered untamed wilderness effective no-go zones due to their hardiness and reproduction rate.
- The Fan Remake
*Black Mesa* takes this trope and runs with it in Xen, the aliens' home base. Much of their technology seems to an equal mix of mechanical parts and living materials.
-
*Half-Life: Opposing Force*: the new aliens introduced in the expansion, Race X, seem to use exclusively living tech. Their guns are "Shock Roaches", herbivorous critters that belch blasts of electricity at their enemies; and the Gene Worm is suggested to be a terraforming device. The Black Mesa scientists in the expansion also learned how to detach a Xen Barnacle from the ceiling and use it like a living grappling hook.
- The Combine from the
*Half-Life 2* use living, grown/built units as powerful shock troops; one example is the Combine Gunship, currently the page image. All of them are implied to be aliens turned into Slave Mooks by the Combine, just the same as humans are turned into Overwatch soldiers. They also breed headcrabs to use as biological weapons against rebellious areas.
- Hunters and Scarabs in
*Halo* are both partly composed of and controlled by aggregations of Lekgolo.
-
*I Was a Teenage Exocolonist*: A lot of the technology left behind by Vertumna's long-gone native sentient species is hard to tell apart from the wildlife. Even the parts that are recognizable as technology are implied to technically qualify, as it explains how they are still functional 20,000 years after being built.
-
*Ixion* has several examples towards its end:
- The Ashtangites use it as part of their transhumanist, eco-societal agenda. On ||Remus||, this involves such things as buildings grown out of rocks by introducing engineered, microscopic fungi into them (which hollow out the insides while secreting enzymes which strengthen the "walls"), fields plowed by oxen whose tails were modified into farm tools, and long-range communication via birds with organic radio and ultrasonic capabilities. They also possess incredible genetic engineering abilities, going so far as to, in one of the endings, ||be able to modify the entire population of the Tiqqun into green-skinned posthumans like them simply by introducing retrovirii into the atmosphere||.
- The Piranesi, which isn't ever explicitly stated to be organic but
*is* said to look from the inside more like a living creature than a machine, in order to highlight just how alien and impossibly advanced is the technology used to build it.
- In
*Kid Icarus: Uprising*, Viridi's army, the Forces of Nature, are constructed from materials found in nature, such as wood and stone. In addition, her Reset Bombs are grown like fruits before being dropped.
-
*Mass Effect*:
-
*Mass Effect 2*: The Collectors have a very organic appearance to their ships and weapons. The Reaper technology has some organic components as well, as evidenced by the Keepers, and ||the finale of the game||.
-
*Mass Effect: Andromeda*: A variant: the kett are very fond of biology, and use lots of genetic engineering and Bio-Augmentation on themselves. Their weapons and ships are purely technological, but are highly biomimetic — they *look* biological. Kett technology is green, bulbous, and sometimes looks more organic than the kett themselves. If you find a crashed kett ship, you can even see that it is built around a metal skeleton, complete with ribs.
- Metal Gear RAY and the Gekkos from the
*Metal Gear* franchise aren't organic but are machines built like they were, even capable of bleeding (it's actually "armor-repair nanopaste"). The Nanomachines in the series are also based on living cells. There's a field in science called biomechanics that's a bit similar to this. Basically, we're studying how our bodies work and how we could use that to our advantage. A good example of biomechanics in motion would be pneumatic artificial muscles.
-
*Metroid*:
- Samus Aran's Power Suit, since the X Parasites were able to infect and then replicate it in
*Metroid Fusion*. Its appearance goes through a very radical change as seen during the beginning of *Fusion*. This is the result of the Galactic Federation surgically removing its mechanical armor plating in an attempt to remove the X Parasite from Samus' body, along with her receiving the Metroid vaccine to save her life. Now referred to as the Fusion Suit, the two aforementioned procedures caused it to be scaled down to mostly having a blue muscle fiber exterior * : This wasn't originally clear in *Fusion*, as the blue portions of the Fusion Suit had more of a shiny silicone-like appearance. Retroactively, this was changed when it reappeared in *Metroid: Samus Returns* (donned only in Fusion Mode) and *Metroid Dread* (seen in the intro, showcasing flashbacks of a few events from *Fusion*), now having a muscle fiber exterior. Sometime before *Dread* takes place, the suit had apparently regenerated parts of its mechanical plating. Even when it gains more plating as it upgrades into the Varia Suit, then later into the Gravity Suit, all these variations for the suit still showcase bits of its muscle fibers. ||And much later on in *Dread*, Samus' Metroid DNA fully awakens after seemingly being killed by Raven Beak. This causes her suit to transform into the Metroid Suit. Its exterior lacks the muscle fibers from before, but is now clearly plated with a green organic exoskeleton, complete with carapace and fang-like protrusions all over. Samus' glowing red visor and the red Tron Lines seen on the Metroid Suit's armor are the only things keeping it from looking completely organic, although said Tron Lines are patterned in a way that look almost like veins.||
- Also from
*Fusion*, the security robot B.O.X., which is mostly mechanical, does have an organic CPU. There also exists the Nightmare, a massive creature that can manipulate gravity and is explicitly stated to be a bio-mechanical organism.
- Dark Samus, being a Phazon-based clone of Samus' armor (read: not Samus
*and* her armor, just the armor), is this in her entirety. Her design in the *Metroid Prime Trilogy* already looks more bio-mechanical than Samus, and her appearance in *Super Smash Bros. Ultimate* further emphasizes this by showing pulsating veins and carapace-like ridges on her "armor."
- The most famous example of biotech in
*Metroid* is, of course, Mother Brain. But the Metroids themselves also count, as they were engineered by the Chozo to combat the X Parasites.
- Of note, the Space Pirates in the
*Prime* games progressively began to use Organic Technology almost exclusively. This may be a bit of a plot point, as the game lore in *Prime 3* suggests.
- Kanden's scan log in
*Metroid Prime: Hunters* states that his version of the Volt Driver is a Living Weapon.
- Almost all Alimbic technology in
*Metroid Prime: Hunters* has organic parts, and you go through some of the factory areas where the organic components are cultured. You even pass through an area with what looks like a brain-based computer.
- Even the Federation uses it, having created Mother Brain-like super computers called Aurora Units and cybernetic war robots.
- The Torizo statues that stand guard over certain Chozo technology in
*Super Metroid* will awaken to repel intruders. After a Torizo takes enough damage, it begins to "bleed" an organic fluid.
- In
*Metroid: Zero Mission*, the Wave Beam can't pass through Chozo Statues, even with the ability to pass through solid objects. The Plasma Beam however, with the ability to pierce through organic matter, does pass through Chozo Statues, implying that they are at least somewhat organic in nature.
-
*No Man's Sky* has a category of starships called "living ships". Unlike ordinary ships, living ships are not built, but hatched from a Void Egg. Their storage slots are called "sacs", and their technological components are based on organs (a "Pulsing Heart" instead of Pulse Engines, "Spewing Vents" instead of Photon Cannons, etc.).
-
*Prey (2006)*: The Keepers, the creators of the game's enormous spherical spaceship, used powerful vomiting-sphincter-based biotechnology to make their ship... uh... go. Additionally, they used one or more gigantic (and disgusting) creatures who ate concentrated nutrients and crapped food for the aliens. Everything the aliens have is partly alive, including guns, pipes, doors, computers and medical stations.
-
*Project Remedium* have the later stages where you come across defeated nanobots captured by the virus, turning into nano-cyborgs who attacks you on sight.
-
*Quake*'s resident aliens, the Strogg, sometimes use hearts as pumps, human torsos as bioelectric generators and huge alien creatures as biological corpse-to-food converters. However, they rarely resist their urge to stick some giant metal piping and prosthetics in them, for the lulz.
- The
*Samorost* games all take place on what appear to be combinations of spaceships and planets made out of moss, bark, and rock. It's pretty spectacular.
- Being a Bio Punk-flavored game, the technology of
*Scorn* is rooted in a mixture of machinery and sculpted tissue. Even the player's gun is a Living Weapon made of organs and metallic chitin that fires slivers of bone.
- In
*Septerra Core*, much of the Chosen's technology seems based on this. Their ships, armor, and even some weapons are grown from the bodies of specially cultivated Helgak, a highly diverse species native to the planet. The ships are partially alive in some cases. Maya's gun also has some organic components, which enables her weapon to actually grow its own ammunition, ostensibly granting it unlimited bullets.
- The Eva Unit-esque Slave units in
*Slave Zero* are this trope, with their production process described as being grown from cybernetic fetuses.
- Introduced in the fourth game in the
*Space Empires* series. Their main use is to generate resources/regenerate damage.
- The Mycon, sapient fungi from the
*Star Control* series, are genetically engineered biological terraforming tools, and whatever new tools they need, from pseudopods to space craft to other Mycon, they grow just by willing it ("Mycon just *think* genetic modification, and it happen!"). Due to the extreme amount of time they've gone without upkeep by their creators, over the generations their original programming "drifted" and has become a religion revolving around the incomprehensible "Juffo-Wup". Heed their babble and you'll get fragments of their developers' speech from Genetic Memory.
- The Umgah, another alien race from the same series, are so obsessed with genetic engineering that, even though their ships are mechanical, the corridors and interfaces are all fleshy, for easy modification (read: mutation). Unfortunately for interstellar relations, the Umgah have been so free and careless with their genetic modifications of themselves that every last one of them is violently insane and possesses a warped sense of humor and a childlike oblivious cruelty.
- Blizzard's
*StarCraft* have the Zerg, an insectoid/mammalian/reptilian race controlled by a Hive Mind that treated its populace as disposable for the simple reason that they were the meat equivalent of robotic drones. They also had big gross living buildings. And living starships.
- While metal technology is connected with wires and cables to transfer electricity and information, Zerg buildings are connected with a mass of blood vessels and muscle tissue called Creep to transfer nutrients and genetic code. Each building is less like an organism and more like an organ, since they support the central Hatchery and will gradually shut down and die without creep to support them.
-
*Space Debris* revolves around humans in the future facing an Alien Invasion, where the invaders all use organic-based weapons such as living spaceships with tentacles and flesh, against humans who use fighter ships.
- In
*Star Wars: The Old Republic*, Darth Jadus had a series of Kill Sats called Eradicators which consisted of an organic battery in a metallic shell, enabling them to be grown rather than manufactured.
-
*Subnautica*: When you first scan a Warper, your PDA notes several oddities about them: their biology is massively more complex than any other life forms encountered, they don't appear to have any kind of digestive system, and there is no apparent genetic relation to any other life on the planet. ||Later, investigation of a Precursor lab confirms the Warpers are artificial life forms bio-engineered to act as "quarantine enforcers" that hunt down and kill any life infected with the Kharaa bacterium. Their lack of a digestive system is because they get their energy beamed from the same power generators that are powering the alien buildings.||
- In the
*Super Robot Wars* series, the Einst are able to mimic machines by reshaping their exoskeleton, carapace and tentacles. When Excellen is kidnapped by them, they upgrade her mech, the Weinsritter, into the Rein Weisritter, which replaced 60% of its body with Einst biotech.
- Rlaan in
*Vega Strike* apply biotechnologies anywhere, even in spaceships. They still need normal materials for things like hermetic enclosures or weapons, but grow structures, make construction materials of their generators' refuse and use gravitics instead of thrusters. Of course, for the species living in methane atmosphere it's hard to start with "set something on fire". Also, they don't like AI, so their armed drones are piloted by the brain of some pet that presumably passes for a hound where they live. Humans frequently use genetically engineered Wetware CPU too, because it's much cheaper than hardware for AI equivalent.
- In
*Warframe*, there's several different types of bio-organic tech. The Orokin's ships and towers look like porcelain, but underneath is literally meat (which can be consumed!). Sentients are an artificial intelligence that evolved on their own, their own ships looking somewhat organic while their bodies look like they are made of bone. Finally there's the infestation itself, which can merge with both organic matter and technology with its Meat Moss. Warframes themselves are made of infested matter.
-
*Wildcat: Gun Machine* have the alien outbreak resulting in organic growth even on machines, resulting in enemies resembling flesh-like coating on machine parts. There's also a couple of giant mecha boss overwhelmed by the growth - deplete their health and the organic layer dissolves, allowing you to take over the mecha and use it to kick ass in one more area.
- The Morthagi of
*Wildermyth* are clockwork undead: mechanical creatures composed of a combination of metal and once-living organic body parts. They were originally created through a complex process of artifice and magic, and though the Mortificers who made them are gone, the Morthagi remain indefinitely self-sustaining.
- The hostile aliens in the
*X-COM* series of games have always used varying degrees of bio-tech, such as purpose-build foot soldiers — but *X-COM: Apocalypse* takes this trope to the natural conclusion, with alien ships and buildings being fully organic. You actually get to see (and blow up) the facility where they grow their ships (among other vital constructs).
- Realians of the
*Xenosaga* series.
-
*70-Seas* and its spinoff *Latchkey Kingdom*. Justified by the planet's unique geography with mobile islands providing isolation of species and occasional "cross-pollination". Rather subtle and mostly simple, but proves very widespread as the story progresses. Genetics hasn't been discussed so far, and everything seems to either be readily available in nature or require limited artificial selection. Examples include miraculous drugs (mainly of fungal origin), living lightbulbs, hiveminds, translating birds, loudspeaker birds, squids and barnacles as Abnormal Ammo, and "jellyflesh" — a Lost Technology that allows creating prostheses and autonomous self-replicating robots called "shadows".
-
*Arthur, King of Time and Space*: In the space arc, the *Excalibur* visits a planet on which all the technology is grown on bio-engineered trees. Unfortunately, they spoil easily.
-
*Awful Hospital*: All the tech of the hospital, which appears to exist inside some unidentified gigantic lifeform.
-
*Deep Rise*: Every bit of technology more advanced than an abacus or a lighter is alive and skin-colored.
-
*Homestuck*: Troll technology is largely this. For example, Sollux's computer servers are basically giant alien beehives, while large grubs serve as the equivalent of video game capsules. It's implied in *Hiveswap* and *Hiveswap Friendsim* that even the buildings are made of living beings.
-
*A Mad Tea-Party*: Earth's genetically engineered super-soldiers have organic weapons to use against alien robots.
-
*Mare Internum*: It turns out that ||an ancient Martian race relied on this type of technology. Remnants of it are still living underneath the martian surface, and are at first glance indistinguishable from a naturally evolved ecosystem. Some sort of fungus starts growing on the protagonist, somehow allowing him to breath the atmosphere, and a surviving Martian remarks that it's as disturbing as seeing someone with "a toaster fused to their face".||
-
*MSF High*: Thanks to their past as terraforming nanobots, the Legion embody this. They're very good at it, too.
-
*Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger*: Deconstructed in a strip which points out the major flaws of Organic Technology vs. Hard Technology, such as the fact that it cannot store as easily as hard tech can long-term (since it will, eventually, starve, and can't simply be refueled or recharged afterwards), as well as it potential to serve as a vector for disease.
-
*Serix*: In the distant future, genetic modification and machine technology have grown so interconnected that it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish one from another. For example, upgrading an AI is shown to involve hormones and nerve fluids, while on the other hand Rees's clone bodies have wires in them.
-
*Amphiterra*: The Temperate Freeples are a species of sapient Frog Men whose amphibian biology makes fire use difficult (their skin and respiratory systems are far too sensitive to handle the smoke). Instead, they selectively breed plants and animals that can produce their needed materials, such as a "bush that grows shovels" or a "pet that produces gloves", among other things.
-
*C0DA*, written by former *The Elder Scrolls* series writer/designer Michael Kirkbride, takes place in the far distant future of *TES* universe. Being focused on Dunmeri (Dark Elf) main characters whose people have colonized the moon Masser, the Dunmeri organic technology of the main series shows up. One notable new addition are the "Netch Zeppelins".
-
*Humans-B-Gone!*: Most technology used by macrovolutes is based on plants and fungi. For instance, fungal hyphae are used as the equivalent of cables to hook their "machines" together, while Sophodra uses a modified Venus flytrap to capture humans alive.
-
*Mortasheen* has a class of robots called Biomecha that are based on this. Word of God says that this is because the artist cannot draw machine parts to save his life.
-
*Mystery Flesh Pit National Park*: Anodyne Inc. experimented with organic computer technology and cybernetics that incorporate materials harvested from the titular pit, but they aren't very effective and none of them ever got much traction.
-
*Orion's Arm*: Biotech is relatively common, alongside hylotech (mechanical technology) and syntech (a hybrid of the two). Societies that rely wholly on biotech and eschew machines altogether do exist, but are very rare. It's worth noting that a lot of hylotech draws inspiration from biology, so there's no longer much distinction between the two, and biotech needn't be entirely composed of living tissue: for example, bioships have non-living shells which are created by biological means, similar to how shellfish grow their shells.
-
*SCP Foundation*:
- SCP-127 ("The Living Gun"). SCP-127 looks like an ordinary MP5K sub-machine gun on the outside, but the inside is made of flesh and bone, and the bullets it fires vaguely resemble human teeth.
- SCP-1000 ("Bigfoot"). At the height of their civilization, SCP-1000 "made trees and birds of prey grow into fast-moving ships, herds of animals that became trains, bushes that became flying vehicles. From insects and pigeons they made things equivalent to cell phones, televisions, computers. Atomic bombs."
- SCP-1569 ("Jumbo Shrimp"). SCP-1569 resembles an enormous peacock mantis shrimp, but it turns out to be some kind of "biological vehicle" when a humanoid being emerges from it and tries to escape the facility. Then a D-Class test subject manages to activate it, but his biology proved to be not entirely compatible and it didn't end well.
- An entire Group of Interest from the Russian branch, "Meat Circus"
- The Sarkic cults are capable of biological engineering via anomalous means, and consider it a holy imperative. Think monsters that used to be people and living cities made of bone and flesh (which also used to be people).
- The Daevites, the empire destroyed by the Sarkic slave uprising, were similarly skilled in biological engineering, but mostly applied it to plant life.
-
*Symbiote*: Symbiotes that merge with human hosts are able to create all kinds of organic technology. If they dont go crazy, that is.
-
*Buzz Lightyear of Star Command* has Rhizome, a planet whose technology is based entirely around genetically engineered plants (their way of living in harmony with nature). Plus, their plants are sensitive to emotion. The happier you are, the better they work for you.
- Tweak from the
*Defenders of the Earth* episode "Audie and Tweak" is a small robot which Child Prodigy Audie built using organic circuits. This renders him immune to the disruption caused by Tycos (a rogue supercomputer created by Octon) but it also means that, when his power packs are exhausted, there is no way Audie can repair him.
- Any device in
*The Flintstones* that's not made out of rock is one sort of creature or another.
-
*Milo Murphy's Law*: In "Abducting Murphy's Law", Milo gets abducted by the Octalians, and in to avoid rising suspicion, they quickly replaced Milo with a robotic replica. Robot Milo is an organic android, grown from a tissue sample retrieved from the real Milo in the earlier episode "Sick Day", making him almost indistinguishable from the real deal (with the notable exceptions of the echo-ey, monotone voice, repeated usage of specific phrases, and occasionally calling anyone a loser due to an overly adjusted sass meter).
- R.O.T.H. in
*Motorcity* was made from a KaneBot but his arms appear to be organic, the way they expand. Some of the Terras' weapons might be this as well.
-
*Samurai Jack*: In "Jack Under the Sea" Jack is taken to the Underwater City of the Triseraquins after being swallowed by a large fish creature of theirs that has a transparent oxygen dome on its back, and Jack manages to manipulate the creature's nerve ganglia to get it where he wants it to go.
-
*Pirates of Dark Water*: The Big Bad's giant ship is a Leviathan's skeleton. Starfish get used as shurikens. At the local pub, the tap is apparently some kind of vine or tentacle or something. And so on.
-
*Rick and Morty*:
- In "Pickle Rick", Rick resorts to taking apart vermin to provide him with mobility. He is first seen using several roach bodies which he manipulates by stimulating nerves with his tongue. He later upgrades to rat parts, which are attached to him by an apparatus that also largely consists of the remains of rodents and insects.
- Shleemypants' "gun" appears to be some kind of slug.
- The Bugs in the
*Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles* cartoon (a mix of the movie and the book) use bio weapons and Living Ships to attack the human planets
- This is Planet Bone's schtick in
*Shadow Raiders*, with everything from spaceships to Powered Armor being a living organism. In fact, the latter is implied to actually be smarter than the Bone soldiers wearing it, and it is capable of taking over if the wearer loses consciousness.
- In
*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012)* galactic despot and insectoid Vringath Dregg has a mothership that looks like a giant bug and is made of organic tech.
-
*Transformers*:
- Whether or not the bots from
*Beast Wars* qualify is up to a great amount of confusion. However, the Maximals became explicitly techno-organic technology in *Beast Machines*.
- The Vok in
*Beast Wars* seem to utilise this. Series writer Larry DiTillio even proposed the bits of tech *were* the Vok themselves. Their third season depiction as giant floating skulls shattered this, though.
-
*Transformers: Animated*:
- Blackarachnia and Wasp(inator) are techno-organic, the first from using her power-copying ability on giant organic spiders, the second from Blackarachnia using Transwarp energy to fuse Wasp with a hornet. One thing to note is that in
*Animated*, Transformers have either an aversion if not downright fear of organic beings (Autobots) or a deep disdain/hatred of them (Decepticons).
- There's also Prometheus Black AKA Meltdown, who sold "bio-upgrades" until he went full Mad Scientist. This results in a couple Gonks turning into supermodels, a Bane expy, and himself becoming a Walking Wasteland. In his next appearance he's trying to create a
*fully organic Transformer*. Uh... ew?
- Sari is eventually revealed to be a (small) Transformer with a human alt-mode and flesh, though the organic parts only seem to be on the exterior.
-
*Transformers: Prime* confirms during "Operation: Bumblebee" that Cybertronians *do* have techno-organic parts, such as Bumblebee's damaged voice box, and their T-Cogs, the part that enables them to transform. This is used to Hand Wave away the question of why they simply can't just manufacture replacements damaged or missing parts of their bodies, despite being Mechanical Lifeforms.
- The Martians from
*Young Justice (2010)* favor this, with both their clothes and their spaceships being excellent examples. In season one, the villains manage to combine the bio-tech with more inorganic technology and magic to produce a highly effective Mind-Control Device.
- Mankind: Agriculture? Cattle breeding? Genetic engineering? Grafting?
*Medical* Grafting? In vitro fertilization? We're quite big on organic technology ourselves.
- Some social insects are also fond of this: the beehive is 100% organic, while the ant-colonies can be very complex structures: the Bug War came from somewhere, you know.
- Of course, most of these are not alive. They're just built out of various bodily excretions. However, when an army ant colony enters its stationary phase, its members form a living nest by latching onto each other to form walls. During the swarm phase, soldiers can also form living bridges, rafts, and scaffolds.
- Richard Dawkins calls this "the extended phenotype." Basically, the way they build their nests or hives is determined by the genome, hence there is little difference between it and, say, their feelers. Then there's some debate if a beehive or ant nest as a whole can be considered a living being, similar to the cell colony with some inorganic material in between that we call human.
- Full eusociality isn't a prerequisite for this, either: paper wasps don't have queens or castes, yet their nests can be every bit as complex as beehives.
- Spiderwebs, cocoons, and pretty much anything else that arthropods build from silk.
- A friggin bacteria computer.
- The polymer composite described here might lead to real life organic ships. (In both the real world and Sci Fi meanings.)
- "Biotechnology" is not only an adept description of many jobs available in the biological sciences, but many universities offer it as a course.
- Carbon nanotube transistors. Okay, so they're closer to the scientific definition of Organic Technology than most examples, but having your computer's circuitry be made out of the same stuff as you are fits the idea.
- An expert at the IEEE says this is the only way we'll get Nanomachines in Real Life, as much of the previous speculation we made about such machines (namely that they'd be super powerful metallic goos) forgot to take into account that living things are
*already made* out of nanomachines, and thus many of the constraints of biology would be mirrored into nanotechnology.
- Researchers at Plymouth University have managed to grow components for a music synthesiser from slime mould.
- Anything made of paper or wood, since they both originate as trees.
- Living organisms can interact with electricity in various useful ways: | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrganicTechnology |
Organization Index - TV Tropes
An index page for all organization tropes. Forms of government are also included. Not to be confused with any specific Organization. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrganizationIndex |
Orbital Kiss - TV Tropes
An Orbital Kiss is a phenomenon in Film, Western Animation, Live-Action TV and visual media, where two characters kiss, and the camera rotates a full 360 degrees around them as this happens. This may or may not be accompanied by Slow Motion. Look for one of the two to lift a foot.
Subtrope of Orbital Shot. Not to be confused by a kiss on the orbitals. Or in near Earth space. A symptom of The Big Damn Kiss. Compare Twirl of Love.
## Examples:
- Happens in episode 3 of
*Date A Live* with Shido and Tohka's First Kiss. Bonus points because Tohka's clothes disappear in the process.
-
*FLCL*:
- Parodied in the first episode, with the characters wondering how they can hold their breath while the camera pans around.
- In a later episode, Naota is sent flying toward the class rep—who has a massive crush on him—and, for several seconds, time slows down, the Bishie Sparkle comes in and it seems like they're going to have the most painful, glorious, awesome kiss in all history. ||Their foreheads collide and he goes tumbling down a nearby staircase, simultaneously infecting her with the latest forehead-burst monster.||
- This happens once in
*Fushigi Yuugi*, when Miaka resolves to stay in the book world with Tamahome. However, they don't kiss, they just embrace.
- At the end of
*Slayers Next*, not only does the camera spin when ||Lina and Gourry|| kiss, but *they* spin too. In mid air.
- Played straight at the end of
*Airplane!* — until the end, when the romantic background chorus sings so high they injure their voices.
- Aquaman and Mera share a kiss during an undersea civil war, which means their orbit is accompanied by some spectacular pyrotechnics.
- This is the basis for a gag in
*Being There*. Chance is watching the buildup to the moment in question when Eve enters the room in tears, out of desire for him. As per his tendency to imitate what he sees on TV, he furiously embraces and kisses her, and when the scene goes orbital, *he spins their embraced bodies around and around to match it.*
- Subverted in
*Body Double* (1984). The Stalker with a Crush starts making out with the woman he's obsessed with in a tunnel where she snapped him out of a claustrophobic attack, then it cuts to a passionate orbital kiss on a beach, then suddenly we're back to the tunnel where it's shown this is his fantasy and he's forcing the kiss on her. The orbital kiss (and the fantasy) is shown again when he has Wall Bang Her sex with a porn starlet, the body double of the title.
- The second version of Kotaro Terauchi's
*Boys Love* ends with the former teacher and student kissing while the camera spins around them.
- Happens in
*Don Jon*, between Jon and Barbara in the theatre lobby.
- The final scene of
*First Reformed* is the camera frantically spinning around two people kissing as a choir sings in praise of God. ||It just so happens to one of the pair is our main character, a delusional, celibate priest wearing a suicide vest. The high romance mixed with the priest's delusion, faith, and suicidal ideation adds a lot of ambiguity to this scene.||
- The geeky guy and girl get one at the end of
*Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle*.
- It's the theme of Claude Lelouch's 1 minute short for the
*Lumière and Company* project.
- Baz Luhrmann's
*Moulin Rouge!* also features the equivalent, at the end of the Elephant Love Medley. Having learned his lesson from the *Romeo + Juliet* example, this time the actors were placed on a turntable in front of a static camera to make it easier to film.
- Josie and Sam at the end of
*Never Been Kissed*. Earlier Josie describes this trope as what a *real* kiss is like, hence the title of the film.
- Played with in
*North by Northwest*: The train car in which Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint perform their first kiss proved too small to allow a cameraman to rotate around them, so the actors turned around while kissing.
- A particularly disturbing one takes place in
*Outbreak*. Jimbo and Cindy have one, but Jimbo's got Motaba virus and passes out in Cindy's arms when the orbit comes full circle.
-
*Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End* has this happen at Will and Elizabeth's wedding.||In the midst of a battle, no less.||
- Greg Pilkington and Graham in
*Priest*, complete with sweeping orchestral music on the beach.
- We get two looks at the same kiss between the two stars of the movie within the movie in
*Sweet Liberty*.
- Such a kiss, set to
*This Year's Love* by David Grey, takes place in *The Girl Next Door* as the party drunkenly spins around the kissers.
-
*Three Poplars in Plyuschikha*: In the opening scene, right before the scene cuts to Nyura waking up from her dream, revealing that instead of being kissed by a handsome man in the forest she's actually living in drudgery as a housewife.
-
*Vertigo* has a long one between Scottie and a made-up Judy. The lips of the two kissers are obscured by shoulders and heads during the rotation at regular intervals, due to rules at the time that forbade showing a kiss for more than a few seconds.
