Fiction 500/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A person has unrealistic amounts of money that can do unrealistic things.

  • Straight: Bob owns an improbable fraction of the world's assets. He's capable of buying things that are inconceivable to most people.
  • Exaggerated: Bob has an impossible store of liquid assets. If there's anything he wants, even if it belongs to aliens, it will soon belong to him.
  • Downplayed: Bob is rich enough to Hand Wave ordinary expenses away - he flies all around the world without batting an eyelid, doesn't think twice about driving his top-of-the-range sports car to destruction, etc - but doesn't do anything that would really break Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
  • Justified: Bob lives in a post-scarcity economy.
  • Inverted: Bob is flat broke and owns absolutely nothing.
  • Subverted: Bob is a Mock Millionaire without a dime of actual cash to his name, and his Conspicuous Consumption is fueled by an unending line of credit...
  • Double Subverted: ...because he knows that he's going to receive an endowment that will elevate him to Fiction 500 status proper.
  • Parodied: Bob buys increasingly ridiculous things, and they frequently backfire in comical ways.
  • Deconstructed: Bob is a Corrupt Corporate Executive, and his lifestyle is shown to be exceedingly hollow, lonely and unfulfilling. His unbelievable expenses are based on a precariously balanced web of deceit, credit fraud, embezzlement and Con Artistry that may well be more work than he'd have to put into an honest job for the same return.
  • Reconstructed: ...but he successfully pins all his crimes on a Deceased Fall Guy, liquidates what he can and overall pulls off a masterful Karma Houdini. He continues his lavish lifestyle on the straight and narrow as a Gatsby-esque Self-Made Man with a Mysterious Past.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob's wealth is shown to be everywhere from immense to mediocre to pitiful under varying circumstances.
  • Averted: Bob has some money, but not enough to buy everything he wants.
  • Enforced: "We need a character to buy the protagonist's toys."
  • Lampshaded: "I didn't even know anyone could actually buy that!"
  • Invoked: Bob is a Con Artist who plays the Mock Millionaire in order to sponge off people who actually do have money.
  • Exploited: "Wow, did you hear about the inheritance Bob is getting? If I were to soak up just a little bit of his money, I'd never need to work again."
  • Defied: Bob becomes unfathomably rich, but then he promptly disposes of all his wealth so people don't think he's too rich for his own good.
  • Discussed: Alice: "Dude, how could you possibly afford that whale circus?" Bob: "Internet."
  • Conversed: Alice: "I just don't get it. How can Batman possibly afford all those wonderful toys?" Bob: "He...I...Er...Just tell yourself "It's just a show, I really should relax."

Back to Fiction 500