r/TopCharacterTropes

End of Evangelion

Goodnight Punpun

Tokyo Ghoul re

Big Boss/Naked Snake and Solid Snake (Metal Gear Solid). Big Boss is the main villain of the first two games and actions are a catalyst for the whole franchise while his "son" Solid Snake is the series main hero. Insert your "NO! THAT IS NOT SOLID SNAKE!" memes below

Goku, Bardock, Turles, and Goku Black (Dragon Ball). Goku, his Dad, some evil guy who looks a lot like him, and his body possessed by an evil Kai from another universe

1: Tywin Lannister (ASOIAF) - Brilliant strategist revered by all. Shot while on the toilet.

2: Yoshikage Kira (JJBA) - One of the most competent and frightening villains in the series. Flattened by a truck.

3: Nightwing (Injustice) - Peak martial arts and tactical brilliance. Literally tripped and fell.

4: Geralt (The Witcher) - Legendary world-renowned monster hunter. Skewered by a random peasant.

5: Madara Uchiha (Naruto) - The Big Bad of the Shinobi world. Everyone is understandably terrified of him. Literally stabbed in the back.

For one reason or another, adaptations like to downplay or refuse to condemn child abusers. Either to make them sympathetic as a "both sides" argument, or because stories don't think children can handle stories about cruel parents, despite it being a central theme of many fairytales told to young children for ages.

1. Netflix Ozai (Avatar: The Last Airbender) In the original series, Ozai burns his son Zuko purely out of malice for his son being "weak" and showing compassion to the soldiers of the Fire Nation. The point of his character is to be a despicable abusive monster, and that nothing Zuko does to earn his respect is worth it. That Zuko needs to learn that his honor comes from his own actions and integrity, not how much cruelty he can exhibit to impress his father.

The Netflix adaptation tries to make Ozai more sympathetic by making him regretful of burning and banishing Zuko, seeing it more as "necessary tough love" which he is reluctant about, while burning his own son anyway. Trying to give any weight to Ozai's point of view only muddles the point of his whole character- that he's emblematic of all the cruelty the Fire Nation has fostered and inflicted on the world in the last century, that his rhetoric of "might makes right" is not in any way condoneable.

2. Lusamine in most adaptations that aren't the original Pokemon Sun and Moon games: In Pokemon Sun and Moon, Lusamine is a narcissistic power-hungry woman obsessed with gaining power over the Ultra Beasts and their worlds after she lost her husband to a wormhole. She cryogenically imprisons Pokemon in her trophy room, tortures Cosmog to create wormholes for her, and restricts her children in what they can do or wear, enforcing her philosophy that only aesthetic beauty has any worth whatsoever. This has led to her daughter Lillie developing severe anxiety and self-worth issues, and her son Gladion becoming especially rebellious, aggressive, and cold. Lusamine practically disowns Lillie in the game's climax and attacks the player purely because Lillie speaks her mind and tries to stand up for herself.

In the Ultra games, Lusamine is portrayed more as an antihero, doing all the cruel things in the original games for the new reason of trying to defend the world from Necrozma. While her desperation to obtain Cosmog in this version of the story is understandable, her cruelty to her children and their clear trauma from her behavior is still inexcusable, especially since this version of the story ends with them letting her back into their lives.

In the anime, Lusamine is an entirely different character, not evil at all in this interpretation and more like a dorky soccer mom. And as a result, Lillie's whole character arc changes too. Lusamine is still recklessly obsessed with Ultra Space and her experiments with it still have dangerous effects on the environment and her children, but again, their trauma is presented as just an unfortunate mistake on her part rather than a character flaw she needs to address.

The only adaptation of Lusamine I know of that keeps her as evil and addresses the ramifications of that is the Pokemon Adventures manga, which is very good and well worth a read! But speaking of which...

