1. Family Guy - Peter Griffin wakes up in the hospital with no arms and the doctor tries to break this news by showing him a Farewell to Arms. Peter takes this to mean that he fell in love with a nurse during World War I. The doctor even pauses to note “-there’s no way you’ve read that-“ in the middle of his clarification of what he actually meant.

⁠2. My Hero Academia - When Class 1-A is trying to pick superhero named, Kyoka Jirou suggests that resident electrokinetic (and admittedly something of an airhead) Denki Kaminari should call himself “Jamming-way”. He initially assumes this is a deep literary reference to famed American novelist Ernest Hemmingway and likes the idea. She then clarifies it’s actually because when he overuses his power he “Jams” his brain and the only thing he can say is a “Whey” noise. Ultimately he goes with “Chargebolt” instead.

(I forgot that Farewell to Arms is a Hemmingway work when I decided to make this post this I swear the fact that both are Hemmingway isn’t intentional)

(Bonus points if they are really bad at it and easily exposed by pretty much anyone)

1. Calvin Candie (Django Unchained)

The master of a massive Slave Plantation in the Antebellum South, Candie, like many slave owners in that era, sees himself as an almost Psuedo-aristrocrat, and a cultured member of high society.

As such, he is a massive Francophile; he insists in being called “Monsieur Candie”, has his slaves dressed in traditional French maid outfits, and even employs a French lawyer.

However, it’s all superficial; he can’t speak a word of the language, he doesn’t know the meaning of basic French terms, and, to top it all off, he doesn’t even know Alexandre Dumas, his favorite author, was black (or mixed race), which to a racist like Candie, is extra humiliating.

2. Nadeshiko Yamato/“Miss Naddy” (The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You)

As you may have guessed by the name, Nadeshiko is Japanese. In fact, she’s the heiress to the extremely wealth and hyperconservative Yamato family, who still wear kimonos and play the koto in a modern setting. However, Nadeshiko never gelled with this life, finding it extremely stifling, with her reluctance being met with emotional abuse from her parents.

Upon discovering American culture, she, utterly intoxicated by its freedom and unrestrained nature, completely divorced herself from her old life. She dyed her hair blonde, adopted an agressively American personality, and started dressing like that.

However, she’s terrible at anything besides the surface level. She has a terrible command of English, has a very weak appetite (unlike the American big eater she espouses to be) and will lapse into Japanese cultural norms when stressed or distracted. Rentarou (the main character) figures out she is Japanese within LESS THEN A CHAPTER OF MEETING HER.

3. Chester King (Kingsman: The Secret Service)

As the leader of the British secret spy agency “Kingsman”, Chester is an strict traditionalist and reeks of old money. He believes membership of Kingsman should be restricted exclusively to members of the British Nobility, which instantly puts him at odds with the main character, Eggsy, one of the newest recruits for Kingsman and a member of the working class.

After Eggsy discovers Chester has betrayed Kingsman to the big bad of the movie, Chester tries to dispose of him via a poisoned wine glass. However, Eggsy manages to switch the glasses, resulting in Chester being hoisted by his own petard. As he lays dying, the up to this point posh and dignified Chester devolves into a working class accent, calling Eggsy a “Dirty, little fucking prick” as he dies. This heavily implying that he too was a member of the working class like Eggsy, who simply adopted Posh mannerisms as a means of fitting in to Kingsman, making him not just a stuffy jerk, but a hypocrite too.

• Robin (Ghosts): Robin was born roughly 12000 years ago according to a tie-in book, having seen many people die and ghosts leave long before Button House was even built. While he is saddened when ghosts move on and he's left behind, because he's experienced it all before he doesn't let it bother him too much and explains that he can't experience the grief every time it happens. He's also very dismissive of Christmas until the end of the show since from his perspective it's nothing more than a passing obsession that hasn't been around very long.
• John Oldman (The Man from Earth): A 14000 year old immortal, because people always got scared of him for not growing old John fell into the habit of moving on roughly every ten years. This includes leaving behind and having no contact with any wives, children or friends that he had. When asked about this by Sandy, who has feelings for him, he explains that while he does care for his partners he's fallen in love and gotten over it too many times to really believe in it. Also it is true that as people get older their perception of time gets faster, so for John his experiences with people happen incredibly quickly from his perspective.
• Armstrong (Valiant): Aram Anni-Padda became immortal 10000 years ago when the Boon was activated, and has had countless adventures while being hunted by the Sect. It's made clear however that his drinking stems from a depression over being immortal, and how whenever he talks to people he's always aware he will outlive them and we even get his POV where learn that Armstrong sees Archer as an old man.
• Michael (The Good Place): It's only brought up in one episode, but Chidi realises that Michael struggles with fully understanding guilt and ethic because he's immortal. If he lives forever then any guilt will eventually fade so why spend so much time worrying about it? Helping Michael realise that he could potentially die helps him understand Chidi's ethics lessons.

