r/TopCharacterTropes Aug 06 '26

Groups Team lineup: regular dude, regular dude, GOD, regular dude

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

Teams or groups of people that are all fairly normal save for one member of the team who is extremely powerful

The Watchmen
The Thunderbolts/New Avengers (MCU)
The park crew (Regular Show)

r/TopCharacterTropes 9d ago

Groups [Loved Trope] Society immediately devolves due to a minor issue

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

Sure there's enough post-apocalyptic media where disease, natural disasters, zombies, or even aliens happen and society is immediately thrown back to the Bronze Age. But the conflict in these examples is so minor, it makes society's sudden devolution really funny.

Jimmy Neutron - in the episode "Jimmy On Ice", Jimmy Neutron creates a device to block the sun temporarily to provide a respite from the unusual hot summer. This works too well and the whole town enters an ice age. Not even a day passes and society is already reverted to cavemen hunting caribou.

South Park - one of the fourth graders, Bebe, starts developing boobs, and the boys of the class immediately revert to cavemen that suddenly forgot English. Just being in the presence of Bebe causes... Huh? Huh! Hooo hooo hooo Ugghhhh ugghhhh ah-ta! Ah-ta!

r/TopCharacterTropes Jul 17 '26

Groups Aliens that are actually alien

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes
  1. Heptapods (Arrival)

  2. The crystalline entity (Star trek)

  3. Rocky (Project hail mary)

  4. Qu (All tommorows)

  5. Xeelee (The xeelee sequence)

r/TopCharacterTropes Jul 28 '26

Groups (Loved Trope) Zombies in Non-contemporary Settings

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

The Kingdom from Netflix

The Army of the Dead from Game of Thrones

Husks from the Mass Effect Trilogy

Zombie stories often have the same over done tropes and plot lines, and modern weapons trivialize their threat, but simply changing the era the story takes place in really spices things up depending on how they're incorporated into the story

r/TopCharacterTropes May 20 '26

Groups [Interesting Trope] Guilt Free Violence

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

Groups of evil entities that you don't feel bad about mowing down.

  1. Nazis - Example shown: Dr. Henry Jones Jr. (aka Indiana) as well as other media. Hell yeah.
  2. Demons - Doom Franchise. Hellspawn from Mars - terminate with extreme prejudice.
  3. Soul Starved/Hollows - Souls Franchise - This is probably the "saddest" example as it was someone who lost their soul and purpose and therefore lost their minds. They're serve as the cannon fodder of the series. They feel no remorse coming at you, so you must respond in kind.
  4. Mama Mia, how'd this example get here?

r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 16 '26

Groups PNG

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

default image that’s looks funny and out of place

r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 26 '26

Groups Awful civilians

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

In Persona 5, the mankind's desire for control and stagnation was so strong that it spawned Yaldaboth, a deity hellbent on keeping everyone in check. Not to mention, the Japanese civies were quick to switch sides against Pahntom thieves due to media slander;

In Spongebob Squarepants, the residents invented a whole day without Spongebob. Not only did people (including his friends) burn a statue of the guy, they didn't even warn him, so he almost went nuts from solitude;

In my hero academia, civilians are lazy bums who won't lift a finger to help a distressed child.

r/TopCharacterTropes Mar 11 '26

Groups [Hated Trope] The Love Interest Bias

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

(idk if this is the name of the actual trope)

In this trope, the love interest is part of a certain group, while the love interest is beatifully drawn, the rest of the group are often caricatures of the group in question.

1- Esmeralda and the rest of the Romani from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame

2- Tiger Lily and the rest of the tribe in Peter Pan

r/TopCharacterTropes Apr 01 '26

Groups [LOVED Trope] Aliens that are aliens and not just humans with other skin color.

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes
  1. Precursors from Pacific Rim

  2. Jean Jacket from Nope

  3. Calvin from “Life”

r/TopCharacterTropes 25d ago

Groups The Coconut Effect

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

A sound effect, special effect, or design feature that is inaccurate but has become so ingrained in viewers minds that its absence would feel jarring, so creators continue to include it despite its inaccuracy.

The name of the trope comes from the sound of a horse galloping, which is created by rubbing two coconuts together. This can sound like a horse galloping, but it would only be accurate on cobblestones or other hard surfaces. On softer ground, the sound would be muffled, but in media, this sound effect can be used whenever a horse is galloping, regardless of the terrain.

