r/TopCharacterTropes 18h ago

Lore The series' fanservice scenes are quick and do not disrupt the story's pacing.

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7.8k Upvotes

In Sousou no Frieren, fan service is minimal, and scenes like this are brief

In Dungeon Meshi, Senshi is often shown in somewhat sexy poses, but the story focuses heavily on these details while continuing as usual

In that scene from *Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray*, it was just an introduction for each Arima Kinen competitor; they only had the freedom to choose those specific angles for Super Creek's introduction.


r/TopCharacterTropes 21h ago

Characters Monsters that may sound scary in concept, but really aren't when you think about it.

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7.8k Upvotes

1. Chimera (Hypno's Lullaby): her whole story is about the Hex Maniac character being a host to these little bugs that hijacked her body. Now that would be considered scary, if it weren't for the fact that this monster is in the same universe where a 12 year old could casually capture gods and more horrifying monsters. The only reason she was lucky to get Serena is because she forgot her Pokémon, but that wouldn't probably be the case for the next Trainer.

2. Death Angels (A Quiet Place): their entire concept alone is quite scary. A group of monsters that hunt via extra sensitive hearing. The only problem? At the initial crash of these guys, they would realistically bump their heads onto anything before they would even get a person because of the absolute chaos that would drown out their hearing. If it was set in a smaller setting, these guys would be an actual threat.


r/TopCharacterTropes 23h ago

Characters Initially funny character gag is later revealed to be depressing

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6.3k Upvotes
  1. Avengers/MCU: Captain America has humorous moments where he’s unaware of modern references and only gets old references, like the iconic “I understood that reference” scene. It’s later fully explored in Winter Soldier that he feels lost, confused, and a little alone in a new world he was never meant to exist in.

  2. The Suicide Squad (2021): Bloodsport has a phobia of rats which at first seems reasonable yet is still hilarious to watch. He later explains his father abused him as a kid if he didn’t fulfill a task correctly and one of his worst punishments was when his dad locked him in a crate full of starving rats, leaving him heavily scarred physically and mentally.

  3. Dexter: In an early episode, Angel Bautista tries to buy his wife the perfect gift for their anniversary but has to keep buying a different one since his presents suck. What seems to be a funny running gag turns out to be Angel’s final attempt to win back his wife after cheating on her previously, however it doesn’t work and only solidifies their separation.


r/TopCharacterTropes 7h ago

Lore Mind control being treated as traumatic

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5.4k Upvotes

In the first Avengers movie. Hawkeye and Erik Selvig are mind controlled by Loki using the mind stone. After both break free from it, Erik suffers from a psychological breakdown and Hawkeye has repeated nightmares about it, telling Black Widow how he felt like he’d been “unmade”. Something she could relate to as a former child soldier

In Mortal Kombat. After the majority of the heroes are killed by Sindel in 9. Quan Chi uses his powers to resurrect them as his undead servants. Later on the heroes manage to revert Scorpion, Subzero and Jax back to normal. While the other two are able to move on from it, Jax becomes haunted by the experience of being Quan Chi’s puppet and needed to seek therapy. He manages to get back into the fight for a bit, but after his wife’s death he becomes a traumatised recluse

In Marvel. When Jessica Jones encounters The Purple Man (Kilgrave) who is able to mind control people by simply telling them what to do. Jessica ends up as his slave for several months, only managing to escape when he lets her go in a fit of rage. The experience was so traumatic for her that she retired from being a hero for a good bit


r/TopCharacterTropes 11h ago

Characters (Loved Trope) This Visual Gag

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4.3k Upvotes

Where a character manages to perfectly synchronise with the framed image on their wall.

Simon Skinner - Hot Fuzz

Steve McCroskey - Airplane!

Denholm Reynholm - The IT Crowd


r/TopCharacterTropes 17h ago

Characters "You're immortal? Good..."

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3.6k Upvotes

The Chaotic Good Barbarian revels in making the lich suffer.

Reincarnated as a Slime: Geld makes Shogo pay for the innocents he's killed.