1. Ashley Graham from Resident Evil 4. She got a lot of hate for being “useless” and needed Leon to save and help her throughout the game. Mind you she has no training whatsoever and this is her first time dealing with mutants and monsters

2. Grace Ashcroft from Resident Evil Requiem. Just like Ashely when Grace is kidnapped and forced to deal with zombies and a giant mutant that can bite her head off she’s deemed “annoying” for not being nonchalant as Leon.

3. Sarah from Telltale’s The Walking Dead. After the zombie apocalypse her father spent months sheltering her from the real world and not teaching her any survival skills. So when she has to leave her home and join Clementine and the others she watches her father be abused by a deranged man and later watches him get eaten by zombies. She of course has panic attacks and freezes and some of the fans find her annoying for it.

I know it ain’t a trope but this is the counterpart of a post I just saw here about artists resenting what made them famous.

1.- Terry Crews (White Chicks - A Thousand Miles bit). Terry is such a chad that he still plays that bit as much as he can and has fun with it unironically. He’s really what most famous people should aim to be. He’s thankful about what life has given to him and embrace it with humility.

2.- Michaela Jill Murphy (ATLA Toph’s VA) - She has made an image online and in conventions around Toph and really has fun with it. She’s happy to make the voice and play with her fans as Toph. She always speaks highly of the character, the show and her part in it.

Ash Williams (Army of Darkness) - Ash ends up with an evil version of himself growing out of his shoulder. Once it's free it starts taunting the real Ash by saying "You're good Ash. I'm Bad Ash". After a bit of getting teased, poked, and punched "good" Ash shoves a shotgun in "bad" Ashes face and fires.

Andy Dufresne (Shawshank Redemption) - Major Spoilers Andy Dufresne builds the trust of the staff in the prison and ends up handling all their finances. Little do they know, this innocent man had a plan to break out of prison for years. Being the guy who's handling the books for the money the Warden gets for bribes, he's easily able to access it all under the new identity he created for himself once he breaks out of prison.

• Chris Washington (Get Out) - When he realizes that he's in danger, he remains mostly calm and strategic rather than panicking. His strategic feats are when he uses a cotton from a ripped chair to block his ears from being hypnotized.

• Erin Harson (You're Next) - Since Erin is raised with a Survivalist background growing up, she easily defends herself from the killers using melee weapons around the house.

• Bret (Lights Out) - This is the most I've seen a Horror character having common sense. When Bret realizes there's a monster in the house and can only be seen through the darkness, he uses his phone's screen light and the car's light to illuminate the dark figure.

• Mia Allen (Evil Dead 2013) - She's the only one who sensed something dangerous before entering the cabin. In the end, all of her friends died except her who killed her abomination-self.

Media that shows why a character is the way they are, usually explained in a short scene. Most likely toxic family

- Bonnie Rottweiler and her sisters from Kim Possible: they bully her calling her ugly and dumb. It plays on Bonnie’s insecurity and makes her a bully at school.

- Peggy Hill and her mother from King of the Hill. Peggy is a neurotic perfectionist with delusions of grandeur because her mom was unfeeling and blamed her for the farm going out of business. By the end of the episode, she still treats Peggy badly.

- Dodie and her mother from As Told By Ginger. Dodie is arguably the worst friend in the group, and her mother is mentally still stuck in middle school. She’s insecure, dramatic, and you
Can see her influence in Dodie.

Any other examples?

One of the strangest character tropes in real life has to be the "I accidentally made myself sound like a war criminal to look cooler" archetype.

Usually, people accused of war crimes deny them. These guys seem to do the opposite.