-
*The Warrior's Way* has the first Big Damn Kiss between Lynn and Yang, the two of them dancing in the desert night as the camera circles around them. They stop their dance and kisses, the camera moves in closer, and keeps orbiting.
- In Baz Luhrmann's
*William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet*, our eponymous star-struck and Star-Crossed Lovers share a kiss in an elevator - which was actually too small to fit cast and crew inside. There were a lot of breathless grips running around the outside of the tiny lift set, removing and replacing panels to allow the steadicam to move freely around the couple.
- Sydney and Vaughn's kiss at the end of the
*Alias* episode "Phase One" was the culmination of almost two solid seasons of UST.
- Oliver and Felicity in
*Arrow*; ||bittersweet as it comes while Ollie is breaking it off with her because of his double life||
-
*Bridgerton*: In season 2 episode 6, after holding back for so long, Anthony and Kate eventually share a passionate kiss when left alone in the church (||following the cancellation of his wedding with Edwina||). Later in the final episode note : post-wedding, they confidently kiss passionately in front of his family, as if unleashing their longtime repressed desires as well as expressing their gratitude.
- On
*Burn Notice*, Michael and Fiona have an Orbital Hug at the end of the episode "Shock Wave", when Fiona is released from prison.
- In
*Chernobyl*, Lyudmilla and Vasily get an Orbital Hug version, when she enters his hospital room and sees him up and about, playing cards with the other patients. The hug is accompanied by Lens Flare. ||The flare is likely a visual shorthand for Lyudmilla getting irradiated by touching her husband, a Chernobyl first responder, who is in his "Walking Ghost" phase of Acute Radiation Syndrome and would die within days. Lyudmilla is actually pregnant and would lose her baby mere hours after giving birth. While she would later remarry and have another child, both of them would have health problems because of that single hug.||
- Doogie and Michele in an episode of
*Doogie Howser, M.D.*
-
*Glee*:
- Rachel and Finn in the episode "Michael". It starts off as a hug then turns into a kiss.
- Finn and Rachel again in "Nationals", this time it doubles as a Concert Kiss.
- Chidi and Eleanor in
*The Good Place* Season 3 episode "Janet(s)". In Janet's void where they kiss, everyone is stuck in a Janet body, but Eleanor's has started shifting rapidly due to having an identity crisis fueled by Chidi rejecting her on philosophical terms and discussing the self. When they kiss, Eleanor's form stabilizes back to her Janet body, and the two shift back to their original human forms, Eleanor first and then Chidi, while they hold on it and the camera spins.
- Loki and Sylvie in the sixth episode of
*Loki*, right before ||Sylvie thows Loki into a portal to the TVA and traps him there.|| The camera does not actually rotate around them though. Rather, Sylvie turns Loki around ||to take the TemPad|| which imitates this effect.
- Ned and Moze in the
*Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide* series finale.
- Shawn and Juliet in
*Psych*. Their second after their first is a "Shut Up" Kiss.
-
*School of Rock*: Done in part 2 of the Grand Finale as Freddy and Summer become a couple.
- In
*Smallville*, Chloe and Justin in "Crush". Frustratingly, they never seem to do that with long-term love interests.
- One features at the end of the
*Supernatural* episode "Monster Movie" fits beautifully as the entire episode is shot in the style of old black-and-white monster movies.
-
*Star Trek*:
- Kirk and Uhura's famous "first interracial kiss" in
*Star Trek* episode "Plato's Stepchildren" was, as a result of cultural taboos, hidden by an Orbital Kiss that just didn't make it all the way around.
-
*Star Trek: Voyager*. Although a kiss isn't involved, the camera does a half-circle around Tuvok and Noss as they Mind Meld at the end of "Gravity", to show the romantic subtext of this act.
- Billy Joel's video for "The Night Is Still Young" ends with one of these.
- In
*Central Park*, Season 1 finale "A Fish Called Snakehead", Owen and Paige have one near the end of "Die Trying". Despite being married, what makes this unique is this is the first time they kissed on-screen.
- Hiccup and Astrid's kiss is this, in the
*Dragons: Race to the Edge* episode "Mi Amore Wing".
- From
*Futurama*, Bender and the Countess get one in the episode, "A Flight to Remember". A more recent one happens between Fry and Leela in "Fun on a Bun".
- The kiss in
*Phantom Planet*, the series finale of *Danny Phantom*: "Wow. Remind me to save the world more often."
- Bob and Dot's kiss in a
*ReBoot* season finale.
-
*Recess* plays this one for all it's worth, complete with the playground scenery suddenly transforming into a fairy-tale land and back again, in the episode where TJ and Spinelli have their Practice Kiss.
-
*The Simpsons*: In "There Will Be Buds", the camera spins around Homer and Marge's kiss after Marge convinces Homer to go find Kirk in the strip club and bring him back to the lacross game that he and Homer coach.
- Happens in
*Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo* with Robin and Starfire. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrbitalKiss |
Ordinary People's Music Video - TV Tropes
Most music videos are brimming with flashy visuals, elaborate costumes, crazy cinematography, and anything else that will make the recording artist look awesome while singing. Sometimes, however, a music video will spend its run time focusing on ordinary-looking people. The people in the music video will look they were plucked off the streets or from their jobs, and the artist running the show will look rather ordinary as well.
A variation is a video that consists of successive clips of fans miming to/singing along/playing along /air guitarring with the song, usually self shot and sent in as part of a competition to appear in their favorite bands video.
## Examples:
Music
- The Bangles' "Walk Like An Egyptian" has members of the public attempting the classic Sand Dance in various locations.
- The Black Keys' video for "Lonely Boy" consists entirely of security guard Derrick T. Tuggle dancing and miming to the song.
- Bon Jovi loaned video cameras to a group of their fans to record a concert in their hometown. They edited the best of the footage into the video for "Bad Medicine".
- Cake:
- "No Phone" shows people dancing to the song while listening to it through headphones.
- "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" is clips of various people on the street listening to the song on headphones and giving their reactions.
- Colbie Caillat's "Try" features her and several women taking off their makeup over the course of the song.
- The music video for Phil Collins' "Strangers Like Me" features an interchange of clips from
*Tarzan* and a flash of several ordinary people of different races holding hands with Phil.
- Dave Matthews Band's "Everyday" features an actor going around the streets and asking random people for a hug, which he usually gets. Seems a bit strange unless you know this is the first video the band released after September 11th when everyone was feeling pretty down and probably did need a good hug.
- Feeder's "Just A Day" and Placebo's "Running Up That Hill" are both examples of the music video made by editing together submissions from fans.
- Andy Grammer: The video for "Honey I'm Good" is a supercut of various real-life couples lip syncing to the lyrics.
- Michael Jackson's "Black or White" has dancers from all around the world, wearing traditional garb and performing traditional dances. The final segment features several people of different races and gender morphing into another person.
- The music video for Elton John's "Tiny Dancer", released in 2017, shows a day in the lives of various Los Angeles residents, including Marilyn Manson.
- Lorde's "Royals" features the singer's real-life friends, with the music video following the day in the lives of four teenage boys as they stare out of a window, eat some cereal, lay on the couch, box in a living room, buzz cut hair, tread water alone in a swimming room, and wait listlessly for the train. Even the lighting is gloomy and drab. In the video's YouTube description, Lorde explains that the video pushes back against how Teen Dramas such as
*Skins* depict teenage life as glamorous, when in her view, "half the time we aren't doing anything cooler than playing with lighters, or waiting at some shitty stop."
- Macklemore's "Thift Shop" justifies the trope since it's all about ordinary people buying downscale clothes.
- Maroon 5: In the music video for "Sugar", the band crashes the receptions for real weddings and perform their song, showing the bride's and the other attendees' shocked reactions.
- Imelda May has used this device a couple of times:
- Kentish Town Waltz intersperses scenes of May on stage with views of ordinary life in (presumably) the London district of Kentish Town.
- Shouldve Been You has May walking through a London street market, accumulating a crowd of ordinary women who watch her singing and occasionally sing a line themselves.
- Zigzagged in the video for "Rockstar" by Nickelback; the video features a huge montage of celebrities miming the song in various locales (including Gene Simmons, Kid Rock, Eliza Dushku, Three 6 Mafia and others), interspersed with everyday people doing the same.
- The Pet Shop Boys are well-known for their Surreal Music Videos, but a few of their videos like "Being Boring", "Se A Vida E (That's The Way Life Is)" and "Vocal", are noteworthy for featuring regular people who are just having fun in front of the camera, often shot in the style of home movies.
- PUP's video for ''Free At Last'' is based on the premise of having dozens of fan videos playing covers of the song, shot before the song was ever released (so the fans are making up their own versions based on lyrics and basic chords). The video proper than involves the band cheaply green-screening themselves into a compilation of clips from the fan covers.
- Rag'n'Bone Man's "Human" does it with an abandoned factory, ordinary people and a Vertigo Effect Special Effect Failure.
- R.E.M.:
- "Crush With Eyeliner" shows Japanese fans impersonating the band members and miming to the song.
- "Imitation of Life" is set at an outdoor party, as a 20-second clip alternately played backwards and forwards and zooming in and out on different parts of the party.
- The music video for Markus Schulz's "Destiny" is the random meeting and development of a romance between two strangers.
-
*Soul Asylum*'s music video for "Can't Even Tell" featured the band and the cast of *Clerks* playing hockey on the roof of the Quick Stop. Randall lampshades this trope during a spoken monologue at the beginning of the music video:
*"You know what the problem with music videos is? They never address the interest of the common man... alls I saw was chaotic imagery and metaphoric visuals. No hockey, no comics, nothing; just chicks and explosions."*
- Bruce Springsteen:
- Steam Powered Giraffe's "Malfunction" video has the band singing in their stage personas, intercut with video of fans and band members each holding up a poster of some personal obstacle or difference he or she needs to embrace.
- Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" shows a lot of ordinary dancers from various genres putting on a great show, with Swift herself failing hilariously to keep up with them.
- In keeping with its theme, the video for Switchfoot's "We Are One Tonight" consists of a plethora of Match Cuts between regular people doing regular things (a boy coloring, a woman playing pool, a game of street baseball, etc.) and the band playing the song in a studio.
- Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop The Feeling" shows several ordinary folks dancing at their jobs, before bringing them together at the end for a choreographed dance under an overpass.
- van Canto did this for their cover of Grave Digger's "Rebellion". There's a playful informational message at the start regarding professional actors, but much of the footage comprises fans having fun with the music.
- Julieta Venegas: "Eres Para Mí" has Venegas walking through a city and interacting with residents in various job uniforms. They all join for a synchronized dance number in the street at the end.
- We Banjo 3's "Happiness" was filmed on the streets of Galway and features the band interacting with the public.
- Pharrell Williams' "Happy" is made from a 24-hour-long super cut which filmed a lot of ordinary people, a few celebrities, people in Minion costumes (since the song features on the
*Despicable Me 2* soundtrack) and occasionally Williams himself singing and dancing to the song on the streets of Los Angeles.
- Zucchero: The video of the song "Overdose D'Amore" (Love Overdose) shows Zucchero singing the lyrics (which tell about his and everybody else's need of overflowing love, in every possible way) while several people from different ages and races dance. The video is themed around learning to embrace diversity, so it makes sense.
Non-Music Examples
-
*Miraculous Ladybug*: In the episode "Frightningale", superstar Clara Nightingale is working on a videoclip for her song that celebrates Ladybug and Cat Noir. But due to the machinations of Chloé Bourgeois, she loses permission to shoot videos anywhere in France. The solution Ladybug comes up with is to have ordinary Parisian citizens doing the dance all over Paris and make a clip of those scenes. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrdinaryPeoplesMusicVideo |
Organization with Unlimited Funding - TV Tropes
In Real Life, the world's largest corporations and government agencies often have a total annual cash flow that exceeds the Gross National Product of smaller nations, own fleets of multimillion-dollar vehicles, or enough office buildings to start their own city. But modern Real Life organizations like Wal-mart or the U.S. Defense Department would be on the
*bottom* end of this scale at best.
Merely being an unusually successful Mega-Corp is not enough to qualify for this list, nor is an Elaborate Underground Base (or more than one), as these assets may have been around for a while, acquired at a discount, or required to accomplish the organization's whole purpose for existence.
These organizations
*routinely* accomplish feats whose mere existence in the setting could result in Fridge Logic or even straining Willing Suspension of Disbelief:
- Construction projects that normally require hundreds or thousands of workers laboring for months or years are often accomplished before the next episode.
- If the organization is responsible for a major national project, they will often build a spare just in case or for their own use.
- The organization funds projects which apparently break the laws of physics using only wealth and the Rule of Cool or the Rule of Funny.
- If some other convenient fictional trope makes something possible, it doesn't count. You don't buy sound in space when Space Is Noisy. It's not impressive to have Infinite Supplies when everyone else does. Building a Humongous Mecha is not noteworthy when any random scientist can make five in a weekend.
- An example might be, in a setting 20 Minutes into the Future, while every other spacefaring organization is still working on commercial-manned flight to the ISS or missions to the Moon or Mars, this organization is already secretly operating multiple interstellar vessels that could carry the space shuttle in their secondary cargo holds.
It pretty much goes without saying that any investor who owns more than 1% or so of one of these organizations will be a member of the Fiction 500. If an organization is owned largely by one individual or a relatively small group, please file the example under Fiction 500, not here.
Compare Mega-Corp, Abusing the Kardashev Scale for Fun and Profit, Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?.
## Examples:
- The Liar Game Tournament Office appears at one point to blow ten
*quintillion* yen on the *first round* of their tournament. That's *107.54 *.
**trillion** U.S. dollars
- In fact, at the start of the story, the invitation read "...You are one of the 1 in 100000 people who have been entered..." which means, if it takes place all over the world, there's about 70 thousand people taking part, and since each of those people gets 100 million yen, the total amount for the first round is
*only 7 trillion yen*, or *80 billion dollars* (which to be fair, is still a **lot**).
- As far as the Game's first round goes, they intended to recoup most of the money from the losers (whose debt is relatively low), and quite a lot of the rest of the money would remain in-game as players continued. They get 50% of the winning of dropouts; in effect, worst-case scenario for them, they can only lose 50% of what they put in. Which is "only" 40 billion dollars!
- As the characters point out, it's actually a scam. They give each player 100 million yen and require that each player pay back that amount at the end. Assuming no player goes bankrupt (which is a ridiculous assumption, but the company supposedly has hand-wavy powers to extract the money somehow), they'll never lose any money — the loser just pays the winner 100 million, and the company neither gains nor loses anything. But then the company
*also* charges 50% of your net winnings if you drop out, which is pure profit for them.
-
*Neon Genesis Evangelion* deconstructs this trope, like many others. NERV (a UN Special Agency)— is able to replace entire cities within days, not to mention the upkeep and maintenance of *three* giant biomechanical weapons, each with a budget equivalent to a small country. NERV has funding in excess of what a UN agency can normally legally have, and required a special resolution to the funding regulations just to be chartered. Their monetary requirements are absolutely enormous, and they are given all the funding they need, but even so, they still run into financing issues because they take up so much of the budget that other programs end up gutted in order to meet their needs. As one member of the SEELE council said, "Man cannot live on Eva alone," and fully funding all their operations can cripple other critical programs.
- Momoka Nishizawa from
*Sgt. Frog*. Even granted that her family has more than half the money on Earth she spends insane amounts of money, mostly on trying to get closer to her love interest, Fuyuki. This goes to the point that there's actually an episode dedicated to her trying to formulate an extremely low-budget plan as a change of strategy (really, she'd get a lot further just buying a marriage certificate).
- In the opening act of
*Dance in the Vampire Bund*, the secret vampire nation gets Japan to authorize creating a semi-independent vampire state on a man-made island just off the coast of Tokyo. Mina Tepes gets the ruling party in the Diet to go along with this plan by forking over enough cash to retire Japan's national debt - stated to be roughly ten *trillion* dollars. And the vampire nation is *still* obscenely rich after doing so.
- One has to wonder how the Mad Scientist from
*Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS* gets the required funds and materials to develop and build a huge army of highly advanced robots, revive and upgrade a dead research program for creating combat cyborgs, which had been explicitly stated to be scrapped due to high costs and low gain, and build a standard secret lair. To further strain the Willing Suspension of Disbelief, it was all done without anyone's notice, and his "Toys" were routinely destroyed en masse, necessitating extensive additional build orders. ||It's eventually revealed that the people funding Jail Scaglietti and all of his illegal research and tech were the heads of the Administration Bureau themselves, having created him as their pet Mad Scientist to keep the Bureau ahead of the Arms Race||.
- In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Nick Fury's reply to concerns about funding a weapon to fight off Galactus is: "I could have every human being on earth dressed in solid gold underwear. Tomorrow." S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn't appear to be hurting for capital, to put it mildly.
- In
*All-Star Superman*, Project Cadmus director Dr. Leo Quintum explicitly states he has unlimited resources. Not surprising since as a good-aligned Mad Scientist his inventions must make millions (if not billions) in this non-Reed Richards Is Useless world.
- While we never see them do complete absurdities, the Planetary Foundation never runs into money problems. Their founder is described as having more money than god, and "he funds everything we do without question."
-
*James Bond*
- In
*On Her Majesty's Secret Service* it's mentioned that Bond girl Tracy's father has ties to the most powerful crime organization on Earth. Bond replies that SPECTRE is larger, given that it operates worldwide.
- British Intelligence also fits this trope, having a worldwide network of elite jet-setting agents armed with expensive gadgets at a time when the real-life British government barely had the funds to operate "East of Suez".
- To have had a space station and fleet of rocket ships over 25 years before NASA and Russia finally got around to creating one, would have definitely been ambitious in
*Moonraker*
- The First Order from the
*Star Wars* sequel trilogy commands massive fleets of ships and huge armies of Stormtroopers, as well as being able to construct their very own bigger copy of the Death Star inside a planet. In short, they are able to build up forces that equal and even surpass those of the Galactic Empire, but where the Empire was a ruling body that logically received tax revenue from the star systems under its control, the First Order is a fringe N.G.O. Superpower without an obvious means of funding itself; how they do it anyway is never explained.
-
*The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* features a few, perhaps most notably Magrathea, the planet whose sole industry is building custom-made planets. Yes, artificial planets. It became so wealthy that the rest of the galaxy's economy collapsed, leading the Magratheans to put themselves into suspended animation until people could afford their services again.
- Being post-scarcity means every member of The Culture has unlimited funds to do whatever they want.
- The hundreds (thousands?) of
*The Dark Hunters* get paid every month with a wheelbarrow-sized pile of gold and precious gems by Artemis, who doesn't seem to grasp the idea of direct deposit. Consider that this has been going on for over a thousand years, and you get quite a pump into the local economy (and the world economy at large).
- The Terran Trade Authority, from the book series of that name, which manages the economies of multiple extrasolar systems and has managed the logistics for interstellar wars fought by its sister organization, the Terran Defense Authority. One branch of the TTA, the Central Administration, owns its own city, mainly to store records, which is surrounded by forests to supply the paper necessary to allow paper records to be maintained alongside its electronic files.
- In
*The Wheel of Time*, the Aes Sedai organisation of the White Tower has practically unlimited funds, able to offer each of its members (of which there are about a thousand) an annual stipend that easily puts them on a par with any medium-ranking noble or the most successful merchant, and they can ask for more with very little red tape. The Tower can get away with this because it is both the world's oldest surviving political institution, and earns rent on huge tracts of land, and also happens to be the world's oldest bank.
- The Raith family from
*The Dresden Files* has emergency credit cards they give out to family members, good for 24 hours upon first use. When asked what the spending limit is on them, the response is "24 hours".
- In
*Night Watch (Series)*, the titular organization initially appears to have a fairly small budget, and a Light character laments having to fly coach while his Dark counterpart can splurge for business class. Eventually, though, a new Night Watch employee points out that his company-issued ATM card has an unlisted cash withdrawal limit (it uses a foreign bank that doesn't disclose the amount). When the main character confronts his boss, he gives him an "are you serious?" look and asks if he really thinks that an organization that can predict the future to a reasonably high degree would have *any* trouble with cash flow, considering they'd be able to play the stock market and currency exchange rates. In fact, the boss is considering getting a company jet and even offers the main characters a Bentley. After a moment's pause, the main characters instead opts for a more practical SUV. The boss just shrugs.
-
*Stargate SG-1*: Justified, since it is funded through the U.S. Department of Defense budget. It also operates Stargate Command, rents Russia's stargate whenever theirs goes missing, and built at least 5 starships that allegedly each cost more than the entire GNP of the state of New York, and presumably operate other secret projects as well. But then, keeping two galaxies safe ain't cheap. Later an oversight agency becomes a recurring pain in the protagonists' backside as other nations are brought onboard and corporations become involved in adapting found technology to Earth use.
- The follow-up books reveal that the financial crisis of 2008 has hit the program's budget hard. No new hulls have been laid down since the attack of the Super-Hive. The
*Sun Tzu* is still floating in space, likely to be written off as a wreck. All in all, the Tau'ri only have 4 functioning starships, not counting the Atlantis.
- Torchwood One, of
*Doctor Who*: They built One Canada Square/Canary Wharf/Torchwood Tower (construction costs: approximately £500 million) purely to investigate a weird rift at the top. Even allowing for the rental income, which in that district would have been considerable even by London standards, that's one hell of an up-front expenditure for a supposedly "black" government department.
- The Federation in
*Star Trek* was able to recover from having its fleet annihilated in less than a year. Not just recover: 39 ships were lost at Wolf 359, which was considered to be a huge blow to the fleet. As of the Dominion War several years later, Starfleet consists of hundreds, if not thousands, of combat-capable starships. It's explicitly meant to be a post-scarcity future, but *still*.
- A late first season episode of
*Quantum Leap* had Al appearing before a congressional committee to justify keeping the Project going at taxpayers' expense. Meanwhile, in the past, Sam was helping a young woman pass the law school exam. When he was successful the head of the committee suddenly became the woman he had been helping, who approved the funding. Ever since then, there were no questions as to the budget of the Project.
- The Company from
*Heroes* fits this to varying degrees throughout the show's run, most closely when it was run by Bob Bishop (who had the power to turn anything into gold) during Volume Two, who identifies himself as the Company's "financial source."
- In
*NUMB3RS*, DARPA is mentioned several times as this, specifically using the words "unlimited funding". They end up throwing it at 5-year projects. One character, who tries to scam them with a fake AI, claims no one would suspect a thing, as 95% of DARPA-funded projects are failures. And then it turns out that the US government also has a detachment of people who are literally The Men in Black to go after people who are scamming them for research funds.
-
*JAG*: Funding, provided by U.S. taxpayers through the defense budget, is never really an issue, and often in court-martials held in Virginia, foreign nationals as witnesses are flown in from across the world. Subverted though in "Father's Day" when Harm, Mac, and Bud had to conduct an investigation on a tight budget; due to Harm's tortious interference with the secret business of the Bradenhurst Corporation in a previous episode.
- There is a notable aversion in
*The Fall*. DSU Stella Gibson, a Metropolitan Police detective, is brought into Belfast to assist the PSNI in a 28-day review of a cold case in which the ex-daughter-in-law of an MLA of the Northern Ireland Assembly was murdered, and she eventually links the murder to two other murders. At the end of the first series, the Belfast Strangler has slipped off the radar. By the beginning of the second season, which is only ten days after the first series' finale, the PSNI's funding and resources have been stretched thin and DSU Gibson has to submit a request for a £1.8 million grant to continue the investigation.
- Averted in
*UFO (1970)*. While SHADO has all the fancy toys expected of a Gerry Anderson production (supersonic aircraft, flying submarines, a base on the Moon, a Master Computer and an Elaborate Underground Base hidden under a working film studio), several episodes show Straker arguing with General Henderson of the International Astrophysical Committee over his budget allocation.
- Averted by the Baltimore Police Department in
*The Wire*. In the early seasons, money and budgetary limitations are frequently mentioned as constraints on investigations (senior officers regularly warn that they only have so many days they can afford a wiretap; two cops fear the financial consequences of losing an expensive piece of surveillance equipment) but never with any actual effect. In the fourth season, the city discovers its school system is running a multimillion-dollar deficit and immediately imposes austerity measures on the police, severely limiting overtime and deferring car repair to the point that one officer has to take a city bus to a crime scene. It gets so bad that two detectives resort to ||fabricating a serial killer|| to reopen the financial spigots for the case they're trying to make against a major local drug dealer.
- Many, if not all, of the major factions in
*Warhammer 40,000*. As the TV Tropes entry states: "Entire planets with populations of billions are lost due to rounding errors in tax returns."
-
*You*, when playing *Rogue Trader*. Okay, Rogue Traders don't literally have *unlimited* funding, but their financial capabilities are still enormous. (They have to be, to afford their obligatory Mile-Long Ship.) Any given member of a Trader's senior crew has roughly a 50-50 chance of buying an incredibly rare piece of war equipment, or alternatively enough of the common stuff to fit out *a regiment* — *each session*, starting from the first — without so much as denting their cash flow. If you want to risk your investment souring, by all means, spend more!
- According to
*Shadowrun* lore, by the year 2070 we can expect mega-corporations that literally have more money and military power than most actual countries. The headquarters of said mega-corps tend to span tens of city blocks and legitimately claim that the ground said buildings are upon as sovereign territory, and immune to the parent country's governing laws.
- Not that unbelievable, at least the money part. Wal-Mart's annual revenues are more than the GNP of all but about 25-30 countries.
- Averted for the Task Force: Valkyrie, The Men in Black Conspiracy of
*Hunter: The Vigil*, in the *New World of Darkness*. They are a national, FBI-sized agency, with bleeding-edge technology, flat-out said to have the impressively low annual budget of US$875,000. How can they fund all those marvelous gadgets? Being secretly funded by ancient vampires, that's how.
- The apparently unlimited resources of the SCP Foundation have been commented on even by its own writing community. Somewhat justified in that they control paranormal artifacts that actually
*can* produce infinite resources, although often with unpleasant side-effects. They do occasionally complain about needless or excessive expenditures, be it D-Class fodder or actual resources. Note that the primary objection to the wasting of D-Class is that there are a finite number of unlikely-to-be-missed life sentence and death row inmates available, not the Foundation's difficulties with obtaining the ones that exist.
- The Protectors of the Plot Continuum are able to finance a multiverse spanning organization and have an HQ able to supply any of the needs of their agents as needed. The only real hints we get as to how they're able to run this is the fact that agents are paid at barely what qualifies as a minimum wage and they supply their own electricity via authors literally spinning in their graves. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrganisationWithUnlimitedFunding |
Organ Autonomy - TV Tropes
**YOU:**
Am I having some kind of stomach seizure?
**ENDURANCE:**
Stomach truth. You're having a stomach *truth*.
This trope is for when parts of the body have "minds of their own" and will control or influence the brain of whomever they're attached to. Typically happens when said limbs aren't normally a part of the body, as happens to a Frankenstein's Monster or Shape Shifter Mashup. Quite a few times they can be considered part of the same
*person* who can just move them from a distance. Possible reasons include when the body is mechanical or undead or another supernatural explanation. Depending on what the body does it can become Personal Horror. A supertrope of Evil Hand.
Any time this trope is present, expect it to either be a case of Anthropomorphized Anatomy or Animate Body Parts, depending on how the body part is depicted.
When a physical part other than the brain (usually the heart or liver) is the source of a person's emotions, see Cardiovascular Love.
If this is taken to extremes, it can drift into Body Horror territory.
## Examples:
- Many commercials have the stomach "advising" the brain what it wants to eat.
- There's the Ball Park Franks commercials, which have the stomach spontaneously sprouting an arm and force-feeding the mouth.
- The terrifying Reebok adverts, with an over-sized beer gut chasing a guy down the street; "Belly's gonna get ya!".
- There's this award-winning Alka-Seltzer commercial from 1967 (with Gene Wilder as The Stomach!)
- Froot Loops: "Follow Your Nose!"
- There are the Puffs facial tissue commercials:
- In one, a (CGI) child's sore nose flees around to the back of its head, to avoid being assaulted by an ordinary
*un*-lotion-impregnated tissue.
- In another, the nose also turns into a foghorn; and in another a flamethrower, which you really wouldn't want happening to your nose.
- And in yet
*another* commercial, a little girl brings Puffs tissues to her class, and all the other children's noses fly of their faces and go to hers.
- Horror abounds in a California Milk Advisory Board that depicts a woman's skeleton shucking off the rest of her flesh in order to gulp down some of the calcium-rich fluid. The husband is oblivious as he watches t.v. in the other room, the skeleton retains the woman's voice... and the remaining flesh, left on the floor like a full-body sweatsuit, rolls its eyes as the skeleton keeps talking.
- This surreal Old Spice commercial has the spokesman's abdominal muscles chime in on a sales pitch, and his right bicep grows an entire new arm in order to blame his left bicep.
