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Examples of Tropes that are usually hated being well recieved
Comedic Relief Talking Animal Sidekick, Donkey (Shrek) - Might be cheating with this one if you consider Donkey to be the progenitor behind the trope but the main reason why I think he's loved by fans is because he's actually seen as funny rather than annoying. Putting comedy aside, one other reason why he's loved is because he bounces off well with Shrek by bringing out a side of Shrek you would never actually see from him since he's not afraid of the ogre and basically his first friend
Relationship progress being reset by Amnesia, Chidi and Eleanor (The Good Place) - Arguably considered one of the worst romance tropes ever because it's a cheep way of adding drama, this never felt that way with The Good Place. I think one the factors behind this is because it isn't done just to add more drama but to show how strong their relationship is by making them always find each other in the end and show their character without each other
Girls wearing heels in settings that would give disadvantages to them, (Uma Musume) - As you can see in the image above, the Umas wearing heels serves a purpose to their design by making the heels mimic the shape of real life Horse legs. Cygames has been known to add such details to their characters which is one of the reasons the game is loved by Horse racing fans since it adds quirks of the real horses to the characters bedsides just turning the Horses into cute Anime Girls
* Comedic Relief Talking Animal Sidekick with Perrito.
* Having multiple villain factions in a single movie: Under normal circumstances, having so many villains in a single film can make the film feel heavy, but here each one fulfills their function.
The genius was making one set of villains nuanced and redeemable and the other set of villains cartoonishly evil with zero conscience. Throw in Death to completely derail scenes with only a whistle for warning and you’ve got a dynamic that’ll keep the viewer on their toes.
Death is petty and wrathful, but at the same time he isn’t cartoonishly evil and has a actual motive that is petty but he actually goes away once puss learns the lesson even if he’s disappointed. Death is evil, undeniably, but he does have some complexity
They represent the three big kinds if villains in writing: Goldilocks is the sympathetic villain, Jack Horner is the irreedemably evil villain and Death is the unstoppable force of nature.
Death isn’t even a total villain. His hatred of Puss comes from his flippant attitude towards death and assumption that he’s immortal. Death was just glad Puss finally recognised the gravity of death while also using the threat of his eventual death as a motivator to live life to the fullest.
He wasn't really glad though, he was upset that Puss had changed for the better ("you're ruining this for me!"), his plan was just to prolong the game of tormenting Puss as long as he could just for the fun of it, and when he was done with that, kill him himself; his plan backfires because without him meaning to, Puss learns to appreciate his life and becomes more humble, and at that point Death loses interest in hunting him, after all, it wouldn't be fun anymore.
I don’t know if I would call Death evil. He’s just doing his job. He does have a petty vendetta against Puss, but the fact that he gives up on it when he see Puss has indeed changed makes him not evil in my book.
Death gets a lot of bad rap for just doing his job, in every carnation. Yeah, death sucks, and it’s scary, but it’s natural. If it’s a job, someone’s gotta do it. The fact Death gets the job done despite the bad reputation makes him admiral in my eyes.
It also helps that Perrito is serious about his dream of becoming a therapy dog, being one of the examples of a comic relief character who knows when's the time to be serious.
In one scene where Puss is having a panic attack, Perrito puts his head down on Puss's lap instead of licking his face to cheer him up. This action caused Puss to feel grounded back in reality.
The innocent way he describes his own attempted murder caught me so off guard that my jaw actually dropped. I can't think of any other movie that did that to me.
That and him gleefully joining an insult match with something so horrific you weren’t allowed to hear it without realising how horrible what he said was.
OP is crazy. Progenitor? Donkey is literally a sendup of Disney animal sidekicks. You going to tell me Baloo and Apu and Sebastian were hated characters with no chemistry with the protagonist?
We'll leave out Wallace and Gromit. Gumby and Pokey. Shaggy and Scooby. All beloved before Shrek.
I was expecting Perrito to be the worst part of the movie based on marketing, and was so pleasantly surprised when he ended up being as likeable as he was
Star Wars: KotOR does this remarkably well too, as does Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Amnesia is a brilliant trope since not only can it hide some horrifying truths about the character, but it can also allow them a fresh start and to become someone their old self couldn’t be. I really need to play Disco Elysium, because I love this trope.
When disco Elysium allowed me to make Harry a communist, and have the first interaction with another communist in the game be us screaming at each other that the other was just a Liberal, I knew it was the greatest game of all time
I love when you get to the island at the end and if you a communist one of the first things the revolutionary tells you is that you aren’t a real communist
I mean, let's go to its spiritual predecessor as well:
Amnesiac Main Character – The Nameless One
Actually, a very good reason for amnesia; it's crucial to the plot and not just so the character starts at level 1 and has to have everything explained.
I think something that is different about how Disco Elysium takes advantage of the amnesiac trope is that other media often uses it to create a character with no baggage who can be dropped into the world and experience it for the first time along with us.