1. Lion Roar (or any big cat) (Pictured: MGM logo) — The long, continuous, thunderous roar usually associated with lions is actually the roar of a tiger. For MGM, this sound began being used in the 1980s, and sound editor Mark Mangini used it because lions sounded to him more like a deep yawn or a series of grunts and lacked the kind of ferocious sound he wanted.

2. Ancient statues are always white marble (Pictured: Spartacus TV series) — Statues in ancient times were often painted in bright colors, but by the time they were uncovered, the colors had simply worn away.

3. People instantly freeze or pop like a balloon when exposed to the vacuum of space (Pictured: Mission to Mars, Total Recall) — As unfriendly as space is, a human wouldn't instantly freeze or pop like a balloon. If a person were exposed to the vacuum of space, bodily fluids would begin to boil, exposed skin would suffer severe sunburn, and they would lose consciousness after roughly 15–20 seconds. Death would occur after roughly 90 seconds.

r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 24 '26

Groups The villain’s group name basically spells out that they are the bad guys

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

Decepticons from Transformers

League of Villain from My Hero Academia

Brotherhood of Evil Mutants from old Marvel Comics

r/TopCharacterTropes Aug 02 '26

Groups (Bad writing trope) Slytherin effect.

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

Made this term up.
Basically there is a group, that is obviously meant to be nuanced. But author is either incapable, or is too cornered by their depiction, to depict them as any other than bad.

Slytherin (Harry Potter) - In both media the Slytherin is initially presented to us as the “bad house” for Harry. Joanne however seemingly tried to convince us, that they can be good too however, since she likely figured having basically a little supremacist terrorist club in school is a little silly.

For some reason she just had to screw this depiction up over and over though.
First of zero…and I mean ZERO…null, 0, green characters in story up to book 6 is good. They are arrogant snobbish asshats AT BEST.

Second the first good green is still a supremacist. Not the “let’s subjugate all muggles” but just humble “no way muggleborn is this good at magic!”

Aldmeri Dominion, and Altmer in general (TES) - So unlike precious example neither High Elves, nor the Dominion were actually bad in iterations previous to 2010’s. Some were snobbish yes, and their religion is…problematic…(simply pup many Altmer believe they are literal descendant of gods and Men are demons trapping them within hell of chaos) but they never really were villains as race.
This all changed with Skyrim where they became not just secondary antagonists, but placeholder for TES version of Gestapo.

Now that in itself wouldn’t be an issue.
Races and empires at whole can be villains without controversy.

Problem is their depiction in ESO. Where even though it’s absolutely different time period are pretty much same?

I mean their Queen is an elvish supremacist who believe Men unfit for rule and that’s her reason to take over the Tamriel…
Oh! And one of their organizations literally eat children.

The Institute (Fallout 4) - So the whole turmoil of the story is this war of the four (rather three) factions.
Now all factions are meant to be equally good and bad choices.
Railroad are abolitionists, but with no long-term goals.
BoS wants to ensure safety to the Commonwealth, but for price of eradication to all but humans.
And Institute is meant to be this faction that wants to “bring world back to state before the Great War”, but all they do is being comically evil.
I mean for starters are slaver and also they murder people and replace them with Synths.

Then they also just straight up massacre communities. Often with no goal.
Then there is a whole super mutant thing, where they released purely based on gameplay and logic few hundreds of super mutants on surface “for research.”
Oh! And they even admitted they plan on wiping out all non-Institute humans to replace them!

r/TopCharacterTropes Jan 02 '26

Groups Stories that accidentally romanticize the very thing they aim to demonize

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

I'm aware this is very similar to the "idiots missing the point of the story and cheer for the clearly bad guy" trope (especially the third example clearly fits both), but still think this is worth exploring.

  1. American History X / Neonazis

This already shows the difference to the trope I explained above, since some people didn't fall in love with the character, but mainly the aesthetic of the neonazi scene as depicted in the movie.
On one hand, they are depicted as violent, murderous assholes and the protagonist's brother ruins his entire family's life because of his actions. On the other hand, the scene looks stylish and "manly" that, to this day, inspires a lot of real world neonazis.

  1. The Godfather / The Mafia

Similarly to the previous example, the movies don't spare us of the negative aspects of the mafia and the way it ruins the lives of everyone involved. Still, the mob is painted in such an honorful and upper-class way that convinced real people that this is a life to pursue.

