Tropes about tropes. It is easy to get this confused with a category for tropes that share some commonality or are tropes that are particularly universal. That's not what this is about. It is about how tropes come into existence, live, mutate, evolve, and die.
Tropes
- Averted Trope: The trope is not used in a situation where one would expect it.
- Bait-and-Switch: Subversion as humor.
- Characteristic Trope: Trope becomes discredited due to audience associating it with a certain show.
- Conversational Troping: Tropes are discussed between multiple people within a work.
- Cyclic Trope: The trope alternates between being played straight and discredited.
- Dead Horse Trope: Not only is the trope discredited, but the parodies, subversions, etc. are more common and well-known than straight use ever was.
- Dead Unicorn Trope: The so-called Dead Horse Trope was never used seriously to begin with.
- Deconstructed Trope: Trope is played straight, but with realistic consequences.
- Defied Trope: A character says and/or does something to the effect of: "You thought we were going to use this trope? Hell no!"
- Discredited Trope: A trope that no one plays straight anymore, lest they face ridicule.
- Discussed Trope: A trope is discussed within the work.
- Double Subversion: The trope looks like it's going to be subverted, but is then played straight.
- Downplayed Trope: The trope is played straight, but to a lesser degree than most uses.
- Enforced Trope: Tropes that are forced into a work by an outside source (usually those in charge or Moral Guardians), even if the writer didn't want to include them.
- Evolving Trope: The trope evolves after a period of disuse and become relevant again.
- Exaggerated Trope: Trope is played straight, with over-the-top results.
- Exploited Trope: A character is aware of a trope and tries to take advantage of it.
- Forgotten Trope: A trope that no one uses at all anymore.
- Gender-Inverted Trope: Trope specific to one gender is used with the other in mind.
- Implied Trope: Trope is hinted at, but not shown happening.
- Intended Audience Reaction: When an Audience Reaction is intentionally invoked by the authors or creators.
- Inverted Trope: The opposite of what one expects is done.
- Invoked Trope: Character sets up a trope on purpose.
- Justified Trope: Trope is given a good reason for occurring.
- Lampshade Hanging: Illogical trope is mocked in-universe.
- Logical Extreme: Trope is pushed to its logical limit, without exaggeration.
- Newer Than They Think: This isn't as old as most people think it is.
- Older Than They Think: This has been around far longer than you think.
- Omnipresent Tropes: Tropes that are present in pretty much all fiction, usually by necessity.
- Overdosed Tropes: Tropes that are present in nearly all media, but not by necessity.
- Parodied Trope: Trope is made fun of.
- Pet-Peeve Trope: Tropes that piss off the audience.
- Played for Drama: Trope is meant to be taken seriously.
- Played for Horror: Trope that is otherwise innocuous is turned into Nightmare Fuel.
- Played for Laughs: Trope is meant to be comedic.
- Playing with a Trope: The different ways in which a trope can be used.
- Sister Trope: Tropes that share similar ideas.
- Spoilered Rotten: Tropes that are spoilers by default.
- Sub-Trope: Specific variant of one trope is common enough to become its own trope.
- Subverted Trope: Trope looks like it's going to be played straight, but the writer does something else instead.
- Super-Trope: The broader category that multiple tropes fall under.
- Trope: The conventions and tools used to tell stories.
- Trope Breaker: Something that renders a trope useless.
- Trope Decay: Trope has lost its meaning due to misuse.
- Trope Enjoyment Loophole: When (and perhaps why) something that's a Pet-Peeve Trope doesn't piss somebody off, or the inverse.
- Trope Grid: Confused on which trope should be used? Here's some clarity.
- Troperiffic: Work uses a lot of different tropes.
- Tropes Hidden from Audience: Tropes that creators usually do not want audiences to know about or recognize.
- Tropes in Aggregate: Meta-tropes that become apparent when looking at the whole genre or fiction in general.
- Trope Telegraphing: "I know exactly what will happen next because of this trope."
- Undead Horse Trope: The trope is constantly played with or scoffed at, but still sees enough straight use to avoid becoming a Dead Horse Trope.
- Unbuilt Trope: Trope deconstructed before it was even constructed.
- Zig-Zagging Trope: Trope is played with in multiple ways.
Administrivia
- Everything's Worse with Snowclones: Trope names that are too similar.
- Missing Supertrope: A case in which a supertrope needs to be implemented.
- Not a Deconstruction: Misuses of "deconstructed" within the TV Tropes site.
- Not a Subversion: Misuses of "subverted" within the TV Trope site.
- Square Peg, Round Trope: Tropes that are frequently misused within the TV Tropes site, to the point of Trope Decay.
- Trope-Namer Syndrome: Trying too hard to create the next big Trope Namer at the Trope Launch Pad usually means you're forgetting something important in the process.
- Tropes Are Flexible: Tropes have far more room and variation than some would think.
- Tropes Are Tools: Tropes are not bad, nor good. Just devices used to entertain.