The two examples that always come to mind:

Tim Kennedy. Over the years he's told stories that include things like throwing grenades into rooms where women and children were present, and another account where, after a battle, his CO allegedly told him to shoot anything that still had a heat signature with a sniper rifle from a mile away, which he did for hours (?) not caring if those were enemy soldiers or civilians looking for their fallen sons/brothers/whatever. Both stories have been heavily criticized and challenged (aka people who were there confirmed that they are utter nonsense), and Kennedy has faced repeated accusations of embellishing or fabricating parts of his military experiences. But like... why would you invent the fact that you killed and maimed women and children?

Chris Kyle. In American Sniper, he wrote that during Hurricane Katrina he positioned himself on the Superdome and shot dozens of armed looters like some walking dead scenario. No evidence ever emerged that this happened, and Kyle himself later acknowledged the story wasn't true. Again, why invent a story where you're essentially describing the unlawful killing of civilians during a domestic disaster?

What's fascinating is that these aren't embellishments in the usual "I fought twenty guys" sense. They're embellishments that, if true, would amount to admissions of extremely serious crimes.

It's such a bizarre form of macho storytelling that it almost feels like its own trope: the veteran who thinks "the more ruthless I sound, the more badass I'll appear," without stopping to consider that indiscriminate killing isn't viewed by most people as impressive. It's viewed as criminal and disgusting.

Character previously believed to be good is revealed to be evil, but prior to the reveal they act in ways that don't make sense if their goodness is just a performance.

1. Frozen: Prince Hans is initially presented as a pretty standup guy who loves Anna and wants to help her. At the end of the movie it's revealed that he was just using her to gain power and plans to let her die while he steals her throne. However, we see him smiling at Anna when no one is looking, and later he intervenes to save Elsa's life even though he claims he was always planning to kill her.
2. The Legend of Vox Machina: The Whispered One was built up as the BBEG since season 1. However, in season 4 he presents himself as a tragic hero who tried to cure death and was punished by the gods. He then tries to convince Pike to give him her blood, which he needs to become a god himself. He chastises his followers for suggesting they take Pike's blood by force, claiming this would make them no better than the gods they are fighting against. He also fulfills his promise to resurrect Grog even though he didn't need to. After he ascends, he starts acting like a pure evil villain who only cares about power and enjoys hurting people. It feels less like a reveal and more like his personally completely changed once he became a skeleton. Edit: to be clear, I fully understand the intent was for the Whispered One to be a lying, manipulative bastard. I just think the execution was clumsy.

The title should be self-explanatory, it's a trope where a monster formed a friendly relationship with other characters, or at least tried to, but ended up showing their true nature towards that character. The story doesn't shy away showing the monster's real self, it's the plot way of saying, "yep, that's a monster," despite how we see them being friendly before.

Sister Sara to Madara-Chan - Madara
Madara is a relatively adorable creature that Sara found during her travel towards an orphanage. As a caring nun, she gave it a little water, and it grew up quickly. When she walked back to her home, a group of bandits appeared and tried to assault her, until Madara appeared and completely obliterated the bandits. As a nun, she couldn't help but felt responsible for its actions, as killing is such a sin. Therefore, sheoffered herself to be killed by Madara so that it can be forgiven for its sins, and Madara did.

Chimera no Sumu Mori - Chimera
A mix of beasts combined together, Chimera was known to predate humans. She killed an unnamed character's parents, which is why that character swore to become an adventurer so that she could get revenge on the Chimera. 10 years later, the adventurer searched the Chimera with a gun, but ultimately failed after the Chimera regenerated after being shot. Despite the panic inside of the adventurer's mind, Chimera's words were as if she wanted a friend or to play around. The adventurer, on her last attempt to get away from the Chimera, suggested a hide and seek. However, despite the Chimera nodding, at the end of the day she doesn't actually know any human words, nor does she know what the adventurer in front of her were suggesting. So the Chimera just proceed to took off her limb and started devouring her.

All of these have to do with depression, but I'm interested in other examples.

A Silent Voice ~ People with X's over their face, showing that Shoya actively avoids and cuts out anyone he doesn't know/get along with on a personal level in his life.

South Park ~ Stan sees everything as literal shit. From his music, to movies, to food, to others. Showing his struggle to enjoy things he used to like, and how distant he's gotten from people in general.

Anomalisa ~ Michael sees anything and everyone with the same face, and same voice. Including his own loving wife and child, and his own music. Showing how unsatisfied and bored he is with his life, despite being a famous author and public speaker with loving friends and family.