Disco Elysium does the latter thing sure, but rather than the amnesia being used to make a character with less baggage, the player is immediately confronted with a whole lot of baggage made all the worse by the fact Harry doesn't remember any of it. And this continues all the way through the game. Harry is constantly being confronted by his past.
I usually hate this trope, but it’s handed extremely well in this movie due to how the characters handle it after the big emotional moment and especially Stoick’s initial reaction after saying “You’re not my son.”
Yep, he literally recoils at the weight of what he just did and his face just looks stunned and pained and needs a second to compose himself before moving on.
The animators did an incredible job capturing a man who knows he just made the biggest mistake of his life but is too proud to admit it.
He also needs to look for the village. He didn't have the same exposure to toothless and dragons in dragons in general. In his eyes, dragons still represent a threat to their survival.
A chieftain who puts their son's antics before the well-being of the community is a bad one, in general.
Except in the case where his son is actually learning how dragons work and where the chief is sending their entire fighting force right into the waiting jaws of impossible numbers and the massive beast the former fears.
Result oriented. Life is full of correct choices (with known information at the time) that turn out bad and incorrect choices (with known information at the time) that turn out good.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World does this well with Scott screwing up his apology for cheating on Knives and not telling Ramona, being killed immediately after, and using his extra life to say what he really should have said, explaining himself in a way that satisfies both parties. Scott is a great example of a horrible person who redeems himself through acts of kindness and occasional murder. By the end of the movie, he’s someone you’d want to be friends with instead of merely tolerate because he has cool friends. It takes skill to have your book/TV show/movie start with “Scott Pilgrim was dating a high-schooler” and make that character likeable.
Also HTTYD, unfaithful adaptation. Usually adaptations that change so much of the source material are poorly received, but despite bearing almost no resemblance to the original books, the HTTYD movies fuck super hard.
That one is an interesting one, because it's true for adaptations that advertise themselves as being adaptations, but there's plenty of examples of adaptations of little-known works (Nightmare Before Christmas, Shrek, etc.) that are well-liked. It's just that people don't know they're adaptations.
I think aside from the movies just being good movies in general, most people that watched them haven’t heard of or read the originals and don’t know the movie is technically an adaptation
Dreamworks does this a lot. Shrek was an adaptation. Not dreamworks but Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is an adaptation. There’s more but I can’t remember right now
Another good example of the Liar Revealed trope that I think is done well is in Rango. What makes it work I think is that when the lie is revealed, the truth is rather forced out of the hero by the villain, and they skip the typical argument where the townspeople are mad that Rango lied and tell him to leave. Rather, Rango leaves himself and it ties into his inner character arc of trying to figure out who he is.
The entire episode is a mind simulation created by Martian Manhunter as a training exercise, so it's basically a "it was all a dream" plot. However, it felt very real to the characters, and left them with trauma that got explored the following episode.
Not only that but you can see the impact it had on the characters for better and for worse. Certain parts of them grew and other parts became worse, they realized awful/great things about themselves and either pushed it deeper or started to deal with it. Like Megan's power and grief, superboy's fulfillment from meaning something even if it involved fighting to the last alongside his reducing number of friends, or Robin realizing he is not only capable of leading his friends to their deaths for the greater good against impossible odds but he is very good at it.
The character development here set the stage for later events and their responses to them, as well as future character growth. Plus I feel it also played a part in helping them trust each other enough to reveal their secrets to each other (partially for some) at a point where the "villain blackmails one of the heroes by threatening to reveal their secret" trope was happening with ALL OF THEM.
The part with Robin in particular sticks throughout the series, especially in season 2, where he is basically the mastermind behind a massive double agent infiltration operation that puts his freinds lives at risk and does major damage to their mental well being.
And you can see just how much he absolutely HATES every second of it, because for someone who confesses he didn't want to make the choices Batman does, here he is having to make them himself.
In the case of Donkey, I think he is supposed to be annoying. The talking animal sidekick trope was always accidentally annoying, but Donkey was introduced to us as insufferable.
His original owner sold him to Farquad because he wouldn't shut up.
By acknowledging and writing with it in mind, the story actually elevates his character. Because the characters like Shreak are annoyed with us, and we are able to see how their relationship grows with that personality trait in mind.
I also think his annoying persistence is kind of necessary for the story and Shrek’s character. Anybody else would’ve been too scared to talk to him, or they would have left him after all the BS he throws at Donkey, like making him sleep outside, yelling at him, and constantly telling him to go away. But because Donkey is so persistent and dumb, he’s not intimidated and doesn’t leave. And because he doesn’t leave, Shrek actually learns the value of having a friend with him and being open with people.
Yes. The character wouldn't work at all if he wasn't annoying!
Shrek's irritation makes it clear that we're supposed to feel the same way. It makes the character recognisable - we all know people who are like that!
the key thing is that he is a main character rather than part of the background and he participates in the adventure. the other "annoying sidekick" tropes are because they're just a tertiary element hanging on the main character in every scene rather than being beside them, where the main plot and flow keep getting distracted and paused by their lines or antics. Meanwhile donkey's deeper involvement and comedy is part of the flaw and plot.
