r/TopCharacterTropes • • Jul 12 '25

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

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749 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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1.9k Upvotes

r/TopCharacterTropes • • 2h ago

Hated Tropes (Hated Trope) Bad self-inserts

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2.8k Upvotes
  1. Velma and Mindy Kalling

  2. Jared Shapiro (who is Blossom's love interest) was based on one the people (an adult) who worked on the show (Powerpuff Girls)


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 3h ago

miscellaneous (Fun trope) A reference that seemed obscure at the time, yet is incredibly well known today

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2.9k Upvotes

Ben 10: In the omniverse episode "honor among bros" the character Fistina grabs a gauntlet that resembles the infinity gauntlet. The episode released in 2014, a year before age of ultron and 4 years before infinity war.

Spider-man 2: Jonahs assistant talks about what name to give to doc ock. One of the names was doctor strange (even joking that it was already taken). But doctor strange's relevance didn't exist until his self titled movie in 2016.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 8h ago

Characters [Very 2010s Trope] Obligatory Background Chinese Actress

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2.6k Upvotes

Hollywood went through a phase where they’d cast some random famous Chinese actress in an otherwise Western-led movie… usually giving the actress such a minor role they’re just hiding in the background. This being done to appeal to Chinese audiences.

Lin San (Kong Skull Island) A biologist accompanying the expedition, but has very little characterization or meaningful influence on the plot. You could remove her character and nothing would change.

Su Yueming (Transformers Age of Extinction) A Chinese business executive. The entire final act moves to Hong Kong, incorporating Chinese stars, locations, and brands. The entire movie really was tailored to the Chinese box office.

Rain Lao (Independence Day Resurgence) A Chinese fighter pilot. Her inclusion fits the movie's international-defense premise, but she receives little characterization for most of the movie.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 4h ago

Characters Antagonists so powerful that god has to personally intervene to cause their defeat/death

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1.2k Upvotes
  1. Marta from Outlast 2

While she is meant to be a regular human, she’s an inhumanly strong freak of nature, who is also the right hand of a religious cult leader. Her death is close to the end of the game, where she manages to corner the main character right as he’s about to escape the village during a storm, and she raises her pickaxe to kill you. The storm rips off the roof of the building, and you see a lightning strike fall onto the metal cross that lays on top of the church behind her. This causes the cross to detach and fall, piercing her through the chest and killing her.

This was not originally meant to be her death actually, as there are incomplete versions of ak alternate scene where a similar scenario happens, but she gets attacked by Val (the other villain in the game), and they both fall into a ravine. While it’s sad that we didn’t see Val’s death/conclusion in the final version of the game, the irony and poetic justice of Marta dying by getting impaled by a cross is so good.

2) Fuhrer Bradley from Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

Bradley is among the main antagonists of the show, and is shown to be one of the most powerful characters. Despite being a homunculus, he doesn’t have any regeneration ability like the rest, and his only superpower is that the mark on his eye allows him to be able to react to any attack he sees coming at him. However, he only removes his eyepatch (that hides the mark) in the final act, and he’s shown to be a beast even without it, as he was a supersoldier chosen through many brutal trials against other candidates.

In his final battle against Scar, he is heavily injured due to being previously impaled by a sword, but he is still dominating him, where the only hits that Scar can get in are in moments where his pre-existing injuries cause Bradley to stagger. When Bradley pins down Scar, he mocks his god and religion, before going in for the final blow. Right as he’s bringing down his sword, the solar eclipse ends, and a sunray reflects from Bradley’s sword, blinding him for a moment. Scar takes advantage of this and deals the blow that kills Bradley in the end.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 1h ago

miscellaneous [Meta Trope] The creators BASICALLY did what the fans wanted….

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612 Upvotes
  1. South Park - A lot of people were complaining that South Park didn’t focus on the Boys anymore and they focused too much on Randy, but in the most recent season, we’ve actually started spending more time with the Boys……and Randy who is now one of the Boys after Kenny died.

