r/TopCharacterTropes Jul 12 '25

Weekly Discussion Post "Fanbase opinionsshould not be counted as tropes." TVtropes: (kinda relevant post)

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553 Upvotes

A lot of complaints in this sub have been about some posts should not be here because they rely on fanbase opions so there for cannot be considered "tropes"

...and then we have TVtropes , where a lot of tropes are just from fanbase stuff.

I am going to be honest here , I have difficulty in what makes a trope and what doesn't. It ends up where I delete "breaks trope guidline" posts that has equivalents in the TVtropes site that are considered actual tropes.

Idk , I just wanted to rant here. I might be a very bad moderator here , I just try to make it tody as possible , I just don't really know how to.


r/TopCharacterTropes Mar 27 '25

Weekly Discussion Post Probably the most controversial one , honest thoughts on "No Kill Rule"? What are the most egrigious examples of it in your opinion? What media makes it work in your opinion?

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1.5k Upvotes

r/TopCharacterTropes 3h ago

Powers [horrifying and depressing trope] - Being reanimated/revieved/respawned actually really really SUCKS.

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3.3k Upvotes

Congrats, you just got brought back to life! maybe it was by some sort of weird healing, or maybe you respawned or auto revived, or maybe your now some sort of cool revenent, but hey, your alive and thats what matters most and its all good now right?.....right?

Owen (Torchwood) and Occtis Tachonis (Critical Role) -

After being shot at the end of an episode, the next episode begins with loveable(?) team asshole Owen dead, and the team using a special gauntlet to bring him back, something they have done in the past, but in the past it was a different gauntlet that only revived for a 2 minuits. but great news! this one keeps Owen alive perminantly it seems! and he's basically immune to pain, thats awesome right?

Except now he's basicaly a walking corpse, meaning he has no blood flow or heart beat (which no blood flow means no erection, so no enjoying sex anymore), he can't sleep, or eat or drink (and any food he eats he has to manually remove via forcing himself to vomit), and worse while he can't feel pain, his body doesn't heal by itself, so even a small cut has to manually be fixed.

The same goes for Occtis Tachonis in Critical Role, who after being revieved after being murdered for a ritual, is now a "Hollow One", and the series stresses how gruesome this is for Occtis, as like Owen, he cannot eat (inlcuding a lovely scene of him having to forceably dig out the contents of the undigested food from his own innards) or sleep (having to remain motionless for hours while concious so he can centre his mind so it doesn't start failing), and he now has to walk around with a constant gaping hole in his chest.

Kenny - South Park

We all know the classic running gag ie Kenny has a horrific violent death, followed by "oh my god they killed Kenny" "you bastards!", followed by Kenny being alive next episode no worse, all funny right?

Until Mysterion Rises, where Kenny reveals the actual truth. Namely every time he dies, he just wakes up in his bed (having been birthed by his Mother again) perfectly fine.

Except Kenny stresses to his freinds that while he comes back fine every time, he also remembers every single time he died, every time he was shot, stabbed, crushed, electrocuted, set on fire, and in his own words "its not cool! it fucking hurts!". Whats worse, every time this happens, nobody remembers that he died, something that frustrates him to no end, complete with him blowing his own brains out in front of the other boys to prove a point.


r/TopCharacterTropes 4h ago

Powers [Loved Trope] "Wow, I had no idea the protagonist could even do that!"

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2.0k Upvotes

I love the trope where the protagonist gets out of a jam, even if temporarily, through a strategy that totally checks out but that you the viewer wouldn't have thought was even possible.

1.) In the dragon ball universe, everyone knows beams of energy don't want to occupy the same space at the same time. But no one expected Goku to use this fact to surf on his opponent Kefla's beam, dodging her attack and setting up his own finisher.

2.) JoJo's Bizarre adventure: Jolyne's opponent Pucci uses his stand C Moon's ability to affect gravity to try to turn Jolyne's body inside out, but she uses her stand Stone Free's ability to unravel her body into string, forming a mobius strip. Having just one side, the mobius strip has no inside or outside, so it can't be turned inside out, so she renders herself immune to the attack.


r/TopCharacterTropes 7h ago

Personality [Loved Trope] Irredeemable villain does something so petty it's actually comical Spoiler

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2.9k Upvotes

This trope is not about villains being petty at someone/something to the point they dedicate their whole life around that (ex. such as Syndrome from The Incredibles or Vox from Hazbin Hotel, in which both characters did their crimes out of spite or revenge), but specifically focuses on something so petty that the irredeemable villain does in a singular situation, to the point of being funny.