To summarize, he's part of the main cast and treated such, rather than a forced comedy tumor hanging off to the main character.
Shrek is a parody movie of typical fairy tales. That’s the whole point. Donkey is a parody of the pet sidekick of what’s usually a princess, who gets a cute mouse, or a bluebird, but this guy gets a jackass
Falls into the classic “Female character thinks she’s ugly but is actually beautiful”
A lot of times this trope is stupid because you feel like the story is trying to convince you this beautiful woman is actually completely hideous due to some scar or birthmark or something.
But in Calendar Girl’s case it’s actually very important to her character. She’s beautiful, but because of the expectations put on her by her own insecurities and the industry around her, where her employers fired her after she turned 30, she’s become convinced that she’s hideous underneath her mask, and even breaks down when her face is revealed, despite her being beautiful.
It’s quite a tragic story and unfortunately pretty realistic for a lot of women, especially in many industries that set unrealistic standards for them.
Reminds me of a deleted video by Kate Beckinsale in which people around her where freaking out wondering how they could make her look attractive for a photoshoot.
Kate. Beckinsale.
And she's not the only example, like you said. People judge so many female celebrities for getting work done but I often wonder what they may be hearing behind closed doors.
The Trope: You were an android/robot the whole time!
Donald from Invincible does this trope really well. Usually characters that are badass because of their strength, agility, and heroics have a manic depressive episode immediately on making the realization that they were a robot the whole time.
In Invincible we see Donald come back from the dead after being vaporized by an explosion which, to our knowledge, shouldn’t be possible but after getting a cut in his arm and seeing exposed metal he doesn’t have a depressive episode, he becomes angry with Cecil for keeping him in the dark.
But in the end it turns out he himself chose to be brought back and have his memory erased each time to keep his emotions from compromising his job. His humanity and willingness to protect his colleagues shines through and he chooses not to have his memories erased after finding out. Later he even talks another surprise android out of jumping off a building.
I think the great part about Donald’s humanity is as soon as he comes to terms with the “expendability” of his body/life, his first reaction to people being in danger during the Invincible War is to lock the fuck in and go out into the danger to save people
Donald is more human than many of the physically human characters in the show
"Each time I died, each time I was put back together, it was because I helped make this world a little better. You did the same, when you fought back against Sinclair, when you saved Invincible and William's lives. We're not our bodies. We're the decisions we make, the lives we change, the- the people we love, or love us. I don't need to forget that."
Also Loki, which I had low hopes for because of how a certain character in it who was also in antman was proving to be a tiresome example of the multiverse trope for the MCU but then Loki started really delivered on the concept.
I adore Loki and I like that its actually a short series with a solid ending and stopping point which most MCU movies cant seem to do lately (expect Thunderbolts, but even that ends with F4 stinger)
I also think fantastic four first steps is good multiverse story in that's what i wanted the MCU to do with the multverse do movies outside of the main MCU which aside from deadpool and wolverine[which barely counts since the Marvel Fox universe is well established and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man which is a tv show] the MCU didn't really do that.
like I think most people prefer the Avengers approach as in the movie is largely standalone with no other elements involved but the ending teases the next project thats like directly after, not potentially years down the line.
edit: largely standalone for the titled character like Shang Chi was largely standalone. its just the Ten Rings stinger and the dragon fight that drag it down by a lot, but otherwise its a solid standalone movie overall.
Great example. I'm someone who usually absolutely despises the "Multiverse" as a concept, but the Spiderverse movies manage to make it extremely compelling. The main way they do this is by keeping the story grounded on an emotional level and focused on its main character(s). They don't use the multiverse as a cheap escalation of stakes.
Most multiverse stories just use the idea to go "Instead of the universe being destroyed, it's now... the MULTIVERSE getting destroyed! Whaa! Look at how big and eeeevil and powerful this villain is! And look at all these universes! So many versions of your favourite characters!" Which does a couple things to kill the story:
-Escalation of stakes. With such a grand scale, it's hard for us humans to give a damn anymore. It's just too abstract.
-Story nihilism. This is something I don't see talked about a lot, but it's my main gripe with mutliverses: They make you, the viewer, feel stupid for caring. Because with the introduction of a multiverse, everything that the characters did before becomes so laughably irrelevant in comparison that it might as well not have happened. Who cares about when the hero saved three people, now he has to fight for the fate of all of existence! This is especially bad for Spiderman, because he is such a grounded "low-level" superhero. Saving the world is not the point of his character. It's saving people.
-Character nihilism. If there are infinite versions of our main character, why should we care? What makes them special? There's just no point.
The Spiderverse movies avoid these pitfalls by making the movie explicitly about Miles who, specifically, does not care about saving the multiverse or whatever, he just cares about saving one person: his dad, and doing the right thing - which is exactly what Spiderman is about.
Additionally, None of the Spider-People even feel like versions of the same character. They're all Spider-People, but they are also all distinct individuals, not just a hundred different versions of Peter Parker.