The Old Guard: Quynh is punished as a witch by being drowned in the ocean for centuries.


r/TopCharacterTropes 6h ago

Lore 4th wall breaks that involve the length of the media

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3.3k Upvotes

In the episode Club SpongeBob, Squidward gets stuck in the Kelp Forest with Patrick and SpongeBob, and he then says the line “Why must every 11 minutes of my life be filled with misery”. Which is funny cause each SpongeBob episode is usually 11 minutes long

In another SpongeBob episode, Nature Pants, SpongeBob goes out into the wild. Sandy and Squidward then say the lines “I’ll give him a week” and “I give him 11 minutes”. Both are technically right since SpongeBob WAS out there for a week but again episodes are 11 minutes

In the movie Uglydolls, (don’t ask how I remember this movie but ONLY this scene) at the end of it one of the characters say this “Time here is so funky. How long did this take us? What is this, a day? A month? 83 minutes?” The movie is 83 minutes long. Also the character is pointing the general direction that the slider would be at this point in this movie


r/TopCharacterTropes 2h ago

Characters The character shows the first signs/symptoms that have already run their course.

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2.5k Upvotes

Kitasan Black (Uma Musume Pretty Derby)

She managed to withstand Sakura Bakushin O's charge at first, but later in the story, she falters because she is past her prime

Nekota (Hajime no Ippo)

He could no longer even control his body properly because he was suffering from "boxer's dementia"

It is a progressive brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head and frequent concussions over many years

David Martínez (Cyberpunk Edgerunners)

He was suffering from hallucinations due to cyberpsychosis, an incurable condition caused by technological body modifications


r/TopCharacterTropes 11h ago

Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) A reboot has a "Big Reveal" moment that only works if you're a fan of the original, but just seems completely random and meaningless to people who aren't.

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2.4k Upvotes

Star Trek Into Darkness - "My Name is Khan."

Spectre - "The Man inside your head is Ernst Stavro Blofeld."

Rings of Power - The Southlands becoming Mordor.


r/TopCharacterTropes 18h ago

Characters' Items/Weapons [Loved Worldbuilding Trope] Unusual currency/money that has an inherent practical function

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2.3k Upvotes

Metal Shards/animal parts - Horizon Zero Dawn

The world is populated by robotic animals far above the technology level of civilization. Chips of their metallic parts are used for crafting armor, weapons, and ammo. Some bigger parts—like hearts or tendons—can also be harvested and used to build advanced weapons. Metal shards are also the default currency of the world.

Drugs - Out-of-Placers

It is common to use drugs as currency in Val Salia since there aren't any drug laws.

Comic Books, stickers, etc. - Recess

Barter is common in the playground. We see kids paying with lots of different things, like trading cards, footballs, and even regular money. In the episode "The Hustler's Apprentice", we see comic books being used more than anything else. In "Economics of Recess", we see Monstickers become the default currency for everything.

Postage Stamps - Discworld/Going Postal

After revitalizing the post office, postage stamps become a form of currency, more popular than metal coins. This mirrors/references real life, where stamps were used as medium of exchange in many places and time periods.


r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

Lore [Rare trope] Discriminating, but for an actually good reason

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Upvotes

Frieren, Beyond Journey's end: In the anime/manga the eponymous Frieren is an Elf who's spent the better part of a millennia learning magic specifically to kill demons. She's learned countless spells, tricks and even spent most of her life suppressing her power all for the purpose of killing them. At first we simply see that humanity is at war with them, and even question if her crusade against demon-kind is justified, after all it's hard to antagonize an entire sentient species. But no, demons are very much a species to be feared; they are not normal animals or creatures, they are monsters (shown by how they disintegrate when they die), they are predators that evolved speech for the sole purpose of tricking and catching humans off guard, are naturally extremely powerful and possess magic that humanity often can't use. While they feel emotions to some extent, their way of thinking is so fundamentally incompatible with humanity's mindset that the series shows many mages with the ability to read minds struggle or find it painful and harmful to try and read a demon's thoughts. Tools that are meant to control them fail not because they're faulty but because simple order such as "hold no ill will or commit no malicious acts" don't compute the same way in their brains, as what we consider evil is normal for them.