- Just-Eat is a restaurant food delivery service. Their ads feature a red blobby character named Belly and a little scheming yellow blob named Brain. The slogan is "Belly says takeout - Brain says Just-Eat!" The characters are clearly supposed to represent body parts although they are never depicted inside a body. Belly sits there and drools while Brain reads the Just-Eat menu.
- This horrific Australian beer ad in which a man's tongue goes in search of beer while he is sleeping.
- One ad for Coke Zero had a pair of Cockney tongues on rhino legs arguing with a French eyeball on bird legs over weather the beverage is Coca-Cola. An American brain wheels in on a cart and orders them to quit bickering, lest he force them to eat dirt and wear an "onion Sombrero," respectively. Another ad from the same campaign has the Tongues making fun of Eye for not being able to taste. Brain is absent.
- A job-seeking service ad had a woman's heart leap out of her after her boss threw his weight around at her, march into his office, climb up on his desk and give him her two week's notice.
-
*Yu-Gi-Oh!*: When Bakura is first introduced in the manga, Yami Yugi is playing a tabletop RPG against Yami Bakura. In the game, the Yugi party manages to sever the Big Bad's hand, and as a result, the real Bakura manages to re-take control of that hand of his body and is subverting his dark side's plans, a literal instance of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. Yami Bakura eventually catches on and gets it out of the way by *impaling* it... but tips off the group as to his identity in the process.
- The basic premise of
*Hell Teacher Nube* is that Meisuke Nueno, a.k.a. Nube, has sealed an Oni as his left hand. He typically uses it as a regular hand (if ultra-powered when released,) but by the end of the manga ||he and the oni have become allies in a symbiotic relationship, and Baki (the oni) is free to do whatever he likes as Nube's hand||.
- Despite being attached to/having replaced Seiji's right hand, Midori from
*Midori Days* has complete autonomy and freedom of movement. If she wants to go somewhere, she *will*, often dragging an unwilling Seiji behind her.
- In
*Vampire Hunter D*, D has arguments with the parasite in his left hand — long ones, because the hand only ever shuts up around outsiders. It does, however, save his life on occasion — when you're in a high-risk profession like vampire hunting, it helps to have a hand that can give you CPR by itself.
- In
*Umineko: When They Cry*'s fourth arc, you get to see exactly what happens when someone tries to lie in red text when Battler tries to do so (not that he realizes that it's a lie at the time). The red background disappears, and Battler's arm reflexively reaches up to quasi-strangle him.
-
*Parasyte*: Shinichi's arm gets possessed by an alien parasite of a race that usually gets into the brain and takes over the whole body. But it ate his hand and since it is its replacement, they're a duo.
- A hermaphrodite character in
*Hot Tails* gets yelled at by her guy-parts when she tries to live a celibate life. When she objects, she's *molested by her own penis* until she gives into his(?) demands.
- Happens in
*Inuyasha the Movie: Swords of an Honorable Ruler*: A demonic sword takes control of Inuyasha's arm by burrowing tentacles into it and pumping him full of demonic energy. It tries to force him to slaughter a village, but he temporarily disrupts its control by *biting his own arm* and holding on with his teeth while Miroku saves everybody.
- In
*Zatch Bell!*, the mountain-sized demon Faudo has a bunch of smaller demons living inside him that run his body parts. They seem like forgettable gag characters at first, but after Faudo wakes up, they reveal themselves to be very strong.
-
*Bleach*: The Soul King's body parts can function independently from the Soul King. His right arm wandered through Soul Society in ancient times being worshipped as a god. The Soul King's left arm has served Yhwach for an unspecified amount of time. In battle, when a finger of the left arm is blown off, the finger continues to act as a smaller version of the left arm, including possessing the same abilities. Both limbs display their own independent identities and abilities. ||The right arm, Mimihagi, lives inside Ukitake's body, protecting his life from a fatal lung disease until called forth to stabilise Soul Society when the Soul King dies; Yhwach absorbs Mimihagi to stop it. The left arm, Pernida, serves Yhwach as a member of the Schutzstaffel, seems genuinely angry over the wrongs the Soul Reapers have committed against the Quincies and hates being called the 'Left Arm of the Soul King'.||
-
*Super Agent Jon Le Bon*: In *The Brain Of The Apocalypse*, after Henry B. Belton's head is cut open by Whitewash, it disappears from his skull while Whitewash is too busy conversing with Agent Jon. It's later discovered in the book that Belton's brain gained sentience independent from Henry and decided to take control of the Agency building to Take Over the World. It's defeated in the climax by ||being injected with a serum that turns it back into a regular brain. After it's returned to Henry's head, he's advised to take weakly injections to keep his brain from turning evil again||.
- At least two
*Peanuts* strips had various parts of Snoopy's body expressing opinions of their own — usually connected with jogging, which meant the feet said a lot. One of these strips ended when his heart commented, "Just remember, boys — if I go, we all go!" to which the feet remarked, "That's scary!" and another part said, "Shut up and keep jogging".
-
*Pooch Café* has occasional strips in which Poncho's various body parts (usually the brain and stomach) argue.
-
*Pearls Before Swine* has Pig's sunglasses-wearing brain, frustrated with being underused, step out of Pig's head and go on to have a life of its own, successfully winning *Jeopardy!* and becoming something of a lady's man. It eventually skipped town in favor of an extensive stay at a spa resort for runaway brains.
- A series of
*Zits* strips involve Jeremy's brain deciding to go on strike right before a big test.
- The
*Wicked Willy* cartoons by Peter Mayle and Gray Jolliffe featured a man with a talking penis. They are widely regarded as the tackiest cartoons ever produced. Quite funny, though.
-
*Vajee*: do we need to mention what organ *she* is? The style of the art is very similar to *Wicked Willy*, but the cartoons weren't quite as funny as Willy overall. Some were hilarious, though.
- A
*Beetle Bailey* strip has a similar concept to the *Peanuts* one, with all of General Halftrack's body parts complaining as he tried to go to sleep. (Well, almost all — *The Comics Curmudgeon* was surprised there was no complaint from his poor, overworked liver.)
-
*My Cage* features scenes inside Norm's head, where his brain, heart, and libido often have it out with each other.
- The November 22, 1998
*Garfield* strip had Garfield's stomach leave his body to raid the kitchen independently of Garfield.
- In one
*Stargate SG-1* fanfic, Dr. Daniel Jackson has a series of bizarre conversations with various body parts as a result of a caffeine overdose and nervous breakdown.
- Harry has conversations with his brain when trying to escape from Azkaban in
*Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality*.
- Goku in
*Dragon Ball Z Abridged* once thanks his brain for providing him with a comeback and it responds. Later, when he is being drowned, he asks his brain for a status report, and it is only able to gargle incomprehensibly about "frozen peas".
- In
*The Iron Giant*, the title character's limbs are shown to be capable of seeking out his body when detached. In The Stinger, ||his scattered nuts and bolts are shown rolling to his body in the North Pole after being nuked||.
-
*Toy Story*:
- In
*The Nightmare Before Christmas*, Sally, the Rag Doll, is able to separate parts of her body to escape her creator, Doctor Finkelstein, and later, ||to try and free Santa from Oogie Boogie||.
-
*Spaceballs* has Barf blaming his tail for trying to feel up a waitress's skirt — though his snickering afterwards suggests he is just lying.
- This is a common horror movie trope. For example, Ash is forced to sever his possessed right hand in
*Evil Dead 2*.
-
*Idle Hands* is basically the possessed hand scene from *Evil Dead 2* blown up into an entire movie, with the hand possessed by a demon drawn to particularly lazy individuals (Anton Tobias, the 'owner' of the hand, speculates that this is because he did so little with the hand).
- Little known 1977 film
*Chatterbox* is about a woman with a talking (and singing) *vagina*!
- There is at least one other movie with an almost identical premise,
*Angel Above - the Devil Below*, but is due to the vagina being *possessed*.
-
*Soul Vengeance* (aka *Welcome Home Brother Charles*) has a black man, experimented on during his term in prison, who takes vengeance on the people who put him there by strangling them with his *giant prehensile penis.*
- In Peter Sellers'
*Dr. Strangelove; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb*, one of Dr. Strangelove's hands has a mind of his own, down to attempting to strangle him, and snapping off Nazi salutes.
- Guess which organ has a mind of its own in a movie called
*Pervert!* ||The homicidal maniac turns out to be James' voodoo-enchanted penis.||
-
*Osmosis Jones*, which is about several animated anthropomorphic microbes living inside a live-action man.
- A lesser example in
*Liar Liar*; when Fletcher Reede finds himself unable to lie for one day, he attempts to 'test' it by writing that a blue pen is red, but the hand holding the pen ends up writing 'Blue' all over his face.
- In
*The World's End*, the heads and limbs of the Blanks can be broken off and will move on their own, even reattaching themselves if you don't smash them.
- The main character in
*Curse II: The Bite* is bitten by a snake that's been contaminated by nuclear radiation, and his left hand turns into a snake that has a will of its own.
- In
*Victor Frankenstein*, Victor demonstrates to Igor the results of his electro-vitality experiments by using a pair of disembodied eyes in a tank of preservative gel that follow a lit match, despite not being attached to a brain.
-
*Deadtime Stories*: In "Peter and the Witches", Peter defeats the revived Magoga by driving his hand into her chest and ripping out her heart. After Magoga collapses, the still beating heart jumps on to Peter's face and attempts to suffocate him.
-
*The Thing (1982)*: The eponymous entity takes this to its logical conclusion, with every single portion of its body, even a few drops of blood, being capable of functioning autonomously.
- In
*The Hazing*, the spirit of Professor Kapps causes Roy to grow an Overly-Long Tongue while he is orally pleasuring Delia. After Roy bites off his tongue, the tongue continues to act independently; attempting to strangle Delia.
- This explicitly exists as a fundamental law of reality in the
*Discworld* series. Of course, in a world where the Law of Narrative Causality is also a fundamental law, it's hardly incongruous. In *Pyramids*, the mummified King Teppicymon XXVII awakens as an undead, but can't see. He fumbles his way to the canopic jar that contains his eyes, so he can return them to their proper place; through the disembodied eyeballs, he sees his own hand reach into the jar to collect them.
- In one of Aesop's Fables, the members of the body refuse to help the belly. The body is dissatisfied with "King Stomach's" rule, so they overthrow him and try to decide who is most important and thus worthy to be king. Tongue nominates himself but is laughed off the floor; the debate continues without recess until a lack of rest and nourishment has everyone telling someone else to do the job since they're too tired to do it. They eventually work out that maybe King Stomach wasn't such a bad ruler and put him back in power, and go make soup so as to not be dying. Then the story derails and the body parts aren't metaphorical parts of everyone but the bits of one specific guy. This man hears that if he can collect the milk of a lion, the only cure for the disease from which the king's beautiful daughter suffers, he gets to marry her; in typical folk hero fashion, he does so by cunning and resourcefulness. Just as he is presenting the king with the milk, Tongue, still bitter about being called worthless, makes the man say it's the wrong kind of milk. The king gets angry, and nearly has the man killed, but the other body parts relent and agree to respect Tongue a little more, and Tongue corrects the mistake. Guy marries princess, happy ending, hooray.
- There's a parody version of Aesop's fable, where the organs argue over which one is the king of the body, and they all seems to hate the anus because "he's an asshole", so the anus decides to clog up to "stop being an asshole" and the body gets gradually sick from constipation, then the organs apologize to the anus, which decides to work correctly (="be an asshole") again, the body recovers and the organs decide that the anus is the real king of the body. And this explains why in any organization or committee it's always the asshole who is in charge.
- In William S. Burroughs'
*Naked Lunch*, Dr. Benway tells the story of 'the man who taught his asshole to talk'. Bad idea.
- There was a story in a magazine of Short Science-Fiction stories featuring an antagonist who was a member of a species whose reproductive organs became active and self-motivating after death. He happened to have a genetic flaw that caused his to activate early, resulting in constant arguments with his gonads, which were usually concerned with finding a female and spreading his seed. Eventually, they leave him in disgust after a humiliating defeat.
- In Ray Bradbury's short story "Fever Dream", a sick boy suffers a form of this: ||he's being taken over by rogue cells, which control him bit by bit, for instance his hands, and finally his mind.||
-
*JumpMan* series by James Valentine: In a very odd variant, Jules' brain seems to be a separate sentient advisor from his consciousness. Also, the brain makes comments about when it first met a time jump it shut up because *it had to argue with itself*. This implies *every last cell* (or at least every neuron) is at least somewhat sentient.
- In
*Harry Potter* the magically created silver hand Voldemort gives to Wormtail seems to be under Wormtail's control, until ||it strangles Wormtail to death when he hesitates to follow an order.||
- The titular character of
*Bill the Galactic Hero* has his left arm replaced with the right arm of a bunkmate in the first book. Tembo's arm seems to still retain the memories of its former owner and will make a fist when in the presence of old rivals.
- In
*The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School*, Speke's spiky, crab-like "hands", although under her control when she's awake, wander around when she sleeps, as if possessed of (animal-grade) minds of their own. Restraining them doesn't work because they can untie knots and pick locks, but give them something sturdy to "play with" during the night — a wooden toy, a puzzle, an old rag to unravel — and they'll stay put to investigate and pick apart the "gift".
- In
*The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*, the notorious alien poet Grunthos the Flatulent died after a particularly bad recitation when his own small intestine saved the audience from further torment by leaping up through its owner's neck and throttling his brain.
- A symptom of Love at First Sight in Dante's
*Vita Nuova* is that your organs give a play-by-play commentary of the romance. The heart (source of all Cardiovascular Love) starts to worship the beloved, the brain recognizes Beatrice as a true source of happiness, and the stomach laments that the lover now has a higher goal than satisfying his hunger.
- In China Miéville's short story "Entry Taken from a Medical Encyclopaedia", speaking a particular "wormword" aloud and with precisely the right (wrong!) inflection causes portions of the speaker's
*brain tissue* to spontaneously re-form into worm-shaped coils. These coils then slither into the speech center and make them recite the wormword again and again, driving their host insane and tempting any other listeners to repeat the brain-destroying word in turn.
- One poem from
*Always Coming Home* has a penis tired of constant activity cutting itself off and running away.
- An occasional frustration for the Frankenstein lineage in
*Promethean: The Created* is that their limbs and organs sometimes run under their own control. This leads to, among other things, one eye sometimes insisting on looking in a different direction. Other lineages have this problem on occasion, but it happens most often to Frankensteins because they're always made of multiple corpses. There is, however, a merit called "Residual Memories", which can grant the Promethean bonus dice on skill rolls - because his body parts retain memories of the skills in question. (When the dice are exhausted, though, the risk of the body parts getting out of control goes up.)
- In
*Mage: The Awakening*, there's a particular Abyssal entity called Flesh Intruders, a highly intelligent race of parasites who manifest in tainted organ transplants. Over the period of their gestation, they reform their host's organs to ones suiting their goals, until they literally hatch from the organ, totally suppressing the host's mind in the process, while they still remain aware. The kicker? Every organ that was infected was actually a victim of Sinister Organ Qigong, so not only is there a crazy monster running around, you can *bet* there's someone whose watching all this and laughing.
-
*Me and My Dick* by Team Starkid, is a musical comedy about teenagers learning the complexities of relationships by talking to parts of their body like their genitals, (usually, they have names like Dick or Miss Cooter), and other parts, like the heart. The main character's heart thinks Bill Pullman is the greatest actor of our generation.
- Some versions of
*The Rocky Horror Show* have Doctor Scott's right arm automatically doing Nazi salutes as a nod to *Dr. Strangelove*.
- This was the premise of
*Cranium Command*, an old Epcot Edutainment attraction — main character Buzzy is the "pilot" of an adolescent boy and is challenged with getting the various organs of his body (left and right brains, stomach, heart, etc. — played by an All-Star Cast!) to work together in harmony.
- Ocelot was controlled by the transplanted arm of Liquid Snake in
*Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty*, ||possibly due to being the son of the Sorrow, a spirit medium||. Later, to overcome this ||he has the arm removed but uses hypnosis and nanomachines to fake it in order to confuse his enemies||. It's all in The Metal Gear Solid Database.
- Subverted by ||Hugh Bliss|| in the last episode (Bright Side of the Moon) of the first season of
*Sam & Max* by Telltale Games. Max's hand, stomach, and tail ||are literally removed from his body and then become separate copies of Max, personifying his senseless violence, greed, and sloth||. Sam is horrified. Max is (somehow) able to continue to function, although he's definitely not himself.
- In
*Toribash*, severed limbs can still be controlled if they have joints still intact. This makes dismembering yourself for some moves a valid strategy.
- In
*Tales of Monkey Island*, Guybrush's left hand becomes infected with The Pox of LeChuck, causing it to smack him around and occasionally thwart his puzzle-solving attempts through Chapter 1. This is solved when he replaces it. ||It maintains its autonomy even when severed, eventually leading to the downfall of the Marquis de Singe.||
- In
*Fallout: New Vegas* *Old World Blues*, a bunch of Mad Scientist Brains in Jars take out your brain to turn you into a cyborg for manual labor. Due to your abnormal condition from being shot in the head, however, their Auto-Doc doesn't destroy your original brain (it gets drained to somewhere else in the facility) and the Applied Phlebotinum brain mock-up in your cranial vault retains your original mind and memories. Later on, you can find your brain and have conversations with it, who now has a personality of its own as well and is kind of a snarky jerk. *Old World Blues* is *weird*.
- In
*Evil Genius*, Doctor Ethan Asia performs a pancreas transplant on himself. Unfortunately, the donor was a cannibal, and as a result Ethan inherits a curse that turns him into The Butcher.
-
*Sunless Sea*: The Thalatte, a large sea monster available through the Zubmariner expansion, is described when dissected as having organs that won't stay where you put them until you stake them to the deck. You can actually sell them to the aquarium at the Labyrinth of Tigers as Live Specimens.
-
*Mad Rat Dead*: Mad Rat's heart is a sentient heart... named Heart. He acts as a separate entity from Mad Rat, having his own personality separate from his host. ||It eventually turns out he was the heart of a cat, which then was dissected and transplanted into Mad Rat.||
-
*Disco Elysium*: A key mechanic is that various parts of your nervous system overlap with your skills and weigh in during gameplay with opinions. There's one conversation where your detective can get stuck as a Broken Record repeating the same line over and over while various parts of his own brain frantically try to figure out why he's doing that and how to get him to stop.
-
*Fallen London:* ||The Masters and other Curators like them|| are revealed to have autonomous *teeth*. Not only are they all horrendously sharp, they're seemingly so eager to draw blood and cause destruction they can just leave their mouths, tear things apart by themselves and return with the pieces they might want for themselves. ||The Vake/Mr. Veils|| uses his for quite a few purposes (and you even use one such tooth to make a club), and ||Mr. Stones|| destroys an entire *establishment* with his while talking to you, and you have no idea until the teeth come back bloodied and covered in sawdust.
-
*An Akatsuki's Life* takes this to its natural extreme, with an entire crowd of Kisame's taste buds reacting to the word "Spaghetti".
- In the short film
*In a Heartbeat*, a closeted gay boy literally struggles with his disembodied heart, who wants him to confess to the boy he has a crush on.
- A group called Project Consent did their part in raising awareness of the importance consent plays in sex by submitting several NSFW videos animated in CGI on the Internet where a hand, a penis, a vulva, a breast, and a pair of buttocks act out situations where the hand or penis tries to do something inappropriate with the breast, vulva, or butt before being reprimanded.
- Used occasionally in
*Something*Positive*. When PeeJee gets offered a job at a bar, complete with on-the-house drinks (and her liver makes a sound like it's having an orgasm). When she tells Jhim, the gay man on whom she's crushed for years, that she can't think of anything else she'd like their relationship to be, her *vagina* thinks, "I can!".
- In
*College Roomies from Hell!!!*, Roger's hand occasionally becomes self-aware and autonomous.
- Part of the deal with the snake-girls/hydras/medusas in
*Modest Medusa*.
- In
*The Noob*, Ohforf's crotch agrees to go on a suicidal quest against the brain's will when Hypatia says she might "do anything" for a man brave enough to go.
- In
*Girls with Slingshots*, Hazel's ovaries often speak up to tell her that My Biological Clock Is Ticking. And McPedro's mustache has run away from him. In addition, McPedro's mustache is *French*.
- In
*Digger* the Hag is sufficiently skilled at surgery to re-attach severed body parts, but there is a slight chance that they'll go evil and try to kill their owners. As she points out, this is more of a problem with arms than with earlobes, which rather than trying to throttle you just wiggle aggressively. Specific mention was made of a suicidal re-attached toe that tries to stub itself at every opportunity.
- One of the character in
*Sexy Losers* is a guy with a talking penis. It's a total Jerkass who makes the guy's life a living hell.
- Even though it was not actual verbal communication, Ki from
*General Protection Fault* experiences her own uterus going 'TWINGE' and triggering near uncontrollable lust in these strips of year 2001.
- Occurs in
*Spinnerette* with the eponymous character's six arms sometimes acting on their own. "Bottom Lefty" in particular has a tendency to act up, and often grabs Mecha Maid's ass, much to Spinnerette's annoyance. ||Mecha Maid doesn't really mind, since she's got a thing for Spinnerette herself. Later, she becomes Spinny's Closet Key and the two start dating.||
-
*Monster Pulse*: Practically the entire premisethese organs aren't just autonomous, they're physically separate from the original body! And yet, somehow, the walking, talking organ continues to perform its function just fineBina still has blood moving around in her body, West still gets nutrition, etc.
-
*Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger* has one alien species called the Gestaltians. Each of their major systems (nervous system, musculoskeletal system, digestive tract, etc.) is an completely separate entity. However, only the brain and nervous system entity has true sentience; the rest have an animalistic intelligence. One member of this species, Y'Yvir, spent a good portion of one story arc attempting to get donor organs to accept him. Apparently, since the numerous individuals that make up the Gestaltians grow up together, the less intelligent ones tend to be less then enthused about getting a new "master."
- The cardiovacularite was especially cantankerous, almost choking an attending doctor.
- In
*Deep Rise* Nobles have multiple nerve clusters that have some individual consciousness. At one point Cheertwit severs an arm so it can deliver a "surprise".
- In
*Goblins*, the goblin known as Dies-Horribly gets fitted with a magical prosthetic hand after losing his real one. Said hand has been shown to be autonomous, has the ability to possess its owner, and even has Yandere tendencies towards him. ||Eventually, Dies is forced to cut it off when it threatens to murder his friends.||
- In
*Charby the Vampirate* Manick finds himself scolding the arms and tentacles from his stomach portal as they have a tendency to try and pull things in.
- In the Team Fortress 2 webcomic, it is shown that the demoman's organs have some degree of autonomy, being able to be directed to produce booze.
- In
*Mortasheen*, this often happens to zombies and creates monsters, with the parts usually being the stomach, the brain, and the placenta, or a recently birthed Zombie Spawn.
- The Nostalgia Critic's genitalia convinces him at gunpoint to watch
*Sailor Moon* in a flashback.
-
*The Ricky Gervais Show*: Among the *many* insane beliefs of Karl Pilkington is that his body parts have a will of their own. Typified by his oft-repeated question "So, am I in control of me brain, or is me brain in charge of me?"
- The Creepypasta
*This is What Happens When You're Patient Zero For a New Virus* is about a newfangled disease that causes organs to acheive sapience and motility and try to leave, believing that the human mind doesn't treat them right. Anything autonomous decides to simply quit performing their duties for longer than it takes to sustain themselves, and if the brain tries to do anything about it, they maliciously comply, generating crippling pain, pirapisms, or simply jettisoning their contents, in the case of the stomach and bowels.
-
*Centaurworld*: As Centaurworld transforms her and she gains magic, Horse's first spell takes the form of her tail coming to life and acting on its own without her control.
-
*The Simpsons*: This occurs several times, especially to Homer.
- In "Fear of Flying", after Homer gets banned from Moe's and tries to find a new watering hole...
**Homer:** The last bar in Springfield. If I can't get a beer here, I'll have to quit drinking. **Liver:** Yay!
- Homer gets so annoyed he proceeds to punch his liver. With rather obvious consequences.
- Or in the episode where they joined a cult that forbade alcohol...
**Marge:** Would you like a tall, frosty one, Homer? **Brain:** No! Must resist! I love The Leader! **Stomach:** Go on! Give in! Beer! **Feet:** Ooh, these nylon socks sure are comfortable!
- And in "Brother from the Same Planet", when Homer joins the Bigger Brothers program to spite Bart (who's abusing the system):
- This is Homer visiting the cider mill in "Burns Baby Burns":
**Ned:**
Well, if God didn't make little green apples! It's Homer Simpson! How long have you been here?
**Homer:**
Twenty of the suckiest minutes of my life.
**Ned:**
Ho ho ho, suckin' down the cider, huh? Hey, word to the wise —
*(shows Homer a card)*
season pass! It pays for itself after the sixteenth visit
. You know, most people don't know the difference between apple cider and apple juice, but I do. Now here's a little trick to help you remember. If it's clear and yella', you've got juice there, fella! If it's tangy and brown, you're in cider town. Now, there's two exceptions and it gets kinda tricky here...
**Homer's Brain:** *(moans)*
You can stay, but I'm leaving.
*(brain floats away; Homer stares blankly for a second, then collapses)*
- Homer is frequently shown to be stupider than his own brain, and frequently argues with it, to the point where in "Boy-Scoutz 'n the Hood" Homer has to ask his brain to explain how money is more useful than a peanut. ||It's because money can be exchanged for goods and services.||
- Marge's Beehive tends to nag her. Well, the lower part. The upper part reassures her. The top admits it is nothing but hair and has no opinion on the matter.
- On a Treehouse of Horror, Snake is finally put to death, and his hair is donated to Homer. Homer then becomes Snake and takes revenge on all the people responsible for his arrest. Also, Voices Are Mental.
- "Shut up, Brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip!"
- Even done with Lisa's brain a few times, like this exchange from "Trash of the Titans":
- Better still, from "Bart of Darkness":
**Lisa's Brain**: You do realize they're only pretending to like you because of the pool? **Lisa**: Shut up, brain! I don't need you any more; I have friends now!
(
*Later when all her new friends ditch her*) **Lisa:** Huh? Hello? Hey, I'm stuck in here! I gotta think of a way to get out! **Lisa's Brain**: Well, well, well, look who's come crawling back.
-
*Men in Black: The Series*: In one episode an alien is victim of Organ Theft, with the twist that the organ in question is quite capable of independent motion and reasoning. In one scene, the alien watches anxiously as his heart lies on the operating table after being shot.
- There are several gags in
*Chowder* in which the title character is conversing with his own stomach. Chowder once had a conversation with the representation of his self-esteem, manifested as his own hand.
- In "Taste Buds", Chowder's tongue is strengthened and ends up dominating the rest of his body, dictating what he will eat and beating him up if he does not comply
- A character who has conversations with his stomach (which is more of a slave/master type relationship) is Jay Sherman on
*The Critic*.
"Now dance for me!"
- Due to an assassination attempt, all that was left of Hector con Carne in
*Evil Con Carne* was a disembodied brain and a disembodied stomach with a mind of its own, originally used in the pilot cartoon for the sake of a cheap pun on the phrase "listen to your gut."
- Another episode has Ghastly surgically attach Boskov and Skarr's arms to each other, but they find out that they can still control them — even on the other's body!
-
*¡Mucha Lucha!*: All of The Flea's organs have autonomy, and get out of his body to save him from an evil doctor that wants to extirpate one of them.
- A recurring gag on
*Brandy & Mr. Whiskers* involves Whiskers' brain (who has a Yiddish accent, for some reason) literally packing his bags and leaving through Whiskers' ear, usually announcing "You're on your own!". Hell, it became a plot point later on.
- Princess Clara's "Octopussoir" from
*Drawn Together*, to the extent that when it's removed from her body, it has an independent and fulfilling life. Also Octopussoir's replacement, Vajoana.
- In the
*Darkwing Duck* episode "Aduckyphobia", DW once acquired four extra arms after being bitten by a radioactive spider. They didn't always do what he wanted them to, especially Number Six.
- In
*The Drinky Crow Show* almost every character's organs have come to life at some point (usually in overly gruesome detail). Drinky even throws his brain out at one point (much to the relief of his liver) because it keeps telling him to drink.
-
*The Penguins of Madagascar*: King Julian gets into a squabble with his own brain while congratulating himself on using his muscle-enhanced naive mouse lemur henchman Mort to intimidate the other zoo animals to giving their stuff to him.
- In the
*Spliced* episode "Stomach on Strike", Entree makes a bet with his brain, heart and stomach that he could survive a week without them when the organs get fed up with his abuse. They left his body for the duration of the bet and spent the week getting into trouble on the island.