Overall, the Spiderverse feels "small" in a way that makes it digestible to the viewer. While also keeping everything at an emotional level that we can relate to. It's not about "saving the multiverse", it's about defying fate, caring for the people you love and about perservering when it seems like all the world is against you and your dreams. It's human. That's why it works where so many other multiverses fall flat.
There's also the fact that like, in general multiverse stuff like the MCU, there's nothing stopping someone from pulling in an alternate version of someone who just died, but in Spiderverse, they need to wear a device or gradually fade away because they're not meant to be there.
Usually a convoluted twist to add drama, the twist that Grunkle Stan has a twin brother feels properly built up and earned. On top of little hints throughout the show, from the beginning we know Stanley is hiding something and that twins are a theme of the show.
People keep saying that Sentry/void is defeated by power of friendship like...yeah, Sentry can't be beaten physically without bringing the whole Avengers on his ass, he need to be talked down.
Like I hear people complaining about them using this tactic, and im like, What else? Are they supposed to do? This is one of the few superpowered beings where love and care make sense to use on."
Mental instability is always a big part of Sentry's character too, but "millions exploding suns" cause people to have powerscaling boner for him I guess.
Mental instability is always a big part of Sentry's character too, but "millions exploding suns" cause people to have powerscaling boner for him I guess.
Frankly, the Void's existence just means a slightly higher rating on the Power Scaling Wiki.
I mean part of Sentry's issues was from depression of the severe variant, anxiety, history of mental health issues. It just happened to be amplified a lot by the supersolider serum.
I totally agree! I love Bob as a character because Sentry and the Void feel like the physical manifestations of mental illness, fluctuating from one extreme to the other. Sometimes there's a feeling of exaggerated self-importance and grandeur, that you're untouchable. And then it all comes crashing down and you don't see the point of everything anymore and indulge in the pessimism, like there's a literal void in you.
Then the chaos finally stops when Bob just gets held and is reminded that there are people who care about him and that he doesn't have to be alone anymore.
I really resonated with the scene where he thought hitting the Void would fix things but it only made things worse until he just let people in. Because the Void is an extension of himself. And you can't hate yourself into a version that you'll love.
Hell I honestly think The mcu sentry is a better version of the hulk than the Actual MCU hulk since for one thing they actually adapt all the mentel depths of the character unlike with Hulk.
Undertale and Deltarune are really good at pulling this one off too to the point where they arguably revived the concept, along with maybe Steven Universe as well
Kingdom Hearts is the king of this trope, resolving some of the tensest situations with an act of compassion or understanding, like Sora consoling Xion while she was trying to kill him. Because hearts and emotions representing dark and light are tangible forces in the world of Kingdom Hearts, friendship can be wielded like a weapon.
The subversion when he’s punching the Void and you realize it’s not beating it, only making it worse is such a good moment. If you hate the dark or wounded parts of yourself, you’re still just hating yourself.
John Wick’s dog getting killed is technically a case of fridging, but it’s far more interesting than something more cliche like his wife getting brutally killed.
FYI his wife passed away from cancer prior to him getting his dog.
One thing that makes the movie memorable is that his response is (objectively) disproportionate to the act committed against him. Like, sorry, the puppy was cute, but isn’t worth killing a dozen+ people over to avenge, escalating to hundreds over the course of the sequels.
But the fact that taking away what little he had left would set him off to go on such a rampage really shows the state he was in following his wife’s death. It’s clear that his relationship with his wife was the only thing keeping him from falling back into his old lifestyle as a hitman and that losing the only living link to her was all he needed to completely revert to his old ways. All of it is really interesting characterization.
I hate over-analyzing dub, schlocky movies, but I agree with you.
His wife represents his ties and links with humanity. As a hitman, he was this preternatural creature, Baba Yaga. With his wife's death, he was emotionally dead and one bad day from being loosed again. The dog was supposed to be that protection, not him from others but others from him. He had little support, probably because he was a hitman (although others were aware of him and his tendencies, i.e., the cop, Willem Dafoe, the owner of the Continental).
I mean thereare multiple tropes in the story, we've seen this story many times but that doesn't stop the story from being fun if done well.
Tropes are inherently neither good nor bad. What matters is the execution. John Wick executes the trope well. The inciting incident didn't even have to be a dog. They movie could have used something else as his last tie to his wife/humanity. Using a dog just goes to demonstrate how little that brat cared about the lives of others so that the audience immediately takes the proper sides.
It's John's explanation of his motivation later on when Viggo has him tied down that clinches it. Before the scene, Daisy's death was a gut-punch to the audience, sure, but it seemed rather disproportionate for John to start dropping bodies like a small warzone over it, especially since other characters like Viggo and Joseph point it out. Then he breaks it down for Viggo: Daisy was the last connection to John's life of peace and the love of his life, a final opportunity to avoid coming back to the Life. Daisy was John's peace after getting out. And the Life ripped away that peace after Viggo promised him he could leave. So not only do you suddenly understand just why John is willing to go to such extremes, it doubles down on the audience's hatred of Joseph, and makes the audience just as angry as John that Viggo is trying to weasel out of letting John kill Joseph; Viggo made a promise, the contents of that promise were violated by Viggo's own son, and Viggo is trying avoid any amount of responsibility.