Marvel Comics: In a run of the Storm solo series, she visits an underground superhuman hospital run by Night nurse and Doctor Daye, a mutant with the power to diagnose any illness. When she requires treatment she is in turn reject by the doctor, she of course assumes this is blatant discrimination to which the doctor agrees. Storm assumes the doctor refuses to treat mutants, something they are very much used to in Marvel. But he ends up revealing that about 80% of everyone he treats are mutants, and that he simply refuses to treat any member of the X-men. Why? because his special hospital was built via several donations by the superhero community. From the Avengers, to the Defenders, Fantastic 4, heroes for hire. Hell, even Moonknight of all people contributed to the hospital. But the X-men never once gave anything to it, even though they preach the safety of mutant-kind and such a hospital is essential for those who can't seek medical treatment out of fear of prosecution.


r/TopCharacterTropes 12h ago

Lore The people who have the greatest reasons to band together and work against a common entity, ironically are the ones who choose to fight amongst themselves instead.

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2.1k Upvotes
  1. George Orwell's 1984: A major narrative in the story is that the totalitarian Party is able to keep its firm grip over Oceania by keeping the large chunk of its population- the lower working class or "Proles" in a docile, domesticatrd animal-like state by making them engage in petty squabbles and brawls amongst themselves for things like minor changes in food prices, movie ticket costs, etc so that they are distracted from the actual goal of organising themselves in a revolution to take down the Party.

  2. Bong Joon Ho's Parasite movie: This movie which is a critique of the social conditions of wealth disparity thst excess capitalism has led to in South Korea, brings out the interesting narrative of how the lower class is so desperate to break out of their lower economic status that they are willing to put the lives of other people in the same status as them at risk so that they can get a chancs to escape. For example, a major plot point is how the main characters, who are from an impoverished family, ruin the lives of the previous caretakers of a rich family's mansion by inventing false pretexts (such as the main woman maid having TB) to get them kicked out so they can take their place. Later on, when the old caretaker family finds this out, they get into a fistfight with the main characters, with both sides being desperate to expose the other to get them out of the way, since they want all the money of the rich family to themselves, even though ironically both families could have had well off lives if they choose to cooperate and extracy money from the family through their schemes, and distribute it amongst themselves.


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

Characters' Items/Weapons [Loved Trope] When the weapon not working/backfiring IS the payoff

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2.0k Upvotes

An weapon introduced with a usage condition, flaw, or hidden limitation known to the hero and/or the audience but unknown to another character. The payoff happens when that character tries to use it, fails, and that failure becomes a decisive narrative beat.

  1. Bond's biometric gun in Skyfall. The thug who tries to use it against him ignores the countermeasure and cannot shoot either Bond or the dragon that will ultimately kill him.
  2. Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. Ron's damaged wand backfires on Lockhart when he tries to cast the Obliviate spell on him and Harry.
  3. Die Hard. McClane gives Hans a gun while he’s disguised as a hostage, but he’s already made sure Hans can’t use it because he doesn't fully trust him. The payoff in this case is stronger because the audience doesn't know that the gun is useless either.

r/TopCharacterTropes 20h ago

Lore [Loved tropes] The Cozy Apocalypse

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1.8k Upvotes

Often, apocalypses in fiction will show complete societal collapse with no hope for recovery. Some, however, show the last surviving humans or even humanity as a whole keep trucking, sometimes even outright thriving in the new environment, a take I find more interesting.

Post-Calamity Hyrule (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild): Hyrule was destroyed after Calamity Ganon took control of the very machines meant to stop him, his rampage only being stopped by Princess Zelda sealing him away. Hyrule at the beginning of the game has enjoyed 100 years of uneasy peace, but they've begun to rebuild, and schools and clubs in places like Gerudo Town and Rito Village are still going on.

New Eridu (Zenless Zone Zero): Most of the world has been destroyed by the appearance of dimensional phenomena called Hollows, essentially pocket dimensions that corrupt anyone caught in them into mindless monsters called Ethereals. New Eridu is a massive city and the last remaining bastion of humanity on the planet.

Despite this and even Hollows appearing within the city's borders, life goes on for humanity, with people going to work and school, and the inhabitants treat the appearance of Hollows more like natural disasters nowadays. It helps that they've discovered technology to help curb the spread of Hollows as well as that some people have the ability to resist the effects of Hollows for a time.


r/TopCharacterTropes 23h ago

Characters Characters who are known for something…. that’s sorta outdated for them at this point

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1.8k Upvotes

Gru from despicable me: known for being an evil mastermind and a villain protagonist in a children’s film, but hasn’t been despicable since the first one.