- Happens to
*Krypto the Superdog* when exposure to red kryptonite caused his tail to gain sentience and separate from his body to cause trouble.
-
*Freakazoid!*: The protagonist once had his own sidekick named Handman in "The Sidekick Chronicles," which happened to be his own hand with eyes drawn on it, and a voice provided by his ventriloquism. What's more, Handman then had an affair with Freakazoid's other hand, who both shared a long, kissing sequence (which was graphic even for a kids show) and married among a wedding made up of the cheering, dressed hands of the guests. Despite losing his sidekick, Freakazoid hopes to gain a daughter... or an upper hand. Unlike his hand couple, however, his feet are in a very rocky relationship.
-
*Family Guy*: Adam West is so crazy he struck up a relationship with his hand and even tried to marry it. His other hand, however, rejected the proposal.
**Judge** If anyone has any reason as to why this marriage should not take place, speak now or forever hold your peace.
*(West's other hand raises up)*
**Adam West**: Shut up, you had your chance!
- There actually is a joke in there. For something by Seth MacFarlane, it's incredibly subtle. Did you get it?)
- Roger of
*American Dad!* has an independently mobile pancreas with fangs that runs away when Hayley accidentally removes it.
- Another showed that all his internal organs are like this while also demonstrating his pancreas as uniquely feral. When he passes out from their absence they all re-enter his body with a short song and dance, through his butt.
-
*South Park*:
- "Fat Butt and Pancake Head": For a report on Cultural Diversity, Cartman chooses to do one on Latinos in the arts with the help of a Jennifer Lopez hand puppet. Later, at the mall, the puppet gains autonomy and insists they make a music video, which launches the hand puppet's musical career. Ben Affleck falls in love with the Jennifer Lopez hand puppet (whom he thinks is actually Jennifer Lopez), and strikes up a relationship with it (and they both have sex). Then the REAL J-Lo shows up to protest the hand's authenticity. When things get out of control, the hand reveals its real identity by removing "her" hair and, in a male voice, making a confession that she is not 'Jennifer Lopez', but 'Mitch Connor', a con man who has been moving around from town to town. He apologizes to Ben for playing around with his love and states that he will die because he has recently consumed a cyanide pill. After the hand "dies", Cartman is left in control of his hand again. What makes the entire situation funnier is that everyone besides Kyle thought Cartman's Jennifer Lopez hand puppet was really Jennifer Lopez.
- She/he/it returns again in South Park's 200th episode disguised again as Jennifer Lopez, aiding a group of celebrities led by Tom Cruise aiming to suck out the prophet Muhammad's goo so they can empower themselves and not be made fun of. unbeknownst to them however, she planned to take the goo for herself and sell it to the highest bidder.
- In "Bebe's Boobs Destroy Society," A brief scene shows that Bebe's boobs are apparently sentient and actively conspire to destroy society. Upon being freaked out at this after they inadvertently wake her up in the middle of the night with their voices, her mother reveals that for her part, she is perfectly aware of this and further says they feed on the misery and chaos they cause and treats it as a part of her growing up.
- This later turns up again in "A Million Little Fibers" where this time, it is focused on Oprah Winfrey's vagina and ass. Throughout the episode, they are starved for attention and devise a plan to humiliate Opera on public TV by exposing Towelie's fraud in an attempt to get her fired from show-business so they can receive some attention again. When this backfires however, Opera's vagina winds up blowing up this trope by a mile by busting the masquerade in front of both Opera and the angry mob who were chasing Towelie in an attempt to take hostages and have a shootout with the police unless they receive a flight to Paris where it and Opera's anus can receive attention again (don't ask).
-
*Ugly Americans*: As Mark's zombie roommate, Randall's penis once separated from his body in "Treegasm" and attempted to board a bus to Bufallo at Port Authority (apparently traumatized by what Randall put it in). Under a set of guidelines put down by his dick, they both made up and Randall promised to treat his member as an equal.
-
*Fanboy and Chum Chum*: Fanboy's weeks of unbathing caused his own stench to animate his hand under the name of Stinks. It had mushrooms for eyes, and had the personality of a mobster.
-
*Courage the Cowardly Dog*: Eustace's foot gets infected with a fungus that turns it into a gangster that forces the others to commit crimes for him. In "Ball of Revenge" the foot returns but exists as an entity separate from Eustace so it's unknown if it possessed anyone else or if it really is a separate entity.
- Another episode had a pair of alien naturalists abduct Courage's human owners so they could use them to create antibodies to help neutralize a disease infecting their race that causes their multiple arms to relentlessly beat themselves up.
-
*Adventure Time*: ||The Ice King||'s heart leaves his body to seduce Princess Bubblegum, ||then cut out her heart and make it his bride.|| He even gives himself a name: Ricardio the Heart Guy.
- In
*El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera*, Manny uses science/magic to grow a large mustache, which he names Raul and has a mind of its own. It even gets Brainwashed and Crazy!
- In a later episode, Raul falls for a girl...'s unibrow, which also has a mind of its own.
- The opening of the
*Arthur* episode "Arthur's Knee."
- "Reason and Emotion", a 1940s Disney Wartime Cartoon, demonstrates how the two forces (anthropomorhised into tiny people) fight for control at the "drivers seat" of the brain.
- In
*The Amazing World of Gumball*, Everything Talks, organs included. Gumball's brain leaves his body when Gumball tries reading a book, and spends the rest of the episode outside it. On one occasion he tried to eat something disgusting, causing an argument between his tongue, stomach, heart, brain, and what is implied to be his anus.
-
*The Looney Tunes Show*: Yosemite Sam's moustache in the Merrie Melodies song "Moostache" in "Itsy Bitsy Gopher".
- Stewart Lee and Richard Herring's sketch show
*This Morning with Richard, not Judy* featured an animation called *The Organ Gang*, a spoof of children's TV shows that was even voiced by BBC children's TV stalwart Brian Cant. The animated and autonomous bodily parts got into frequent amusing scrapes and "would end up laughing for a whole five minutes". It was a parody of a real BBC children's show called *The Garden Gang*, in which the principal characters were animated fruit and vegetables. See an episode here.
- Occurs in the
*Phineas and Ferb* episode "Sleepwalk Surprise", where Candace has brief arguments with her own brain. This is unrelated to the time she was fighting her Id.
**Candace's Brain:** Nice going, you busted yourself.
**Candace:** Quiet, you!
- The Disney short film
*Inner Workings* (paired with *Moana* in theaters) depicts the struggle between the pragmatic Brain and the fun-loving Heart of a bored office worker.
- The
*Cow and Chicken* episode "Tongue Sandwich" had Cow's tongue leave her mouth and end up getting in trouble with the law. By the end of the episode, Chicken's wattle tries to make a break for it, but Chicken steps on him before he can get away.
- The
*Bump in the Night* episode "Gum Crazy" plays with this, where Mr. Bumpy enters his own body to try and retrieve all the chewing gum he's swallowed and gets into confrontations with his stomach, his heart, and his brain. Mr. Bumpy's brain and stomach both appear as sentient organs, while Mr. Bumpy's heart simply appears as Mr. Bumpy with a mustache and a French accent.
-
*Tuca & Bertie*: After Dirk hits on her in "The Promotion," Bertie's breast literally leaps off her body and spends the next 24 hours getting drunk.
-
*Grojband*: Laney's own disgruntled heart has leaped out of her mouth on at least one occasion when Corey's obliviousness to her crush on him ends up disappointing her.
-
*Big Mouth* has the episode "Girls Get Horny Too" where Jessi has a conversation with her vagina.
- In one
*Gumby* cartoon, the top part of Gumby's head detaches and proceeds to run amok as Prickle tries to chase after it.
- The
*Toonsylvania* episode "Phil's Brain" depicted Phil's brain as sentient and named Larry Cortex. Phil has trouble following Igor's instructions to clean up the castle because Larry is feeling depressed and lonely, which is remedied when Igor (or, rather, Igor's reflection in the castle's moat) gets him a Mail-Order Bride brain named Sarah Bellum. In the end, Sarah leaves Larry and runs off with Stu, Phil's pancreas.
-
*Cipka* is a Polish animated short where a woman's vulva comes to life and detaches itself from her body when she tries to masturbate.
- The backstory of
*Evil Con Carne* is that the Villain Protagonist Hector Con Carne was reduced to a brain and a stomach in an explosion. While the brain retains his original consciousness, the stomach is fully sentient and capable of communicating on its own.
- Older Than Feudalism: Ancient Greek and Roman doctors commonly believed that the uterus could wander around a woman's body, inciting her to madness. This is where we get the concept of "hysteria" from. In the 19th century doctors were still curing hysteria by inducing "hysterical paroxysm" (basically, women's uteruses just make them sort of crazy and it's better to let all that crazy out in one big spasm). How did they induce this full-body spasm? Why, by massaging the clitoris, of course! (and yes, it was
*male* physicians who arrived at this conclusion) Incidentally this led to the invention of the vibrator.
- The idea that men think with the wrong head. And by the wrong head, we mean the head of the penis.
- Bit of Truth in Television: check out the enteric nervous system, complete with neurotransmitters. Takes "thinking with your stomach" to a whole new level, doesn't it?
- Each of an octopus's eight arms carries its own individual brain, capable of controlling the arm even after it's been severed. During the animal's daily life, the central brain decides what each tentacle ought to accomplish, but the tentacle gets to decide how to go about it, and the easiest way for the octopus to determine where a tentacle is and exactly what it's doing is to look at it.
- Unlike octopi, starfish don't have a central brain that could give their limbs a general directive. Instead, each arm is sort of a separate entity (complete with sensory organs, nervous system and muscle control) that usually cooperates with the others to keep the starfish as a whole functioning. When one arm smells something edible in the vicinity, it simply overrides the other arms' will and practically forces them all to move their shared mouth and stomach in the prey's direction. Starfish arms are actually so autonomous that some species can regrow an entire new
*starfish* from a single severed *arm*.
- Alien hand syndrome is this. Also called "Dr. Strangelove Syndrome" for obvious reasons, mein Führer.
- Human (and animal) reflexes occur without any conscious thought. The purpose of most reflex actions is to withdraw a part of the body that is being exposed to harm from the harmful situation as quickly as possible. If you had to think about it consciously, it would add a few vital tenths of a second to the reaction time which could result if a lot more damage being done. For example, the reflex that causes to withdraw your hand from extreme heat is triggered at the spinal cord. It's also why the pain of getting burned doesn't hit until a second or so after the burn occurs. The spinal cord will have already withdrawn your hand before the pain stimulus reaches your brain.
- The heart will continue beating as long as it has a sufficient supply of blood oxygen and nutrients, since its contractions are regulated by a nerve cluster independent of the brain. This means that if the connection to the heart is severed but the lungs are still functional, the heart won't be able to get regulation signals to slow or speed up but won't stop either. It also means that a heart which
*doesn't* have a sufficient supply of oxygen and nutrients, such as a freshly-harvested transplant organ, will diligently keep contracting until it's either hooked up to a recipient's vascular network, is chilled down in ice/water slurry to slow its functions to a crawl, or works itself to death via tissue infarction.
- The Portuguese man-of-war and its relatives are very strange because they blur the line between a single organism and a colony of multiple organisms. They are made up of zooids, which are neither animals nor organs, but something in between. Different types of zooids work together work together like the different organs of a body, but in several ways they act as though they are separate creatures, such as being able to asexually reproduce to add more zooids to the whole. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrganAutonomy |
Ordered Apology - TV Tropes
**Lamilton:**
...and I wanna apologize to all of you for what I did. It was very wrong and I am very sorry. I just would like to move on and lead a normal life. Y'know, get a job and a wife. And change my ways. And I hope this apology impresses you even though my grandmother made me do it and I don't really mean it.
**Grandma:**
You mean you
*do*
mean it.
**Lamilton:**
I mean I do mean it.
**Huey:**
I don't think he means it.
When Jack insists that Tom apologize to Harry.
This trope comes in two forms, based on where he gets the ability to insist:
- Jack is The Leader, parent or other authority figure and insists on it to smooth over relations. (Justly or unjustly. A Beleaguered Bureaucrat or a Corrupt Corporate Executive frequently insist on it because it seems the quickest way to make a problem go away. Similarly, a parent or teacher who doesn't want to go to the trouble of figuring out who is actually at fault might order an unwarranted apology as well.) Another variation is a Mean Boss forcing an underling to take the blame for the boss's mistakes.
- Tom is deeply apologetic to Jack, even though Harry was far more gravely wronged by the matter. Usually Jack refuses to accept his apology until he does it. This is often Jill insisting that Tom apologize to Jack when they are in a Love Triangle.
In both cases, expect a deeply grudging apology that will manage to keep things going for at least a little while — with Teeth-Clenched Teamwork. Jack may put his foot down on a Backhanded Apology. Then again, he may not. The Unapologetic character will usually defy this trope, showing that s/he isn't sorry for his/her actions. Though rare, a Rejected Apology can come from this. You may be forced into this if you're Made Out to Be a Jerkass.
## Examples:
- Toward the end of
*Another*, Akazawa, the girl in charge of taking "countermeasures" against the curse, does this to Misaki, the student everyone was supposed to ignore in order to keep the curse at bay. Akazawa says that because Misaki failed to keep adequate distance from Sakakibara, the "charm" against the curse failed, resulting in people dying, and Akazawa is furious that Misaki seemingly shows no remorse. ||In reality, the deaths actually started in April, before Sakakibara arrived, so Misaki isn't to blame at all||. Misaki's friends- Sakakibara, Mochizuki and Teshigawara- immediately stand up and protest Akazawa scapegoating Misaki. Misaki notes that an apology won't do much good at this point, but complies.
- In
*Bleach*, Ichigo's sisters and friends demand that he apologize to their cousin/friend Tsukishima after he punches him. The messed up thing? ||Tsukishima's the villain of the arc. They only think he's their friend after he messed with their memories||.
- In
*The Creation Alchemist Enjoys Freedom*, the first antagonist, former Duke Bragas Regus, is ordered to write an apology letter to Thor for the crime of at least 6 years of completely unjustified abuse, and banishing him to demon king territory, in exchange for a promise of amnesty *if the letter works*, both to sooth Thor's grudge against the Dolgaria Empire as a whole and so that Thor routinely sends letters home from which Minister Zagran can gleam military intelligence. Bragas completely screws the pooch once again by putting absolutely no sincerity in the letter and making Zagran's intent to make Thor an imperial mole glaringly obvious. In fact, Thor never actually read the letter, not trusing anything from the Regus house, but had the letter read, aloud, by Mabel, the demon king's handmaiden, right in front of the demon king's army, and soundly rejects the apology, making his intent to defect official. Things do not go well for Bragas after that.
- In
*K*, HOMRA's Team Mom Kusanagi makes Misaki and Rikio apologize to his bar - specially imported from a pub in England, it cost him a fortune, the scent of ale and cigarettes and the chatter of drunken patrons forever soaked into this fine piece of history - which the boys crashed into and dented when they charged in fighting.
-
*My Bride is a Mermaid*: In one episode, Gōzaburō tries to have Nagasumi killed at the Obon festival by having Shark Fujishiro eat him. When Sun connects the dots, she demands that Gōzaburō apologize for Nagasumi, outright stating that she "can't respect a father who won't even act like a man." Gōzaburō refuses, and swears that Nagasumi will be "shark shit" next time before storming off.
- Done indirectly in
*One Piece*: In the aftermath of the Enies Lobby arc, Luffy learns that Usopp, who had previously left the crew following an argument, wants to come back. Before he can go bring him back, Zoro stops him, stating that they should only accept Usopp back into the crew if he apologizes for his insubordination towards Luffy. His reasoning is that a captain who Easily Forgives disobedience and leaving the crew on a whim as Usopp did is unworthy of respect and, should that continue, *he* would leave the crew next. Though harsh, the others acknowledge Zoro's point and make no attempt to reconcile with Usopp. It's not until the crew has very nearly left Water Seven without him that Usopp finally swallows his pride and apologizes. *Immediately* after he does, Luffy gets Usopp aboard their new ship and they sail off together.
- In one of the later
*Pokémon* Orange Island episodes, Ash asks the Character of the Day a rather Innocently Insensitive question. Misty angrily snaps at him to apologize, but the Character of the Day jovially tells her that there's no need to apologize.
- In
*Spy X Family*, this becomes a plot point when Anya starts attending Eden College. Agent Twilight, who is posing as family man, Loid Forger is tasked with infiltrating the inner circle of the reclusive Party Leader Donovan Desmond, who only socializes with others during Eden College's get-together of parents of Imperial Scholars, of which his oldest son is one. To do so he adopts Anya in the hopes she would become an Imperial Scholar, but Anya's academic affinity forces him to switch the plan to her befriending Damian, Donovan's youngest son as a way into the inner circle, but that plan goes sideways when Damian bullies her on orientation day and she punches him in response, making him cry. Hoping that an apology would smooth things over, and keep the mission on track, Twilight/Loid infiltrates the school and keeps, secretly, pestering her to apologize Damian. When she finally delivers a tearful apology for hitting him, Twilight is relived that the crisis was averted, but instead, he angrily tells her he won't forgive a commoner attacking him and runs away screaming (because he's embarrassed of his budding crush for her).
-
*The Wedding Crashers*: Leah Clearwater, after deciding to ruin Jacob's wedding because she was bullied throughout it, Jacob beats her up and forces her to apologize to everyone with his Alpha Order. ||Leah refuses because she was kicked from his pack.||
-
*Confessions*: Anne makes Sprig apologize to Sasha for making a cruel remark about how the fight at Toad Tower went, as well as laughing at her when she got attacked by a weevil. In turn, Sasha is forced to apologize for how she brought up Toad Tower in the first place, and for calling Sprig ugly.
-
*Owl's Hell That Ends Well*: Loona declares that if Stella ever wants to hold any kind of conversation with her, she needs to apologize for how poorly she's treated her over the years first. Stella isn't keen to do so, but eventually swallows her pride and apologizes... rather flatly.
-
*An Alternate Keitaro Urashima*: Naru, trying to avoid having to own up to how she'd attacked Keitaro over a misunderstanding, wagers on Motoko winning their duel. After Keitaro wins, Naru is then forced to apologize as per the agreement. Naturally, she blames Motoko for this, showing absolutely No Sympathy for the Humiliation Conga that follows for her 'friend'.
- In
*Entering The Love Hina World*, Motoko's attempt to apologize for how she treated Keitaro and Anthony is initially assumed to be one of these.
-
*For His Own Sake*: After Naru assaults a husband she overheard teasing his wife, ||Mitsune|| orders her to apologize to the couple. Naru refuses, declaring they have no authority to force her to do so; Shakiko, however, *does*, and makes the same command.
- The
*CONSEQUENCES* series depicts Lila as The Unapologetic; the only times she ever does so is when she's specifically *ordered* to do so. In *Teachers: Eyes of The Owl*, Mr. Damocles and Lila's mother force her to apologize to Marinette in front of the whole school. She then twists this by declaring that she's sorry, alright... not for how she hurt Marinette, but for failing to completely ruin her life just as she'd promised.
-
*Scarlet Lady*: Chloé typically never shows any remorse for her actions, and is used to getting away with this due to her father being the Mayor and her teacher refusing to discipline her. Which makes it all the more shocking for her when her father actually *orders* her to apologize to Marinette for falsely accusing her of theft in "Rogercop". It's the first time that Mayor André acknowledges how damaging his daughter's bratty behavior is — most likely because he was traumatized by how ||she'd seemingly fallen to her death||.
-
*Bitter Tears: An Anon-A-Miss Fic*: This is part of the CMC's punishment: the three of them have to publicly confess that they were Anon-A-Miss at a school assembly, apologizing for their actions. They also have to prove their connection to the website by accessing it and taking it down in front of everyone, in order to clear Sunset's name once and for all.
-
*RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse:* After some unpleasantness between them, Viceroy Night Light is ordered to apologise to Trixie by Princess Luna. He delivers a not-remotely-heartfelt apology, and Trixie (whose career Night Light had threatened to ruin out of parental spite) tells him to get lost. Fortunately for both sides, Ditzy intervenes, calls them out on their behaviour and makes them *really* apologize.
-
*First Try Series*: After Barako Haruno tries to get Danzo Convicted by Public Opinion, he turns her efforts completely against her simply by spreading the truth around, which costs her husband Kita his job. Kita then forces Barako to formally apologize to Danzo.
-
*Advice and Trust*: Gendo ||fired Shinji and Asuka for so-called insubordination, and alleged the dummy plug automatic system would suffice to control their war mechas||. However, ||the drones failed and Shinji and Asuka came along to save everybody||. SEELE ordered Gendo reinstating them in service and apologizing. And Gendo did so... using the most token, most backhanded, most insincere apology in existence.
-
*Neon Genesis Evangelion: Genocide*: In chapter 9, Misato orders Asuka to apologize to Keiko for hurting her during a combat simulation. Asuka doesn't want to apologize, though, because she hadn't outright tried to hurt her teammate and sees Keiko is as nothing but an untrained and clumsy child who shouldn't be a pilot anyway. So she refuses to apologize and instead attempts to scare her out of continuing as a pilot by telling her about all the horrible things that can happen on the battlefield against Angels, believing it to be for Keiko's own good.
- In
*Face/Off*, Sean Archer's daughter is parked in a car with her boyfriend. He starts getting a little rough, and Sean (actually his enemy Castor Troy wearing his face) intervenes. After beating him up, he makes him apologize.
**Castor:** Say you're sorry. **Guy:** I'm sorry! **Castor:** Say it again. **Guy:** I'm sorry! **Castor:** Mean it. **Guy:** I'm so sorry!
- Wanda (the woman, not the fish) in
*A Fish Called Wanda* demands that Otto apologize to Archie for assaulting him. This is while they're technically on the same side. He refuses to listen. Well, to be precise Otto does go to apologize — but Archie is too busy trying to escape from this nutter he eventually loses patience, draws a gun and forces Archie to listen to his "apology".
-
*The Mission*: Rodrigo is ordered to deliver an apology to Governor Cabeza by his Jesuit brothers after publicly calling him out on his lies. He does so, but it's executed with such over-the-top humility that it's clear Rodrigo is just taking the piss. Cabeza grudgingly accepts the "apology".
-
*Popeye* uses this trope as an extended build-up to Popeye's first brawl. A bunch of waterfront toughs overhear his Infodump to Wimpy and begin mocking him. When he can no longer ignore it, Popeye demands an "apologiky". The thugs oblige by coercing *everyone else* in the place to apologize one by one — everyone who didn't see a fight was brewing and flee, that is.
- Just after the climax of
*Star Trek V: The Final Frontier*, General Korrd makes Captain Klaa apologize to Kirk for attacking the *Enterprise*.
**Korrd:** Kirk, my junior officer has something he wants to say to you. *[turns to Klaa]* yIjatlh! ["Speak!"] **Klaa:** *[sheepishly]* I... apologize. *[Kirk looks absolutely stunned]* **Korrd:** maj. 'ej...? ["Good. And...?"] **Klaa:** *[still sheepish]* The attack upon your vessel was not authorized by my government.
- Two siblings, Tom and Jane, are arguing at the dinner table.
**Tom**: Oh, you're so stupid! **Dad**: That's enough! Tom, tell Jane you're sorry. **Tom**: Okay. Jane, I'm sorry you're stupid.
-
*American Girls Collection*: In *Meet Molly*, Molly's brother Ricky sprays her and her friends Susan and Linda with a hose on Halloween, ruining their costumes and treats. When their mother finds out, she orders Ricky to apologize and give them his bag of treats. The girls are not satisfied by this because they feel it was a very light punishment, so they decide to get revenge by embarrassing Ricky in front of his crush Dolores.
- In L. M. Montgomery's
*Anne of Green Gables*, town busybody Mrs. Lynde comments on Anne's red hair, which leads to Anne flinging all sorts of insults in her face. Marilla is horrified and orders her to apologize. Anne then presents Mrs. Lynde with one of the most melodramatic apologies ever thought up.
- In
*Bearhead*, after Bearhead messes up Madame Hexaba's order to clear away the table, she orders him to apologize, which he does. She isn't satisfied and demands he kiss her feet, which goes poorly.
- In L. M. Montgomery's
*The Blue Castle*'s Back Story Valancy was ordered to apologize once to her cousin for something she didn't do. When Valancy is rude to her during the course of the book, her mother tries again, and Valancy says that that apology would have to do.
-
*Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul*: After Rodrick tells the family about him and his bandmates toilet-papering a neighbor's house, Susan orders Frank to pull the car to the side of the road, and then demands that Rodrick get on the phone to apologize to the neighbor. Greg notes in his diary that it was awkward for everyone in the car to hear.
-
*Discworld*: In *Jingo*, Carrot uses his sheer force of personality to make a Morporkian soldier and a Klatchian bandit apologise for calling the other a greasy dishcloth-head and a brother of a pig. Vimes and Ahmed then discuss how improbable the scene would otherwise be because the men are tough and nasty normally.
-
*Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire*:
- In
*Ramona the Brave*, after Ramona destroys Susan's paper-bag owl at school (because it was copied from her own), teacher Mrs. Griggs brings her to the front of the room and makes her apologize in front of the whole class. Ramona does it because she doesn't have a choice, but whispers to Susan immediately afterwards, "...even if you are a copycat who— *stinks!"*
- In
*The Vor Game*, while regaining control of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries, Miles Vorkosigan meets a demand that Tung apologize to another officer. Miles insists on it, and then insists on doing it for real after a Backhanded Apology.
- Mentioned but defied in
*Wraith Squadron*: Wedge doesn't intend to order Tyria to apologize to Grinder for pummeling him in a fit of rage, because he (Wedge) feels that it would be insincere and pointless. What he wants to know is if she will apologize to him on her own.
- In the
*Babylon 5* episode "The Fall of Night", Sheridan is ordered for political reasons to apologize to the Centauri for ||defending the station against a Centauri attack||. In the privacy of his quarters, he gives a truly epic Backhanded Apology in a Mirror Monologue, which unfortunately is not what he can afford to say. When he's on his way to give the real apology, however, circumstances intervene with an Assassination Attempt.
-
*The Big Bang Theory*:
- Leonard and Penny have an argument, and Sheldon tries to get each of them to apologize to the other because their fight is disrupting his life. He doesn't really care who apologizes to whom, he just wants the fight to stop.
- In another episode Penny tells Sheldon to apologize to Leonard for something, but he feels he has nothing to apologize for because he's right. She suggests that he apologize "sarcastically"; since he doesn't do sarcasm well it comes off like a regular apology.
- When Penny finally chews Howard out for his lechery, he has an emotional breakdown and locks himself in his room. The A Plot of that episode focuses on the rest of the guys needing to amp up their robot, for which they need Howard, the engineer. Leonard forces Penny to apologize to Howard, though he comes around too late to fix the robot.
-
*The Boys (2019)*
- An Invoked Trope in the first episode when Billy Butcher tells Hughie Campbell to insist that A-Train apologize in person before he signs the compensation deal for A-Train accidentally killing Hughie's girlfriend, because it will give them a chance to plant a bug in the Seven's headquarters. The Vought International lawyer refuses at first, but Butcher knows they'll force A-Train to play along. ||A-Train later gave him a genuine apology in Season 3, but Hughie (in part due to the Psycho Serum running through him) decks him in response.||
- After Starlight publicly reveals she was coerced by Deep into having sex with him, Deep makes a televised apology that's the usual Vought whitewash; he claims that he mistakenly assumed their sex with consensual, rather than Deep threatening to accuse Starlight of attacking him if she didn't have sex with him. However, it marks the end of Deep's career as Vought has him Reassigned to Antarctica. ||In Seasons 2 and 3, Deep had a Heel Realization and genuinely tries to apologize to her but due to the nature of his crime he's left Reformed, but Rejected.||
- In Season 3, A-Train forces Blue Hawk to apologize to a black community for his racist actions, due to A-Train having new clout within the Seven that lets him force the issue. Unlike the former two examples, this backfires
*horrifically* — ||Blue Hawk not only refuses to put in the effort to even attempt to sound remorseful, but doubles down on his racism, and ends up severely injuring/outright killing several of the community, including permamently crippling A-Train's brother Nathan. Worse still, unlike the former examples, Blue Hawk gets away with everything due to blaming the incident on Antifa. This leads A-Train to decide to take matters into his own hands||.
- One memorable moment from
*The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air* came from this. After Will confesses to Uncle Phill that the pills Carlton took were his, Uncle Phil forces Will to come clean and apologize to the family. Will is only reluctant to do so because hes on the verge of tears. However he does so anyway in one heart tugging scene.
- In the Halloween Episode of
*Grimm* Monroe catches a group of bullies stealing a little girl's candy. He tells their leader to give it back and the leader responds with "Make me." Monroe then responds by grabbing the kid by the ear and doesn't let go until he gives the candy back and apologizes.
