Compensating for Something/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: It is suggested that a male character is using something phallic-looking to compensate for a small penis.

  • Straight: Bob carries a BFS, and other characters suggest that he is compensating for a small penis.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Bob carries a BFS bigger than a skyscraper... and he's a eunuch.
    • Alex (a trans-man) wields a humongous Arm Cannon to compensate for... well...
  • Downplayed: Bob carries a sword slightly bigger than the standard issues... because he believes that his member is just average.
  • Justified:
    • Bob's penis has a curse set on it that forbids him to use anything else than a BFS.
  • Inverted: Bob carries a tiny dagger since he's expressing instead of compensating.
  • Subverted: Bob carries a BFS, and is accused of Compensating for Something. Nope! He's a tripod.
  • Double Subverted: However, it turns out that Bob is still secretly very insecure, and carries a BFS because it's even bigger.
  • Parodied: Bob attaches two pink balls to the hilt of his BFS.
  • Deconstructed: Bob was raised to believe that it is his duty to be a man, and his insecurity about his small size leads him to take it too far in every other respect.
  • Reconstructed: Bob eventually realizes that the women are into his skills, much more than his genitalia. He continues his usual manner, but much more confidently.
  • Zig Zagged: B.O.B. is a combat robot with a very male voice who uses a wide variety of guns and vaguely phallic shaped blades. Some accuse him of compensating for his lack of genitalia by using overly large weapons and tough guy talk, others figure he just uses them for effectiveness and doesn't care about organic thoughts. It turns out his designers made him like that in an attempt to make him too intimidating for anyone to want to fight... except for one who really was just compensating for something.
  • Averted: Bob carries a normal-sized sword. Penis size is never brought up.
  • Enforced: "We don't want the viewers to make any mistake as to how manly Bob is. Let's make him carry a huge sword or something to reinforce the image."
  • Lampshaded: "That's a pretty... phallic sword you've got there. I guess the little sword must not be slashin', eh? EH?.
  • Invoked: Bob is insecure about his small penis, and decides to prove to the world he's a Badass by carrying a big sword.
  • Defied: Bob decides that it's not the size that matters, it's what you do with it.
  • Discussed: "Bob is definitely not Compensating for Something. Take it from me, he's got NOTHING to compensate for."
  • Conversed: "Why do Barbarian Heroes always carry such big swords?" "I dunno, maybe they're Compensating for Something."

Man, this entry is pretty long; maybe you're Compensating for Something.

Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Compensating_for_Something/Playing_With?oldid=853931"