3. Norman, Pokemon Adventures (English Publication). In the original Japanese publication, Norman is a rageful and abusive dad who struggles to accept his son Ruby's lifestyle of performing in Pokemon contests rather than battling. This whole aspect of his character is what motivates Ruby to run away from home to chase his own dreams. When Norman finally hunts Ruby down, he savagely beats Ruby with his bare hands, demanding Ruby to fight back to prove his resolve.

In the American English publication, awkward steps are taken to block out all of Norman's abuse. When he throws Ruby down a flight of stairs, the translator just says Ruby '"accidentally fell down". When he punches Ruby in the face, an awkward speech bubble is added in to say "Lightning struck nearby and he accidentally dropped Ruby", ignoring the fact that he was furiously holding Ruby by the nape over the edge of a building before either way. And by downplaying Norman's abuse, it makes Ruby's frightened and rebellious behaviour seem less reasonable, and weakens the story overall.

(Another example is the English translation removing Crystal's mother slapping her with an awkward redraw, but that's a one-off moment that's less connected to the themes of the story.)

4. Zeus and Hera, Disney's Hercules. I don't actually hate this one, I just found the sheer difference between this and the original myths humorous and wanted to include it to add diversity to the examples.

The "threats" can be legitimate or just the result of prejudice and fallacies.

1. William Stryker - X2: the anti-mutant colonel whose son Jason is a mutant

2. Mary Rice/Drake - Jumper: a Paladin, the agents who hunt down and kill Jumpers, the ones with ability to teleport. She finds out her five-year-old son David is a Jumper and abandons him

3. Dr. Kurama - Elfen Lied: a scientist part of the institution that studies and fights against Diclonius, a species that displays hostility to humans despite being born to them. Once he's infected by them, his child, Mariko ends up being born a Diclonius. Instead of killing her, he chooses to keep her alive as a test subject.

Seems that, especially in comics, it's easy for your name to be stolen by someone for something completely unrelated. Granted, I don't think anyone INTENDED to steal names (that could be a whole other list), it's just lateral thinking.

Starfox (Marvel): Eros seems cursed. His brother is Thanos. His super power is making people horny. And his hero name referring to how he's a sexy person (a fox) in space (star) was taken by a literal fox in space. He predates the game by 20 years.

Deathstroke the Terminator (DC): Iconic Teen Titans villain. Part time Batman Rogue. Possible statutory r*pist (I don't consider it canon but many do), Slade Wilson is THE Merc of DC... And then four years later, some movie starring an Austrian who barely speaks English steals his title of "the terminator".

Black Panther (Marvel): This is gonna be weird because I would argue more people think of Black Panther the marvel character now than the political organization, but for a time, I think you'd probably be called a radical if you had this dude's comic. However, strange as it is, both the character and the organization debuted the same year, just months apart, with T'challa just barely eking out the win. And both are actually named after all Black Tank battalion.

Captain Marvel (DC): This one feels almost intentional. Twenty years before Mar Vell, there was Billy Batson saying Shazam to turn into Captain Marvel. Now his superhero name is his word of power. If you get him to say his name, it'll just turn him normal again. Hardly sporting. He needs a better name like... Captain Sparkle Fingers.

The Hunger Games - Set in a dystopian totalitarian nation of Panem, the state organises a yearly event known as the Hunger Games, in which two teenagers, one boy and one girl, selected (some of them as a result of a lottery) from each of the 12 districts that form Panem must fight to the death with all other participants in televised arena games until only one survivor remains, who is then treated like a celebrity and lives in luxury for the rest of his/her life.

The Long Walk - Set in a dystopian version of America devastated by civil war, the ruling military regime set up a yearly eponymous event which sees fifty teenage boys walk hundreds of miles without rest, with those that fall below a certain speed being executed. The event ends only when one person remains, with the winner recieving a large cash prize. Contrary to the Hunger Games, participatiation in this event is at least compeletely optional, so all participants are volunteers.

I LOVE the trope when Character A assumes that they can’t be seen/heard/perceived just for Character B to point them out instantly. Establishes a great power imbalance quickly.

