Financial Abuse/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Someone restricts access to money that another character needs.

  • Played Straight: Alice has earned lots of money in her music career, however, her parents take all but a nominal $100 a month from her to use for themselves.
  • Exaggerated: Alice, despite earning every penny herself, never so much as sees one penny she's earned. Meanwhile, her parents have just bought themselves two new luxury cars and a vacation home in Tahiti.
  • Justified:
    • Alice has proven too irresponsible in the past to handle money; her parents restrict her access to it in an attempt to teach her fiscal responsibility.
    • The money is going towards something for Alice, such as a new car or a college fund or a wedding, something she doesn't have yet but will have in the future.
  • Inverted: Alice has her parents' money direct-deposited into her account and only lets them have a little of it.
  • Subverted: The parents seem like they're about to do this, but they relent, and Alice gets to keep most of the money
  • Double Subverted: But her parents make her give up a good amount of it for "room and board"
  • Deconstructed: Alice will never learn financial responsibility if she has no money to spend or save.
  • Reconstructed: Alice's parents let her have the money, though they may insist on setting it aside for things like college.
  • Parodied: Alice wears rags and lives outside her parents' mansion in a cardboard box, picking through their garbage for tiny scraps of food.
  • Averted:
    • Alice is allowed to keep most or all of her earnings.
    • Alice does not earn any money
  • Enforced:
  • Invoked: Alice earns lots of money, and her parents worry about her losing it all.
  • Defied: Alice's parents let her have all her money. If she makes mistakes with it, they want her to learn from them.
  • Played For Laughs: ???
  • Played For Drama: Alice is married to an abusive husband, and his control of the money is yet another obstacle she must face in the Lifetime Movie of the Week

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