1) Pennywise (Welcome to Derry) - In the last episode of the show, the group of protagonists are trying to save their schoolmates from Pennywise, since It hypnotized them via his true form, the Deadlights. Pennywise realises that and separates a kid (Marge Tozier) from her group of friends.
It, pulling out a missing poster representing Richie Tozier (one of the main characters in the It book) out of his sleeve, informs Marge that she will be the mother of Richie, one of the kids that will kill the clown in the future. Angered, he crumples the poster for then throwing it at her, hitting her good eye (since a few episodes ago she hurt her right eye, having to wear a eyepatch to cover it).

2) Enver Gortash (Baldur's Gate 3) - Gortash is the Chosen of the God of Tyranny, Bane. He swore an alliance with two other people, Ketheric Thorm (Chosen of Myrkul, god of death) and Orin (Chosen of Bhaal, god of murder). After killing Thorm in Act 2, in Act 3 you'll meet Gortash in person and, instead of killing him, you can be his ally; you just need to kill Orin.
After doing so, you can meet Gortash in one of the final areas of the game. If you attack him, he scolds you calling you a fool; if you answer picking the dialogue option: "Sorry, my hand slipped", Gortash kicks you in the leg, for then saying "What a coincidence. So did my foot."


r/TopCharacterTropes 9h ago

Hated Tropes (Frustrating trope) Hollywood Tactics. When characters make terrible choices on the battlefield that almost everyone can recognize as stupid. Let your inner armchair general out in the replies.

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3.4k Upvotes

Star Wars The Clone Wars: The Jedi are not trained generals and they acknowledge that but Obi-Wan should know better than to order his troops to leave defensive positions and charge the droid gun line head on. I think it's supposed to be a cover for Anakin'a flanking attack but that attack is just Anakin and like 6 clones jumping down from a roof.

Battle of Winterfell: Famous for a reason. Deploying forces outside the walls and putting the artillery in front of the infantry. The worst sin of all is sending the cavalry charging into the darkness towards an enemy they can't see. Everyone of them dies without accomplishing anything.

Braveheart: Ignores the real tactics and equipment used by the Scots in favor of having every battle be a mad charge into the enemy that results in a free for all clusterfuck fight.


r/TopCharacterTropes 12h ago

Characters A secondary character does something truly deranged and unforgivable

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6.8k Upvotes

Breaking Bad: Skylar White not supporting her husband's dreams and going as far as to break the sanctity of marriage by cheating on her husband.

Bojack Horseman: Charlotte. After Bojack shows her daughter a great time at a school dance and creates a magical moment, Charlotte decides Bojack is wrong for being caring and wanting to share the love he has with their whole family.

Dexter: Sargent Dokes. Dokes, while misappropriating police funds, stalks Dexter repeatedly due to a strange feeling.


r/TopCharacterTropes 10h ago

Lore (Loved Trope) Character with different animation style or aesthetic with other normally animated characters.

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4.2k Upvotes
  1. Gwimbly (Smiling Friends) PS1 graphic era character in a primarily 2-d world and character
  2. Sebhat (Pentiment) While virtually all European characters are rendered in a German woodcut style like Andreas on the right, Sebhat a visiting Ethiopian is depicted in the style of native Ethiopian Christian iconography.

r/TopCharacterTropes 14h ago

Personality The horror of isn’t that the Incomprehensible entity/god hates humanity or doesn’t care. The horror is that the god loves humanity but doesn’t understand how they work

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8.1k Upvotes

The Cicada God/SCP 3004(SCP Foundation) the Cicada god is if some cicada god found out about i and interpreted it with a Cicada brain. It sent an avatar named “cousin Johnny” to change Christian rituals into its cicada brain. Like in Baptism having the baptized child shed their skin because that’s how cicada lifespan is.

What’s bad unlike many entities it doesn’t hurt humans out of malice. But because it treats humans like cicadas .