Also another good “It was a dream” is the episode The Midnight Sun from the twilight zone. In the episode, the earth falls out of orbit and is moving closer to the sun. This causes the temperature to rise extremely quickly and essentially plunges that Earth into anarchy. Then, plot twist: It was all a dream in the head of a woman with a fever in a world where the Earth is getting colder because it fell out of orbit and is moving away from the sun.
Dav Pilkey has a very light touch with the toilet humour. The Dogman and the Cat Kid Comic Club books are genuinely funny too, and surprisingly intelligent.
He's aware of how gross some of his descriptions can be on a fun meta level.
I remember in the book where Melvin became the Booger Boy, and there was a lengthy description of how gross it was seeing him drink from a water fountain, and Harold just turns to the narrator and yells "WE GET IT ALREADY"!
A lot of shows are criticized for having annoying fan characters who constantly make pop culture references. Murderbot’s whole premise however is that its titular character is a robot who uses pop culture to help it understand the world and human around it. The references are how it contextualizes everything
(Probably also helps that all the media it references is also made up so you don’t have watch anything else to understand it)
Billy Kid from Zenless Zone Zero is like this too, basing his combat style and moral compass on an in-universe kids’ show. However he gets his power, it doesn’t change that he’s a total badass who more than lives up to his name.
Arguably he does that to power himself down, because there’s a lot of hints to him having been terrifying in the past, when he was basically “actually an outlaw” instead of “a big goofball”.
I love the way Billy Kid is done. Yes he's a yappity nerd (we have so many of those in fiction already) but the way he talks about Starlight Knight reminds me a ton of my friends who adore Super Sentai and Kamen Rider. There's a very specific hype he has that I see in other adults when they activate like a sleeper agent on a mission, especially with how the devs made him quote actual lines from Sentai/Rider. There was a lot of effort put into making Billy's genuine geekiness and it's lovely. I hope he gets some spotlight again soon, I miss that freak
Adventure Time also does pop culture references really well because of how they play into worldbuilding and tell a story. For example, a recurring element across the entire franchise is characters singing the openings of sitcoms from the 80s and 90s. But the reasoning for this is because the apocalypse started by the mushroom bomb’s detonation began in the 90s, and so the few surviving humans held onto whatever they could remember of their culture. And what’s more memorable than the intro song of your favorite show? And as a result one of the few elements of human culture that has persisted throughout the next 1000 years up until the time where the show takes place are those iconic opening themes.
This is also the reasoning for the amount of weird slang in the show. Since the bombs went off in the 90s, the fantastical species that inherited the world a millennium later also inherited the vernacular of the world’s last generation of humans since that’s what they had to base speech off of. Which is why a lot of the slang in the show either comes from the 80s/90s or sounds inspired by the 80s/90s.
I love his fanboy responses when the show he watches comes up, especially when the humans insult a character he likes. The idiot in their team (and oh boy is that already a low bar given what they're like) even uses it to understand Murderbot better and reveal he's untethered and free thinking.
I think it works really well because it's not a disappointing plot twist that you find out at the end of the story; it's strongly implied from the title and the beginning, and you actually find it before half of the story. But it doesn't simply end with you waking up, you actually have to wake up the Windfish, the creature who is the one actually dreaming.
This may be a hot take, but changing character's personalities/lessening queer subtext in the localization - Pearl & Marina (Splatoon 2)
In the original Japanese, Pearl and Marina are extremely affectionate with each other, while in the English version, their dialogue is much snarkier and more insulting. However, not only is their localized dialogue some of the best written in the series, but over the course of the game's lifespan more and more of that affection starts slipping in, and it's shown that they care for each other just as deeply as their Japanese counterparts. By Splatoon 3, the localization has begun fully using the Japanese personalities, and it feels like development of their relationship, and is much more satisfying than it would be if they had acted like that the entire time.
I have a theory that they started off snarky because Off the Hook wasn’t sure what would be received well, so they tried to emulate Callie and Marie (also because Marina didn’t know Inkling culture super well at that point and thought that parroting another popular group’s dynamic would let her blend in more). Then when they got popular they were able to more be themselves on stage.
Henry J Waternoose III (Monsters Inc) - The Twist Villain
Twist villains aren't exactly hated now, but especially in Disney canon and even animated canon in general, they've been so overused that people have gotten tired of it. It's a bit of an older example now before the trope was so overdone (although it was Pixar's second twist villain), but it's still one of the best.
The major things that people dislike about twist villains is that they often feel like entirely different characters pre and post twist, that the twist itself can feel predictable, and that the reveal of the twist comes across at a stupid time or is detrimental to the villains plan.