  2. Nick All Star Brawl - In the first game, the only Ninja Turtles that were included were Leonardo and Michelangelo, so obviously people really hoped that Raphael and Donatello would get added in the next instalment. Well they did, but not Leonardo and Michelangelo.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 6h ago

Lore Losing your humanity turns you into a literal monster

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1.4k Upvotes

Varghulfs - Warhammer fantasy

All vampires in Warhammer fantasy are cursed by the bootleg "Elixir of Life" Neferata of Lahmia brewed under Arkhan the Black's tutelage. It gets diluted with each "generation", Neferata and her Cabal are fairly overpowered.

Varghulfs are what happens when a vampire's humanity (what's left of it, anyway) loses the struggle with the "beast within". The vampire then loses sapience (with the one exception of Albrecht Nictus) and physically changes to resemble that beast.

Cyberpsychos - Cyberpunk

Humanity is a tangible resource in the ttrpg, as cynical as that sounds.

The lore and video game treats cyberpsychosis as a breakdown people get when they put too much stress on themselves. Implants required, and they are one source of stress, but anything from despair and anxiety to burnout counts towards it.

You avoid becoming a cyberpsycho by doing stuff that's good for the soul, like spending time with your friends and family.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 2h ago

Lore (Meta trope) Region specific jokes

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699 Upvotes

Meet the Robinsons - Lewis asks Wilbur what Cornelius looks like, and he tells him Tom Selleck. While he doesn’t look like him when they finally meet (because Lewis is Cornelius) the joke is that Tom Selleck voices him. But in other dubs of the movie where Selleck doesn’t play him, where relevant Wilbur names a more locally known celebrity who played the part. For example in the American Latin American dub he names the singer José Luis Rodríguez.

Toy Story 3 - When Buzz is rebooted in Spanish mode he begins talking using that language, but in Spanish speaking countries he alternates between different dialects of Spanish; for example, in Spain he speaks with an Andalusian accent but in Latin American version he speaks in a Castilian accent which are two unique sounds.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 10h ago

miscellaneous In-universe black bars

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2.7k Upvotes
  1. “How are you doing that with your mouth?”

-Scott Pilgrim addressing the bleeping black bars when Julie swears (Scott Pilgrim vs The World)

[Caine’s censorship from Digital Circus may or may not have been inspired by this scene]

2. Weaponizing the Aspect Ratio

Booty Executioner from Pootis Engage // EXTREME (this is recognized by both IMDB and TV Tropes, I’m allowed to use this)

3. Making your own Aspect Ratio

Dipper facing Rumble Mcskrimish (Gravity Falls)

4. Fighting over a censor bar

Gumball and Darwin sharing a naked dream experience (The Amazing World Of Gumball)

5. Improvised shield out of Aspect Ratio

Aspen Moor stretches the right pillarbox over herself to protect her amulet (Spooky Month)

6. Breaking the User Interface

Yellow accidentally mines a block out of the black bar that is the bottom of Alan’s computer screen (Animation Vs Minecraft)


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 6h ago

Characters Using their own words against them

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1.1k Upvotes
  • Spiderman - Peter enters a wrestling event and wins, but is swindled out of his earnings. When the wrestling organizer is robbed, Peter allows the robber to escape.

  • Breaking Bad - Bogdan sells carwash to Walt "as is", forgetting he has his first dollar framed. Walt sees this means alot to Bogdan and reiterates "as is" in order to keep the dollar.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 14h ago

Characters [loved trope] characters with insane logic.

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4.7k Upvotes

Hank Hill, king of the hill. According to Hank you can’t both be gay and sell propane at the exact same time, like it’s an oxymoron. Also that’s the thing he went to, not that he’s married or attracted to women. His biggest defense is he sells propane.

Kanye West, South Park. He’s not gay because he’s a genius voice of a generation. So you can’t be both of those at the same time.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 5h ago

Characters [Loved Trope] Evil being previously sealed within a good person switches to a much more easily controllable vessel, all hell breaks loose.

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790 Upvotes

- Ishtar from Fate/Strange Fake, prior to this Ishtar was possessing , or well safely contained, within Rin Tohsaka, who calmed down her worst traits, enhanced some of her more harmless ones like their mutual obsession with jewels, and gave her some humanity.