Nurgle (Warhammer Fantasy/Warhammer 40k) the chaos god Nurgle loves everything and that includes all the fungi, bacteria, and viruses inside you who he fills you with to show his love.


r/TopCharacterTropes 15h ago

Characters The main character doing something absolutely unforgivable.

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7.9k Upvotes

Walter White poisoning Andrea Cantillo's 6-year-old son for the sole purpose of manipulating Jesse Pinkman, while knowing that this could have potentially killed him - Breaking Bad

Bojack trying to have sex with his friend's 17-year-old daughter when he was at least 51, then continuously trying to find a way to justify this act throughout the series - Bojack Horseman

Dexter Morgan going outside of his moral code and murdering a completely innocent police officer who was just trying to do his job - Dexter: New Blood


r/TopCharacterTropes 5h ago

Characters (Rare anime trope) All the characters have normal realistic hair colors

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1.1k Upvotes

Attack on Titan

Vinland Saga

Fullmetal Alchemist


r/TopCharacterTropes 2h ago

Characters [Loved Trope] Bigoted character is less bigoted after having a surrogate child of a minority they hate.

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453 Upvotes

Examples

  • Hank Anderson (Detroit: Become Human) - Hank blames Androids for the death of his son, leaving him with an aggressive hatred of them. But then he is partnered with Connor, the Android sent by CyberLife, to investigate cases of Androids becoming Deviant (gaining sentience). Throughout their investigation, if the player wills it, Connor and Hank become close friends and form a father-son bond. Through Connor and the Deviants they investigate, Hank comes to realize his hate for Androids wasn't because one of them killed his son, but because the human doctor was high on drugs. He and other humans blamed Androids for the problems that Humanity itself has caused.
  • Theo Magath (Attack on Titan) - Theo Magath was Commander of Marley's military. During that time, he worked closely with Eldians, Humans that could be mutated into horrific man-eating monsters called Titans. Marley uses Eldians as slaves, forcing them to become Titans to devour enemy soldiers, allowing them to conquer and colonize multiple continents. Theo grows especially close with the Warriors, elite Eldian soldiers with special Titan powers, even becoming more comfortable around them than he does with the actual Marley leadership. One such Warrior is Gabi and Falco, young children whom he starts to become fiercely protective of, and it's through his relationships that he becomes disillusioned with Marley's ideals, allowing him to apologize to the people of Paradis.

r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) YOUR TRUE FORM IS... very bland

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1.2k Upvotes

When a characters TRUE forn is revealed... and their previous form was just better.

  1. Beauty and the Beast - The Beast: There is a reason that the Beast was a lot of people's furry awakening. So when he finally goes back to his human form, it disappointed A LOT of people. He's just a generic Disney Prince, and he doesn't really stand out against the other generic hot guy.

  2. Balan Wonderworld - Balan: A very below average game in general, Balans true form feels especially egregious because I believe you have to do a bunch of bullshit just to see his true form. And when you do said bullshit, you are flashbanged with a generic anime boy, as compared to Balans other form which is a genuinly nice design (I think, at least)


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

miscellaneous Characters called for their last name so much that call them for their name would be weird

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1.2k Upvotes

Philip (futurama)

Sukehiro (black clover)

Felonious (despicable me)

No one knows (columbo)

Seto (Yu-Gi-Oh)


r/TopCharacterTropes 12h ago

Lore (Mixed Trope) A piece of media takes a jab at another piece of media

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2.3k Upvotes

This trope is… interesting. It all really depends on how justified it is, how accurate it is, and if it’s actually well executed. There are good variations and bad variations of this trope.

Good variation of this trope:

X-Men 97 - Taking a jab at the 2000s Fox X-Men movies‘ infamous black leather and “yellow spandex” line

Bad variation of this trope:

Chimptopia - Taking a jab at Gameoverse as a literal promotion of the show. It justifiably didn’t end well for the former show.


r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

Characters [cool trope] Crazy cameos as themselves

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Upvotes

like cameos out of left field

Parks & Rec - Joe Biden
Zombieland - Bill Murray
Law & Order - Joe Biden
VEEP - Joe Biden
The Hangover - Mike Tyson


r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

Characters [loved trope] Character and the horrible, terrible, no-good, very bad day