Deathstroke pointing out Deadshot’s hiding place - Batman Arkham Origins trailer

In the trailer for this game Batman is dueling Deathstroke on top of a storage container when suddenly Deathstroke’s katana gets shot in half. Deathstroke calmly turns and IMMEDIATELY points down Deadshot’s scope 1 mile+ away.

Gravemind responds to Cortana - Halo 2

When Master Chief first encounters the Gravemind, Cortana, the A.I. INSIDE HIS HEAD asks Chief “What is THAT?” to which the Gravemind responds directly to her “I am a monument to all of your sins.”

Amazo follows Atom and Luthor to the subatomic realm - JLU

With Amazo hunting Luthor for his life and both he and the Atom cornered, Atom has the bright idea to shrink to sub-atomic size so the Android can’t see them, just for Amazo to follow suit and shrink as well.

The dinner scene from Temple of Doom has a temple give indie and friends a live snake and monkey brains for dinner. It’s a pretty offensive depiction of Indian cuisine, but it wasn’t originally going to be. There’s cut dialogue where Indie recognizes they’re at the right temple because real Hindus don’t eat this food. They were trying to scare them off by purposefully serving them disgusting stuff.

Probably the most famous deleted ending was I Am Legend which had Robert discover the infected were emotional sentient beings and one of them had a wife. Test audiences hated it and they reshot the ending, removing the entire point of the movie.

Almost everyone in the Pokémon anime catches fire or gets shocked and manages to survive (Pokémon)

The trainer manages to withstand attacks from the horse-girls without sustaining very serious injuries (even though they possess strength far greater than that of a normal horse) (Uma Musume Pretty Derby)

The boy gets slapped by Baki, the strongest man on Earth, and survives (Baki)

Sorry for ambiguous title. It's basically The Unreveal/Riddle for the Age/Nothing is Scarier mixed with a kind of storytelling in which the setting has something that affects people's life, and the narrative is about one of those people.

The One Wish Willow in Obsession

Somehow it's a common toy in the movie's universe. You make a wish and break it in half, and your wish will surely come true; however, one person can only wish once. The movie isn't about investigating how these things are made or how it really works, but about a young man's wish gone wrong.

The Substance in, well, The Substance

Another popular item, the Substance is a strange liquid that, when injected into your body, will create a younger version of you that tears your back apart and comes out; from then on, you have to regularly switch back and forth between the two bodies and use the original one's "stabilizer fluid" to maintain the new one. Again, the whole movie only follows a woman who uses this and how things go wrong.

The Death-Cast in They Both Die at the End

In this novel's world, there's a service called "Death-Cast" that calls people to inform that they only have about 1 more day to live. Apparently, its forecast is so correct that nobody bothers fighting it, and the story simply follows two young men who get its call on the same day, as well as their friends.

The email that makes you invisible in Toumei Ningen no Tsukurikata

An early day manga short series from Masuda Eiji (author of Jitsu wa Watashi wa), it follows a high school boy who one day receives an email that say "You only need to reply to this email and you'll become invisible to the world"; apparently it doesn't matter what you type in reply, and you can also resend it to someone else to coax them into become invisible too. The whole story is about the boy's horror as he replies and discovers that "turning invisible" means that his existence is erased from the world's perception. It's never shown if anyone has ever tried to investigate this email, and while a group of invisible people (aside from the antagonist) appears in the final chapter, it looks like they just drift aimlessly around the world fending for themselves.

The store that buys your lifespan, time, or health in Three Days of Happiness

In this novel/manga, there's a store that you can come to sell lifespan, time, or health if you're in need of money. If you sell lifespan, you only get to live out the time you haven't sold; if you sell time, you'll be invisible to most the world during the time sold, only able to be seen by and interact with the store's other employees and customers (in other word, you become a temp worker for them in a roundabout way). It's never explained how the store works nor how it kills the people that sell lifespan, aside from the implication that they die naturally in their sleep; we only ever follows the last days of a young man who chooses to sell lifespan. (Also, it's never explained what happens to those who sell health).