  1. Wall Street / Yuppie culture and predatory capitalism

Similar thing, different topic: Gordon Gecko is supposed to be an unsympathetic asshole that, in the end, has to pay for his actions. His catchphrase "greed is good" became the motto of an entire generation of yuppies though, with Gecko himself becoming their mentor figure. A few decades later, "The Wolf of Wall Street" took the same role for the new generation of finance bros.

  1. Treasure Island / Pirates

Modern pirate stories wouldn't be the same, maybe wouldn't even exist, if it wasn't for Treasure Island. Most pirates in the story are dead by the end, after suffering under a clearly mad captain, and still Robert Louis Stevenson's story painted pirates as a bunch of comrades living free while hunting for treasure chests in beautiful, tropical islands instead of the murderous, criminal bunch they were in reality.

  1. The Sorrows of Young Werther / Suicide

This work of famous classical German novelist Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe ends with the suicide of the protagonist after being rejected by the love of his life. Goethe tried to depict him as an idiot and yet still inspired a bunch of youths who found themselves in similar situations to kill themselves. This phenomenon is even called the "Werther effect" nowadays.
When confronted about indirectly being responsible for numerous deaths, Goethe defended his work and instead insulted the people committing suicide as "narrow-minded spirits, [...] fools and good-for-nothings".

r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 17 '26

Groups What a great movie/game/book!! Can't wait to NEVER watch/play/read it again !!

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

Great pieces of entertainment that are so disturbing or psychologically draining that makes you want to experience it just once or want to wait a long while for a second time.

Hereditary - The first time I watched it the car and beheading scenes stuck with me for weeks, I would literally think about them every night I went to sleep and be horrified, I had to wait sometime to watch it again.

Obssession - Me and my gf went to see it on theater, we were so on the edge that we didn't touch each other until we went to bed, we had to put a cartoon after we came home to help us settle down after watching this masterpiece

TLOU2 - From the first death all the way to the ending of the game I felt tense and on edge all the time playing the game, every cutscene I watched made me felt that some disgrace was going to happen (and it happened most of the time), then the epilogue happens and it just destroyed me, especially the cutscene with Joel and Ellie talking on the porch, cried a lot, loved the game but I'll never touch it again.

Blood Meridian - Holy shit this book is gruesome, some descriptions of this book made me close it and wait some weeks to read it again (especially when the gang has an encounter with natives or the ones with the wild man and the judge) , its a great book but I am never touching it again.

r/TopCharacterTropes Jul 01 '26

Groups Children’s media referencing another media not meant for kids

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes
  1. There’s an official Cartoon Network short where the Scooby doo gang recreates the Blair Witch Project

  2. The amazing world of gumball has an episode that parodies the Golden Girls

  3. Arthur has a short segment that has a reference to the Sopranos

  4. In My Little Ppny there’s references to Rick and Morty as well as Walter White

r/TopCharacterTropes May 10 '26

Groups [Hilarious trope] something horrific happened and we're not going to tell you what

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

Terence's "incident" that lead him to being sentenced for anger management (Angry Birds movie)

The Indian kid that disappeared (Ted)

r/TopCharacterTropes Jul 20 '26

Groups [Reddit Trope] The name of the subreddit has nothing to do with what’s actually discussed

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

r/anime_titties is actually a world news subreddit.

r/BatmanArkham used to be about the Batman Arkham games but for a while now it’s mainly just a shitposting subreddit for whatever topic.

r/OnlyFans is not about the adult website it’s about actual fans.

r/comics is mostly where people dump a lot of cringe bad humor political posts.

r/TopCharacterTropes Jul 23 '26

Groups [LOVED TROPE] Modern Militaries (Competent) getting DESTROYED by fantasy/scifi forces

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

Example 1 (The Legend of Hei 2): Wuxian leisurely floats through the combined firepower of an entire fortified military base without so much as a stain or rip on his t-shirt.

Example 2 (Man of Steel): Fao'ra tears through a squad of trained and armed soldiers. With the wreckage of the helicopter that got downed by her teammate Nam'ek smouldering in the background.

r/TopCharacterTropes 24d ago

Groups Fascist is portrayed as pathetic and childish

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

In real life fascism is reactionary ideology and fascist regime where poorly managed and not competent

Disco Elysium is political satire that makes fun of common western political ideologies like neolibralism and communism but fascism is far more criticized. At least other ideologies are allowed to be competent while fascist are seen as pathetic like Gary the Cryptofascist". Found near the Whirling-in-Rags, he presents as a timid, pathetic, and defensive local man. His character is a sharp, unglamorous deconstruction of modern reactionary politics, embodying social isolation, a yearning for a brutal imperial past.