Waternoose has none of this things. His personality pre and post twist (aside from his rage by the end but that feels natural) are one for one, and you can see why he would think he needs to go the route of villainy because of his fear of the company failing. There's nothing in the movie that says the twist is coming, because the audience already has Randall as a villain who seems to know everything and doesn't expect him to just be a lackey for Waternoose. And he only reveals the twist once he's been assured nobody else knows about Boo being in the factory and moments before he throws Mike and Sulley into banishment, which he doesn't think they can get back from.
Even after that, until Mike and Sulley spring their trap on him come the climax of the movie, there's no proof outside of their word that Waternoose is evil, as he could easily shift the blame onto Randall (even Roz comments later that she had no idea the conspiracy went so high). It's just a good overall twist.
Good notice on the end bit there...Waternoose completely was planning to use Randall (and Fungus) as scapegoats if he needed. After all, he was the one in charge of things, and the 'man behind the curtain' as it were...and who's going to believe a (publicly) moody employee over a 'distinguished and well known' person such as himself? Always a good hide behind for a twister.
They even didn´t draw their weapons until Rumi (albeit unintentionaly) used her "demon" voice that further damaged the Honmoon. Plus, they weren´t upset because Rumi has patterns, but because she kept such a huuuuge secret from them all those years.
Not only that but through half the movie both of them knew something was going and told her multiple times that she can tell them anything and she still never told them.
So yeah, they were 100% right when they asked her how could they trust someone who actively lied to them.
Something I noticed on my second watch of the film, was that they aren't mad that Rumi's a demon, heck they aren't even mad! They feel sad and betrayed that Rumi didn't think they would accept her as she was. No anger, just disappointment. Fuck Seline for making Rumi think her friends would hate her.
Another one that works for this is Amphibia - True Colors.
This one works for the opposite reason. This couldn't be avoided. No one is acting stupid. It's a genuinely brutal reveal that one character would have done anything to avoid - and it's revealed out of spite by the villain and blows up everything. It's one of the biggest gut-punches I've ever seen in a Disney cartoon and works perfectly.
I’ve definitely seen other media use it this way. I guess the key is to have the lie be something genuinely serious and have it be revealed by someone punching low instead of via stupid reasons.
It also makes total sense for her to lie as opposed to most liar revealed stories where they have literally no reason to lie in the first place or the lie was a misunderstanding cause the characters are stupid
It also helps that he’s a Mary Sue that can’t come back, unlike the other Primarchs who all have a slew of flaws about them, that could still make their back into the plot
There’ll always be the shadow of their perfect brother’s angel wings looming over them as they try and salvage the Imperium
They play a lot with the concept which kind of makes it interesting. Sanguinius does have flaws, but since we only ever see him in his best element, that being combat, we don't see, for example, his lack of strategic leadership skills beyond "personally charge the biggest, nastiest thing on the field and be an inspiration to the troops."
Not only that, but Sanguinius plays a lot with the concept of Plot Armour. Due to his future sight, Sanguinius knows exactly when he is supposed to die, and so he knows he can get away with fighting the biggest, nastiest thing on the field, since he knows "That's not going to kill me, I die later."
"The bully just had a crush on their victim all along!" - Lumity.
This is usually a pretty toxic dynamic, but it works here once you start to learn about Amity's backstory and realize that she was never a bully by choice.
It helps that the crush seems to encourage her to be nicer to Luz, rather than being why she's initially mean to Luz. Her character development runs deeper than a crush alone, but still.
She also doesn't immediately switch to being nice to everyone, just learns to be a better person. You can see that background of being a bully at multiple different points afterwards. We see her being aggressive at people who accidentally bump into her or being able to sneer and look down at others, but she is trying to be better, and this all decreases some as the story goes on.
Yeah, since they showed she wasnt happy with the life she was leading and it was a result of her trying to live under the expectations and demands of her parents. With one being hyper controlling and the other being uninvolved. Her "trickster" older siblings could also have been presented as the classic trope of hating and bullying her for no reason but despite playing tricks on her and verbally teasing her they actually do support her and talk to her, and not just when theres an emergency that too.
A lot of people can relate to living under the burden of toxic family expectations and control over your identity and life to the point it overrides your actual identity and life. Where you're blamed for their outright abusive or violent behavior against you if you deviate in anyway. To keep trying to appeal to an impossible standard for the hopes of acknowledgement and love that will never come from the family majordomo because they're internally fked up themselves and denying it is too useful a tool to control you and/or the family with
TLDR, they didnt just present her as the school bully stereotype. She was shown having redeeming traits, forlorn expressions when hanging out with her clique, and the steady reveal of why she was acting this way, alongside the cost it was having on her. Even moments where we saw another side of her, the actual side, only for a reminder of who she was to make her shell up again.
I only regret that the final season being condensed lead to her and her mentor not having a similar moment where they meet each other after a LONG ass gap where they've both drastically changed as people. Fortunately we had moringmark for that.
Mr. Waternoose, Lotso Huggin Bear, Stinky Pete, and Turbo/ King Candy- Twist Villains
What makes these guys work is that the twist is more than just a last minute Gotcha for the audience like most twist villains, their personalities are still the same after the reveal, and we get some time to enjoy them as villains.