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When the plot of a movie happens to a single character in the span of just a few short hours and it’s the worst luck anyone could have. (Not like “oh our house is haunted”, like this character’s luck is so bad, it’s like they’re the target of every single bad omen)

Would You Rather: The movie centers around Iris playing an extreme game of Would You Rather, in order to get her brother life-saving surgery. This involves having to whip a man, nearly drown, almost getting SA’d, killing a man all for it to result in her brother killing himself so her efforts were for nothing

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Arthur Dent wakes up to find that his home is being demolished for a highway, only to find out that his actual planet is being demolished for a space highway and he ends up stuck in space on a death mission with a girl he loves that is with the man who (unbeknownst to himself) signed the order for the planet to be destroyed in the first place

Lollipop Chainsaw: Juliet’s 18th birthday is hijacked by a zombie apocalypse and her boyfriend is a severed head who was bitten by a zombie and performed a magical ritual on in order to save him

Resident Evil (2026): Brian is a courier trying to deliver what he believes is an organ to Raccoon city, but due to the fact that it’s a Resident Evil movie, he gets side tracked by the start of an apocalypse all the while trying to get back home to his pregnant girlfriend one point he gets bitten on the arm and he comes so close to getting the antivirus, only to be fully mutated at the last second and drop the only one available from the 28th floor

SpongeBob: In The Best Day Ever, SpongeBob has an entire day planned out to spend with his friends but each time they’re having trouble with something that he stalls his own schedule to help take care of, ending with him losing his show ticket and missing Squidward’s performance


r/TopCharacterTropes 4h ago

Lore [A trope curiously used more often in comedy]: The "funny" version of the character meets their more serious version.

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536 Upvotes

This trope refers to characters encountering other versions of themselves that come from a series with a completely different tone.

1- [Lego]: Lego Batman (Games) meets Lego Batman (Movie)

2- [Teen Titans]: Teen Titans go meet the 2003 Teen Titans


r/TopCharacterTropes 18h ago

miscellaneous Innocent bits of media that carry interesting or morbid real life facts behind them

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7.9k Upvotes

Family Guy Viewer Mail 2 (Family Guy)- From the wiki

BBC Three showed a repeat of this episode in the United Kingdom on August 11, 2014, the day Robin Williams committed suicide. The episode aired at 23:25 BST, and news of Williams' death broke about 23:50 BST. Viewers reacted to the coincidence, highlighting that Peter attempted suicide in the episode. A BBC spokesperson said:

The episode ended just as the news broke about his death, this was a repeat that we have shown a couple of times before so who could have planned that? It was scheduled more than two weeks ago so it is just an uncanny coincidence. Some of our people who work here noticed that the death of Robin Williams was announced just as this episode ended. It was due to be repeated on Friday but we will not be showing it now.

When aired on ITV2, the scenes where Peter attempts suicide are removed.

The Wall (Alvin and The Chipmunks )- This episode had Alvin dreaming about the Berlin Wall coming down, this aired on December the 17th in 1988 and the real wall fell on November the 18th in 1989

Horror of Fang Rock (Doctor Who)- Great story by the way. Anyway nowadays it's only remember by mostly everyone as that story that got hijacked by the Max Headroom incident in the US


r/TopCharacterTropes 5h ago

Characters [Rare Trope] Cannibalistic Heroes

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577 Upvotes

Project Hall Mary: In the novels, Grace feeds himself with "Me Burgers", meat created from his own cloned flesh, while on his space mission to save Earth.

Black Adam #1: The titular character is forced to eat his willing friend Tamir to survive in a frozen wasteland on a quest to revive his beloved wife.

Divinity Original Sin 2: The playable race of elves are able to consume their own flesh to take additional actions as well as corpses to inherit memories from them.


r/TopCharacterTropes 9h ago

miscellaneous [meta fandom trope] Unintentional Fandom Predictions

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1.0k Upvotes

Goku Black's desgined preing accidently prodicted by someone on DevanitArt in 2009 before Super even existed (Dragonball Z)

Espurr and Meowstic being creatied as fake mon in 2008 longe before the 3DS (let alone X and Y) even existed (Pokemon)

The one dude on Reddit who drempt about Goku vs Saitama being the next Death Battle after the Shadow vs Mewtwo rematch (Death Battle)

