Can't Hold His Liquor/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Just a sip of liquor and he's passed out.

  • Straight: After taking a sip of liquor, Bob passes out for several hours.
  • Exaggerated: Bob passes out for a week after so much as smelling alcohol.
  • Downplayed: Bob can drink a bit of liquor. Any more than that, and he's out.
  • Justified: Bob rarely drinks and has not built up any tolerance.
  • Inverted: Never Gets Drunk
  • Subverted: Bob passes out after taking a sip of liquor...then it turns out he'd been drinking for several hours. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
  • Double Subverted: He'd just been drinking the weakest, girliest drinks imaginable and shouldn't be tipsy in the least.
  • Parodied: It's all in Bob's head - when they tell him a soda pop is an alcoholic beverage, he passes out; meanwhile, he takes a Long Island Iced Tea (not knowing its alcoholic content) with no problems.
  • Deconstructed: Bob is seen as less of a man and ostracized because of his inability to handle alcohol. People are reluctant to befriend him because they know he (and by extension they) can't drink.
  • Reconstructed: So he finds friends that don't drink.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob passes out after a small sip of liquor. But he'd been drinking all day...except he was drinking very weak liquor. But he'd still been drinking all day - anyone would pass out after that much drinking.
  • Averted: Bob has a reasonable, if not extreme, tolerance.
  • Enforced: "We need to show the viewers that drinking is bad. Let's have a seemingly healthy adult male pass out after a drop of liquor!"
  • Lampshaded: "He's passed out already? The party hasn't even started." "That's Bob for you."
  • Invoked: Bob doesn't like drinking, but succumbs to peer pressure, so he acts as if he's very drunk after just a sip as an excuse not to drink any more.
  • Exploited: Knowing that Bob will be extremely drunk after only a sip, Alice offers Bob a drink in an attempt to make him slip up and reveal private information.
  • Defied: ???
  • Discussed: "That's it, Bob! First drink of the night!" "Well, you've seen the TV shows. Maybe I'll be passing out before I can bring the second drink to my mouth."
  • Conversed: "...That's just a can of beer, right? How's he that drunk? Was the studio too lazy to film more than one sip of drinking?"

Back to...back...to...back...eh, here's the main trope, ah'm gunnnnna (hic!) go lie down...