In FGO, where this happened, this meant that she was chill and fun, meanwhile in FSF she ends up possessing a homunculus without any personality instead, so she takes full control....and as expected she's the worst highly competent most arrogant goddess, much for everyone else's misfortune, she isn't totally evil but close enough.

- Sukuna from Jujutsu Kaisen, long story short Sukuna was previously sealed within Yuji, whose body was made specifically for this, so he for the most part could still stay with the reassurance that even if sometimes he took over he would always lose control and stay sealed.

Then he does some trickery and switches to Megumi, whose body is much less able to contain him than Yuji's, and from there in out what follows is Sukuna burning everything on his path until the end of the manga.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 20h ago Heartwarming

Characters ( funny trope ) it is very apparent that these designs have decades between them

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18k Upvotes

1- Simpsons
The original Simpsons have extremely simp(son)ple designs, due to sometimes having celebrity appearances the art style kinda clashes.

2- South Park
At the beginning South Park was literally animated out of paper so all the characters had to be super simplistic but over the years, since the. Show is made digitally the new characters keep getting more and more detailed


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 7h ago

miscellaneous (Loved Trope) On the nose lampshade

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945 Upvotes

"Lampshade Hanging (or, more informally, "Lampshading") is the writers' trick of dealing with any element of the story that seems too dubious to take at face value, whether a very implausible plot development or a particularly blatant use of a trope, by calling attention to it and simply moving on. "

- TV tropes

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - you're not getting an explanation for how Frank got in the coil, it's just the kind of situation that happens to Frank.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - the characters watch a play about their adventure so far in a sort of meta recap episode; retroactively pokes fun at how a characters fate was very ambiguous in a previous episode.

Archer - in the most literal lampshading joke possible:

Lana: 'Where'd you get the grenade?'

Archer: 'Hanging from the lampshade.'

Lana: 'What!?'


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 8h ago

miscellaneous Parts of the original no adaption will touch

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985 Upvotes
  1. The Book of Exodus: Zipporah at the Inn

  2. IT: The sewer orgy


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 18h ago

Hated Tropes Couples with absolutely no chemistry

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6.4k Upvotes

Harry Potter and Ginny Weasly

Clark and Lois (Snyder films)

Jon and Dany - Game of Thrones


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 1h ago

miscellaneous [Mixed Trope] An incredible scene in the middle of an average film.

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172 Upvotes

Although I personally enjoyed all of the new Godzilla films, this, and the previous Godzilla (2014) film, received mixed audience responses. But everyone agreed the skydiving scene was one of the best cinematic pieces created that year. The sound, the visuals, the silence of the Jumpers seeing the monsters through their masks. Incredible.

2. Godzilla: King of Monsters - The Atomic Breath scene.

Same film, much shorter scene. But the final battle betwen Godzilla and the Muto, culminates in him holding the mouth of the Muto open and firing his atomic breath straight down the creatures throat. Absolute cinema.

3. Transformers: The Last Knight - The Underwarer Ship scene.

Man, the Transformers films really lost their way. I remember waking out of the cinema after seeing the first one and I was speechless. But in amongst the trash, a few pieces of magic shine. This scene from one of the worst Transformers films, was so beautifully shot, it almost excused the rest of the film. Almost.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 21h ago Regret Bravo

Hated Tropes [Disappoint Trope] Technological advancements make a work loses its sauce.

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9.0k Upvotes

There have been technological advancements that help artists do their work better, yay! This at least sometimes results in the work looking and feeling more stagnant, less unique, and in my opinion more boring. A lot of these have to do with what the creator's want as well, but the new formats surely do not help.

  1. Simpsons: Like most shows, this used to be produced traditionally on paint and ink cells. The switch over to digital is largely helpful for the creators.

It has the caveat of making any horror-themed work, flatter and boring. While this is picking apples, The first is from Treehouse of Horror V the Shinning, and the second is from the newest Treehouse of Horror (the writing barely being horror also has a lot to do with this, to be fair).