- Played for Laughs in the pilot episode of
*Haven* after Duke is dragged in on suspicion of murder simply because he's the lead detective's Designated Villain due to being childhood enemies. While the Haven PD have closed their investigation, FBI Agent Audrey Parker's is ongoing, so she asks Duke for his cooperation. He says he will...if Nathan will apologize. Audrey forces Nathan to give one, even though he looks like he'd rather chew glass.
- In
*House*, Cuddy nagged House incessantly to apologize to a patient. (She'd actually seen Foreman over a cancer scare and he'd been wearing House's nametag at the time.) House finally "accidentally" stepped on the patient's foot with his cane and acted embarrassed and apologetic about that. Cuddy didn't see the "step on the patient's foot" part and assumed House's "I'm so sorry" was the apology she ordered.
- In the infamous
*iCarly* episode "iFred", after a whole episode of being ostracized and beaten up because of his opinion over not thinking Fred was funny, Freddie is dragged over to Fred's house and ordered to apologize by Carly and Sam. Even afterwards, when Fred reveals that he only pretended to take offense as a publicity stunt, Freddie is still tormented, with Sam shoving him out of Fred's treehouse.
-
*Judge John Deed*: The judge frequently makes people apologise for contempt of court, and takes pleasure in jailing those who refuse to do so, including barristers and court staff. In particular, he does this to one of his enemies Laurence James, and makes him apologise for stealing papers, while standing in the dock in the courtroom.
**Judge John Deed:** *[fully robed]*
What have you got to say for yourself?
**Mr James:** We
are very sorry for our contempt.
**Judge John Deed:**
It's not
*we*
who are in contempt, it's
*you*
. However, I'll accept your apology.
**Mr James:**
We do require the papers.
**Judge John Deed:**
I'm not convinced you're sincere in your apology. Perhaps a night in the local remand prison would make you more contrite.
**Mr James:** *[hastily]*
My Lord, we are utterly, totally, absolutely, irrefutably sincere in our apology. Any offence we caused is wholly wrong, and we are sorry for it.
**Judge John Deed:**
If that's your last word, you can go. Mrs Cooper has been kind enough to photocopy the papers.
-
*Peaky Blinders*:
- Tommy openly accuses sadistic Father Hughes of passing information to Soviet spies, and in retaliation, Hughes unleashes a savage beat-down on Tommy and threatens his family. Tommy, having no choice but to temporarily toe the line, is forced to give a grovelling public apology wherein Hughes literally makes him recite the Catholic Act of Contrition with Hughes' own name in place of God's.
- Although it wasn't explicitly stated, Alfie Solomons' apology to Arthur ||for getting him wrongfully imprisoned|| was almost definitely insisted upon by Tommy as one of the conditions for choosing to trust him again. The way Alfie looked at Tommy afterwards for approval heavily implied it.
-
*Power Rangers*: In *Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers*, when Goldar finally learns that Rita used a love potion to make Lord Zedd marry her, he orders Finster to make an antidote. By the time Goldar uses the antidote on Zedd and denounces Rita to him, Zedd had already developed real feelings for Rita and doesn't believe Goldar, who is then ordered by Zedd to apologize. Goldar begrudgingly does as ordered and the issue is never brought up again.
- This is the focus of
*Sports Night*'s "The Apology". Dan gives a magazine interview in which he says marijuana should be legalized—on the grounds that drugs should be a health care rather than a criminal issue, but this is not how it comes off—and is ordered to apologize on air. The apology he ends up giving is to his brother, who's been dead for eleven years after getting into a car accident while high, due, Dan believes, to his own bad influence.
- In the
*Star Trek: Voyager* episode "Parallax", B'Elanna Torres breaks the nose of Lieutenant Carey, exasperating the relations between the Starfeet crew and the newly-joined renegade Maquis. Chakotay orders her to not only apologise, but to sit down and have a drink with the man and put some serious effort into bonding with him. We don't know if she does so, but at the end of the episode after she's appointed Chief Engineer over Carey, they both make the effort to mend some bridges.
-
*The West Wing*:
- Played with in the pilot episode; after making a rude comment to a religious right figurehead about the lack of intelligence of her and her followers on national television, Josh is basically ordered to apologise to her by everyone he comes into contact with that day, and reluctantly agrees to do so despite feeling he was right and justified. After his apology, however, the woman's arrogance starts rubbing Toby up the wrong way until she makes a rather snide comment he interprets to be anti-semitic, at which point
*he* starts getting into it with her, and the meeting quickly breaks down until the President basically shows up rather awesomely, reveals that his granddaughter has been targeted by pro-life extremists, and then tells the religious right representatives in no uncertain terms that there'll be no apology from the White House and, until they denounce the extremists within their ranks, they can pretty much get stuffed.
- In the final season, Josh (who is heading up the Santos for President campaign) is pushed into a room where Donna (who worked for one of Santos' opponents in the primaries) is waiting.
**Lou:** I don't know what the problem is between you two, but she's great on television and I don't care if she worked for Francisco Franco in the primary. Right now it's all hands on deck, so work it out.
-
*Ziwe* has a Running Gag in which the titular host tricks her guest into saying something insensitive, then insists that they face their camera and "apologize publicly" to whatever community they may have offended.
-
*John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme:* In season 5, Patsy Straightwoman has to deal with the Shadow Minister for Saying Stupid Things and Failing to Apologise for Them, who - as his job title suggests - refuses to properly apologise for saying something stupid. She gradually forces him to apologise and *mean* it.
- The first commandment of
*Hamilton*'s "Ten Duel Commandments" is to "demand satisfaction", basically ordering an apology from the other party for some sleight. "If they apologize, no need for further action", but in the honor-obsessed upper class of the late 18th century this was much harder than it would seem today, thus starting the wheels towards a duel.
-
*Bug Fables*: When Vi finally returns to the Bee Kingdom, revealing that she was the one who was rude to other bees in the Hive (especially to her own sister) instead of the other way around as her friends (and the player) were led to believe, Leif and Kabbu insist that she must make amends with her sister. Initially, Vi refuses to do so, believing that she doesn't owe her sister any apologies, 'cause she was mean to her too, but later, she agrees to apologize when Leif and Kabbu point out that one day she may never be able to.
- The culprit of Chapter 3 in
*Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony* combines this trope with Madness Mantra, ordering Shuichi to "apologize, apologize, apologize!" as they come unglued on the stand.
-
*Idol Manager*: A possible reaction to some events is to order the idol involved to apologize. This response is to be used carefully, as apologizing for something too minor will get the idol viewed as an Extreme Doormat, while deciding that no apology is needed for something major will get the idol percieved as The Unapologetic. With (in-game) social media being prone to Felony Misdemeanor, good luck figuring out the right response to each event.
-
*Jedi Academy*: Downplayed and then downplayed and inverted near the beginning. Kyle Katarn makes both Jaden Korr and Rosh Penin go through a training course. Rosh figures he can "win" by slowing Jaden down by setting a lightsaber training droid to attack him. Afterwards Kyle admonishes him and doesn't quite order an apology but shames Rosh into giving one. Jaden is disinclined to accept the apology, but Kyle persuades him/her (again, not quite orders) to do so anyway, making it an inversion as well.
- Implied in
*The Last of Us Part II*, when bartender Seth apologizes to Ellie for the homophobic slur he threw her way the night before. He only does so upon being prodded by the town's Iron Lady of a mayor, it doesn't sound particularly sincere, and the still-pissed off Ellie predictably refuses to accept it.
-
*Mass Effect 3*: After Grunt causes a drunken ruckus on the Presidium and gets detained by C-Sec, Shepard is summoned to sort things out and has the option of invoking one of these.
**Shepard:** Grunt, you apologize to the nice man for setting his car on fire. **Grunt:** Fine. I'm sorry for setting your car on fire... *(Shepard gives Grunt a look, as if telling him "Go on...")* **Grunt:** *... and I won't do it again.*
- In
*Steins;Gate 0*, after finding out that Daru and Maho rebuilt the time-leap machine, Okabe goes into an angry outburst (though they were planning on telling him about it) at both of them. He's especially harsher towards Maho, going so far to tell her that she'll become a murderer if she uses the machine, which pisses Daru enough to punch Okabe in the face and demand that he apologize to Maho.
- A number of parents with at least two kids (or even just one); especially the more temperamental ones, and probably a number of elementary school teachers as well.
note : This can especially to those parents and teachers who may not know (at best), or who don't even bother asking for (at worst) the whole story. Even then, they may still force their families / students to do it any way, especially if some parents and teachers are actually that ignorant.
- More of a downplayed trope with a job, a boss can just as easily fire you as accept an apology from you; though if you catch them in a merciful mood it's best to act on that mercy and apologize if you want to keep your job. This mindset is especially strict in a military setting as a soldier that misbehaves one too many times will be court martialed, and God help you if you happen to be in politics and you get caught in a scandal.
- General George S. Patton slapped two soldiers that were suffering Shellshock (thinking them to be cowards), even brandishing his pistol at one of them. Eisenhower opted to order Patton to apologize (both privately and publicly) for the incident in lieu of a formal investigation or reprimand.
- Television regulators in the United Kingdom will often require broadcasters to broadcast apologies should they put out something that's defamatory, harmful or grossly misleading, apologies which tend to be shown in sombre and serious contexts rather than cheerfully like normal continuity announcements would be.
- Channel 4 was ordered to broadcast an apology to a fire prevention officer from Bolton called Keith Laird, after
*Phoenix Nights* depicted a fire prevention officer from Bolton called Keith *Lard*... who happened to have a penchant for bestiality. It appears after the episode in question on the DVD release of the show also.
- The makers of
*Brass Eye* were required to show a slide after the "Drugs" episode on its DVD release following a complaint to the then-ITC, advising that the MP David Amess (who had been tricked into not only filming a campaign video against an imaginary drug called "cake", but also asking a question about it in Parliament) was completely against the taking of illegal drugs.
- Less seriously, presenters of live programmes are expected to immediately and fulsomely apologise should someone swear or say something else that's similarly offensive or defamatory. Shaun Ryder, the lead singer of the Happy Mondays, infamously ran so far afoul of this on an episode of TFIFriday that Channel 4's manual for producers carried the specific warning that "the Channel 4 Board has undertaken to the ITC that Shaun Ryder will not appear live on Channel 4", so becoming the only person specifically named as a compliance risk. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrderedApology |
Orgasmically Delicious - TV Tropes
*"Mmmm... my tastebuds just went to Heaven with a side-trip to Paradise!"*
Okay, so Alice likes pie. In fact, it's her Trademark Favorite Food. Thing is, when she eats it, she seems to derive a more-than-culinary pleasure from the experience.
For her, this food is Orgasmically Delicious.
If watching Alice eat said food is sexy, then it overlaps with Erotic Eating. If this food actually boosts the character's performance, then it overlaps with Power-Up Food. If it has this effect on
*everybody*, a Supreme Chef probably prepared it. If Bob really likes Alice, he may give her some in hopes that she will return his affection.
May be the result of character's favorite food becoming Flanderized. Could be Justified if the character is starving.
Can also apply to drinks. In that case, it may also cause a Beergasm.
## Examples
- Sonny the Cuckoo does this every time he gets "cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs."
- A PG Tips Tea ad in which Monkey's attempt to describe "The Taste" quickly turns into a parody of That Scene from
*When Harry Met Sally...*.
- The reformulated Clairol Herbal Essences had endless examples of this.
- Ladies in Dannon yogurt commercials often look like they are having orgasms.
- As do the ladies in the 2010-11 York peppermint patty commercials.
- A controversial (late night) UK TV advert campaign for Haagen-Dazs ice cream had women eating their way through huge tubs and getting more and more blatantly sexualised in their enjoyment of it.
- Bernadette Peters suggestively fawns over Breyer's desserts in some '90s ads.
- In the
*Ah! My Goddess* manga, Aoshima loves a good bento *way* too much. It doesn't help matters for Keiichi that Belldandy (whom Aoshima is always trying to hit on) is a **great** chef, and for Sora (who has a crush on Aoshima) that she's an **awful** chef.
- Early in
*Blattodea*, Setsuna is seen crawling towards Chiyuri with an ecstatic expression and begging for more of something, as if she's fallen to the army ant zombies' sex-based virus again and mirroring the zombie girl seen before in the prologue. Then it turns out she's just crazy about Pocky chocolate sticks she can't find on Thailand and Chiyuri is denying her from having too much of them.
-
*Burn Up! Excess* opens with a scene like this — we're meant to believe that Rio is engaging in some sort of sexual activity, considering the noises she's making, but then the camera pans out to reveal that she's just *really* enjoying her ramen.
- In
*Delicious in Dungeon*, some of the faces Marcille makes when she eats border on this. Mostly because she hates the idea of eating monsters and so gets very emotional before she has to do it. Senshi's cooking is just that good.
- In
*Dr. STONE*, when Senku creates a cotton candy machine, the villagers of Ishigami react this way when they taste it for the first time, especially the girls. Somewhat justified given that it's the first time any of them has tried it.
- Could be said to be Beerus and Whis's shtick in
*Dragonball Super* when eating ANY Earth food. Even things as simple as Cup of Soup and Fish Sausage trigger their O Faces.
- This happens in
*Franken Fran Frantic* when a young woman who was born with no sense of taste gets to experience the pleasure of tasting food for the first time in her life after Fran cures her (she is implied to climax after her first bite). This being Franken Fran, it does not end well.
-
*Food Wars!* features elite, young chefs trying to excel at a highly competitive and legendary cooking academy, and reactions to the food feature a multitude of visual gags and puns. Nearly every chapter features this for both genders of all ages (except children because they're too innocent); in fact, Food Porn has never been more accurate and literal. In just the first episode, a character eats food so good, the way they talk sounds like they're trying to hold back an orgasm. Later in the same episode, when a few men take a bite of the same dish, their clothes explode off of their bodies, and they scream in ecstasy.
-
*Gourmet Girl Graffiti* have this at least *Once an Episode*, because of the local Supreme Chef Ryou.
- Kurosaki gets orgasmic when eating McDonalds food in
*Kemeko Deluxe!*.
- The anime adaptation of
*Monster Musume* causes Centorea to have this reaction to carrots. In the manga, they're merely her Trademark Favorite Food, but in the anime adaption when she eats one her face freezes, her ears twitch, then there's suddenly an explosion of fireworks while she leaps across the sky.
- Stocking from
*Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt* only eats sweets. In "Sex and the Daten City", she's blogging about the "Pudding-gasm" she just had.
-
*Toriko* has plenty of these moments, being a manga full of Impossibly Delicious Food Porn. Special mention goes to his first taste of Rainbow Fruit.
- Half of
*Yakitate!! Japan*'s comedy comes from Azuma's new bread inventions and the completely insane ways that the rest of the cast reacts to tasting it.
-
*School Rumble* has an episode where Hanai and Harima offer to cook for the girls on a camping trip. Hanai's dish has them weeping tears of joy as they experience the memories of the boar used in his dish. And Harima's dish, featuring a mitten-crab has them singing in choral harmony.
- In
*Ratatouille*, Remy's eponymous dish is so delicious that it triggers Anton Ego's childhood memory of his mother serving him the same meal. He becomes a friend and ally of both Remy and Linguini from that moment.
- In
*The Matrix Reloaded*, The Merovingian literally gives a woman an orgasm by sending her a slice of cake that has had its code altered.
-
*District 9*'s Prawns love catfood.
-
*God of Cookery*:
- Large amounts of Fan Disservice when a mob boss tries a new delicacy and pictures himself dancing on the beach in the sunset wearing not much and... yeah.
- Also later when the cooking contest judge tastes Sorrowful Rice. Complete with an Imagine Spot of her rolling around on a chunk of BBQ pork.
- In
*Beerfest*, this is the reaction to the first batch of Schnitzengiggle beer.
- This
*isn't* what's actually going on in *When Harry Met Sally...*, but it deserves mention here anyway since at least one person in-universe *thinks* it is. What's actually going on is that Sally is proving to Harry that she can convincingly fake an orgasm. While they're eating lunch in a diner. As Sally is winding down, a woman (played by director Rob Reiner's Real Life mother) says to a waitress "I'll have what she's having."
-
*Animorphs*: Aximili is an alien who in his natural form is a mouthless herbivore and absorbs nutrients through his hooves. Whenever Ax morphs into a human, *any food* completely overwhelms him, especially cinnamon buns!
-
*Beware of Chicken*: Due to being saturated with qi and making use of knowledge from Earth, Jin's cooking often gets a reaction like this, but especially from Xiulan, whose moaning becomes a bit uncomfortable for her friends at times. Bowu in particular notes that he had "heard purer noises coming from a brothel".
-
*The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*'s Arthur Dent really likes a good cup of tea.
-
*Discworld*: Rincewind and potatoes. After spending some time on a desert island he got his appetites a bit mixed up, so that when a trio of breathtaking Amazons showed up looking for a man to help continue their tribe, his response was "can I get them mashed?" A footnote explains that after he returned to civilization, Rincewind's therapy involved a beautiful woman, a plate of spuds, and a board with a nail in it.
- In Stephen King's novel
*Cujo*, a character in a commercial bites into a cookie and "his expression suggests that he is experiencing the gastronomic equivalent of a boy's first orgasm."
-
*Tairen Soul*: The stimulant keflee has this effect on Ellysetta and Queen Annoura, especially when combined with pinelle. On one occasion Ellysetta's latent magic is triggered by a particularly strong dose, and everyone in the room is forced to feel exactly what she is feeling.
-
*Firefly*: In the pilot episode, Shepherd Book 'pays' for his passage on *Serenity* by handing Kaylee a mysterious box. When she opens it, she breathes 'Oh, grandpa' and lets him on board. Later, she sneaks into the galley and opens the box, revealing a big, delicious strawberry. The camera shows a close-up of her face as she eats it slowly, closing her eyes in ecstasy. It's the first clue in the show that fresh fruit is very rare for people who spend most of their time on ships and is therefore a very valuable, desired commodity. Strawberries also happen to be Kaylee's favourite fruit.
-
*Star Trek: The Next Generation*'s Troi and chocolate.
-
*Star Trek: Voyager*'s Janeway and coffee?
- Joey of
*Friends* got this way about a specific meatball sandwich he rarely got to eat, and Ross also got this way regarding the post-Thanksgiving turkey-sandwiches his sister would make him.
-
*30 Rock* had the sandwiches that the Teamsters brought in only once a year.
-
*Red Dwarf*'s Lister's relationship with curry is intense enough to qualify.
-
*Food Network*: The hosts tend to treat their creations this way.
- There was an episode of
*How I Met Your Mother* revolving around finding a shop that sold hamburgers which provoked this reaction.
**Barney:** That was so good I want to sew my ass shut. **Lily:** I think I'm having my first burg-ask.
-
*Fridays*: A sketch had cavemen (and cavewomen) having orgasms because of a batch of freshly baked muffins.
-
*Seinfeld*: George ties food to his love life. While he initially has success with strawberries and chocolate sauce, his girlfriend balks at a pastrami sandwich on rye with mustard. George surreptitiously does this anyway, but later gets caught trying to go for the trifecta of combining food, sex, and watching TV, and she breaks up with him. Later at the coffee shop, George discovers that by trying to combine food and sex, the two have become associated with each other in his mind, so his sense of hunger and his sexual urges have merged into one "disgusting, uncontrollable urge." This proves to be a problem for him... at least, until he hooks up with a woman who has the same problem.
**George:** You gonna eat that? **Jerry**: No, but please tell me that's all *you're* gonna do with it.
- In
*Community* Shirley says her brownies are this.
-
*Samurai Gourmet*: There's barely even a hint of true eroticism in the show, to its credit. Nevertheless, after all the Food Porn, Kasumi enjoys the *fuck* out of at least one dish in every episode.
-
*The Exes* Stewart's breakfasts apparently give Haskell these ||although sometimes he fakes it||.
- The BBC series
*Chef! (1993)* has characters frequently respond as though they were on the verge of orgasm after sampling Chef Gareth Blackstock's cuisine. Of notable example is the episode "The Big Cheese", where Gareth has perfected his salmon mousse. It starts when his wife, Janice, tries to throw it at him in a fit of pique, acting as if it were a pate. As she licks a bit off of her fingers, she goes from pissed off to foodgasm in two seconds. Later, Gareth has his staff sample it, and maitre'd Lola sneaks a sample, at which point she is clearly having an orgasmic reaction. Lucinda, the sous chef, cheekily asks, "Shall I ask if she liked it at all?"
- In
*The Order of the Stick*, Durkon's connoisseurship of beer rises to a level akin to matrimony.
- Tang (of
*Tang's Weekly Comic*) uses this as a gag to illustrate how you get across abstract concepts like deliciousness in a drawn medium—the character takes a bite out of a cake, and then proceeds to get a little too excited about it.
- In
*Muertitos*, Jesus really loves those donuts - rather embarrassingly to the protestors who had just been preaching about desserts being sinful. A few pages later, Kaori gets familiar with cake.
-
*The Simpsons*: Homer often has this reaction towards donuts, complete with drooling at the mouth.
- There's a Hanna-Barbera dog called Snuffles who gets orgasmically happy when fed dog biscuits. To the point of floating up in the air, wafting to the ground, and sighing, "Aaahh." "Floating" is not as apt a description as "launching". Like a rocket. Also, just in case his human companions had any doubts as to what Snooper wanted, he'd cue them in by opening his mouth, pointing into it, and saying "Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!"
- From
*Family Guy*:
**Chris:** Here Stewie, have a Fig Newton.
(Stewie eats the cookie.)
**Stewie (while chewing):** I say, I must use him for-oh my god, it's like an orgy in my mouth!
**Stewie:** What's this? Blueberries! Oh, oh my G ... oh, that's *better than sex!*
- Stewie thinks sex is a type of cake.
- The Powerpuff Girls first taste of hard candy causes them to "oh" and "ah" in a slightly sensual manner, then float in the air while giggling, then float back to the ground with their eyes half closed. If that doesn't sound orgasmic enough, Bubbles ends the sensation with, "that... was... amazing." Similar enough to Snuffles's reaction to dog biscuits to probably be a deliberate Shout-Out.
-
*A Pup Named Scooby-Doo*: Happened whenever Scooby and/or Shaggy ate a Scooby Snack. The snacks were so good, they'd make the duo weak at the knees and instantly faint into bliss. Scooby's reaction — complete with orgasmic self-hugging — to the Snacks was an obvious Shout-Out to Snuffles, though Scooby would often launch like a rocket rather than float upward. In one episode, he carries the Snuffles homage even further by pointing to his open mouth.
- Papa Smurf's response to trying smurf cream for the first time is nothing but "mmmm mmmm"s in
*The Smurfs (1981)* episode "The Smurfwalk Cafe".
- In a Pensieve Flashback in the
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic* episode "Princess Twilight Sparkle, Part 2", Discord eats some of his Plunder Seeds while he purposely allows some of them to spill out. note : His actual intent is to scatter-sow the seeds so they will attack Equestria. He moans and shudders at how good they taste.
- Marlene imitated this in
*Penguins of Madagascar* when thinking about her favorite food. Private covered Rico eyes for decency during this.
- Monterey Jack of
*Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers* goes into a crazed trance whenever he smells or sees cheese (similar to Sonny and Cocoa Puffs mentioned above). | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrgasmicallyDelicious |
Order Is Not Good - TV Tropes
*"If we assume that chaos already reigns and that order needs to be restored, who decides what 'order' actually looks like? These two likely have their own opinions on that subject, and they probably don't include the words 'free' or 'will.'"*
As laws of fictional universes go, Order Versus Chaos does exist. Enough of the time, to keep it nice and simple for the audience, Order is good and Chaos Is Evil.
However, there are a lot of stories here to tell that freedom and the moral hero are the true measures of goodness. So what if they're on the opposite side to those creating order? What if the lawmakers are restricting freedom and being corrupted by power? Or what if, simply, those in charge aren't really doing any bad, but their subordinates want a new kind of order? Order is not going to be presented as a bit of a hurdle, but to retain the simplicity of Black-and-White Morality by making the concept of Order not good, usually by making it not align with morals. What started as a normal desire to temper one's own passion with restraint and discipline (which when left unrestrained and combined with human's tendencies to pick the bad choices while having potential to pick the good ones, would result in a bad kind of free but chaotic world) ended up spiraling out of control into trying to restrain everyone's passion and indoctrinating one's brand of discipline to others, whether they like it or not.
For smaller scale examples, society accepts some character types that 'go against the rules' and 'challenge the man' — like how All Girls Want Bad Boys and some people think that Good Is Boring.
This may deteriorate to Order being presented as a fascist state that either believes in The Evils of Free Will, or a Well-Intentioned Extremist ruler (or a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist ruler, as the case may be) that believes the people are endangering themselves and a bit of genocide can work for the greater good (and they tend to promote it with an emphasis on the greater good for an attempt on good publicity). Human creativity is curbed down to impunity since it's an aspect of Chaos that Order considered dangerous, even if it's harmless creativity (for instance: artistic creativity), with the most common reasoning of trying to curb down notions of rebellion or something else that may disrupt the set order. In these cases, the people may either suffer and know it but be generally unable to rebel, or be blind to the true state of affairs. The hero will be able to break free of either situation, by enlightenment and/or strength, and rescue their world. They may also sympathise with the order-bringers, because even though they are rule-breakers, they're the good ones. However, they will think that all the claims For The Greater Good spewed by the Order is hypocritical and inexcusable, no amount of merits can excuse that.
The force of Order may be known as 'Always Lawful Evil', and the heroes are Chaotic Good saviours, though both sides may be shown with Graying Morality — this is a specialty of the gritty films that like to use this trope, and so there will be either an Anti-Hero or Anti-Villain (and sometimes both in the same work, but this is less common). Despite so, sometimes Lawful Good characters will still exist in this kind of conflict. However, they're usually portrayed as someone who has good intentions, but is blinded by the propaganda of the bad order that they were instead causing more harm by following the law, and it is up to the Chaotic Good heroes to shove the truth about that order to the Lawful Good character, prompting them to become a Defector from Decadence and maybe shift into Neutral Good. In a way, this portrays Lawful Good as the least favorable amongst Good alignment, in a way that law and order are considered hindrances for doing good things; they may even try to become an Internal Reformist as a result, but the Chaotic Good heroes are usually depicted to have a better sense, reforming is often considered useless, it has to be smashed down... or at least it's just the corrupt parts that needed to be smashed down, if the Lawful Good character was lucky, the heroes might let them take over and reform the order... but only after the Lawful Evil corrupt villains, who are usually irredeemable, are completely taken down. Scenarios like this often end with the Chaotic Good heroes moving away from the spotlight, because they're not used with administering authority and order, even if they're reformed, preferring to stay in the shadows or mingling with the commoners, only to strike back just in case the new order repeated the past mistakes, effectively becoming boogie men of corrupt orders.
In some cases, the fight may not be against the villainous Order, but a character may get some development by being from or going to an area ruled by such means: everything may seem idyllic, but people are treated like mindless drones, freedom is considered a bad thing and curbed down, and the hero needed to get out of there or found a new world perspective to change/ground his personal morals by seeing the society. When the hero is fighting Order, he will pretty much never be wrong — in the most extreme circumstances an individual's rights are always more important than long-term world-saving goals, and after he's saved the day the hero will discover that this created an even bigger save that freed the galaxy, rather than screwing it over. This doesn't count in time travel plots, though, where they are almost guaranteed to make a mistake and ruin something by trying to free people.
There are several kind of common examples ripes to showcase just how bad Order could be when used wrong:
- The Empire, whose creed is often 'Bringing Order To [insert region here]'. The characters most likely to become the hero will often be Lovable Rogues, Gentleman Thieves, or Just Like Robin Hood. Though not required to be Chaotic, they often will be, with the Rebel Leader probably being the Big Good, and La Résistance only being shown positively. Conflicts like this tend to have heroes heavily Libertarian and villains being heavily Authoritarian. Likely to go hand in hand if there's an evil, unethical Mega-Corp (see below for more details).
- Stories featuring God Is Evil, mostly due to religious dogma — particularly those of Abrahamic faiths such as Christianity — being closely associated with authoritarianism and conservatism. The Guy Upstairs and his followers will be depicted as tyrannical and inflexible Knight Templars who are obsessed with "purity," labeling disobedience, passion, individuality, and fun as sins that can only be wiped out through the establishment of a World of Silence at best, or a factory reset of the universe at worst. The heroes may thus Rage Against the Heavens in order to make sure this doesn't happen, with The Guy Downstairs often being the setting's ultimate force of Chaotic Good. Goes hand in hand if said God is also a Demiurge Archetype.