1. The Hunger Games: One day, author Suzanne Collins was switching between channels on live television, from a reality show to coverage on the Iraq War. This is when she realised how the line between entertainment and violence had been blurred by the mainstream media, and so went on to write the Hunger Games, forever changing the YA dystopian novel genre.
2. Attack on Titan: Inspired by the time Hajime Isayama was confronted by an angry customer while working at an internet cafe. This is when he believed that humans can be the most terrifying creatures since they lack the ability to communicate their feelings properly even though they look like us, and so went on to write one of the biggest shonen manga series of the past decade.
3. Infinity Train: Creator Owen Dennis was on a flight from China to the US, when he woke up from a nap and everything was dark, except for the screens that lit up the passengers' faces. He found this scenario very unsettling, and eventually became the spark of what became Infinity Train, one of CN's most acclaimed shows.

I couldn't think of a better way to describe it, but hopefully my examples explain it. This seems to be exclusively an animation trope

1. Sir Hiss crossing his "arms" (Robin Hood)
2. The ocean tilting its "head" (Moana)
3. A chest "licking its lips" (Beauty and the Beast)

1. Adventure Time

   • Traditional elements: Ice and fire
   • Weird elements: candy and slime.

2. Winx Club (art by dominowmix)

   • Traditional elements: Fire, light, water, earth/nature, ice, darkness and weather
   • Weird elements: Music, technology

3. DC Comics: The Parliaments

   • Traditional elements: Plants, water, air
   • Weird elements: Death, fungus, animals/blood

4. Captain Planet

   • Traditional elements: Water, earth, fire and wind;
   • Weird elements: heart!

A-Train kills Blue Hawk - The Boys

Megatron kills Sentinel Prime - Transformers One

Shigaraki killing All For One - My Hero Academia

Myung-go killing Jeong-dae - Squid Game

Also known as images I use to ragebait powerscalers

Alien X getting jumped (Ben 10)

DC has many examples, but one of my favorites is Wally West getting hurt by Robin's staff (Teen Titans Go!)

Goku getting his hand stepped on by an elephant (Dragon Ball)

Examples:

• Operation Take Back Wall Maria (Attack on Titan) - When the Warriors broke down Wall Maria, most of the Wall's population had to flee into the inner two walls to escape the Titans; this led to an overpopulation crisis and mass famine, so the military came up with a plan to draft around 20% of their population and send them out to fight the Titans. Out of 250,000 of the draftees, only a few hundred returned. The reason being that they weren't given ODM Gear or time to train, but instead spears, muskets, pitchforks- basically stuff that's useless against giant man-eating monsters with insane durability and healing. This was specifically to decrease the population to prevent a civil war; think of it less as an actual campaign and more like mass deportation.
• The Second Battle of Alnus Hill (GATE: Thus the JSDF Fought There) - After the Sadera Empire tried to invade Japan, the JSDF fought them all the way back through the magic GATE to their native land of Falmart, where the JSDF then slaughtered the stationed troops in Alnus Hill and set up a base there. 60% of their army was wiped out by the JSDF, so the Emperor gathered their allies, the United Kingdoms, to retake Alnus Hill. They planned that the Coalition Army would be wiped out by the JSDF, and then the Empire would annex the undefended kingdoms.
• The Termite War (Antz) - General Mandible made a false report that the neighboring Termite colony, which the Ants had left in peace with for years, was mobilizing for an attack; as such, he gathered the entire royal army to launch an unprovoked genocidal campaign against the Termites, which killed all the Termites and the entire royal army. This was to wipe out any soldiers that weren't entirely loyal to General Mandible, as he was planning on killing the Queen and all the Worker Ants so that he could breed with the Princess to create a colony of only Soldier Ants... yeah, the politics of this movie are fucking weird.

