r/TopCharacterTropes

Being frozen in ice for extended periods of time is harmless in most media, but very dangerous in real life due to things like frostbite and hypothermia, not to mention the chances of starvation, dehydration, or suffocation (example: the caveman from Scooby Doo: Where Are You?)

Being extremely close to lava, an extremely hot substance, for extended periods of time is absolutely not safe - if the heat doesn't get you, the smoke will (example: Syndrome's lair from The Incredibles)

Sound can't travel in space, but in movies it almost always does so the epic battles can be more cinematic (example: literally any Star Wars space battle)

Being knocked unconscious by being whacked in the head with a solid object is incredibly unlikely - if the hit is too soft, it'll just be a slight bump, but if it's too hard you risk brain damage or even death (example: Rapunzel's frying pan from Tangled)

Being blasted with electricity in media typically just stuns people (often with a comical skeleton), but in real life that much electricity would severely injure or even kill you (example: Element of Lightning from Ninjago)

Lori - Totall Recall: If Quaid didn't happen to look back at the screen he totally would have taken her offer to "tie me up" and been killed. This, despite her attempting to kill him only moments prior.

Agent Lacy - The Interview: Despite knowing full well that CIA Agent Lacy is just honey potting them so they assassinate Kim Jung Un for her, Dave and Aaron do it anyway, because the honey was just that good.

Barry - Bee Movie: Barry buzzes into Vanessa's life and steals her heart. Despite being fully aware that he is a bee, Vanessa leaves her boyfriend and upturns her whole life to be with him, seduced by Barry's shapely body.

Santanico - From Dusk Till Dawn: I don't care if she's a blood thirsty vampire, so what if I get torn to shreds??

Yoda - Star Wars: No explanation needed.

1. Bumi, The Legend of Korra: >!Bumi is constantly telling his siblings about the wild escapades he's gotten up to. At first we assume he just likes to tell tall tales, but later on we actually see him having the exact kind of crazy, lucky, seat-of-his-pants adventures he's always claimed, strongly implying everything he's been saying was true all along.!<
2. Edward, Big Fish: >!Edward has always told his son Will fanciful tales about his life, and eventually his son got fed up with the obvious "lies" and they became estranged. On his death bed, Will comes back to see his father again before the end, and the two make up as we see flashbacks depicting all of the tall tales. After Edward dies, characters from all the stories (albeit less-exaggerated versions) come to his funeral and we see that the tales all had at least some truth in them.!<

Black Noir — The Boys (comics/show)

In the original run of The Boys, Black Noir is the highly deadly, silent, masked enforcer for the Vought corporation, only to be revealed in the series’ conclusion to be an evil clone of Homelander and the secret villain of the entire series. In the live action adaptation, Noir was totally rewritten into two entirely different characters playing the “Noir” role. One is a brain-damaged old school Supe who copes with his trauma via Bucky Beaver drawings. The other is a narcoleptic theater kid who loves to remind people he can fly. The show runners thought Noir’s original role and villain story to be too extreme, and cut it entirely.

Tom Bombadil — Lord of the Rings

Probably the most cliche example of this trope. In Tolkein’s original trilogy, Tom Bombadil is an enigmatic primeval being residing in a forest near the Shire. He predates all magic, and is thus totally immune to the Ring and its corrupting effects, and is powerful enough to resist any who might try to take it. But the Fellowship is forced to continue their journey to Mordor because Tom is so laid-back and carefree that he fails to see the importance of destroying the Ring. Gandalf argues that, even if he did take the Ring, he would eventually lose it or forget about it, thus allowing it to fall into the wrong hands. Understandably, his entire character was totally removed from the film adaptation.

Jack Ross in a Few Good Men: Just the opposition council in the trial, just doing his job

James Norrington in Pirates of the Caribbean: Just a Navy officer just doing his job.

**The Lorax**

In addition to the environmental message, the Onceler’s face was hidden in order to drive home the point that greed and ambition can blind anyone to the horrible things they commit. The film adaptation gives the Onceler not only a face but a family which in this version makes his fall from grace not his fault instead of self inflicted.

**The Neverending Story**

While the films isn’t that bad, the book was originally a cautionary tale about the dangers of escapist media and losing oneself to a fantasy world (hence why it’s called The Neverending Story), which the film completely disregarded.

**I Am Legend**

In the book, >! it’s eventually revealed that most of the vampires are sentient and despise Robert Neville for killing them. Basically he is the monster he used to see in them, and at the end of the book he kill’s himself, proclaiming that now he is a legend to the vampires he once hunted. !< While the films original ending preserves this somewhat, it ultimately botches the theme, leading to a less than stellar adaptation.

1. Marshall Eriksen, How I Met Your Mother

2. Jonathan Sims, The Magnus Archives

1. The Deep from the Boys and the actor playing him; Chace Crawford is genuinely extremely handsome yet his actor manages to play his character in such a pathetically idiotic way that you can’t help but look at the deep as anything but the biggest chud to ever walk the earth

2. Helem from Centuria is definitely beautiful and dresses herself in clothing to make herself sexy but all of it is undercut by her extremely disgusting behavior, being an abusive, sociopathic, and narcissistic necrophile who is currently responsible for enabling most of the protagonist’s problems being orchestrated against him.