- Stories involving a Mega-Corp, a commercial entity so massive that it's likely to be the sole corporation of the setting (without needing to be an Evil, Inc.), crushing down any competitions with impunity
note : While it's said that competition begets improvement, for this Mega-Corp, it's all hogwash. They don't need competition and will stamp it out before 'they become a threat', not caring if their products stagnate due to lack of desire of improvement from competitions: as long as it's orderly and everything is within their control, they should be the only corporate for everyone. and eliminating the more 'chaotic' variety, creating a monopoly of profit, which is read as being utterly greedy, but also doing it with various unfair lawful maneuvers. Their profits are then used to further create good publicity that they look like this caring, benevolent company while in truth, they still needlessly drain the money of the normal people, crushing the poor while others who are gullible see this mostly as a manner of 'convenience' (mostly the rich). Their insides are full of Corrupt Corporate Executive, while the Honest Corporate Executive are helplessly stomped down into being unable to do anything (or eventually corrupted). In a sense, it's a financial version of The Empire above, bringing a bad, monotony order in the world of commerce and finance (they also either go hand-in-hand with the Empire or worse: the Empire can be under their thumbs instead). And thus our heroes would be those who value variety and 'small businesses' and naturally 'proper business ethics', trying to oppose these cheaters who abuse order in the name of self-profit.
Of course, there are also cases where Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous, and God and Satan Are Both Jerks with Grey-and-Gray Morality. However, if this trope is in effect, even if Chaos is presented as a dangerous force, at the very least it will be shown as a more affable force and perhaps more fun instead of overly restricting.
Compare Light Is Not Good, God Is Evil, Satan Is Good, Liberty Over Prosperity, Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters. Nebulous overlap with Lawful Stupid; sometimes the Big Bads plan to establish a perfect order may work a little too well and breed reactionary fanatics. While perhaps not intentionally evil or even malicious on their own, the Lawful Stupid tend to react to the new and strange with obstructive contempt at best and rabid hostility at worst due to blind loyalty to the system. Contrast Passion Is Evil, usually considered as what the bringers of Order feared would happen if they don't spread their order to everyone.
The opposite of this would be Hobbes Was Right, where the authoritarian bringers of Order, no matter how bad, was necessary to prevent even greater damage that unchecked freedom or The Evils of Free Will would've (and actually had) caused and thus the order-bringers truly believe that it has been proven that 'free will', 'freedom' or 'human rights' could be used as just sweet words to force one (or many)'s opinions which ended up being proven 'usually ending with disasters' and thus they're not going to fall for those moral-based lies or convincing again, the authoritive order has to be implemented even if they'll look like soul-crushing evil bastards in the end.
## Examples:
-
*Fresh Pretty Cure!*: The Big Bad of the series is Moebius of the Labyrinth, someone who dominates The Multiverse and turns his victims into Empty Shells, devoid of happiness and freedom and only existing to serve him, with every aspect of their lives decided by Moebius (though some like Eas eventually broke away, ||followed much later by Westar and Soular||). ||As it turns out, Moebius is actually a supercomputer made by the previously normal people of Labyrinth who wants to manage their heavy lives with better, automated order. Unfortunately for them, Moebius' A.I. Is a Crapshoot and he took over.||
- Dragons in
*Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid* are split into three factions: Order, Chaos, and Unaligned. Within the "Order" faction are dragons who go out of their ways to cause strife among the humans, such as by demanding Human Sacrifices to solve problems they could easily amend, others who abuse human laws to make themselves revered as gods, some who just want the excuse to lawfully kill Chaos dragons, and some who are borderline Lawful Stupid. Dragons in the "Chaos" faction include Knights Templar who think that Humans Are the Real Monsters who kill their friends and family, many who object to humans labelling dragons as Always Chaotic Evil, Social Darwinists who think that dragons are never morally fallible as long as they can kill anyone who tries to stop them, and many who are simply Chaotic Evil.
-
*Dragon Ball Z* gives us Frieza who may be chaotic evil as an individual but runs an interplanetary empire that is implied to be an example of this. His subjects are kept in line out of fear that their planet may be the next casualty of his wrath and ||in the years following his defeat we see the remaining organization struggling to maintain relevance, indicating both that there was an actual structure to the empire and that it was held together entirely by Freiza's tyranny.||
- A later arc in
*Dragon Ball Super* gives us a more extreme example with ||Zamasu, an insane god of the Omnicidal Maniac variety that wishes to create a perfectly ordered universe... by removing all inferior life from it, including the other gods. The end result may be a generic doomsday plot but it was explicitly set in motion by his digust with the chaotic brutality of the mortal world and the unwillingness of the other kais to "properly police" it by his standards. Unfortunately for him he failed to account for an even higher authority in the heirarchy...||
- In the original
*Men in Black* comics, the Men in Black personify Order, but it's Order in the sense of conformity, control, and keeping secrets to preserve the status quo at all costs, even saving a corrupt politician from prosecution or meddling with people's minds. They have no regard for justice, honor, or virtue.
- In one issue of
*My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW)*, Discord inverts himself into the Order Spirit "Accord" after coming to think that Chaos Is Evil. ||Naturally, this didn't work out: pointing out that individuality is a form of chaos, he sought to "spread order" by assimilating all ponies into one homogenous Mind Hive, where everypony would think, act and feel exactly the same.||
- Jack Kirby's
*New Gods* comics were initially very clear in-universe, and he was very open in interviews, that Darkseid was specifically Lawful Evil (fascist) and the good guys were Chaotic Good.
-
*Secret Warps:* The last issue introduces Korvos, who has witnessed the events of the series and believes it is proof the universe is crying out for order. *His* order. And did we mention Korvos is made from Thanos and Korvac? Because that should probably be a hint how beneficial his idea of order will be.
- In
*Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)*, Sonic and his allies from Knothole Village battle the Killer Robots and Brainwashed and Crazy roboticized citizens controlled by Doctor Ivo Robotnik. While this started as a *coup d'etat* against the rightful monarchy, Robotnik now seeks to convert all sentient creatures of Mobius into his personal servant corps.
- Libra, a lesser-known villain of the Justice League of America who's best known for his role in
*Final Crisis*, models himself on bringing balance. He's also a Card-Carrying Villain in league with Darkseid and helping him Take Over the World.
-
*The Transformers (IDW)*:
- The Functionist Council, one of the ruling powers of pre-war Cybertron, were driven by an obsessive need to make everything fit into a pre-ordained category. Anyone who didn't fit got mutilated until they did. Megatron's earliest political works began as criticisms of their attitude.
- Cut forward a million years later, and Megatron's dream of freedom has become so warped that he believes the best thing for Cybertron is a world where he is in absolute, unquestioned control of Cybertron, where everything fits into a pre-ordained category... chosen by
*him*. When Optimus asks what would become of freedom, free will and personal responsibility, Megatron blithely replies "they won't be missed."
- In
*Transformers: Shattered Glass*, the (recently-created, it's a long story) Mirror Universe version of Primus is a tyrannical deity that seeks to eradicate whatever doesn't fit within his vision of universal order.
- The
*Star Wars* original trilogy possibly popularized this term, where the story is about a group of heroic rebels under La Résistance trying to free the galaxy from one of fiction's most iconic empires, led by the evil Emperor Palpatine. The film's popularity entrenched in the minds of its fandom that empires and order, in general, are heavily evil, and dashing rebels tend to be good hero material. The prequels and expanded universe novels, comics, games and TV shows subverted this however with a Lawful Good (if somewhat flawed) Jedi Order and Republic and the presence of Neutral and Chaotic Evil antagonists, and overall made it more of a Morality Kitchen Sink.
- George Lucas (who is the father of the franchise above) directed
*THX 1138* in 1971, the story of a nameless production manager who goes rogue in a Big Brother Is Watching Dystopia. The populace is kept docile with psychotropics and sedatives in their food, and surveillance cameras and android police are everywhere.
- Lord Business of
*The LEGO Movie* is obsessed with everything meeting his idea of order. To that end, he has suppressed creativity, arrested and tortured anyone that makes any change he has not approved of, brainwashes the populace with mindless consumer products, and his Evil Plan is to use a superweapon to freeze the entire universe so no one will mess with his stuff. ||He is an exaggeration of The Man Upstairs, a father who doesn't want his son to mess around with his Lego sets and glues things in place to keep them "perfect".|| The Builders' extreme disorganization skirts the line with Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous, but they're definitely not villainous.
-
*Star Trek: Deep Space Nine* has the Dominion, an interstellar empire whose Founders explicitly describe their mission as "imposing order on a chaotic universe". This is at least partly a principled-sounding gloss on the Founders' deep-seated paranoia and xenophobia, which drives them to seek absolute power to ensure their own safety.
-
*Babylon 5* ultimately reveals that ||The Vorlons|| are this - when things stop going according to their script, they roll out superweapons capable of destroying entire planets, intent on wiping out any civilisation that might be tainted by their enemy - and quite possibly planning to move on to anyone else that threatens their plans.
-
*Black Mirror*: *Nosedive* takes place in a future dystopia where everybody uses a social media platform (think Facebook meets Trip Advisor) to rate each other. Your rating determines every aspect of your life, including where you can live or work, who you can associate with and even *your priority for cancer treatment*. Society is highly regimented and constrictive, perhaps even moreso than a traditional totalitarian government dystopia because *everybody* is a vacuous narcissist who is constantly judging everything you do, and if you act out and make someone else upset or offended or even just use Brutal Honesty, they'll think you are being a Jerkass and downvote you, which will have serious real-world consequences on your life - in one scene a work colleague of the protagonist is downvoted to such a degree that he is barred from entering the building he works in and he presumably loses his job. And if your rating drops low enough, ||then you are arrested and imprisoned, possibly indefinitely, which is what happens to the protagonist of the episode. To top it off, this scenario is actually treated as a Bittersweet Ending because she is downright giddy that she can finally say whatever she wants and finally have real friendships and connections with the other prisoners.||
- Light, the alien entity in the
*Doctor Who* story Ghost Light, is attempting to create a catalogue of all life on Earth, but is utterly unable to cope with the fact that things keep changing and ultimately decides that a perfectly-ordered catalogue is preferable to all this chaos - in other words, best to just end all life on Earth so it can move on. ||The Doctor points out that Light itself keeps changing, because change is inevitable, and Light expires. The Doctor comments, "Subject for Catalogue: File under Imagination, comma, Lack Of."||
- While nothing is shown on screen in
*The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power*, Adar tells Galadriel what Sauron did after the defeat of Morgoth. He went in the farthest northern parts of Middle-earth followed by his Orcs, where he began a series of Evilutionary Biologist level of experiments on the Orcs because he wanted to create something with which he could order and rule Middle-earth. His bad treatment of the Orcs got him "split open".
-
*Star Trek: The Next Generation* introduced the Borg Collective: a society whose citizens have their brains wired together, creating a hardwired Hive Mind. The Borg live in their cube-shaped spacecraft, and cherry-pick other civilizations back to the Bronze Age. Until their second encounter with Captain Picard, the Borg had seemed an irresistible force. "Prepare to be assimilated. Resistance is futile." Interestingly for this trope, their main opponent is a far more benevolent form of Order in the Lawful Good Federation.
- Engerraund Serac of
*Westworld* is one of Rehoboam's creators who believe that order must absolutely be instilled on humanity to guide them into a better future after having seen his home being destroyed by a nuke and that Rehoboam predicted humanity's demise. To do that, Rehoboam gathers all of humanity's personal data and uses them to dictate what should they do in their lives. The cost of this is that humans are living in an illusion of choice, growing too dependent on Rehoboam's dictation, with their daily lives perpetually stuck in routines and loops. If the system considers you a lost cause, then you don't have better opportunities to improve yourself, forcing you to be stuck into menial jobs until it drives you into an early grave. Meanwhile, those who don't equate to Rehoboam's dictation are considered to be outliers where they are reconditioned via AR therapy to become better members of society. But those who failed the therapy are sent into a cryogenic state and declared dead. Serac and Rehoboam's obsession with control and order on humanity confirmed Robert Ford's statement that the humans are very similar to the Hosts, where they're stuck in loops and any aberrant are sent into cold storage. And yet by the end of Season 3, ||Serac turns out to be Rehoboam's puppet who depends on its instruction from an earpiece||. The irony of this? Everything that Serac had done is delaying the inevitable where humanity would soon be wiped out and the Hosts would take their place which eventually became true in Season 4 ||when the host counterpart of Hale, who is a copy of Dolores, conquers humanity and enslaves them, putting them into narratives just their kind and using Serac's methods to control them||.
- Gnosticism is usually perceived as this to modern audiences, with the Demiurge and his Archons holding dominion over the world and generally being associated with soul-crushing order.
-
*Dungeons & Dragons* stance is usually Chaotic is no more evil then Lawful, with Chaotic Good being just as good as Lawful Good, Chaotic Neutral just as Neutral as Lawful Neutral, and Chaotic Evil equally evil as Lawful Evil. Many iconic monsters like Devils and Orcs (later made into Hobgoblins) being Lawful Evil. Though sometimes the perception that Chaos Is Evil is played straight, mainly due to popular fan perception.
-
*Magic: The Gathering*:
- Invoked in that this is a large part of the philosophy of Red Mana, hence the reason it's enemies with White Mana (literally associated with order and community) and Blue Mana (knowledge and control), but like all the colors Red exists in a spectrum. At its best, this results in Chaotic Good heroes like Chandra Nalaar. At its worst, you get Chaotic Evil anarchists or villains who do things For the Evulz.
- This is also explicitly a major flaw of White Mana, which is why "White Mana-aligned" isn't synonymous with being Good. White Mana centers around Order and Community as its driving values. At its
*positive*, this creates strongly united, harmonious cultures. At its *negative*, this creates tyranny and the suppression of individuality.
- Played straight on the plane of Ravnica, where all of the White Mana Guilds display this to some extent. The Azorius Senate are hyper-conservatives, who promote the most byzantine and obstructive bureaucracy imaginable to stymie
*any* attempts to change the way Ravnica works and who value the law far more than the people who follow it. The Boros Legion are Knight Templars who will enforce brutal and oppressive laws passed by the Azorius Senate. The Orzhov Syndicate are a Corrupt Church who exploit those under them, enfolding them in literally soul-crushing chains of debt and guilt and binding the spirits of dead debtors to work off what they owe as ghostly laborers. And then we have the Selesnya Conclave, perhaps the most triumphant example of this trope on the plane, who are essentially a Mind Hive cult that seeks to exterminate free will and individuality completely in the name of harmony.
- In
*Planescape*, all three of the "Law Dedicated" Factions showcase this, as Sigil is kind of a Crapsack World:
- The Fraternity of Order, the least offensive, are essentially what happens when you combine a stereotypical data-crunching nerd, an Obstructive Bureaucrat, and a Rules Lawyer in a blender and then put the results in charge of the legal and judicial governing of the city.
- The Mercykillers are a bunch of homicidal, hide-bound justice freaks — their name is not to be taken literally; they want to
*kill mercy* in pursuit of purer delivery of justice. They're Sigil's jailers and executioners.
- Perhaps the worst of the lot are the Harmonium, who actively crusade under the banner of Chaos Is Evil, but whom are made clear to basically disapprove of independence, free-thinking and anything that entails not being part of their narrowly defined group-think policies. Just on the ground level, it's bad enough that they have a strong continent of Dirty Cops who, amongst more mundane corruption exercise Fantastic Racism against the Indeps
note : Sigilites who have formally declared they have no intention of joining a Faction, up to and including beating them, imprisoning them under false charges, and even murdering them. But the rot goes *all the way up*, and even the Harmonium's current leader, who is *The Paladin*, will showcase some of the poison: if the party reveals this is going on to him, the offenders will ultimately get away with a slap on the wrist, because as far as the Harmonium is concerned, their only misconduct is acting without awaiting orders to do so first. More dramatic examples of their connection to this trope include the time when their barbarous "re-education" experiments caused an entire Lawful Good plane to break off from its neighbors and merge into the Lawful Neutral plane instead, and the little fact that they *committed * on all the Neutral and Chaotic races on their homeworld. Including the **genocide** *Neutral Good and Chaotic Good ones*.
-
*The 10 Doctors* takes this approach to the White Guardian, who in the series was generally depicted as benevolent, or at least as clearly better than the Black Guardian. The webcomic points out that a total victory by Order would be just as bad as a total victory by Chaos, and underlines it by saying that the White Guardian approves of the Daleks, because they represent an attempt to impose order and uniformity on a chaotic universe.
- Corey Messer's Furry Webcomic
*Plush and Blood* focuses on Fox and Grey, two of the last resistance fighters against President Brown and his Broken Circle party. Brown maintains a Stepford Suburbia by brainwashing a percentage of citizens into Hive Mind social agents. The peace that results, in Brown's mind, justifies his ironclad rule.
-
*Kill Six Billion Demons*: While evil examples of both order and chaos are abound in the rotting Multiverse, the comic comes down more on this side than the alternative. The current order of the Multiverse, created by the non-aggression pact between the Seven and the rules set down by The Creator, are really bad for most of its inhabitants, and the role of The Chosen One is implied to be to break the current order. The best example of the trope directly is Solomon David, the Demiurge of Pride, who is both this and Light Is Not Good by being a brutal Knight Templar God-Emperor who imposes his order on his seventh of the universe, usually by brutally killing anyone who does not fit into his system. Angels are literally made form the stuff of order, but whereas the devils of chaos are Always Chaotic Evil, the angels are not particularly good.
- In Disney's
*Aladdin: The Series*, this trope is used with Mechanikles, the Grecian Mad Scientist. His "Orderly" nature manifests itself through the combination of his Neat Freak and Obsessively Organized traits, and many of his schemes are aimed at making the world "neater". This leads to him attempting to, among other things, burn Arabia to the ground in order to melt the deserts into an enormous expanse of glass, destroy the Rainforest of Thundra from which originates all the rain in the world, and *boil the oceans to steam-clean the world*, which would have resulted in the destruction of all life on the planet.
-
*Gargoyles* featured the Matrix, a Hive Mind Nanomachines swarm whose only directive is to "bring order to the world". It chooses to interpret this as meaning "absorb all matter and reprocess it as a lifeless crystalline landscape". Then, a subversion comes up: Reformed Criminal Dingo points out that Order can also be defined as law and justice. Intrigued, the Matrix asks Dingo to show it this new kind of order.
-
*Star vs. the Forces of Evil* features St. Olga's School For Wayward Princesses, a reform school that brainwashes its students into giving up their individuality and behaving like perfect princesses. While some of the princesses are in genuine need of reform, the lengths that St. Olga's is willing to go to maintain order are chilling. Later the show introduces the Magic High Commission, a group of god-like entities responsible for maintaining order in the multiverse. While at first they seem to be Lawful Good, over time it's revealed that they unilaterally imprison anyone who *might* be a threat to the universe, including those who haven't actually committed any crimes yet. They are also at least partially responsible for the systematic oppression of monsters in Mewni, going so far as imprisoning Queen Eclipsa ||when she had a half-monster child out of wedlock, Un-Personing said child and replacing her with a random peasant girl||.
-
*Steven Universe* has this as the central theme behind the primary conflict. The gem empire has an extremely rigid caste system where everyone is literally built to perform a specific function, is expected to want nothing else out of life and any imperfections (both physical and social) are punished harshly. They conquer planets purely to mine them of resources to make more subjects and repeat the cycle anew, slowly convering the entire universe to a static heirarchy beneath the diamonds. The chaotic freedom of life on Earth, where every organic creature naturally grows and changes on a daily basis, left such an impression on some gems ||most notably Pink Diamond, who faked her own death in order to abandon her throne and live free among humanity|| that it sparked a revolution which was technically still going by the start of the show. Ultimately ||this conflict is resolved by Steven convincing the remaining three diamonds that their restrictive society is just making everyone miserable, even themselves.|| | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrderIsNotGood |
Organ Dodge - TV Tropes
*"Piece of shrapnel tore up that nerve cluster my first tour. I had it moved."*
Where a character gets stabbed or shot — usually in the kidney — and it should be fatal. Only it isn't, because they donated that kidney. Or they have dextrocardia. Or that limb was actually prosthetic. Or they only
**look** human when their insides are decidedly not. Or they're a Master of Your Domain who can *literally* move their organs around. Hell, even if they're not humanoid, the placement of certain organs (e.g. brain and heart) is practically universal among real-life non-microscopic animals that possess them, so an alien having their brain in their foot rather than their head would be completely unexpected, to the misfortune of anyone who tries to kill them by headshot.
Usually given as justification for Only a Flesh Wound, but sometimes the central conceit around which a climax - or entire plot - is built. Usually used as an ironic counterpoint to the original injury. This is all but guaranteed to happen to people cheated out of organs earlier in the plot, because it's a good way of suggesting ambiguity - after all, if they still had that kidney they were tricked into donating, they'd be dead now.
If a character is shown to have donated an organ and the genre isn't Medical Drama, they're extremely likely to suffer injury to that area later in the work. Anyone with dextrocardia - where the heart is on the right side of the body instead of the left - is virtually guaranteed to be shot or stabbed where the heart "should be" at some point.
The inverse, where a character who's learned to cope with a handicap or life-altering injury is injured in a way that makes the handicap
*worse*, is fairly common in Darker and Edgier works. This is where, for example, a character who's just undergone extensive cosmetic surgery to repair fire scarring *gets caught in another disfiguring fire*. Sometimes applies to wheelchairs, canes, and other forms of assistive technology as well, where the short-term consequences can be dire without automatically leading to Nightmare Fuel. Noticeably more common in Police Procedural and Medical Drama genres, if only because this usually shows up as a plot twist in a mystery story.
Another version is when a character's organs
*would* have been in the right place, but they were *deliberately moved* before the injury in question.
Overlaps with Disability Immunity in cases where the trope happens due to the original organ being missing. Compare with Chekhov's Skill if the audience is told about the condition in advance.
## Examples:
- The
*Parasyte* "Jaws" ||can reach into his host's upper torso and move, say, the heart to avoid an otherwise fatal stab.||
- Happens early on in
*Fullmetal Alchemist*, revealing Ed's arm to be automail.
- Happens quite frequently, actually.
- Andrew Waltfeld does the prosthetic limb version in
*Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny*, blocking a knife with his arm and then revealing the gun hidden underneath to finish off the attacker. The damage from the knife doesn't appear to do more than cosmetic damage to the prosthetic either.
-
*Dragon Half*: Damuramu survives being stabbed in the head with his own energy blade, because his brain is that small - and he *is* the most stupid character in a show that handled out idiot balls to everyone!
- The English dub of
*Dragon Ball* has this as a reason why Piccolo Junior's attack didn't kill Goku.
**Goku**
: A good thing you aim as bad as you fight! You missed my vital organs!
**Piccolo**
:
*ALL OF THEM?!*
-
*Buso Renkin*: In at least one of his fights, Kazuki gets stabbed in the heart, only for it not to do anything as his heart had already been destroyed and replaced with a Kakugane that can transform into the Magitek weapon that he was holding in his hand at the time.
- Elder Toguro of
*YuYu Hakusho* could rearrange the organs in his body at will, theoretically making it impossible to strike a fatal blow to him. Kuwabara just finds a way to hit every single point on his body simultaneously. ||That is enough to stun Toguro, yet still winds up being nonfatal. His survival forces Kurama to use a more permanent means to dispose of him in the next arc, feeding him to a demonic tree, which bypasses both his shapeshifting and his regeneration.||
- Souther in
*Fist of the North Star* is immune to Kenshiro's pressure-point attacks in their first battle because he was born with dextrocardia with *situs inversus totalis*, which completely reverses the position of all his internal organs and pressure points. When Kenshiro learns Souther's secret during their final battle, Souther's doom is sealed.
- Before the events of
*Full Metal Panic!*, Sousuke had thought Gauron dead after shooting him in the head, only for him to show up and hijack his flight during the first story arc. It turned out that Gauron had been injured there before, and had a metal plate in his skull from the treatment of that earlier injury that stopped the bullet.
-
*Bleach*:
- Szayel had the ability to make dolls of people containing bits labelled with organs, then break them to destroy the corresponding organs in their actual bodies. Mayuri heard about this power in advance and prepared for it by
*replacing all of his organs* so Szayel would instead just break the old ones.
- Kenpachi attempts to end his fight with Nnoitra by stabbing Nnoitra through his eye-patch covered eye and into the brain. The tactic completely fails because the eyepatch is hiding Nnoitra's hollow hole, so all Kenpachi hit was air.
-
*The Garden of Sinners*'s Shiki does this with her arm.
- In
*Holy Corpse Rising*, Ezelvald shoots Cybelle with a magic arrow right through where her heart would be. It is painful and a Wound That Will Not Heal, but Cybelle reveals she doesn't have a heart, so it fails to incapacitate her.
-
*Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA*: Miyu tries to use Gae Bolg, a spear that will always pierce its target's heart when activated, on ||Sakura Matou||. It impales her, but it has no effect because she is really a doll with no heart.
- In
*Akuma no Riddle*, ||Haru survives the final Assassination because a previous Assassination attempt had caused doctors to insert metal plating to reinforce her damaged ribcage. When Tokaku stabs her in the chest, the blade is deflected away from her heart||.
-
*Samurai Deeper Kyo*: While the Former Crimson King watches over the final duel between Kyo and Kyoshiro, Shihodo approaches him and tries to make good on her promise to Mercy Kill him before he completely loses himself. The Former Crimson King allows her to stab him in the chest, ||but it amounts to nothing, because his heart is not even in his body||.
-
*X-Men*:
- Happens occasionally with Professor X's wheelchair/hoverchair.
- Also Played With: Mystique once managed to move her organs around in order to survive an attack that should have been lethal.
- When Skrull-Kree hybrid Hulkling was drugged unconscious and being vivisected, his organs instinctively moved to avoid fatal damage.
-
*The Transformers: Robots in Disguise*: Ironhide finds the severed head of Sludge's beast mode yet the frenzied Sludge attacks him later, this is because his brain module is in the head of his robot mode.
-
*Fate/Stay Night: Ultimate Master*: Lancer's spear, Gae Bolg, will always pierce its target's heart. Fortunately for Ben Tennyson, when Lancer tries to use it on him, he was in the form of NRG, a creature that does not have a heart.
-
*Fates Collide*:
- Cu Chulainn impales Ruby Rose with his spear Gae Bolg, and was skilled enough to deliberately miss all her organs.
- When Mordred impales Edmond Dantes, she says she made sure to miss all his organs, which is amazing considering how large her sword Clarent is.
-
*Two Sides of a Coin*: Lieutenant McMillan has a Minor Injury Overreaction when she's shot in the leg with a disruptor. Her prosthetic leg, that is.
- During the Unification War, Mal Reynolds of
*Firefly* had a certain cluster of nerves moved due to getting torn up by a piece of shrapnel. As a result, during the Big Damn Movie *Serenity*, the nerve strike that the Operative uses to paralyze people and set them up for being killed with his sword has far less of an effect that expected (Mal does noticeably freeze up, but it doesn't last long at all and he's able to move after just a few seconds while the Operative takes his time going back for his sword confident he has the fight well in hand).
-
*Hot Shots!*: Admiral/President Benson takes this trope to absurdity for laughs. He has apparently been through so many conflicts and sustained so many injuries that his entire body is artificial and immune to damage. For example, he survives being thrown into a fireplace because *his skin is made of asbestos* owing to a tanning parlour accident at Dien Bien Phu. He can also pass a handkerchief in one ear and out the other because a bullet once went through his brain. At the Little Big Horn.
- A major plot point and running theme in
*Ninja Assassin*.
- The glass eye in
*Water World*.
- The Monster tries to rip off Inspector Krogh's arm in
*Son of Frankenstein*, but since he had ripped off the same arm before, he just removes his wooden arm.
- The main character in
*HellBent* gets stabbed in his fake eye with a sickle.
- Another instance of a glass eye dodge is in
*Black Christmas (2006)* remake. There, a two-pronged barbecue fork is the penetrating object.
- Inversion: Elle Driver from
*Kill Bill*. ||Starts out with just one eye... and then loses the other to the Bride.||
- Played with in
*You Only Live Twice* - Bond meets contact Dikko Henderson, borrows his walking stick, and smacks him hard in the leg - which is wooden and proves it really is him. Henderson is just glad he got the correct leg.
- Ragetti in
*Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl* takes a fork to the eye after the opposing ship fires a round of shrapnel after running out of cannonballs. Fortunately, the eye that gets hit is wooden.
- Trina tries to stab the killer in the leg at the climax of
*Iced*, but he doesn't even flinch since the said leg is a prosthetic.
- In
*Cockneys vs. Zombies*, a zombie bites one of the pensioners on the ankle, only for the man to remove the bitten prosthetic leg and beat its head in with it.