Jojo rabbit says Nazi ideology as childish through
The lens of a child and the only semi comptent nazi is a queer man whose implied to hate the regeme

r/TopCharacterTropes 17d ago

Groups [Rare Trope] Throuples, Polyamory and Polygamy

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

And No.. I don't mean love triangles 😂

Why don't we see more depictions of Polygamous couples in media ? especially healthy ones? Don't have any issues with monogamous relationships but after watching so many it gets a bit stale and it'd be nice to see something new every now and then idk 🤷

  1. Aegon Targaryen and his sister wives Visenya & Rhaenys (ASOIAF Books/ Game of Thrones)
  2. Lagoon Boy, Coral and Rodunn (Young Justice)
  3. Audrey, Aki, and Max (Gossip Girl reboot)

r/TopCharacterTropes Apr 09 '26

Groups (Reverse trope) the rebels are the villains

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

House Blackfyre (Tales of Dunk and Egg/A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms)

Yaegerists (Attack on Titan)

Equalists (Legend of Korra)

r/TopCharacterTropes Apr 10 '26

Groups [loved trope] hate group (nazis) getting their just dues

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes
  1. Inglorious bastards - Classic example of this, so many moments throughout the movie. This particular scene shows a German officer about to get his head bashed in by the bear Jew for what they did to his people

  2. X-men first class - Erik lehnsherr (magneto) is looking for a prominent nazi scientist who originally did experiments on him. He searches Argentina where many nazis escaped and proceeded to get his revenge and the information

  3. Rick and Morty - Rick and Summer train really hard to get strong and proceed to beat the worst people in the world

r/TopCharacterTropes Jul 09 '26

Groups (Hated Trope) Unintentionally incompetent police forces

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

One trope that immediately takes me out of the cinematic experience police forces that are comically bad just to progress the story.

1.) Weapons - the department was unable to locate the missing children and gave up their search after a month. Josh Brolin then looks at two Ring cameras, draws two lines, and was able to locate the exact house with the help of Julia Garner. Not only that, but the children left the house in broad day light during the police search, and somehow no one got a ring notification - the movie was damn near sponsored by Ring .

2.) Dark Knight Rises - the police department sends the entire force into an underground trap with no back up or alternative plan. Months after being freed, this same force (armed may I remind you) charges head first into an armed enemy party.

3.) Trap - how a police force can plan such an elaborate Trap and still be outmaneuvered at every turn is insane.

r/TopCharacterTropes May 13 '26

Groups Characters have sex before a potentially suicidal mission NSFW

Thumbnail gallery
Upvotes

Tifa and Cloud, Final Fantasy 7;

Lucas and Carla, Fahrenheit;

Shirou, Rin and Saber, Fate Stay Night.

r/TopCharacterTropes Jul 03 '26

Groups Organizations that, once we see them, are already well past their Golden Years

Thumbnail
gallery
Upvotes

Witchers (The Witcher series): Witchers are children that are taken, sent to school, trained, augmented, and mutated until finally they become monster slayers. Because of the gruesome process in which a witcher is made, the public shuns and spits at them when not desperately needing their help. By the time we read about/play as Geralt (man just right of the person in the center), witchers are already an endangered species, with there only being 4 witchers left from his school, where there used to be perhaps hundreds. Geralt's witcher predessesor brethren are said to have accomplished great feats, such as hunting certain monster species to extinction. By 'todays' standards, this is unheard of. By the time of the most recent game, no witcher school anywhere in the world is training new witchers. They're dying out.

Jedi Order (Star Wars prequels): Compared to their height in the Old Republic, the Jedi Order as we first see them in the prequels is a shadow of its former self. Having ingrained the Councel into politics and the Order of the whole into the military was a grave error that proved to be the last few straws that broke the camel's back. Their corruption, hubris, and unwillingness to change for the better proved to be their downfall.

American Mafia (Sopranos): By the time Tony gets onto the scene, the mafia is already on its last legs. Some of the presence is still there, but you can tell by the way people talk about the olden days that things are different now. Unions and insurance means that threats against businesses aren't as effective. New police technology such as DNA sampling making crimes harder to commit cleanly. Harsher crack downs on crime make people in the organization turning into rats more common. Tony himself vents that it feels like he's shown up at the end of the party.