3. Asmodeus from Make the Exorcist Fall in Love is literally created as the ideal attractive figure to lust over as is her nature as the demon lord of lust, but all of her charm is merely surface level as her utterly repulsive personality shows her being a pedophile and a rapist whose completely remorseless in any of her vile actions.

The Boys: Season 3 has a episode where Black Noir has a flashback from a time in his life re-created in cartoon style featuring his imaginary friends.

Priest (2011): Intro sequence is animated by the legendary animator Gennedy Tartakovsky. Honestly a whole movie in that style would have been so cool.

Asterix and Obelix Mission Cleopatra: The part where main characters escape the pyramid is animated. Well at least their eyes are since its in pitch black darkness. Best live-action remake oat.

Gaylord Focker from meet the parents. His last name is unfortunate, but his first name really seals the deal

Pantyhose Taro from Ranma 1/2. Named by his very perverted godfather

Moana - During “You’re Welcome” when Maui raps about his tattoos for a brief moment you can see one of him jumping towards a giant crab, but based on its face and shiny shell it’s pretty obviously meant to be Schaffrillas Tamatoa who won’t show up until later.

Spider-Man Far From Home - During the Italy montage minutes before the first monster attack Spider-Man deals with, for about half a second Quentin Beck is seen on the phone looking at Peter, and even though Mysterio showed up before this, this is the first time we see Quentin and it foreshadows how the monsters are a ploy led by him.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable - In a handful (no pun intended) of episodes before he officially meets the main characters Yoshikage Kira can be seen in the background of scenes observing the story play out.

Puss in Boots the Last Wish - As Puss fights the giant, Death can be seen stalking him behind the crowd right before Puss loses his 8th life.

Note that this trope isn't just "the ending/story was bad," but specific events or scenes that were hyped up as one thing but arguably did not land the execution.

The Boys - Homelander unleashed (not really)

For 5 seasons the show’s primary threat is of Homelander's danger to civilization and that he could go on a public worldwide rampage at any moment. We get a fake-out of him lasering a crowd of hundreds of people. He explicitly threatens that if he’s given nothing left to lose, he’ll take out Earth’s communication and government centers before demolishing entire cities. The advertising for the final season, including the poster pictured here, promised global destruction, massacres on a scale unprecedented, “scorched Earth” in their very own words. But for all of that teasing none of it actually happened, and Homelander is ultimately defeated within the confines of a single room and with relatively limited deaths/collateral damage.

Godzilla (2014) - Godzilla's first fight

It’s the first time Godzilla has been on the big screen in a decade and the unveiling of his brand new American design. Up to this point we’ve only seen the MUTO’s destruction and just fleeting glimpses of Big G himself. But oh, watch out! He’s coming! He’s making his way to the MUTO! THERE HE IS. SEE HIM STOMP. HEAR HIM ROAR. THIS FIGHT’S GOING TO BEEEEEE-a cutaway of Godzilla and the MUTO grappling for 5 seconds on a small television screen news report before the MUTO just flies away.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - Final battle

The middle third of the movie has the main cast running around uniting the pirates of the world against the East India Trading Company. There’s prolonged scenes spent rallying everyone to work together and deciding on who deserves to be the their leading Pirate Lord. The pirates and the EITC each gather a fleet of dozens of ships in a standoff that could have lead to the largest on-screen naval battle in cinematic history. Huge boats broadsiding each other with cannons, crashing into each other, characters hopping from ship to ship across the battleground. Instead the contest is entirely decided between just the Black Pearl and the Dutchman, and Elizabeth’s position as Pirate Lord meant little since she doesn’t command any other ships to assist. The other pirates even all cheer at the end even though all they did was sit on their asses! The fight between the Pearl and Dutchman is an admittedly cool and climatic sequence in and of itself, but having all of the available ships participate would’ve better communicated the stakes and scale.

Real Life - Dashcon 2014

In 2014 a convention was announced for fandoms on Tumblr. It hyped itself up as “the largest gathering of Tumblr users to date,” with promises of celebrity guests, panels, gaming rooms, live performances, etc. Expected guest attendance was supposed to be approximately 3000 people. Presale tickets and a last minute crowdfunding campaign of $17,000 were ostensibly going towards funding the event. Come the day of the convention, the expected 3000 attendees was closer to 350, many VIPs had canceled due to organizer mismanagement, and promised amenities included a single game console (meant to somehow be shared between hundreds of people) and a ball pit the size of a kiddie pool. As complaints started to mount and attendees asked for refunds for panels that had been canceled, the organizers did not do so, but instead offered things such as raffle tickets and an “extra hour in the ball bit.”