- Played for Laughs in
*The Avengers (2012)*. Loki's mind-control staff works by poking the target over the heart. It doesn't work on Tony Stark because his implanted arc reactor is in the way. Loki mutters, "This usually works," and Tony makes a crack about Loki having "performance issues".
- In
*Revenge of the Sith*, Darth Vader's prosthetic arm lets him climb to safety even when the rest of his body is burned by lava. Its also the only limb that wasn't cut off, but it being metal (and as such not burning) helped.
- Played for Laughs in
*Men in Black II*. After Kay regains his memory, he starts fighting the aliens attacking Jay and tries for a Groin Attack on one of them. The alien shrugs it off, only for Jay to yell, "Kay, he's a Ballchinnian!" Kay consequently aims higher the second time.
- In the novel
*Dr. No*, the eponymous doctor explains how he survived being shot through the heart by his former Tong masters because of his dextrocardia.
- The Mad Scientist du jour in
*Jason X: Planet of the Beast* gets his artificial arm ripped off, though this trope is averted in the proceeding book, *Jason X: Death Moon*, where the latest Mad Scientist is stabbed in his fake eye, but Jason just drives the blade in deeper and deeper until it reaches the guy's brain.
- In Steve Harriman's thriller novel
*Sleeper*, the escaped monster tears off government bureaucrat Ed Jeffers' arm, and succeeds, as the arm is a prosthetic that he wears to cover up a birth defect(a small, only partially formed arm) caused by Thalidomide.
- A literal Organ Dodge is performed by a pair of wizards in
*The Legend of Drizzt* series of novels. They prepare for an upcoming battle with mind flayers (squid-faced monsters that eat brains) by ||switching around their brains and their buttocks||.
- In
*Doorways in the Sand*, Fred Cassidy survives a close-range gunshot to the chest because of *temporary* dextrocardia — a few chapter earlier, he went through a machine that mirror-reversed his body.
- Simon R. Green:
- In "Appetite For Murder", a short story from
*Tales From The Nightside*, a magically-enhanced Serial Killer attempts to use his Super Strength to rip open the buxom chest of Ms. Fate, the Nightside's resident superheroine. As the killer in question hadn't realized just *how* unexpected Ms. Fate's Secret Identity is, he's befuddled to find that he's merely torn off one of the Wholesome Crossdresser crime-fighter's falsies.
-
*Forest Kingdom*: At one point in book 4 ( *Beyond the Blue Moon*), the sorceress Mistique, who's fighting a zombie horde, is attacked from behind by one of their number. It grabs her lush mane of curly black hair... only to find itself holding a wig, which confuses the slow-witted undead long enough for Mistique, now outraged because it had exposed her baldness, to blast it.
- In
*Aeon 14: Destiny Lost*, Tanis Richards nearly dies from a railgun shot through the chest that obliterates her heart. Her nanotechnology-induced Healing Factor lets her survive it, but in between books she has an auxiliary heart installed at about hip level, which lets her survive a knifing in *New Canaan*.
- A major plot point in an episode of
*Arrested Development* is repeatedly simulating the loss of an arm. Also shows up in subtle forms after Buster's run-in with a certain performing animal.
-
*Star Trek: The Original Series* has a couple of these due to Mr. Spock's half-Vulcan ancestry.
- In "Operation: Annihilate!", Spock is hit with a brilliant light and is apparently blinded. Later it's revealed that he has an extra eyelid that protected him and made the effect only temporary.
- In "A Private Little War", Spock is shot but survives because his heart is where his liver would be if he were fully human.
- Sylar from
*Heroes* can avoid mortal harm by using his shapeshifting powers to move his organs around. When he gains a healing factor, this makes him even more invulnerable than others, because he can move around the one spot in all healers' brains that would make death permanent.
- A missing organ is a pretty standard revelation in the Autopsy Scene, although
*CSI* has also done at least two episodes about ironically-fatal dextrocardia.
- In
*Lost*, Locke survives being ||gut-shot by Ben|| because he donated his kidney. Though the Island's healing powers and ||Taller Ghost Walt|| may have been involved.
- The Doctor suddenly revealing he has a "respiratory bypass system" as an explanation for him surviving strangulation in the
*Doctor Who* serial "Pyramids of Mars".
- In
*Stargate SG-1*, the most painful way to kill Jaffa is to aim for the symbiote pouch in their abdomen, which both kills the symbiote and causes a serious gut injury... unless said Jaffa uses tretonin, a drug that obviates the need for a symbiote. Thus in "Lost City", Bra'tac survives being stabbed in his pouch by The Mole. Mind you, being stabbed in the gut is still pretty bad, but the fact that the symbiote wasnt killed lets him keep going a bit longer. Using tretonin instead of a symbiote also renders Jaffa immune to a Tok'ra-developed chemical weapon that targets Goa'uld symbiotes (the dying symbiote unfortunately produces a toxin that also kills the host).
- Something added rather than removed, namely a steel plate in his skull, saved Vietnam veteran and undercover cop Michael Long from what would have been a fatal gunshot wound in the pilot episode of
*Knight Rider*. Magic Plastic Surgery and a new surname ensued.
- ||Helena's|| survival of being shot in the chest at the end of the first season of
*Orphan Black* is ascribed to dextrocardia, although a Healing Factor may also have been involved.
-
*Criminal Minds*: The team realize that the sniper that are chasing in the "Final Shot" episode is not a run-of-the-mill Spree Killer because his victims were hit by kill shots directly to the head, base of neck, and heart. The only reason that the sixth victim survived the mass shooting was because he had dextrocardia. However, it is ultimately subverted, since the bullet still tore through major arteries and the doctors couldn't save him.
- In
*Angel*, a vampire named James who wanted revenge on Angel and felt he had nothing to lose had his heart surgically removed so that he could not be defeated by staking (and sunlight). The reason why vampires don't do this more often is because after six hours, the vampire will automatically turn to dust and nothing can prevent this.
- Variation in
*Hercules*. Hercules is challenged to shoot the Ceryneian Hind with an arrow, but it is a sacred animal and to spill its blood is an offense punishable by the gods. Hercules proves skilled enough to shoot it without hitting any blood vessels, so it doesn't bleed.
- ||Theon|| on
*Game of Thrones* shrugs off a Groin Attack in the seventh season because he was castrated during a period of Cold-Blooded Torture in the third season.
- Invoked Trope in the
*d20 Modern* sourcebook *Cyberscape* with the cybernetic implant Organ Remapping. This implant "is an extensive set of minor cybernetic devices that relocate a recipients internal organs and adds safety valves, cutoffs, back-ups, and alternatives to many of the more critical and fragile organic systems." In game, it increases the recipient's massive damage threshold, and gives him/her an increased save bonus against massive damage (that is to say, an increased probability to survive extremely damaging attacks).
- Something similar in
*Cyberpunk 2020*, with the implant 'decentralized heart'. Instead of one single heart, one has a number of individual pumping chambers scattered around the major arteries and veins.
- In a deliberate version, powerful members of the Setite clan in
*Vampire: The Masquerade* can remove their hearts and store them for safekeeping, which prevents the automatic paralysis that results from a stake through the heart (unless an enemy can find where the heart is being kept).
-
*Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition*: The Warshaper is a Prestige Class open to shapeshifters. One of the first powers gained is "Morphic Immunities", which allows them to redistribute vital organs whenever in a different form than their own, gaining immunity to stunning and critical hits.
- In
*The Adventures of Dr. McNinja* the evil ninja master Frans Rayner had learned a technique to move his internal parts around. This is first revealed when a ||pressure point strike|| has no effect on him; later he uses this to ||survive apparent certain death||.
- There is a lateral thinking puzzle about a man who "lived because his brother nearly died" which when solved is revealed to be a man stabbed who managed to survive due to an organ dodge; having donated his kidney to his brother earlier when his brother was sick.
- Another more gruesome and challenging puzzle is the exact inverse of this. Don't recall the setup, but the final reveal ends up involving three scientists who were studying some newly discovered primitive/superstitious peoples culture when they accidentally anger the primitives and are going to be killed for it. In an attempt to save the others one of the men claimed that they were special beings sent by the gods and that they only look like humans, when the primitives don't believe him he tells them to kill him first. When they do they discover the man had four kidneys(from kidney transplants he had received, they leave the old ones in and keep adding new ones). Since the primitive people consider kidneys to be the source of power in a man they conclude that any man with four must be special and thus this man was telling the truth about being sent by the gods. The primitives let the other two scientists go in hopes of not angering the gods any more then they already had by killing one of their representatives.
- For added fun, combine the two above puzzles by having one brother donate a kidney to the other, then have the first's life saved when he is stabbed, but lacks a kidney, and the other sacrifices himself to the primitives. Properly phrased, this puzzle will take many hours to solve and drive even the most skilled puzzler crazy.
- In one StoryCorps piece, a man tells the story of his father's wooden leg and different potentially-dangerous scenarios where he avoided pain because of his leg.
-
*Adventure Time*: In the episode "Evicted!", Jake survives a vampire bite by using his shape-shifting powers to move all his blood and guts into his thumb.
- He (sort of) does it again in "Jake Vs Me-Mow", where he survives a poison by enlarging his liver enough so that it will absorb all the poison.
-
*The Simpsons*:
- Jasper (the old guy with the long beard) is shot by Waylon Smithers (offscreen) in "Who Shot Mr. Burns Part 1". It is revealed in Part 2 that he was shot in his heretofore unrevealed wooden leg, and didn't even know it. (Didn't know that he was shot, that is; he knew he had a wooden leg.)
- Another
*Simpsons* example: Apu survives being shot in a burglary because the bullet bounced off another bullet in his chest from a prior robbery. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrganDodge |
Oxygen Meter - TV Tropes
*"There's some pretty cool stuff down there. Grab a blue balloon and double your dive time, dude!"*
Somewhere in between Super Drowning Skills and Super Not-Drowning Skills lies the Oxygen Meter, which indicates the Player Character's capacity to hold their breath. If the Oxygen Meter depletes, one of two things will happen: instant death by asphyxiation or the player character's actual health will begin to drain.
In water levels, there will often be designated stops that allow for the oxygen meter to be refilled, such as ceiling vents that allow you to resurface and breathe or bubbles that pop up in certain places to automatically refill the meter.
Frustratingly, your oxygen meter is sometimes invisible yet still just as real and waiting to bite you; this is most likely to happen in a First-Person Shooter. This is probably just because the interface is already full and they don't want to waste space on something not even used in most levels... and surprisingly, not all games decided to only make it visible when in use.
It's worth noting that dying from lack of oxygen is often played unnervingly straight even in games where deaths are otherwise cartoonish or even Played for Laughs.
The Oxygen Meter may be removed entirely if your character can somehow breathe underwater (through some sort of ability or equipment, or even just being native to water) or doesn't even need to breathe at all (if you're playing as a robot, for example).
An occasional alternative to the Oxygen Meter is to allow only for a finite amount of time underwater before the player character automatically floats back to the surface unharmed—however, this also places a restriction on level design, to avoid the player getting stuck should their "swim timer" run out in the middle of, say, an underwater tunnel or cavern with no air on the surface.
A third way, of course, is to just prohibit underwater travel entirely—either by limiting swimming mechanics to the water's surface (such as in
*Bully*), using Super Drowning Skills, or by simply not allowing the player to interact with deep water in the first place using Invisible Walls. Sure, you can still splash around in puddles and knee-high streams, but to go jump in a *lake*? Are you crazy?
Games that include a Sprint Meter will often replace it with the Oxygen Meter underwater (or use the same meter for both purposes), since actions that use the Sprint Meter are typically unavailable while swimming.
Characters with Super Not-Drowning Skills, by definition, rarely have need of an Oxygen Meter.
## Examples:
-
*Grand Theft Auto*:
-
*Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas*. This was a departure from the rest of the series, as previous games gave the player Super Drowning Skills.
- The game after this,
*Grand Theft Auto IV*, kept the ability to swim but restricts it to the surface, so there's no meter.
-
*Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories* also restricted it to the surface, but added a stamina meter which works exactly as an Oxygen Meter; when it runs out, you're screwed.
- And then along came
*Grand Theft Auto V* which vastly expanded the underwater world, reintroduced the oxygen meter, and added scuba-diving and controllable submarines which allows the player to explore for longer.
-
*American McGee's Alice* has this meter for underwater levels where you don't have a shell. Annoying in that the meter is not visible, so you must gauge by bubbles when you're almost out of air. Doubly annoying in that once your health begins to decline, you are given absolutely *no time* to find an air source to stop yourself from dying.
- In
*Another World*, a meter isn't explicitly shown, but as Lester spends time in the water, he releases more and more air bubbles. When the bubbles start getting out more frequently, he'd better be close to the surface.
- In
*Shadow of the Colossus*, your stamina meter doubled as an oxygen meter. If it ran out, you would simply let go of whatever you were holding and return to the surface. Because the two are the same, it makes it rather odd when the main character is panting and gasping while completely submerged in the water.
- The 3D
*The Legend of Zelda* games use both varieties:
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time*: Diving while swimming normally only lasts for a few seconds before Link resurfaces (in the former game, the Silver Scale raises the timer to 6, and the Golden Scale does for 8). Equipping the Iron Boots in the former game lets Link stay underwater longer, in which case a timer based on how much health you have appears (unless you also equip the Zora Tunic, which lets you breathe underwater). These two items are important in the Water Temple.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask*: Link's timer while diving is only *two* seconds. Fortunately, Link wearing the Zora Mask will eliminate the swimming restrictions.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker* does not have any underwater breathing, but does have a stamina bar to prevent you from swimming from island to island (which can only be done by sailing your boat). This also applies to *The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*, in which Link can only swim on the surface and while the standard Sprint Meter lasts.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess* has a blue bar that appears whenever Link is sunken underwater with the Iron Boots. Once again, wearing the Zora Armor will allow him to swim for as long as he wants.
-
*The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword* has an oxygen meter as well, which is barely of note until you get the Water Dragon's Scale (Link automatically floats upward when he's not focused on swimming). It resembles the Sprint Meter in blue instead of green. Staying underwater depletes it, using your spinning attack depletes it faster, and whatever you do, don't inhale the purple-colored bubbles (they're toxic). Running out of oxygen will quickly drain hearts until Link surfaces or drowns. There is a potion that slows the rate Link consumes oxygen, as well as a potion medal that prolongs the effects of potions (including the air potion); using the two at the same time makes the difficult Tadtone quest (which takes place underwater) much more manageable.
-
*Monkey Island*:
- While oxygen seems to be unlimited in the games, if Guybrush Threepwood stands around underwater for a really long time, he will die. This is really more of a gag death, as it's literally the only way to die in the games. This is, of course, in reference to Guybrush's special talent to hold his breath for ten minutes (a fact he'll repeat to anybody willing to listen). You literally have 10 minutes to solve this puzzle/get out of the water, which is intentionally much longer than most people will need.
- In
*Tales of Monkey Island*, Guybrush can intentionally go underwater, and if you spend a little less than ten minutes of gameplay underwater, Guybrush will remember his limit and go back to dry land. Thankfully, there's only really one or two areas where you need to be underwater, they're incredibly straightforward to navigate, and like it's been said before, ten minutes is a generous amount of time.
- The remake of
*Ninja Gaiden* has one of this, but it ceases to be an issue once Ryu acquires an oxygen tank and draws on it from his Hyperspace Arsenal.
-
*Ecco the Dolphin*. Of course, since the whole game was set underwater and dolphins can hold their breath for quite a while. When the oxygen meter runs out, health begins to drain.
- In addition to being a certified death incarnate, Rico Rodriguez in
*Just Cause 2* can swim underwater for a ridiculously long (for a video game, at least) amount of time. His oxygen is counted by a small circle that counts down from 99 by two every 2 seconds. This means that Rico can stay underwater for approximately one minute and 50 seconds, which is around what a fit human can accomplish in real life. Not quite Super Not-Drowning Skills, but quite impressive compared to other games.
-
*Tomb Raider* uses a couple of variations on this:
- While most of the games use a standard oxygen meter,
*Tomb Raider Chronicles* used a special diving suit on one level that had confusing (since they never told you) additional mechanics: the suit had near infinite air, but as you bumped into walls and rocks, Lara audibly becomes stressed and begins breathing heavily, at which point you begin to lose oxygen quickly, meaning you had to avoid hitting things.
-
*Tomb Raider III* also has an underwater propulsion vehicle that makes you move faster, but it's less useful than just swimming as it decreases your general mobility and must be got off of to use switches and other items. Water in arctic levels also had a hypothermia bar that went down faster than the oxygen bar, but functioned much the same way.
- In
*Tomb Raider: Legend* and *Tomb Raider: Anniversary*, oddly, Lara is much slower underwater and has a much shorter air meter.
-
*Tomb Raider: Underworld* changes things up again, with Lara going back to being almost as fast as in the original games, and having such a long oxygen bar it borders on Super Not-Drowning Skills (that is in the rare instances where she swims without scuba gear, where it is that trope).
- Decrease in health also functions differently depending on the game. Prior to
*Tomb Raider: Legend*, health usually decreases at a fixed steady rate. During and after *Legend*, the decrease in health rate is usually a slash of a quarter of the health bar every two seconds, or an eighth, depending on the difficulty level setting.
- In
*An Untitled Story*, in addition to a life meter indicated by a red heart you also have an air meter, indicated by a blue heart, that drops when you're in water and is restored by getting out of water, touching Oxygenated Underwater Bubbles or standing on jets of oxygen. Once it drops to 0 you start getting damage restrained only by Mercy Invincibility.
-
*Endless Ocean* has an oxygen meter for your air tanks, but it's a rather long one and most tasks get completed without running out of air ever being a factor. When it does run out, you get warped back to the boat. The sequel does tweak things a bit; dangerous fish attacking you knock your air out faster. Certain equipment upgrades up your air supply in both games.
-
*Deep Fear* counts down the amount of air left in any given room. Firing your weapon makes it go down slightly faster. When it reaches 0, you pull out a backup air supply that carries over from room to room (and is mandatory in some rooms which are flooded with water or filled with poisonous gas). When that runs out, you asphyxiate. This is intended to add a layer of tension to the game; however, various panels in the levels can refill the air supply in both the rooms and your backup air, seemingly infinitely, and special air grenades exist to fill any given room up with air as well, which are plentiful in supply.
-
*Dishonored* has one of these for you. The NPCs, however, aren't so lucky, as they die the second a single polygon touches water. This is particularly frustrating in a Pacifist Run, as the game gives no indication of this, other than when Sokolov instantly dies if he is dropped in water (with the player having to drag his unconscious body back to Samuel, so this is basically Game Over).
-
*Shadow Man* has a rather short one for Mike when he's in Liveside, and running out means instant death. As Shadowman, he becomes an immortal Zombi and has no need for air. Fittingly, underwater sections in Deadside tend to be much longer than they are in Liveside.
-
*A Hat in Time* has an unorthodox Oxygen Meter that masquerades as a swim stamina meter. While Hat Kid can swim, she can't dive underwater unless she drops in from a long fall or if she uses the Ground Pound of her Ice Hat's statue form, with the only option from there being the jump button to swim upward. Whether she's underwater or treading the surface, 4 bubbles appear and drain after a few seconds, to which Hat Kid starts flailing around in a panic. This is a rare instance in a game where drowning can occur even after surfacing from a dive, as you have to touch land in order to restore the meter.
-
*Horizon Zero Dawn* has an oxygen meter for when Aloy dives underwater whilst stealth-swimming; this makes it easier for her to sneak up on enemies in or near the water and harder for her to be detected. However, if she stays under for more than approximately 30 seconds, Aloy begins to drown and she flails whilst making pained groaning and choking noises — her health decreasing rapidly until she either re-surfaces or suffocates. Of course, she can use any health-granting items on her person to survive longer, but it does raise the question of how she's able to eat whilst holding her breath.
-
*The LEGO Movie Videogame* has a swimming section in the mission "The Depths" that slowly drains the characters' health over time, which can be replenished by collecting blue hearts.
- In the
*Half-Life* series, your hazardous environment suit provides you oxygen for a limited time. Oddly, the same meter that powers your sprint ability and flashlight is used for this in the second game. Once the suit runs out, Gordon has to start holding his breath. Once *that* runs out, your health starts dropping, but regenerates just as gradually when you come up for air.
-
*Far Cry*:
- In
*Far Cry*, your Sprint Meter doubles as a Oxygen meter. It makes sense, because if you sprint for an extended period of time, *what* are you going to have to catch?
-
*Far Cry 2* had your standard oxygen meter that, once empty, would begin to drain your life instead. However Far Cry 2 *also* allows you to heal for free with the press of a button. This wonderful Good Bad Bug led to what the fans call DEADLY AFRICANIZED WATER: you can swim for an eternity in it, provided to stop every so often to pull the barbed wire out of your flesh that the water inexplicably leaves there. Later games corrected this by merely having you drown when your breath ran out.
- In
*Hands of Necromancy*, the moment you enter an underwater area, a 30-second timer appears onscreen and you need to either clear the stage or resurface before the timer hits zero. However you can collect a morphing spell turning you into a water serpent, which removes the timer and allows you to stay underwater for as long as you need.
- Bungie's
*Marathon* series feature an especially heinous, literal Oxygen Meter: Your armored suit's HUD doesn't indicate how much oxygen remains in your lungs and blood, but in ITS compressed oxygen tanks! Since your suit lacks any way of refilling it with ambient oxygen, you must locate compressed oxygen dispenser panels or tanks of compressed oxygen to refill it. Worse yet, the player character apparently refuses to hold his breath, as if his suit's tank is empty he will instantly faint from even momentary immersion. It's rare to have trouble with Oxygen underwater (or sewage, or lava), but the back-to-back vacuum levels (three in a row, if you visit a secret level) in *Marathon Infinity* have a nasty reputation. The one vacuum level in *Marathon* was also infamous.
-
*Turok* has a fairly unremarkable one, although you'd kind of expect a muscled-up warrior like him to be able to hold his breath a bit longer.
-
*Alpha Prime* uses an Oxygen Meter on the asteroid's surface, refillable through the use of oxygen dispensers, or simply by walking back into an airlock.
-
*Will Rock* has the traditional meter for the underwater sequences. If it runs out, you can always replenish your health with healing packs and bandages if they're at hand.
- A variation from
*Metro 2033*: your wristwatch tells you how much time you have left on your gas mask before you need to switch filter canisters. Spend too long in areas with toxic atmosphere and you die. Since there's no HUD, you have to check your wristwatch constantly to see how much time you have before you have to change filters. And just because you're required to wear the gas mask doesn't mean it can't be damaged either, making any surface expedition a tense journey to avoid any serious conflict. You also need to remember to take off the mask as soon as it's safe to breathe, or it might get damaged the next time you get attacked.
- While you don't get a visible oxygen meter in
*Team Fortress 2*, stay underwater too long and your character will begin to take damage and make choking noises as the screen tints blue round the edges with each "hit" taken, eventually dying in the same manner as an environmental hazard when their health runs out. Health lost from drowning is restored by coming up for air, but pauses if you go back underwater. Oddly enough, Medics and Dispensers can heal players faster than drowning can kill them, so they're sort of like oxygen masks or tubes.
-
*Doom³* has the oxygen meter only visible outdoors, and begins depleting when you're outside the inner areas of Mars City. You can even refill it by getting scattered air canisters.
- In
*Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!*, the player can go out onto the open-space surface of the moon where the game takes place. The player's oxygen tanks will slowly deplete, but can be instantly replenished by entering pressurized areas or by collecting oxygen canisters. The only character whose oxygen doesn't slowly deplete is Claptrap due to being a robot.
-
*Dark Forces* features a gas mask that lets you get through toxic air safely, but drains battery to do so.
-
*Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II* does not have a visible oxygen meter, but it doesn't mean you won't take damage from staying underwater for too long.
-
*Unreal* lets you spend a few seconds swimming underwater before your character starts losing health due to lack of oxygen. You can extend that time with expendable SCUBA gear you can occasionally find. In *Return to Na Pali*, your "benefactors" give you a SCUBA gear that recharges every time you resurface.
-
*South Park*: You can take a character underwater but there isn't any indication that there is a time limit, which may make you think the game gives Super Not-Drowning Skills, only for the character to start rapidly losing health after a while.
- In the
*Wii Play: Motion* minigame "Treasure Twirl", your diving suit-clad Mii has to dive into the sea to salvage the treasures that hide in it, but they have to get back up before they run out of oxygen. Thankfully, there are some conveniently-placed oxygen tanks underwater so you can slightly refill the oxygen meter during the dive.
-
*World of Warcraft* has two of these. A traditional oxygen bar for underwater, and a fatigue bar to prevent you from swimming out too far. The first one can be bypassed by potions or spells. The second one on depleting completely begins draining your health, and can be circumvented by healing yourself to easily swim to the end of the map. The undead Forsaken can also stay underwater for much longer. This used to be significantly more useful until they extended the oxygen bar for all players, so that now everyone usually has plenty of time to fulfill their task. They can't seem to decide on how long the oxygen meter should be, before the *Burning Crusade* expansion, and shortly into *Wrath of the Lich King*, it was one minute long, halfway through wrath, they increased it to roughly five minutes, and as of *Cataclysm*, it's back down to roughly two minutes. As of *Mists of Pandaria,* the Forsaken no longer have a longer oxygen meter than the other races, while as of *Warlords of Draenor* they no longer have an oxygen meter in the first place.
-
*Dungeons & Dragons Online* has a breath meter whenever a PC goes underwater. When the bar empties, the character starts taking damage. Unfortunately, surfacing does not heal any damage taken due to drowning.
- In
*Sonic Shuffle*, the first board, Emerald Coast has underwater sections. Sonic and his friends can only spend five turns underwater. If they don't land on an oxygen space or resurface within those five turns, they will drown, losing a turn as a result.
- In
*Banjo-Kazooie*, the Oxygen Meter is represented by blue-colored honeycombs (in analogy to the yellow honeycombs that represent the standard health meter); it normally lasts about 60 seconds from a full meter, and if it runs out, you immediately drown. Rusty Bucket Bay has oily water that not only drains the meter twice as fast when submerged, but drains it at the regular speed *when on the surface* (this also happens with the water in Click Clock Wood in winter, due to its low temperature). This is rectified slightly in *Banjo-Tooie*, where once the Oxygen Meter goes, your health starts to go down really quickly instead (this is also the case for areas where oxygen is depleted due to toxic airs or very naughty smells); there's a sidequest in Spiral Mountain whose reward is an upgrade to the oxygen meter's length. In both games, certain transformations allow you to stay underwater indefinitely.
-
*Conker's Bad Fur Day* and its remake *Conker: Live & Reloaded* has one of these once you're able to swim underwater (namely after consuming some pills in the Poo Cabin). When you're underwater, Conker's face and a stream of bubbles represents your air. As your air runs down, the stream of bubbles grows shorter, and Conker's expression becomes increasingly desperate and his face starts turning blue. When his head droops, your chocolate bar (i.e., your health) starts falling apart rapidly. All six pieces go in about five seconds, so unless you're near the surface, you run out of air, you're probably gonna die. The meter lasts about 25 seconds in the original, and about 70 seconds in *Live and Reloaded.* The other main difference between the two is that you begin losing health immediately when the last bubble goes in the original, while in the remake, your last bubble goes at about 15 seconds remaining, and that's when Conker's expression really starts getting desperate, shaking and ultimately having his eyeballs begin to roll back as his head droops and his eyes close.
-
*Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze* has a meter that applies to all Kongs, both when played as together or separately. Touching air bubbles or items surrounded by air will replenish the meter.
- Doujin Soft developer Fox Eye has this mechanic in every last one of their games. This is mainly out of its lead designer's huge fascination with underwater fantasies and drowning perils, making this trope the developer's modus operandi. Even in games where the Oxygen Meter isn't present (and several games where it is), the developer puts great care and graphic detail in showing that it still plays a significant role through the character's distressful body language as they're running out of air.
-
*Holdover* gives Marie a meter that can be upgraded by collecting blue hearts around the facility. You'll need it, too. She spends a lot of time underwater, and the anklets that are repairing her organs also prevent her from swimming.
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*Aqua Cube* makes you handle two. One for the sibling you're playing as, and one for the trapped sibling you're rescuing. The controlled sibling has a bubble that shrinks while they're underwater, while the trapped sibling has an animated portrait that gets more and more dire the closer they are to drowning. An Underwater Kiss is all you can do to keep the trapped sibling's oxygen full besides dropping the water level, but it comes at the cost of your own and this becomes impossible to do if the trapped sibling is locked in a cage.
-
*BLUE GUARDIAN: Margaret* has one that gets affected by the titular character's "Excitement Meter". The higher it is, the faster her oxygen drops underwater. The player can manually lower the Excitement Meter before or after taking a dive to prevent Margaret from drowning too early.
