Does Not Like Shoes/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A character avoids wearing shoes whenever possible.

  • Straight: Alice goes barefoot most of the time as a sign of her wacky and carefree attitude.
  • Exaggerated:
  • Downplayed:
    • Alice goes barefoot, but nobody ever brings it up or draws attention to this fact. Ever.
    • Alice goes barefoot, but usually only at home.
  • Justified:
    • Alice has a medical condition that is worsened by the use of shoes.
    • Alice has a special ability that is amplified by direct contact with the terrain.
    • Alice has feet too large for any shoes.
    • Alice has feet too oddly shaped to wear shoes, eg. she's a Cute Monster Girl with digitigrade feet or hooves.
    • Alice cannot afford shoes.
    • Alice feels more spiritually connected if she is barefoot.
    • Alice is a Hikikomori and doesn't feel fine with shoes and/or socks on, even if someone finally gets her outside.
    • Alice suffers from foot injury caused by wearing shoes, such as plantar fasciitis, and going barefoot eases this.
    • Alice has an extreme fear of getting a fungal infection such as athlete's food and/or having smelly feet, so avoids shoes to deny the optimal conditions for their development.
    • Nobody in Alice's friends and family, country, or species wears shoes.
    • Alice lives somewhere with an environmental condition that makes shoes impractical/dangerous to wear, or too difficult to obtain.
  • Inverted:
    • Alice never goes or is seen anywhere without shoes, even while swimming or practicing any activity where being barefoot would be expected / required.
    • Alice is obsessed with shoes, and does not like going barefoot.
    • Alice is the only one who wears shoes.
  • Subverted: Suddenly Alice starts going barefoot. One of her friends asks he if she has decided to become a barefooter, so she answers: "As a matter of fact, no, I just lost a bet... and it's starting to get annoying!".
  • Double Subverted:
    • Suddenly Alice starts going barefoot. One of her friends asks her if she has decided to become a barefooter, so she answers: "As a matter of fact, no, I just lost a bet... but it's not that bad!" After reaching the bet's deadline, Alice realizes she has actually enjoyed it, so she decides to go barefoot more often from now on.
    • But then takes off her shoes at a friend's house.
  • Parodied:
    • A wacky race of aliens disguised as shoes is sneaking into mankind's feet as part of... Some sort of plan... An evil plan! Only Alice, the Incredible Barefooted Girl, is capable of defeeting them. And she won't stop for anything, even if she has to destroy every pair of shoes on the whole planet.
    • Alice always goes barefoot everywhere...except in places where it's considered normal to not wear shoes, such as in the house, at the beach/pool, swimming, bathing, sleeping, etc. In those cases, Alice puts on a pair of heavy combat boots.
  • Deconstructed:
    • Alice's decision of going without shoes is put through several hard tests and hazardous (but plausible) environments as a way to explore and show the risks of it. In the end, she gets a Game-Breaking Injury that permanently dissuades her of ever trying again.
    • An alternative deconstruction of the Bunny Ears Lawyer type of barefooter: Alice is told that it doesn't matter how brilliant a lawyer, doctor, or detective she might be... her law firm/hospital/police department requires its employees to wear shoes, so if she wants to remain employed there, she'll have to suck it up and lace 'em up.
  • Reconstructed:
    • Despite the injuries she gets by walking barefoot, Alice remains firm on her decision, and starts putting herself consciously on tests to get stronger. In the end she's capable of feats of skill and endurance that her shoe-wearing companions could never match.
    • An alternative reconstruction of the Bunny Ears Lawyer type of barefooter: Alice starts her own whatever department where she is the strange girl in charge. If she wants to do her job barefoot she can.
  • Zig Zagged:
    • Alice has a Split Personality disorder, so, much to her annoyance, her disdain for shoes varies depending on which personality takes control of her at any given time.
    • Whenever she can, Alice does not wear shoes. However; Alice puts on shoes whenever she feels she really needs to. (To look professional or for safety purposes.)
    • Alternatively; Alice normally does not like shoes; but there are a couple pairs of shoes that she loves and whenever she is wearing seen wearing shoes is always wearing those.
  • Averted:
  • Enforced: "The actress playing Alice is real-life barefooter, so early on the development she asked if this trait could be carried into the character. We didn't have any objections about it, so it was quickly implemented into the story."
  • Lampshaded: "Should I ask why Alice isn't wearing shoes?"
  • Invoked: As a wacky new folk joins the Nakama, Alice adopts this quirk (among others) as a way to consolidate her status as the group's greatest Bunny Ears Lawyer.
  • Defied: Despite her affinity for walking without shoes when she was a kid, Alice's parents actively discouraged her to prevent this conduct, up to the point she cannot do it anymore due to a Pavlovian response.
  • Discussed: "You should know better to not provoke a perpetually shoe-less girl; more often than not they can kick your arse harder than those clad in heavy boots!"
  • Conversed: "You know, this girl and her aversion for shoes gives me an idea: What about a series about girls that refuse to wear pants?" "Erh, I think that has already done before... Sorta."
  • Played For Drama: Alice has had to wear shoes for the better part of the season; the entire cast, including Alice herself, laughs about how clearly uncomfortable this makes her. And then, in the finale, she needs surgery for heel spurs.
  • Played For Laughs: Evil Bob captures Alice. Knowing that she doesn't like shoes, Evil Bob proceeds to torture her by making her wear heavy, high-heeled boots and handcuffing her so she can't take them off. She acts as if it's a Fate Worse Than Death, and, after being rescued, talks about the horrible things he did to her... which the Nakama takes out of context, leading to an epic battle against Evil Bob... until they find out that the "horrible things" she was talking about was just him forcing her to wear shoes. Everyone falls to the ground laughing.

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