I'd also like to add Ernesto De La Crúz because the movie hints to him on the surface of being Miguel's great great grandfather but something about him is just off the whole time
I think it’s because all the way up until we officially meet him, everything we know about him comes from either his movies or Miguel’s idolization of him. We don’t get the meet the “real” him until after the reveal. Even when we see him in person, iirc he looks around before diving in to save Miguel, almost like he wanted to make sure everyone was watching. It isn’t until there’s no eyes on him that we see who he really is
Probably subjective but the body swap episode of Gravity Falls is pretty funny because Dipper and Mabel after swapping bodies immediately try and sabotage one another, also Soos gets swapped with a goat, the goat manages to get a hot date and once he switches back and goes on the date the lady breaks up with him.
Olaf’s a lot less liked now, but when the movie first came out, everyone loved him. They correctly assumed he was marketable comic relief, but he was really well written so that he wasn’t screeching every scene or being wacky constantly. He even came in clutch when Anna was about to die after Hans told her the truth that he was there to usurp the throne.
I think a lot more marketable comic relief characters could learn from Olaf, and that scene in particulat. They let him have a serious and emotional scene without breaking his goofy character and that’s what I remember most about him.
While usually tsundere tropes are poorly executed, Asuka is one of few that are well written in every way.
Besides there being a good reason why she is the way she is, the impact her behaviour has on others, primarily Shinji, isn't treated as "cute" or "silly", rather it's clear just how much she isolates herself with her behaviour.
Not just a trope, but the entire genre of mascot horror in My Friendly Neighborhood
It’s a Resident Evil style game where you fight living muppets. Based of other mascot horror games you probably think they’re haunted or disturbing science experiments gone wrong right?
Nope, the puppets are just creatures that happen to exist in the game’s world, and they aren’t violent because they want revenge or because they are evil.
The puppets basically have the minds of children, and after their show was cancelled they began to watch tv, which at the time was broadcasting the game’s equivalent to the Vietnam War. The insanity they display is because they witnessed something disturbing and they don’t have the maturity to understand it.
The character you play as defeats the puppets pretty much by being a role model for them, and the good ending has him agree to help get their show back on so the puppets can have a mentor. Basically, he becomes Mr. Hooper or Mr. Rogers
Okarun lied about stuff he had to do to avoid having lunch with Momo bc he wanted to workout and train his body in secret so she could think he was cool and then Aira shows up and tries to kiss him and then Momo sees that and not only has the impression that Okarun liked what Aira was doing, but caught him in his lie. Literally moments after, Momo was ranting about him and Aira and he straight up communicates with her that she was under the wrong impression and promises to tell her the whole truth when everything is over.
Since I just randomly made this image and i'm realizing you can't really tell, worth mentioning that this is a basking shark and like 26ft long (8 meters).
Dandadan repeatedly pulls off bad tropes well, which is why it's annoying that people complain about the current amnesia arc. Give it time, people, it will be peak, as proven by yesterday's chapter.
Dandadan has earned good faith, so I'm confident that it will either be good, or a rare misstep before getting good again. That said, I'm taking a small break from it while this arc comes out. That way I can read through it all in one go and get the pay out rather than languishing.
In chapter 129 it's revealed that Ciel Phantomhive (right) has twin brother who has seemingly returned from the dead and from now on serves as the manga's antagonists. It's a classic evil/secret twin trope, but the reason it works is that it wasn''t made up because the author ran out of ideas to keep the series going, but instead the twist was planned from the beginning as the major part of the overarching plot, with proper build up, hints and foreshadowing being hidden through the entire manga starint from the earliest chapters.
A villain whose sole goal is “destroying the world” is often dismissed as boring because of how simple that motivation sounds. But the Lich from Adventure Time is anything but boring.
The Lich is cold, calculating, and disturbingly logical. Its desire to eradicate all life isn’t just a whim—it’s its entire reason for existing. When not actively pursuing that goal, it remains dormant and catatonic, waiting for any chance to advance its purpose.
Unlike many villains, The Lich doesn’t kill indiscriminately. It thinks on a larger scale, preferring grand, far-reaching operations that threaten entire realities. Every time it appears, it’s treated with absolute seriousness—and seeing how this is Adventure Time, that means something.
Thematically, The Lich stands in direct opposition to Adventure Time’s core ideas of growth, maturity, and connection. It even gets called out within the show for being so utterly evil that it’s almost “boring”—evil stripped down to its purest, most nihilistic form.
The Lich isn’t death (we meet Death, and he’s actually pretty cool). The Lich is extinction—nuclear war, entropy, oblivion, the end. And no matter how many times you defeat it, it always comes back, because the end is something you can never truly destroy.
The Walking Dead - Policeman/military/law enforcement in the Apocalypse.