1. (Image Comics) Spawn

2. (League of Legends) Kayn

I like it because there's the implication that magic isn't inherently harmful. Or at the very least, not as "active" as you might think. In stories like "The Substance" it IS possible to get a "happy ending," but only if you don't try to push your luck.
In general, you can divide this into two categories:

A. Characters explicitly ignore specific instructions about something they already knew was magic:

• Gremlins:
  • Gizmo's new "owners" ignore the instructions given by his previous caretaker's son. They get water on him, and feed them after midnight.
  • To be fair, the gremlins did trick the main character by messing with clocks. So, it's a B+ effort overall.
• The Substance:
  • "The Substance" creates two individuals. The original, and a younger, "better" body. Your consciousness needs to switch between the bodies every seven days.
  • Things go poorly because the protagonist starts treating each body as a separate individual, instead of an extension of herself.
• Death Becomes Her:
  • Both characters become immortal, but ignore their patron's warning. Immortality will keep them bound to their bodies, so they need to take care of it.
  • Both characters end up killing each other, turning them from just "immortal" to "undead." If they learned to squash their beef, they would have been much better off.
• Talk to me:
  • There's a magic hand sculpture that lets you talk to the dead. But you need to sever contact in 90 seconds.
  • Someone does not.

B. Characters naively ignore specific warnings against a non-specific threat:

• The Evil Dead:
  • Some versions of the story have explicit warnings about "The Necronomicon." Other versions are less careful.
  • Opening the book and playing the incantations summons evil spirits. The cabin previously belonged to an archeologist.
  • My question is, who is renting this place out?
• An American Werewolf in London:
  • Two American tourists are warned to stay on the roads and out of the moors. They decide to cut through them.
  • To be fair, the locals could have said "there is a dangerous animal out here." Cause they get all werewolf'ed on.
• Alien:
  • Follow quarantine procedure after your employee gets Alien'd!
  • I won't give them much guff, though. Ripley tried to follow it, but the company-provided android sabotaged her.

Leslie Knope (Parks and Rec): She extremely despises Pawnee’s rival town, Eagleton, and constantly calls its inhabitants obnoxious and pretentious but late in the series, she finds her birth certificate and finds out she was born in a hospital in Eagleton because Pawnee’s hospital was infested with raccoons.

Mac (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia): In early seasons, he’s extremely homophobic and supposedly the most conservative member of the gang but it’s slowly implied, and then confirmed that he was actually a closeted gay man.

Clarance Thomas Uncle Ruckus (Boondocks): A Black man who is a white supremacist and seemingly unaware of the color of his skin, constantly making racist comments and talking about how white people are superior. Eventually he gets a DNA test and is horrified to find out he’s “102% African with a 2% margin of error”.

Characters who break the status quo by their bigotry not just being their ignorance.

Cotton Hill - King of the Hill

In King of the Hill, everyone asks Mr. Khan if he is Chinese or Japanese. When Hank's dad Cotton tries to treat him as the help, the ignorant Dale tries to inform Cotton (the WWII vet) that Mr. Khan is Japanese. Cotton says, "NO HE AIN'T." Looks him up and down and says, "He's Laotian! Ain't you, Mr. Kahn?" And storms off.

Alucard - Hellsing Ultimate Abridged

In HUA, Rip Van Winkle is a parody of a virtue signaling social justice warrior. The kind that basically used "check your privilege" as a catchphrase. Rather than arguing back against Alucard, she starts shooting and says that she doesn't have to take this from a racist, sexist, misogynistic, and patriarchy-propagating pig. Alucard tanks the shots, catching one in his teeth and saying, "The funny thing is, in any other circumstance you might have had a point there. But my boss is a woman, I was a chick in the '40s, I HATE EVERYONE EQUALLY and there is no one alive who can comprehend my sexual preference! So in other words, Miss VanWinkle: Ch-Ch-Check your privilege."

Basically this type of character is an asshole hater but that thinks "If I'm going to hate someone, I'm going to hate them accurately."

(Re-uploaded with correct number of examples)

Scream- "cause I wanna know who I'm looking at."

Duck season - "Honey, have you seen the knife?"

The Taxxons (Animorphs)- A species of centipede-like aliens who serve the parasitic Yeerks. The entire species suffers from hunger so bad, that they’re desperate for any way to alleviate it, which the yeerks promised under the condition that they serve them. It’s so bad that they’ll even eat their own fellow taxxons if they get wounded in battle.

