Celibate Hero/Playing With
Basic Trope: A protagonist who avoids all romantic relationships.
- Straight: Bob makes it a point to never get involved in romantic entanglements.
- Exaggerated: Bob never shows any romantic feelings towards the opposite sex. (nor the same sex, nor anyone outside the norm)
- Justified:
- Bob was scorned by a former lover and has lost all interest in love or romance.
- Bob's mission has already taken the life of several love interests, so he decides to become a celibate hero in order to avoid causing the demise of more loved ones.
- Bob is Walking the Earth, or perhaps being pursued. He will not (or can't) put down roots, and doesn't want to break any hearts when he leaves, so he simply refuses any sort of romantic attraction.
- Three simple words: "I am Asexual"
- Bob is a monk.
- Bob knows that when you enter a romantic relationship, things can get complicated and it usually ends up with a kid. He wants to focus on himself and or his career for right now.
- Inverted: Bob is a villain with a voracious sexual appetite.
- Subverted:
- Bob makes constant attempts to avoid all romance, until he meets the woman of his dreams, whom he falls madly in love with.
- Bob doesn't believe in having sex until marriage, making him a Chastest Hero instead.
- Bob shuns romance from all women because he's pining after one woman from his hometown, who, for whatever reason, he cannot be with for the time being.
- Double Subverted: His relationship with this woman turns to be extremely pathological and auto-destructive, so he swears off of love for good this time.
- Parodied: Bob's celibacy turns him into the ultimate Forbidden Fruit; women and Horny Devils from everywhere try their damnest to try and seduce him (and they all fail spectacularly).
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's existence without romance causes him to become a lonely and bitter person, which in turn causes him to lose all interest in his original quest, and he lives the rest of his life as a lonely hermit.
- Bob is very clearly sexually repressed to an unhealthy degree, and is deep in denial about it.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob learns how to channel his frustration into a greater drive to complete his quest.
- Alternatively (or in addition) Bob turns to be asexual, so the absence of romance in his life doesn't affects him at all.
- Zig Zagged: Bob is constantly switching modes. On one day he may swear off love entirely, while the next he has fallen helplessly in love. This goes back and forth for some time, before Bob finally realizes he is being dumb and decides to give love a chance.
- Averted: Bob's love life is never brought to issue or is never discussed.
- Enforced: This film is being produced by the Catholic church, and Bob is an adventuring priest who must remain celibate.
- Lampshaded: "What are you going to do, Bob, be a celibate hero for the rest of your life?"
- Invoked:
- After a painful breakup, Bob removes all female contacts from his address book and begins to distance himself from all female friends.
- Bob has received some sort of Virgin Power, so he decides to take the celibate hero route in order to sustain it.
- Defied:
- The woman who is deeply in love with Bob is finally able to break through his icy exterior and open him up to romance again.
- Alternatively, Bob's friends get him, really, really drunk one night...
- Discussed: "Bob, I know you think love is a waste of time, but you can't just give up."
- Conversed:
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Dave: "What's wrong, Bob? Not into girls anymore?" |
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