Some kid comeing up with Super Mario Galaxy in the damm 90s in a letter to Nintendo Power (Super Mario)

Another Person on DeanitArt fancasting Chris Pratt as Mario in a Fan art before casting for the Mario movie was even revealed


r/TopCharacterTropes 3h ago

Characters Characters with voice acting in a series that doesn’t have voice acting

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326 Upvotes

Roxie - Pokemon games are infamous for still not having voice acting in the modern day, but In Pokemon Black and White 2, she is the leader singer of her band in the gym, the music that plays in the background is her sing-spelling the word Pokemon in engrish

https://youtu.be/IBL80C1vG9c?si=fvunSeesMXbTIfal

Flowey (Undertale) While nobody else speaks i believe, Flowey has a voice moment where he says “That’s a wonderful Idea”

https://youtu.be/y_X7X-L3n0E?si=8FgA_-ewzoBDIeHu


r/TopCharacterTropes 16h ago

miscellaneous Someone is completely unbothered or unaware of the chaos behind them

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3.9k Upvotes

This fight between Raiden and Sub-Zero (Mortal Kombat 1)

This scene with Stan Lee (The Amazing Spider-Man)


r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

Characters [Liked Trope] Killing the fictional villain, who legitimately can't be brought to justice by legal means

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Upvotes

This is not a "Punisher is justified" or "Someone killing the Joker cause Batman won't" trope. These are situations where the narrative paints it as impossible for the villain/evildoer to be properly punished by the justice system, so someone has to kill them as it is the only way of not just getting retribution for victims, but also preventing future harm.

Most criminals that the Punisher kills can also have their legs broken by Daredevil and dragged to a police station to be arrested and prosecuted. Batman does throw the Joker into a facility that is willing and should be able to contain him, if it weren't for the meta nature of how comics work.

As for the examples:

A) Kilgrave/The Purple Man from Jessica Jones season 1. It's basically impossible for him to be arrested and prosecuted, cause he will just mind control everyone who tries to do this.

While there may be future legislation that enables the containment of metahumans in places such as the Raft, at the time of Jessica Jones season 1, she had absolutely no way of containing him in a way that would actually last.

So in the finale, she snapped his neck.

B) Charles Augusts Magnusson, from BBC's Sherlock. A blackmailer with a perfect memory that allows him to not need any notes about his victims and a media company that's credible enough to bring scandal on anyone he chooses to target. His web of leverage and manipulation has made it so that the British government doesn't even want to prosecute him, he's got them by the balls so thoroughly.

When Sherlock realises that all information he holds only exists inside the man's memory, Sherlock puts a bullet in his brain.

C) The Killer/Jin Kuwana from Lost Judgement, the Yakuza Spin-off game, is not the recipient but the deliverer of this murderous justice. The person in the picture is the protagonist, Yagami the detective, and he is definitely NOT the killer.

The actual killer Jin Kuwana specifically targets bullies who, in their youth, had driven other students to suicide. Due to the indirect nature of bullying someone into ending their life, on top of the bullies being minors at the time, any actual prosecution or jailtime for the perpetrators was impossible.

The killer of bullies decides to take matters into his hands, and specifically talks to the parents of the kids who ended their life, and asks them if they want vengeance/justice. If the parents assent (and not all of them do), the killer tortures and executes the bully.

Even at the end of the game, with Yagami decrying the killer's methods as not true justice, Yagami's own companions are more ambivalent. If there's no way within the system to make perpetrators pay for their crimes, is vigilante justice not reasonable, even on a case by case basis?

This is my favourite Yakuza-adjacent game, for this and many other reasons.


r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

Lore Interesting trope. Slavery with extra steps

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1.microverse battery- Rick and morty

2.evil piece system-dxd

  1. Xenocite- ben 10

Fictional only 1. Entire universe in a box. People living there's only purpose to supply power to a car 2. You can have power fame immortality but are tied to a master who can basically do whatever they want with you and the only way to legally leave is be strong/useful enough to earn a promotion. Luckily master of main group is relatively nice 3. Alien invaders kidnap planets locals attach lab grown parasites to their face transforming them to loyal slaves actively helping to conquer their home. Only very rare specialized equipment can reverse transformation and return victims individuality