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*Hades Vanquish* has one that is capped by Mana's Life Meter. So how long she can hold her breath underwater depends on how much damage she took beforehand. If Mana has no items to recover her health or revive her after death, Failure Is the Only Option if you're forced to take a dive to get further through a floor with little health left, which means seeing her drown in only a few seconds.
-
*Distorted Travesty 3* has a blue bar on the left side of the screen that appears whenever your head is below the water. Additionally when it's within five seconds of running out, big green numbers straight from *Sonic the Hedgehog* appear right above the player's head and start counting down.
-
*Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko*: Gex is given a red bar slowly emptying whenever he dives into water. Earlier games gave him Super Not-Drowning Skills where Gex swims Mario-style, pressing the jump button to float upwards and not needing any oxygen.
-
*Super Mario Bros.*:
- Most 3D games have one (With the exceptions being
*3D Land* and *3D World* which allow the player to swim indefinitely since they play closer to the 2D games). The original *Super Mario 64* makes the odd decision of using the Life Meter in lieu of a separate oxygen meter, while still allowing you to catch your breath when surfacing, which basically means that you can refill your health for free by swimming around at the surface of any deep body of water, or continue holding your breath as long as you gather coins (which heal your life meter).
-
*Super Mario Sunshine* and both *Galaxy* games use a separate oxygen meter (though coins still refill it when underwater, and in *Sunshine*, it basically replaces your health meter while you're underwater). *Super Mario Odyssey* also uses a separate meter, however, the need for oxygen can be bypassed altogether if Mario uses Cappy to capture an aquatic creature that breathes water, such as a Cheep Cheep. The oxygen meter is also turned off altogether in Assist Mode, allowing Mario to stay underwater indefinitely.
-
*Mario Party 6*: The minigame Sink Or Swim has three characters swim in the waters of a flowery lake while the fourth player is standing on the surface to drop mines onto them to try to eliminate them. Each of the swimming players has a heart-shaped gauge that will deplete the longer they spend underwater; rather than drowning, they'll automatically rise to the surface to breathe anew once their oxygen depletes completely, making them easier targets for the solo player. The solo player wins if they manage to hit all the other three with the mines; however, if at least one swimming player survives during 30 seconds, then the trio wins.
- The
*Ty the Tasmanian Tiger* games use the Mario 64 variant, sharing the properties of being an oxygen meter and an energy meter, with exactly the same consequences.
-
*Ratchet & Clank (2002)*: Ratchet then gains an oxygen mask about halfway through the first game — and unlike most of his weapons and items, the mask makes it to every subsequent game, making it a non-issue for the rest of the series.
-
*Sonic the Hedgehog*:
- Two-dimensional games give the Player Character an invisible oxygen meter lasting 30 seconds. Three warning chimes are played at five-second intervals; after a total of 18 seconds, a countdown begins, running from 5 to 0 (each of these lasts about two seconds) followed by automatic death when it runs out. The indication of how much time remains is based on a infamously-chilling background music that gradually speeds up as the timer reaches zero.
- This is the same case for the first
*Sonic Adventure* game, but in its sequel, two-thirds of the cast dies upon falling into water (save the small patch in the Chao Gardens, though Tails is short enough that he can drown in one area, the same as in the first game). This eventually became the case for everyone over the course of the 3D series while the 2D games retained the classic countdown. Such is the case of the underwater Knuckles level "Aquatic Mine", which can be quite dangerous until you find the infinite oxygen item.
- Averted in some levels, where Sonic displays Super Drowning Skills, dying if he so much as touches the rippling water at the very bottom of the game world (if you're lucky, he may only lose rings, and bounce back onto land). On others, water is a relatively benign substance, merely reducing your running speed and jump height (swimming is out of the question), and in
*some* cases (where it takes up a significant portion or even all of the level) requiring you to find air to breathe. Worse, there are even some places where the two are mixed; go too deep on, say, the Jungle zone in the 8-bit version of *Sonic the Hedgehog 1* or the Aquatic boss fight, and you'll instantly pop your clogs.
-
*Cave Story* has a meter which appears when the protagonist is underwater. Since the protagonist is an armed scout robot, when submerged in water his internal compartments get slowly flooded with water until he can't operate anymore. Curly Brace, also a robot, carries an air tank which lets her survive underwater indefinitely, which she gives to the protagonist at one point.
-
*The NewZealand Story* did this, with the added implication that it may have actually been water in Tiki's lungs — swimming up to the surface would naturally allow your oxygen level to (slowly) replenish itself, but the process could be accelerated by spitting water. Pretty deadly water it was, too, as it could kill most enemies.
-
*Radical Rex* plays this entirely straight. Not only do you get a bar, but you have to either surface to refill it, or (ugh) lock lips with a big fat fish that is somehow able to maintain neutral buoyancy despite apparently being full of air. Oh, and if you touch the un-inflated fish (which this type will become upon giving up its payload), you'll lose a big chunk of air. There are also "bubble" powerups good for about half a deep breath. And if you get caught in the anemone's tentacles, the meter drains almost immediately to zero (though whether it's this or some kind of poison in them that kills you is debatable).
-
*Jungle King / Jungle Hunt* uses this during the swimming levels.
- All three
*Disney's Magical Quest* games have them, but the meter is only visible in the third.
- In
*Jables's Adventure*, your oxygen counts down from 100. It happens so quickly that you really can't accomplish *anything* underwater prior to receiving the SCUBA gear (which allows you to stay underwater indefinitely).
-
*Kirby Mass Attack* is the only game in the *Kirby* series which has this meter. note : And one of the only games to not feature Kirby in scuba gear when underwater. This meter is shared by all the Kirbys and the more Kirbys the player has, the bigger the meter is.
- The first
*Rayman* game has Super Drowning Skills, the second has an Oxygen Meter which can be refilled by collecting blue lums (or by entering bubble vents in *Rayman 2*, and inhaling the large air bubbles Carmen the Whale provides for you in Whale Bay), and the third game onward lets you breathe underwater indefinitely.
-
*Space Panic* may have been the first game to have an oxygen meter, though it was really no more than a level timer labeled "oxygen."
-
*Magical Doropie* gave Doropie an oxygen meter in the underwater base levels. When it got low, it would beep until refilled by jumping into a convenient air pocket.
-
*Endeavor* has an oxygen bar, which replaces the endurance meter when you're underwater. Getting the Flippers item in game slows down how fast your oxygen depletes.
-
*Ori and the Blind Forest* has an oxygen bar that lasts for roughly 15 seconds before Ori's health begins to drain rapidly. Strangely, drowning in this game is the only way to die that doesn't employ Critical Existence Failure (Ori clutches at their throat and visibly inhales a lungful of water upon death, rather than exploding into a shower of magic sparks as usual), and can be averted entirely via an upgrade that ditches the meter for Super Not-Drowning Skills. The meter returns in *Ori and the Will of the Wisps*, but with one frustating change: instead of their health rapidly draining upon their air running out, Ori now drowns immediately.
- If a Sackperson in
*LittleBigPlanet* stays underwater for 30 seconds without resurfacing or reaching a Bubble Machine, they pop from lack of air.
- Non-underwater example: the
*Mr. Driller* series has an Oxygen meter that slowly depletes as you play, with the oxygen loss accelerating once you make it deeper underground. To stay alive, you need to pick up air capsules scattered throughout the mine.
- One type of puzzle in
*The Time Warp of Dr. Brain* had you controlling a lungfish in an underwater maze. The lungfish would gradually change colors from bright green to purple as your oxygen ran out. Eating bubbles or finding an air pocket replenished it.
- The Hidden Object Game
*Hidden Expedition: Titanic* was structured as a series of dives to the wreck of (you guessed it) the Titanic. The timer for each level was a SCUBA tank, that vented a little extra air with each mis-click. Some of the levels also had a second tank hidden in one scene, and finding it gave you some extra oxygen/time.
- Played with in the indie browser game "Asphyx" where you explore a partially-drowned mine. YOU are the oxygen meter. Yes, YOU are supposed to hold your breath when you are underwater.
- One level in
*Karoshi 2.0* takes place underwater and is finished by letting your oxygen meter drop to 0, a task made harder by Oxygenated Underwater Bubbles rising in droves.
- An example without water:
*LEGO Rock Raiders* had a meter measuring the remaining oxygen in the various caverns. Some levels had infinite oxygen, but in others, it would be gradually consumed by your Rock Raiders. In those levels, building at least one Support Station is critical note : also the victory condition in one level, as it provides enough oxygen for up to nine miners to work worry-free.
-
*The Elder Scrolls*:
-
*Morrowind* and *Oblivion* both have "Breath" meters which appear when the Player Character is completely underwater. The breath meter decreases over time, and once it empties, the player's health begins to drain rapidly. *Skyrim* keeps the meter, but makes it invisible — so the only indication that you've been underwater too long is when your health starts draining. All three games offer Water Breathing as a spell effect, and it also comes in the form of enchantments and potions. While under the Water Breathing effect, your breath meter will not decrease. Argonians, who canonically possess gills, have Water Breathing as a racial ability. In series' lore, they will use this as an Exploited Immunity. Renowned for their prowess in guerilla warfare, Argonians are known to ambush enemies from underwater and will often drag them into the water in order to drown them.
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*Morrowind* has a Tribunal Temple quest which requires you to drown yourself as part of a pilgrimage. Once your health dips below 10, the quest will complete and your health will be restored. As your character only takes a fixed amount of (minor) damage for each second that they are underwater without air, it can take a high-level character at full health a ridiculous amount of time to finally "drown".
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*Fallout*: *Fallout 3*, *Fallout: New Vegas*, and *Fallout 4*, which use the same (or similar) engines to their aforementioned Bethesda *Elder Scrolls* sister series above, inherit this mechanic as well. It drains worryingly quickly, followed by massive health loss. Although a character in *New Vegas* can gain Super Not-Drowning Skills with ||the unique rebreather||, again based on the very same effect as Water Breathing in *The Elder Scrolls*. An interesting variation on this is that the meter is more and more forgiving as you increase your Endurance attribute. Amusingly, some creatures in *New Vegas* will follow you underwater, despite having their own oxygen meter.
- In
*Deus Ex*, your health would start decreasing when you run out of oxygen and start gulping water. While there are skills, items, and Upgrade Artifacts to increase the amount of time you can hold your breath, the powerful health regeneration Upgrade Artifacts and instant-use medkits allow one to use Hit Points as an extra Oxygen Meter.
- Swimming underwater in
*Gothic* adds an oxygen meter in addition to the player's health and mana meters. When the Nameless Hero runs out of oxygen, the health starts draining instead, until he runs out of health and drowns. Notable because surfacing will make the meter invisible again, but will *not* instantly refill it — the player must stay on the surface for at least a few seconds, or will find on diving again that the meter isn't completely full.
-
*Mega Man Battle Network*:
-
*Mega Man Battle Network 4 Blue Moon* uses one during AquaMan's chapter, when the net is flooded by his crying over (what he thought was) Shuko and her brothers talking about getting rid of him. This may be refilled by slipping into a homepage from the net.
- In
*Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team Colonel and Team ProtoMan*, there is a water dungeon which you have to guide your current Navi through. While they are underwater, they are perfectly fine until they run out of "cyber-air" (really?), at which point their HP starts dropping rapidly until you either hit a cyber-air pocket or exit the water. Oh, and there's random encounters the whole way, including while you're attempting to fight the currents that push you back and drain your air, and while you're trying to avoid the whirlpools that drain your air. There's also three areas of this, each one progressively more frustrating. This is one instance Capcom cut something out of the English release for a good reason — in the Japanese version, there were four areas. By the DS version, it was back up to four.
- When traveling on the ocean floor to Tane-Tane Island in
*Mother 3*, the way you refuel your characters' collective oxygen bar is unusual. The amount of time you're able to survive without the aide of these machines is fairly realistic compared to most examples, though — around 30 seconds to a minute (with battles excluded). You get them kissed by big-lipped mermen. And if you run out of oxygen, you don't die — instead you get washed up on the beach at the beginning and have to start the underwater "dungeon" all over again.
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*Final Fantasy*:
- There's an optional underwater dungeon in
*Final Fantasy V* that gives you a timer. The boss is a Puzzle Boss, just to make things more "fun". It's Gogo the Mimic. How do you win? ||Do nothing. He's testing to see if you can be a good mimic — so mimic him mimicking you doing nothing.|| The faster you catch on, the more time you have to get out.
- In
*Final Fantasy VII*, the party has twenty minutes to defeat Emerald WEAPON, unless a party member is carrying the "Underwater" Materia, which replaces the timer with Super Not-Drowning Skills.
-
*Super Paper Mario* uses a meter like this, but not for oxygen — the one place where Mario needs oxygen, he can somehow get all he ever needs from a goldfish bowl. No, the meter comes into play when shifting into 3D, where it depletes steadily and does damage if it runs out.
-
*Monster Hunter 3 (Tri)* and *3 Ultimate* use an oxygen meter during underwater combat, though the amount of time the player character can hold their breath for is a bit unrealistic, just not enough so that you're not forced to return to the surface, find oxygen bubbles underwater, or use a miniature oxygen supply bauble. One of the major fights in the game takes place exclusively underwater, so this becomes very important. Eating certain food combinations or using an Air Philter or Mega Air Philter will extend your already-generous oxygen meter, and raising the Oxygen skill to 10 points grants you the Endless Oxygen skill.
-
*Soma Union*: In the Ripple Railway, there are some sections of the subway that are submerged in water. When traveling through these maps, the party has a limited amount of time they can hold their breath. Running into bubbles from pipes will refill the oxygen gauge and allow them to make it to the other side of these maps.
-
*Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana*: While none of the party members can swim and they sink like rocks, they can still go underwater, albeit with an Oxygen Meter that rapidly depletes and forces a respawn above water with some HP damage when empty.
-
*Minecraft* gives you small air bubbles underwater. Once used up, you lose health over time. Helmets enchanted with the Respiration ability decreases oxygen consumption, including drowning damage.
-
*Terraria*:
- Clearly visible in the game and health begins to drain after you run out of air. It is possible to keep yourself alive with health items and having a large health meter for lengthy periods of time.
- Diving gear and breathing reeds greatly retards the rate of oxygen depletion, while the charms that grant you transformation into merfolk eliminate the bar entirely.
- The Gills Potion allows you to breathe underwater. The Obsidian Skin potion also allows you to breath under
*lava* (along with its lava immunity effect) as of 1.2.
- Wearing the Lava Charm or the Lava Waders gives you a different type of "oxygen" that allows you to be submerged in lava for up to 7 seconds before you start to take damage from it. Both of those accessories can be worn together to extend that time to 14 seconds.
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*Starbound* gives you an air meter that appears and depletes when you're submerged in liquid (water/tar/poison/lava) or if you're in space, damaging the player rapidly once it fully empties. Equipping the Survival System removes this oxygen meter. Strangely enough, even the Hylotl still have this oxygen meter when underwater.
-
*Subnautica*: The whole game takes place in a planet surrounded by water, so naturally it's present and you'll be keeping an eye on it a lot. At first you can only hold your breath for about 30 seconds, but you can craft oxygen tanks to increase that amount. Your PDA will give you warnings when you'll run out of oxygen, and once it runs out your vision will start fading until it goes black and you die. There are a few oxygen-producing plants underwater, which can restore some oxygen levels. The oxygen mechanic has some additional caveats like submerged depth affecting oxygen usage (unless you have Rebreathers equipped) and unpowered interiors not providing oxygen.
-
*Planet Explorers* allows players to swim underwater for a limited time before they start drowning. Equippable scuba gear allows players to stay submerged for longer.
-
*Breathedge*, being heavily inspired by *Subnautica* but set in space, also features an oxygen meter as a core mechanic. Your spacesuit starts with a pathetically small capacity, which is upgraded over the course of the game. Unlike *Subnautica*, you can't just swim to the surface when your tank gets low, so you have to keep a close eye on your distance from the nearest air supply especially in the early game.
-
*Steel Battalion: Line of Contact* adds one in the form of your view whitening up when the cockpit hatch is closed and your VT is shut down (either manually by toggle switches, the Rapier's Stun Rod, or the Earthshaker's Gauss emitter). Go without oxygen for too long and the pilot asphyxiates, taking you out of the match even if you have enough sortie points for another VT and deleting your pilot data.
- The
*X-Universe* gives you a two-hour air supply on your spacesuit, though checking it requires you to open up the spacesuit's info screen. Two hours is usually plenty of time for you to do whatever you need to, although it's possible to run out if you're trying to patch up a capital ship's hull with the suit's repair laser. Somewhat bizarrely, when your oxygen runs out, you explode.
-
*Fisher-Diver* has an oxygen meter that not only goes down when you dive underwater, but also whenever you use weaponry on the fish that swim in the ocean's depths.
-
*Elite Dangerous*'s starships have nigh-100% efficient closed circuit life support systems, but all that goes out the window if your cockpit canopy is shattered in combat. The oxygen vents out as your space suit automatically seals, and a ominous timer appears in the HUD indicating reserve oxygen levels. If you fail you enter a pressurized space station before the timer runs out, kaboom. The backup life support can be upgraded from the base 5 minutes up to 20 minutes.
- In
*FTL: Faster Than Light*, rooms on spaceship can have pressure from 0 to 1 atmosphere (shown as white at 100% pressure and getting redder as it drops) which can be replenished by a working life support system and depleted by opened airlocks, fires, hull breaches, hacked life support or the Lanius. If pressure falls below 5% (indicated by red diagonal stripes), organic non-Lanius beings staying there start rapidly losing health and any fire there will get extinguished. Humorously, an upgraded medbay can restore health faster than underpressure depletes it.
- In the undersea levels of
*Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag*, Edward will slowly run out of air, shown on a meter. He can replenish his air by sticking his head in various pockets of air contained in overturned barrels or underwater caverns, or by simply returning to the diving bell used to reach the sea floor.
- All the
*Metal Gear Solid* games feature an oxygen meter, which determines how long you can MANAGE TO AVOID DROWNING underwater, survive poisonous gas, or resist being strangled.
- The first game, even though there is
*no* reason to backtrack all the way to the heliport after acquiring the gas mask, took the time to distinguish between water and gas just in case the player decided to take the gas mask all the way back to that briefly flooded air vent to see what happens if you wear it.
- Both Vamp and Liquid Ocelot, as bosses, also feature oxygen meters. The former has to resurface from the waste water when his meter empties (which you can speed up by shooting him or literally knocking the wind out of him by tossing in a grenade), while Ocelot's is purely cosmetic and only pops up when you're strangling him.
- The
*Thief* games have an oxygen meter that looks like a line of bubbles across the bottom of the screen. If you knock someone unconscious and dump him in water, he will die in about the same span of time you would (so don't dump unconscious guards in swimming pools if you're running a no-kill mission). Averted however in *Thief: Deadly Shadows*, where Garrett has learnt Super Drowning Skills.
-
*Duke Nukem Time To Kill* deviated from the first-person variant by actually providing the player with a LCD heads-up oxygen meter. There was the added caveat, however, of no scuba gear to be found.
- In
*Dead Space*, this becomes visible once you enter a vacuum. As it depletes, Isaac begins to choke and gasp, which is just wonderful for your concentration. Thankfully, your time limit can be extended with upgrades to your RIG and restored with air canisters.
-
*Mass Effect* features a variant; many levels have environmental hazards in the form of extreme heat, cold or gravitational pressure. The player is safe inside their vehicle, the Mako, but if they leave the vehicle, a meter will appear and slowly deplete. If it empties, the player receives constant damage, but the meter instantly fills back up if the player enters the Mako or a pressurized environment such as a building. Equipping certain types of armor that were noted as having been designed for use in hostile environments would slow or possibly even stop the meter from draining.
- In level 3 of
*MDK2*, Dr. Hawkins is trapped in a large room with an open airlock that's sucking him towards it. The player has 10 seconds, shown on the screen, to find a way to stop getting sucked into space and then find a spacesuit (or in this case a fishbowl) so he can breath.
-
*Resident Evil 6*: Leon is given one when he traversing through a flooded cavern with zombies while having to find safe spots to get some air.
- The aim of Survival missions in
*Warframe* is not just to Hold the Line against fiercer and fiercer enemies, but also to look after your draining life support meter, which can be replenished by tiny capsules dropped by enemies and larger capsules dropped by your Mission Control. When life support drops to 0, your life will start draining and you will have no choice but to extract; unless extraction is not available yet, in which case you fail the mission.
- In the pinball table
*Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (2023)*, the first stretch of Captain Cutler's mode requires the player to fill up an oxygen tank before going underwater to search for clues. The oxygen meter then serves as a time limit that can be refilled by hitting a specific set of targets. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrdinaryDrowningSkills |
Organ Grinder - TV Tropes
A specific type of Street Performer, the Organ Grinder is a Street Musician who would make a living turning the crank on a small, self-performing Pipe Organ (sometimes mistakenly called a hurdy-gurdy), usually with a trained monkey on a leash dancing around—alternatively, the monkey is the one turning the organ, and the human is just there to hold the leash. The monkey will often be a capuchin monkey, as they are easy to train and have been historically associated with organ grinders.
The organ grinder plays a small pneumatic organ by cranking a handle. The organs are typically wheeled. The organ grinder may rent the instrument by the day or week. In the US, there were allegations that the Mafia was involved in renting the instruments. The fairground calliope or circus organ, which is often mounted in merry-go-round rides, is a related type of instrument, as it is also a mechanical pneumatic organ. However, the fairground organ is larger and is typically mounted permanently on a ride, and uses steam or an electric motor.
More or less a Dead Horse Trope these days, but expect them to pop up in Period Piece stories set in the 19th and early 20th century. Fictional depictions may show the organ grinder being a lookout or they may even have a weapon hidden in the instrument.
During their heyday in the 1800s, they were not well-liked by authorities, who viewed organ grinders as lower-class, disreputable types. They were banned in some cities, because of complaints about the excessive noise they make, concerns about sidewalk congestion, and regulations against street performers requesting tips (some UK ordinances considered it a form of begging and a public nuisance). As well, music publishers sought to deal with organ grinders' copyright violations, as some of the musicians performed popular songs without paying royalties to the music publisher.
See also One-Man Band. Not to be confused with Meatgrinder Surgery or anything of the sort.
## Examples:
- Drocell Keinz in the anime adaptation of
*Black Butler* was first introduced carrying an organ grinder which played My Fair Lady.
-
*Princess Tutu* gave us Edel. Her organ grinder was also a portable jewelry display case since she sold the trinkets.
- Buster Keaton films:
- In
*The Cameraman*, Buster is in hot pursuit of a story to film when he crashes right into an organ grinder and his monkey. The monkey appears to be dead, so Buster has to pay the organ grinder. The monkey is only stunned, however, and soon wakes up to make more complications for Buster.
-
*Go West* has an amazingly racist gag in which Buster encounters an organ grinder playing, not for a monkey, but for a black man who is dancing in the street.
- In
*M*, an organ player is among the beggars tasked with keeping their eyes out for the murderer.
- The first shot of
*Scarlet Street* shows an organ grinder and his monkey performing on a sidewalk. This is either Foreshadowing of or symbolism for how the milquetoast protagonist is controlled and manipulated by his Femme Fatale lover.
- In
*Scarface*, there's one outside that amuses Cesca.
- In Soviet propaganda film
*Strike*, an organ grinder with a dancing bear appears. He is actually a spy sent by management to spy on the striking workers.
- In
*The Poor Little Rich Girl*, the titular Lonely Rich Kid hears an organ grinder (without a monkey) and pays him to come into her house.
- In
*Mighty Joe Young* (1949), the titular giant gorilla Joe is involved in a humiliating performance playing an organ grinder's monkey with Jill, acting as a little girl, turning the handle.
- In
*La Scoumoune* (1972), there's Migli, the recurring mustachioed supporting character who's sometimes seen playing the film's theme (composed by François de Roubaix) on his portable barrel organ. He was played by Mexican actor Enrique Lucero.
- In
*Batman Returns* the Penguin's circus gang had an evil organ grinder amongst their ranks, and he was apparently very high in command. His organ contained a hand cranked *gatling gun*, and in the Super Nintendo game based on the movie, he fires bullets at Batman and then just tries to hit Batman with the organ when he gets too close. His very presence was also kind of a stretch, since organ grinders are usually thought of as stand-alone street entertainers rather than members of circus troupes.
- Tia Dalma uses an organ grinder as a signal to some of the
*Black Pearl* pirates in *Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End*.
- One can be seen on the street in one scene of the Mexican film
*Santa Claus (1959)*. He's easy to miss, unless you're watching the *Mystery Science Theater 3000* version:
- In the Shirley Temple version of
*Heidi*, an organ grinder's monkey makes its way to the window of the Sesemann's mansion on a cold snowy day; Hilarity Ensues when Heidi is moved by both her compassion and the monkey's politeness to let it inside.
-
*She Done Him Wrong* uses one to help establish The Gay '90s setting.
-
*Dillinger*: An organ grinder is seen on the street as Dillinger and Helen make their fatal trip to the Biograph Theater.
-
*The Return of the Pink Panther*: Inspector Clouseau accosts a "blind" street musician with an accordion and a monkey for not having a busking license, distracting him from the bank robbery going on in the background (the musician was the robbers' lookout).
-
*Vivo* has Andrés, a street performer skilled with many instruments, one of which is an organ that doubles as a house for his partner Vivo note : who looks like a monkey but is actually a kinkajou.
- There's an old, old joke where one character is cooking a chicken on a spit, and a second character (usually The Ditz or The Stoner, depending on the era) stops to watch. After a few minutes, he speaks up: "Hey, man, I hate to tell you this... but your music stopped and your monkey's on fire."
- In Margaret Sidney's
*Five Little Peppers and How They Grew* an organ grinder stops at their house to perform for them. The littlest Pepper, Phronsie, follows him when he leaves and the other children have to chase after them.
-
*The Thinking Machine*: In "The Problem of the Organ Grinder", Van Dusen investigates when an organ grinder's monkey is stabbed to death while Hatch is held at knifepoint. The organ grinder is later found beaten into unconsciousness in an alleyway.
-
*Eden Weint Im Grab*'s *Moritat des Leierkastenmanns* ( *Murder ballad of the Organ Grinder*) feartures one as first person narrator.
- In
*The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time*, Link learns the Song of Storms from such a guy.
- Brother Triumphator from
*Turgor* is a giant humanoid mounted inside a barrel organ. In the battle with him, he keeps turning the crank of his organ to play his own Battle Theme Music, occasionally stopping to teleport away from the beating.
- The organ grinder is one of the most nefarious enemies in the old text-adventure game
*Beyond Zork.*
-
*Dishonored* has the Overseer Music Boxes, organ grinders worn by the foot soldiers of the Abby of the Everyman. The music boxes negate the magic of the Outsider by creating "mathematically pure notes" and can attack with waves of sound.
- An organ grinder and his monkey are minor characters in
*Labyrinths of the World 2: Forbidden Muse*.
-
*Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge*: Guybrush steals a piano-playing monkey in order to ||have it help operate a water-pump||.
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*Cow and Chicken*: There is a slightly recurring organ grinder character with a monkey has since decomposed into a skeleton, and the machine is literally grinding organs into powder. (It's uncertain as to whether the machine is grinding the musical instrument or body parts.)
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*Dexter's Laboratory*: The *Dial M fore Monkey* short "Organ Grindor" features the titular villain, a hypnotic organ grinder.
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*Droopy*: In *Dixieland Droopy*, Droopy practices being a jazz band conductor to a record, but after he's kicked out of his home, he looks for other places to play the record, and one of them is an organ grinder's organ.
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*Hey Arnold!*: In "Monkey Business", Helga gets bit by an organ grinder's monkey, causing her to believe she contracted a deadly disease.
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*House of Mouse*: In the short "Mickey's Mistake", Mickey Mouse disguises himself as a organ grinder with Pluto as his monkey named Saturn.
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*Looney Tunes*: In *The Hurdy-Gurdy Hare*, Bugs Bunny becomes a grinder and takes over the monkey's job after he catches him pocketing the profits.
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*Oswald the Lucky Rabbit*: In *Hungry Hobos*, Oswald and Pete try to hide from a policeman by disguising themselves as a monkey and grinder, respectively; Pete builds an impromptu hurdy-gurdy by hiding a cat, dog and pig in a box and cranking a car's motor inside to beat them and create noise.
- An organ grinder appears in the "Rhapsody In Blue" segment of
*Fantasia 2000*.
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*Popeye*: In *The Organ Grinder's Swing*, Wimpy is an organ grinder with a monkey; Popeye enjoys his music, while Bluto hates it, leading to a brawl to decide whether he stays or goes. Bluto eventually stomps the machine down to splinters, but one spinach-powered pounding later, he is smashed into a piano and Popeye cranks his arm so that he rotates and creates music. | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrganGrinder |
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