1. This particular Sherlock Holmes adaptation, I love. There was plenty of clever exploration of modern technology that influenced the plot, and I enjoyed it.

2. "She's the man", I didn't like it. It's based on "Twelfth night" by William Shakespeare, and I think putting it in a modern setting adds nothing of value to the brilliance of the play, it just makes everything dumber.

3. Superheroes (Spiderman as an example). I don't have strong feelings for this one, I think it's kinda required to put them in the present day, that's the point—the whole genre is kind of a modern fairy tale, bringing hope and wonder in today's wonderless and materialistic life.

The Emporer of Mankind (Warhammer 40k): I don't know much about 40k but this is so cool. The Emporer of Mankind has been kept "alive" in a perpetual state of decay via the life support Golden Throne for 10000 years. It is unclear how much of him is biologically, or psychically, "alive".

Hidan (Naruto): His religion grants immortality and while some people say he would die eventually, I like to imagine he is alive living a horrific life buried, hungry, and decaying in that hole.

Nas'hrah (Fear and Hunger): A New God wizard with an attitude, he rejected the constraints of New Godhood and forged his own path. He was reduced to a floating head, but still maintained a significant amount of power in that state. However, once immolated by the traces of Gro'goroth, he became a husk trapped in the ruins of the Dungeon of Fear and Hunger for centuries. He can only communicate telepathically and deflect some magic now, he is literally an equip item now. His attitude and pompousness has not changed in the slightest. In O'saa's ending, iirc he is thrown into a lake.

(Steven Universe) I’m not a hundred percent sure of the context of this scene, but I’m pretty sure it’s Steven doing something dangerous

(Black Lagoon) Revy, Balalaika and Rock looking at porn, Balalaika in the middle is the one editing it

(Madagascar 3) Maurice and Mort reacting to King Julien presumably falling to his death

1. The girls in Persona 4 really can't cook to save their lives, and whatever they make will cause others to get nauseous at best.

2. Raiden Shogun is the only character in Genshin Impact that refuses to cook at all, and if you press her on it, she'll tell you that's the one thing she won't do for you. Ironically, her Honkai Impact 3rd counterpart Raiden Mei is a good cook.

3. Nia Teppelin (Gurren Lagann) actually put Rossiu out of commission for an episode due to her awful cooking, but Simon and Boota like it.

1. Captain Hammer from "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog": Kind of cheating with this one already considering that his super powers doesn't seem to be removed, but the bully superhero does get to feel pain for the very first time in his life after getting blasted by a explosion from a Death Ray machine, causing him to run away while crying loudly like a baby.
2. Gabriel from "Constantine": A very powerful arch angel who planned to destroy humanity, is confronted by Lucifer himself who burns off his wings thus becoming a human. He has a flabbergasted and dazed expression when Constantine punches him in the face, realizing that getting punched really effing hurts.
3. Manchester Black from "Superman vs The Elite": Again, cheating with this one again since Manchester did get his super psychic powers when he was a kid and he has been taking a few punches and hits in the movie (and presumably before the movie as well), but he is very powerful and was able to shield off the hits, that is until Superman removes his powers by performing a precise "instant lobotomy" shot with his heat vision into Manchester's eye. Then Superman slaps Manchester's face a few times until he collapses on his knees weeping in fear.

1. Boothill (Honkai Star Rail): Someone (probably from the IPC) messed with his Synesthesia Beacon, leading to his cursing being kept to a PG-rated level.
2. Kirito (Sword Art Online Abridged): He can’t swear in Alfheim Online due to the game’s profanity filters, similar to the above example.
3. Julie Powers (Scott Pilgrim vs The World): She seems to censor herself, with strange black bars over her mouth and bleeps when’re she curses, but when Scott asks her how she’s doing it, she refuses to explain.

Characters who never take off their masks.

• 1. V (V for Vendetta)
• 2. Ghost (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare)
• 3. Wrench (Watch Dogs 2)

While Earth is often portrayed as a place filled to the brim with all sorts of unique superheroes with all sorts of special powers, it's much more rare that any of the alien civilisations. There are no Spidermen, no Wolverines, no Captain America-esque supersoldiers. They're all equipped with the same powers with only difference being powerscale

1. Martians (Invincible) - The martians in the Invincible universe are highly adaptive metamorphs. While both Shapesmith and Martian-Man utilize the ability innate to their species differently, where Martian-Man was more of a combatant while Shapesmith is adept in infiltration, it is still the same power.

2. Viltrumites (Invincible) - The Viltrumites as a species are a force to be reckoned with. Super strength and ability to fly among others. None of the characters we see however have any sorts of other powers on top of that.

3. Martians (DC) Pretty much identical to the martians of Invincible with a few abilities on top like invisibility and telepathy. While you could make an argument with for example Burning Martians with their ability to control fire, it'd cathegorize it more as a subspecies than a 'unique' power.

4. Atlanteans (Invincible) Much like with previous examples, Aquarus and by extent all atlanteans have the ability to conjure water. It was not something unique to him.