The title is partially a joke but I mean trans characters who aren't 'good' people or otherwise show the messier parts of being transgender. A lot of trans characters end up just 'being trans' and it isn't a major part of their character or arc. I don't think this is necessarily bad, but, as a trans person, I love it when media shows the parts of being trans or how gender dysphoria sucks

Jax (TADC) - In episode 9 of The Amazing Digital Circus, it is revealed that Jax was a closeted transgender woman. Throughout most of the series, Jax was abusive to many other members of the circus and put up a facade of not caring. She gets very defensive when Pomni starts to get close to her and pushes her away. This behavior isn't entirely due to her gender dysphoria, as the abuse she suffered at the hands her mom certainly played a massive role, but it contributed.

Togata (Fire Punch) - Togata is transgender man, problem is, he has the blessing of regeneration so he can't undergo any type of sugery or other medical procedure that would allow him to transition. Pair this with being alive for 300 years and his dysphoria is pretty bad to say the least. Admittedly I'm not super familiar with Fire Punch so correct me if I'm wrong, but he also puts up a cold, unfeeling exterior and is really only vulnerable to Agni.

Dispatch

• Villain Shroud has been given two items in his hands, but he can’t tell which is which. One will make him super powerful. The other will make him super sick. The heroes are right in front of him. One of his henchmen suggests that they take both items home so they can test which is which in safety on their own time. Shroud tells him to shut up.

Warhammer 40K: The Siege of Terra

• The Traitors are preparing to assault Terra, the most heavily fortified planet in the entire galaxy. Doing so will take a nearly year-long bloody, grueling siege against mile high walls, a continent-covering shield, billions of soldiers + war machines, 3 superhuman Primarchs and the demigod Emperor himself. Perturabo wants to just blow up the sun with their fleet so Terra is destroyed with it. Horus refuses and says Terra and the Emperor need to be conquered so his rule can be seen as legitimate.

Ed Edd n Eddy

• The gang wants to watch a monster movie marathon but they kicked out of Ed’s house by Sarah. They keep trying to either sneak back to Ed’s TV or into other people’s homes. Double D suggests they could just go to either his or Eddy’s house. Eddy responds, “What, and ruin the plot?”

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

*Austin and Vanessa are lowered into the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism as the door closes*

Scott Evil: “Aren't you going to watch them? They'll get away!”

Dr Evil: “No no no, we'll leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, and we'll just assume it all went to plan, what?”

Scott Evil: “I have a gun. In my room. Give me five seconds, I'll come back down here. Boom! I’ll blow their brains out.”

Dr Evil: “Scott...you just...don’t get it, do ya? You don’t.”

Sometimes a character is killed off but sticks around as a ghost or vision and plays an integral role in the story.

Judah Botwin (Weeds) Dies before the start of the series and his death is the catalyst for his wife Nancy to sell marijuana to maintain her lifestyle. The actor still makes appearances after his death via home movies watched by his family.

John Winchester (Supernatural) Father of protagonists Sam and Dean John died in a car accident at the beginning of season two. The actor still makes an appearance after his death when his spirit returns from Hell and helps his sons defeat the Yellow Eyed Demon.

Denny Duquette (Grey's Anatomy) Introduced as a patient with chronic heart issues Denny starts a romantic relationship and eventually becomes the fiance of surgeon Izzie Stevens. After the character is succumbs to his weak heart the actor still makes appearances when Izzie starts hallucinating him because of her grief and an undiscovered brain tumor.

Edward Blake/The Comedian (Watchmen) Blake was a former vigilante whose murder kicks off the main plot of the movie and the comic it's based on. The actor still makes appearances after his death via flashbacks and memories from Dr. Manhattan who experiences all time simultaneously.

Joe Kessler (The Boys) Kessler was a friend and comrade of Butcher from his old days in the special forces. All of the character's appearances are after his death as Kessler is actually a hallucination manifested by Butcher's genocidal desires and a massive brain tumor.