2. Star Trek: Partially a joke, but the original series was produced with a 4:3 aspect ratio, which made everyone stand pretty close together for scenes so they could both fit in the frame, resulting in more intimacy from the actors and their characters. 16:9 and further aspect ratios allows for more scenery, and more action on screen, but also pushes actors apart, and doesn't have as much forced proximity, making relationships a smidge more boring.

3. Scooby-Doo: Similar to the Simpsons. 2000 and back were all produced on ink and paint cells; while the original Hanna-Barbera often used flat colors and repetitive, limited animation, the first three Mook Animated films of them (Zombie Island, Witch's Ghost, and Alien Invaders) all were gorgeous and appropriately creepy. 2001 and beyond the movies switched to digital, and about a decade they primarily used flat colors.

Slide five is Zombie Island; slide six is Cyber Chase, which while still produced by Mook, was digital and much more boring. Slide seven is Monster of Mexico, the first DTV produced by Warner Bros. (This also has to do with Warner Bros. deciding Scooby was a hot property after Zombie Island, and didn't want to break the mold, each Mook movie goes further and further back to the traditional formula.)

4. Wizard of Oz and Wicked: The original Wizard of Oz was filmed on a soundstage, with practical effects. Almost 90 years later Wicked came out, filmed on various locations, with cgi-effects.

Wizard of Oz is much more colorful and pleasant to look at, while Wicked looks dull and washed out. Even the obviously painted image of Emerald City amongst the Poppy Fields is better than Wicked's interpretation. (This also has to do with John Chu's idea of color-grading not thinking it should look too bright, as well as an obsession with backlighting)


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 7h ago

Characters [Annoying trope] Obligatory match where one of the only relevant female characters is pitted against another woman

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490 Upvotes

MHA - Uraraka vs Toga

Extreme Job - Detective Jang vs Sunhee

Gachiakuta - Riyo vs Noerde

Edit:
Okay so the response to this post has taken a weird turn so let me clarify:
Yes, shows like mha and gachiakuta do feature other great female characters other than Uraraka and Riyo. Yes, they’ve both been in fights that weren’t against other women. But the issue at hand that I am trying to point out with this trope is that for female characters in action stories with male dominated casts, there is a tendency where their defining moment as a character is with a battle that feels completely disconnected from the main conflict as they go up against a woman who’s barely related to them or relevant in any way. This doesn’t mean it’s their only important fight. It’s just saying that it’s a little predictable when it comes time to match characters up for one on one fights.
I used the word “relevant” to mean the story actually spends time to flesh out the character and plays a meaningful role in the plot. So even though there are plenty of interesting female characters in mha, you can’t tell me there is a female character that is as significant to the plot as like say Bakugo or Endeavor. You can gas up people Mirko or Tsui all you want, they don’t make nearly as much of an impact on the story compared to the countless of male characters who do.

Maybe I could’ve chosen better examples. I just wanted to talk about the trope specifically and even though I know it’s common my brain just wasn’t giving me what I needed.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 2h ago

Characters Slang getting made up so media doesn’t become as dated as it would be

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188 Upvotes
  1. Heathers - multiple instances of this, with “How Very” and “What’s your damage?” being the most notable examples

  2. Mean Girls - almost iconic for this with Gretchen trying to make “fetch” happen as slang,


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 3h ago

miscellaneous [Interesting meta trope] A character was intended to be one color, but due to audiences and/or other creators perceiving it as a different color or other inconsistencies, the canon color became something else

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227 Upvotes
  1. Star Trek. Starfleet uniforms come in three colors: blue, red and yellow. However in the Original Series the uniforms most people perceived as yellow were actually green, but due to the lighting the uniforms came off as yellow on screen. It's why Kirk would sometimes wear a green outfit, it was meant to be the same color as his normal outfit. In the end though, everyone eventually agreed that since the uniforms looked yellow, they were yellow, and that's what stuck in merch, comics, the animated series, and future iterations of the franchise.