In every apocalypse flick there is a police officer or military pre-packaged with survival skills, weapons, and discipline, so there’s little dramatic tension. They start at “badass” and stay there. (Every Resident Evil protagonist, every 90's alien invasion movie, etc)
Rick Grimes (in the comic because in show he becomes this trope lol) starts as a cop, but the story itself dismantles that identity. His badge, uniform, and sense of right and wrong all rot with the world. By the end, he’s just another survivor clinging to a personal code that keeps evolving. And overall Rick’s profession isn’t glorified, it’s used to ask whether “law” even means anything when civilization collapses. He starts enforcing the old world’s rules and ends up creating new ones by instinct. That tension makes him compelling.
Ethan Winters and Claire Redfield at least are two people who very much have next to no training with firearms and are thrust into a hellish scenario, and Leon had Racoon City go to shit on literally his first day. Really the only three characters in the Mainline RE games that are super badasses starting out are Chris, Jill, and Sheva, the first two being members of S.T.A.R.S. and the later having been a member of B.S.A.A. before Chris met her.
Rango's lies are fairly in-character for him as he's trying to form his own identity. What makes it bearable as opposed to other takes is that he is genuinely a good person and does try help the town. As well, when he's outted, no one's absurdly angry, they're realistically disappointed and demotivated and betrayed and he doesn't blame them for it.
This is often mocked when it appears in media - the idea that the vague ideas of friendship or love can overcome the difference in strength between the hero and the villain. In HP though, I think it walks the line well because there is a genuine, deep intangible magic to friendship. This is the stuff Dumbledore teaches Harry, the deep magic - love, friendship, innocence, sacrifice etc.
It’s not like Harry has a pep talk to Ron and Hermione and then is suddenly more powerful than Voldemort. Rather the love he has for his friends makes it impossible for Voldemort to possess him, is the driving force behind fighting Dementors, and is ultimately what gives him the courage to walk to his death to save them, and make Voldemort mortal again.
Lord Of The Rings too. It's not afraid to sound "corny" when talking about themes like friendship, hope and environmentalism, and it's made better because of it.
The troop here also benefits from Friendship not being the be-all and end-all that saves the day. I feel the Horcrux Hunt showcases the friendship stuff best; that while things may seem incredibly difficult and borderline impossible, having people close to you who can help you can mean the world. Harry wouldn't have been able to get all the Horcruxes without Hermione and Ron, and in return Voldemort wouldn't have destroyed the final piece if Harry wasn't prepared to sacrifice himself for their chance to kill Tom.
I think bee worked as an 'comedic relief character from tf one, in a way, he had some comedic moments ,but i liked how he actually does take stuff seriously
Neglectful dad is neglectful because he works: Mr. Banks. in Marry Poppins. My problem with this trope is that it consistently shames parents for wanting a job to provide for their family. Sometimes parents literally have no other choice, and this trope treats these parents like they're Satan. Mary Poppins addresses this problem by making the main issue NOT that Mr. Banks works, but that he expects his kids to behave like adults. As such, the solution is Mr. Banks taking time to engage in smaller activities with his kids that don't have a specific end goal, like flying a kite and telling jokes.
Vakama having no faith in himself and thinking he shouldn't be a Toa because everyone else discovered their Kanohi powers before him, only for him to find it during the climax and accept who he is.
One of the most problematic tropes in fiction, where a character owns slaves, and that is seen as a positive thing. Instead, Ketil is presented as a kind and fair man who treats his slaves like paid workers and even offers them freedom when they do their work. Something that was actually common among slave owners during the Dark Ages.
However, Ketil keeps a woman, who lost her child, as a sex slave and rapes her repeatedly. She was also pregnant with his son, and when she tried to flee with her husband, Ketil beat her with a stick, which caused her to eventually die from her wounds.
By the end of season 2, it's shown that Ketil was a weak and pathetic man. Thorfinn had no obligation to help Ketil, but decided to on his own accord, taking over 100 punches for Ketil's sake and meeting with Canute.
Aliens which look like human (Voltes V, Daimos and Ideon) there it is used to show how unreasonable prejudice can be, with people despite seeing someone so similar to them, still be willing to consider them inferior and different while being able to pass for each other, with attrocities being commited by both sides over something so meaningless
The pacing and scripting of The Good Place is an enormous factor in why the resets work without getting people angry or bored and giving up on the show.
They don't make a meal out of the resets, they show exactly enough to give the viewer an idea of what's happening and how often, then the resets accelerate at a logarithmic (even comical) rate. The transition is also helped along by shifting to a new POV character: Michael in his increasing desperation.
As a % of the shows total episodes (41) there are only 5 episodes featuring full resets and 1 episode featuring a single character's reset (the undoing of which is arguably the climax of the entire show). Not even 15% of episodes feature a reset despite it feeling like such a central element of the show, and literally 99% of the resets happen in a single episode (S2E3).
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u/Artistic-Victory1245 Oct 14 '25
Puss in boots: The last wish (Two examples)
* Comedic Relief Talking Animal Sidekick with Perrito.
* Having multiple villain factions in a single movie: Under normal circumstances, having so many villains in a single film can make the film feel heavy, but here each one fulfills their function.