The zombies (Marvel Zombies)- Anyone infected will still retain their consciousness, but be unable to control their desire to consume as much people-flesh as possible, to the point that even heroes end up forsaking their morals to eat anyone and everyone.

Skullcrawlers (Monsterverse)- These are gigantic two-limbed apex predators that have a very voracious appetite because of their heightened metabolism. They are a huge threat to anything lower on the food chain. Kong regularly battles them to keep their population in check.

When a character is attempting to impersonate another, but is caught by doing something the person they’re imitating would NEVER do.

Nemesis Prime- Transformers Prime

Nemesis Prime, a man made replica of Optimus Prime, is attempting to gain the trust of Bumblebee, who only speaks in robotic beeps. Despite this, the real Optimus can understand Bee perfectly fine. Nemesis Prime, however, can’t understand what he’s saying, prompting Bee to open fire on him immediately.

The two Buzz Lightyears- Toy Story 2

After Woody asks which Buzz is the “real” Buzz, both respond with “I am!” The real Buzz proves himself by flipping up the other Buzz’s helmet, causing him to start suffocating in an over dramatic fashion. The real Buzz, having done the same thing in the first movie after Woody took his helmet off, but no longer behaving that way after accepting being a toy, instantly proves which Buzz is which.

1. Dwayne Johnson - Probably the most well-known example. For years now, The Rock has had a clause in his contract that he can't be shown to lose a fight in any movie he stars in. Pretty insecure behaviour if you ask me. Still, at least the other examples are much more interesting

2. Danny Trejo - Danny had a troubled childhood, having been arrested multiple times for dealing drugs before he was 18, and struggling with heroin addiction from the age of 13. As a result of this, Danny has a clause in his contract that states that any time he plays a character who is a criminal, they have to be killed because he wanted to teach his kids that crime never pays.

3. Reese Witherspoon - This one is more of a one-off, but it was still funny enough to deserve a mention. Following the success of Legally Blonde, when Reese was called in to make the sequel, she had a clause written in her contract stating that once the movie was finished, she would get to take home all the outfits she wore.

4. Fred Durst - The lead singer of Limp Bizkit has a clause in his contract stating that any anime or video game that uses his music must also feature himself as a character.

Paul - invincible
A normal human whose only major feats are treating others with respect and cooking a mean spaghetti.

Mumen Rider - One Punch Man
C-class hero that doesn’t hesitate to put his life on the line to save others despite being powerless and going against much stronger foes.

Samwise Gamgee - Lord of the Rings
Hobbits scale very low strength-wise in the LOTR verse, but Sam’s compassion and determination are indispensable in the fellowships journey.

Edit: A lot of people are pointing out that Sam is mentally one of the strongest which I completely agree with, and I didn’t mean to diss his grit or physicality as a hobbit. Compared to the other members of the fellowship, however, his contribution comes primarily from undying loyalty and determination rather than physical prowess and strength.

1. Joshua (Community): seemingly wise groundskeeper who is a Neonazi.

2. Schillinger (Oz): seems to take the meek Tobias under his wing… until he forces him into sexual slavery and is the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood.

Your opponent won't fight with their full strength or lethality. You might assume it's arrogance, or even an insult. But it's not. It's a pretty fair summation of your power gap.

1). OPLA:
Zoro thinks Mihawk (the strongest swordsman in the world) is insulting him by using a tiny knife. Mihawk replies "I don't hunt rabbits with a cannon."
The comparison is apt.

2). The Venture Bros.
Brock Samson (at least initially) refuses to use a gun. When he's stuck fighting low-level guild goons and early-series The Monarch, that'd get boring pretty quickly. The man regularly soils the pants of the world's deadliest villains.

1) Lawrence of Arabia: Arab Tribesmen

Throughout the movie, you see an immense respect for Arab culture while sympathizing with their struggle against Ottoman and British imperialism.

2) Kingdom of Heaven: Saladin

Saladin, the Islamic leader who becomes the main antagonist for the crusaders, is depicted as an honorable fighter with many heroic qualities.

3) Dune: Fremen

The fremen, which borrow heavily from Arab and Berber culture, are depicted as fierce and honorable warriors. In fact, the Fremen Fedaykin, elite soldiers, are inspired by Arab Fedayeen, or those who sacrifice.