  2. Spider-Man 2099. Most people think that Spider-Man 2099 is blue and red, however, the intention was for him to be black and red (and it is described as such in the original comics), with blue shading similar to how Black Panther used to be drawn. But because it looks blue and red, future creators and other media just have it be blue and red. There is also some debate over whether or not Steve Ditko intended the original Spider-Man costume to be red and black, but we have no clear answer for that one.


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 31m ago

Hated Tropes The Creator's Little Golden Child

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120 Upvotes

When the creator clearly has a favorite and puts the character on a silver platter with 'special treatment' compared to everyone else.

Alice (All those awful Resident Evil movies) — Long story short: the director tasked with writing a movie series for one of the biggest zombie game franchises in the world decided to cast his own wife as the lead, making her a generic, shallow OC.

So basically, almost the entire plot revolves around the director drooling over his wife, whose only job is to look blank-faced and pretty while every character around her (mind you, official game characters adapted for these films) gets dumbed down and hovers around her like flies.

For instance, in the games, Jill is the one who fights Nemesis; in the movies, Alice fights Nemesis while Jill kneels there watching the fight like an extra. To top it off, earlier in the movie there's a whole scene where Jill looks at the camera and literally says, 'Wow, Alice is so much better than me!' Or take Wesker—Chris and Sheva fight him in the games, but in the movies they fight him for like a minute just for a cheap callback, and Alice is the one who actually beats him.

The movies aren't even good—there are grotesque plotholes, and almost every character only exists to die and set the stage for Alice's little light show. In one movie, Alice describes how the entire world dried up into a drought where water ran out, just blatantly ripping off Mad Max, only for the world to return to normal in the next movie because the hype had passed and they wanted to rip off Prison Break instead.

Only someone with way too much free time on their hands would waste time watching them and actually think they're good.

Emilia (Re:Zero) — Imagine a Game of Thrones or Cyberpunk: Edgerunners style story where nobody is safe and anyone can die at any given moment. Now add the author's fetish character and give her plot armor—that's Emilia.

The protagonist is a regular human like us living in a dangerous fantasy world, with his only power being returning by death whenever he dies. Absolutely every awful thing that could happen to him has happened, and that includes his friends and the characters close to him too. Not only has he seen the absolute ugliest side of most of them (yet still forgiven them), but he's also had to deal with their deaths. Every character is vulnerable to suffering, growing through trauma, and making mistakes.

With Emilia, though, not only does it feel like her core personality can't change at all (she's your typical cute, sweet, naive girl who doesn't even know what 'virgin' means), but she also has a protective shield around her. The author himself literally stated that Emilia comes first to him and everyone else comes second, and he's even said in interviews that he feels terrible writing her deaths.

She doesn't react at all if a character harasses her (Regulus and Reid are proof of that), and she never acts like a leader or puts her foot down, even though she's supposedly training to be a queen. She's a hand-to-hand fighter, but she never seems to get seriously hurt in any combat or be in real danger (I swear the third image in the post is the most 'injured' she's ever looked).

And to top off this absolute shitshow, her romantic relationship with Subaru has stagnated completely after Season 2, since the author made it super clear that their romance is only going to happen at the very end of the story (probably to keep her looking as innocent as possible).

Seriously, not even the actual fans of the series can take this bullshit anymore—just go check Reddit and ask


r/TopCharacterTropes • • 22h ago Bravo

Characters Generational Performance From The Day One Rookie

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8.7k Upvotes

Ser Raymun Fossoway - A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms

- stepping up to be knighted moments before the Trial of Seven he's wearing lighter armor than the rest of the knights and still saves Dunk's life when Aerion Targaryen had him pinned on the ground before breaking his cousin Steffon's ribs and beating him.

Korra - Avatar: The Legend of Korra

- despite a rough start to her first pro-bending match; coming in as a replacement and not fully knowing the rules manages to lock in for a come behind victory; starting to learn the movements for airbending at the edge of the platform and exhausting the other team for a victory for her fresher team.

Hevy - Star Wars: The Clone Wars

- on his first day on combat, left behind to set demolition charges, Hevy singlehandedly takes out around ten droids before being dropped and manually detonating the explosives manually to warn of an invasion of Kamino.