Castle in the Sky/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.



Basic Trope: A Castle that flies through the air.

  • Straight: Tropelandia is a castle built for the upper class which flies through the sky.
  • Exaggerated: Tropelandia is the size of an entire city and its corridors are filled with treasures. It operates like a country, with a legistation, executive, and judicial branch.
    • The shadow cast by Tropelandia stretches from one ocean to the next.
    • Tropelandia is so big that its own gravity overpowers that of its home planet, and its home planet is sucked into Tropelandia.
  • Downplayed: Antelandia is the size of a small house, designed as a prototype for Tropelandia. Unlike Tropelandia which houses hundreds, Antelandia only houses a single person.
  • Justified: There is a war going on the surface of the planet, so a floating castle is built to escape the war. It moves fast and flies high enough that it cannot be shot down.
  • Inverted: Ominous Floating Castle
    • Tropelandia is build in a hole deep into the ground and is inhibited by the Big Bad.
  • Subverted: People keeping hearing about the myths of Tropelandia, and how it is a legendary place filled with treasure. Alice and her group of workers, after a thorough search, finds nothing. Alice concludes that the castle doesn't exist.
  • Double Subverted: The camera cuts to Bob, the owner of Tropelandia, who trails Alice and keeps the castle just out of Alice's sight at all times.
  • Parodied: The rumoured 'Castle in the Sky' is a picture of a castle attached to a balloon.
    • Castles in the sky, due to their sheer size, are used as tactical weapons. Really large spaceships are armed with castles, and fires them at one another. When the castle collides, the debris from the impact inflicts heavy damage to their target.
  • Zig Zagged: Tropecastel is a castle built in the medieval times. It is fitted with engines and solar panels so it can fly. The solar panels malfunction and has to be replaced. Tropecastel finally flies after the replacement, but a strong wind blows Tropecastel into a nearby mountain, where it suffers light damages. Tropecastel is repaired again, and finally flies again. The pilot of Tropecastel falls asleep one day, causing Tropecastel to collide with Tropelandia.
  • Averted: Nothing man-made in the world flies because the work is set in the medieval times.
  • Enforced: "You know that Hayao Miyazaki guy? His films make lots of money, right? Therefore, let's just copy Laputa: Castle in the Sky!"
  • Lampshaded: "Is that a castle floating in the sky?"
  • Invoked: Bob founds a company called Create Crowning Castles and sets out to build a castle which floats.
  • Exploited: Alice saves up money and buys Bob's castle. She sells vacations and tours to the castle, and uses the money from the ticket sales to ask Create Crowning Castles for another castle, repeating the procedure with each subsequent purchase. Soon, Alice has an entire army of castles floating in the sky, and declares war.
    • The owners of Tropelandia lands it on any rebellious colonies.
  • Defied: Engineers warn Create Crowning Castles that making a giant castle in the sky is impractical, and needlessly expensive. Bob, adhering to the advice, chooses to build a conventional castle instead.
  • Discussed: "How is that Tropelandia place still flying? It should have ran out of fuel long ago!"
  • Conversed: "Man, I wish I could have one of these castles in real life."
  • Deconstructed: Tropelandia flies too high, and its citizens start to suffer from oxygen deprivation so they are forced to make a descent. Then, Floatium, which powers Tropelandia, is running out. Citizens of Tropelandia are searching for a way to manufacture Floatium after trade disputes cuts off its supply. Tropelandia chooses to fly closer to the ground in case the castle has to make an emergency landing. This brings many complaints about damaged property, and Tropelandia is sued.
  • Reconstructed: Tropelandia Reprised is designed to be low maintenance, sourcing its fuel from renewable sources. It is built with durable materials. Official policy is for Tropelandia Reprised to fly at a safe altitude, not too far away from the ground that citizens start to run out of oxygen and emergency landings become too difficult, but not so close to the ground that a tall church could damage it.
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