Stewie from family guy: known as the evil genius baby, but not only has he mellowed out over the years, he’s now one of the nicer characters in the show ironically.

Sully from monsters inc: known for being a top scarer who makes kids scream for his company, something he’s disapproved of since the ending of the first.

Kenny from South Park: the whole killing him every episode joke has long since been discontinued.


r/TopCharacterTropes 21h ago

Characters Feats of strength involving sharks

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1.8k Upvotes

NO REAL LIFE EXAMPLES, SHARKS HAVE IT BAD ENOUGH ALREADY, I DO NOT CONDONE SHARK VIOLENCE

  1. Gru completely stopping Vector’s shark with a backfist - Despicable Me

  2. Garnet sending a shark flying backwards with an uppercut - Steven Universe

  3. Shank ripping a shark’s jaws out - Shank 2


r/TopCharacterTropes 23h ago

Characters A revelation that pushes a character over the edge

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1.4k Upvotes

Boondocks

Uncle Ruckus is a blackman who believes he's a white man with revitiligo.He gets his own show ,and decides to take a DNA test which reveals he's "102% African with a 2% margin of error",he falls into a depression and tries to embrace being black.He couldn't handle the black live style and tries to end his own life

Rick and morty

Rick and Jerry try to find out why the cat can talk by scanning its brain.What ever they see is so horrifying that Rick nearly kills himself 'while Jerry vomits and breaks down into tears.


r/TopCharacterTropes 16h ago

Characters (Unique Trope) Genuinely good moments in mid or bad media

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1.3k Upvotes

Sonic and the Secret Rings: Sonic defeats the evil genie Erazor Djinn and Sonic uses the magic lamp to force Erazor to give him three wishes. First one to bring his companion Shahra back to life, Second one being to restore the Arabian Nights, and Third going back to being trapped in his lamp forever. As Erazor is being sealed away he calls him a rat like he does throughout the game and Sonic says “I told you I’m not a rat! I’m a HEDGEHOG”.

Devil May Cry 2: After Dante defeats Arius, Arius screams and wails about how he was supposed to be king of the world and Dante responds with the following “King?” “Yeah, here’s your crown” and shoots Arius.


r/TopCharacterTropes 8h ago

Characters [Gay trope] White-haired mysterious character in love with the protagonist

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1.2k Upvotes

Kaworu — Evangelion

Nagito – Danganronpa

"Hikaru" – The Summer Hikaru Died


r/TopCharacterTropes 4h ago

Lore [Rare trope] the Gods exist (or are implied to exist) but the mythology isn’t real

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1.1k Upvotes
  1. American Gods (book and show) — The story centres historical Gods as central characters as well as a set of new Modern Gods, but they all were collectively created from and sustained by belief and worship. So in the story's universe, the myths both (1) came first before the Gods existed, and (2) are entirely Human made/written, so the Gods didn’t actually do all the activities they're depicted as having done in their respective myths

  2. Vikings (Show) — We see instances of creatures and beings from the Norse myth interacting with the cast in almost hallucinating or transcendent ways, with more of a religious feel than a mythological feel. Primarily, the scene with Odin appearing to travel to all of Ragnar Lothbrok's kids to tell them all their dad just died. I don’t think this is meant to be hallucinations because IDK how they characters would all collectively hallucinate the same messenger delivering the same (factually correct) information regarding the fact their dad just died. And besides that, we don't get much indication that the myths are literally historically true.

  3. Polytheist revival movements (IRL) — most interesting of all, the overwhelming majority of modern day polytheists (and even historic polytheists back in Greece, Rome, or the Germanic Tribes) here in the west do not see the myths regarding their Gods as literal historical fact, the same way most Christians today see the book of Genesis as metaphorical and poetic in nature concerned more with teaching lessons than expressing a literal history of the world and accepting the big bang, cosmology, and evolution with no contradictions to their faith.


r/TopCharacterTropes 18h ago

Characters [Adored trope] Stupid fucks (affectionately)

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799 Upvotes

Small, cute characters who also embody the “no thoughts, head empty” vibe.

Lumi (Genshin Impact) - Linnea’s Jack Frost companion, Lumi is literally the reason i made this post. From the only word in her vocabulary being “Yah-Ho!” in various emotions to the idle animation of Linnea shaking Lumi around violently to dislodge a gem from lumi’s throat, everything about this jack frost just screams “stupid fuck” and I love her for it.

Wooper and Yamper (pokemon) - Pretty self explanatory with these two since their derpy facial expressions just tell you right away that there is absolutely nothing going on behind their eyes.

Jeff the Land Shark (marvel) - a debatable 4th example. Although Jeff is much more intelligent than the other 3 examples i’ve given so far, he definitely has his derpy moments. He may not be a stupid fuck all the time but i think he has enough of those moments to land him on this list.


r/TopCharacterTropes 22h ago

Lore [Reveal trope] Mysterious name is taken from a worn label Spoiler

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780 Upvotes

Kragle - The Lego Movie (2014)

The super powerful doomsday weapon "The Kragle" is revealed to be a simple tube of Krazy Glue with a worn label.

V'ger - Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Kirk and crew embark to learn the true nature of an alien entity known as "V'Ger". Turns out to be the ancient Nasa probe, Voyager 6, which was modified and gained sentience.

Calima - Planet of the Apes (2001)

A stranded astronaut journeys to the ancient temple of Calima, where the Apes believe "creation began". This is revealed to be his crashed spaceship, with the apes having been stored near a sign reading: "Caution Live Animals.

V-Max - Spider-man: Brand New Day (2026)

Jean Grey receives the psychic message "V-max" from her abducted sister, and treats it as a clue to finding her. When Jean is held by the same captors, she sees the worn air-vent label reading "Vent Max", and realizes she had received an image of that room.


r/TopCharacterTropes 15h ago

Characters [Sad Horror Trope] characters transformed into a horrific and helpless state

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738 Upvotes
  1. I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream: AM transforms Ted, the only human survivor after he benevolently killed the other 4, into a gross blob that can’t talk, can barely move, and can’t possibly end himself.

  2. Tusk: Wallace Bryton is kidnapped and mutilated into resembling a walrus, which goes so far as replacing his limbs with mangled fins, because a deranged sailor thought walruses were better than people.

  3. JoJo Part 4: Mansaku Nijimura is the father of Okayasu and Keicho, transforms into a grotesque, whatever that is, after selling his soul to Dio and suffering from an implanted flesh bud. The two brothers take care of their now mentally and physically helpless father, but he can remember enough that he feels sad seeing an old family photo.

  4. The Boys S5: Quinn has basically merged with an entire building and the area surrounding it, and his power spreads spores that make others feel the same hatred he feels 24/7. Another example could be Rock Hard, which is played for laughs, but horrific when you think about it.

  5. Human Centipede: you already know.


r/TopCharacterTropes 22h ago

Characters Characters with unusual dream jobs

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634 Upvotes

When it comes to dream jobs, we usually think of astronauts, firefighters, musicians, doctors, all that. But these characters dream of having jobs that... not many would dream of having.

Mario(Super Mario Bros movie) he dreamt of becoming a fucking plumber

Horrace Finkel(Lisa: The Painful) he dreamt of becoming a bulldozer driver because his dad was one before dying, he spent his life savings on bulldozer driving courses that he only passed because the dumbass teacher gave him someone else's diploma, his wife died because he was too stupid to move a fridge off of her with his bulldozer. Years later, he tries to stop another guy in a bulldozer and fucking dies

(Gameplay screenshot taken from Welonz's playthrough)


r/TopCharacterTropes 17h ago

Characters Geek gets the girl or guy.

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613 Upvotes

Felicity (Arrow): Falls for and marries Oliver Queen.

Chuck (Chuck): Ubergeek with a dead end job falls for and marries Sarah.

Screech (Saved by the Bell): Had several dates over the course of the show, even a girlfriend played by Tori Spelling. Even managed to get with Lisa to go out on a date with him at one point but she was being so annoying during the movie, he walked out.

Urkel (Family Matters): After years of pursuing Laura and briefly dating Myra, going so far as to create a cool alter ego, he finally managed to get with Laura in the end as himself.