Head Desk/Playing With
Basic Trope: A character expresses intense frustration by banging his head against a desk, wall, or some other nearby item.
- Straight: Alice is helping Bob with math, but even after hours of labored explainations, he still doesn't understand basic fractions. Alice yells in frustration, then repeatedly bangs her head against the table.
- Exaggerated: Alice is helping Bob with math, and his first question is "What are fractions?" Cue Head Desk from Alice.
- Justified:
- Bob is being intentionally obtuse to annoy Alice.
- Alice can't really think of any better way to express her anger.
- Inverted: After hours of fruitless tutoring, Alice grabs Bob's head and bangs it repeatedly against the table.
- Subverted: After hours of fruitless tutoring, Alice prepares to bang her head against the table... then takes a deep breath and tries yet another explanation.
- Double Subverted: When Bob still fails to understand, Alice surrenders to temptation and proceeds to Head Desk.
- Parodied: When Bob tells Alice he doesn't know what time it is, she proceeds to bang her head against every piece of furniture in the room.
- Deconstructed: Alice's tendency to Head Desk whenever she gets frustrated gives her a traumatic brain injury.
- Reconstructed: After recovering from her injuries, Alice undergoes anger management therapy.
- Zig Zagged: Alice's reactions to frustration have no consistency -- one minute she'll calmly accept a missed deadline, and the next minute she'll Head Desk at a missed phone call.
- Averted: Alice and Bob are starring in a training video teaching tutors how to calmly help troublesome students.
- Enforced: Alice is a Sit Comic famous for her exaggerated headdesks.
- Lampshaded: "Excuse me, Bob, I need a bang-my-head-against-the-table break."
- Invoked: Alice is hoping that her Head Desk display will motivate Bob to study harder.
- Exploited: Bob deliberately says something stupid, knowing that Alice will Head Desk.
- Defied: Alice knows that headdesking won't help Bob understand her explanations, let alone taking the risk of brain damage should she bang her head too hard. So she use other (safe) methods to channel her anger, such as buying a stress ball.
- Discussed: "Alice needs to stop banging her head on stuff. The last time she did that, she got admitted to the hospital for blunt force trauma for the fifth time this month!"
- Conversed: "Gee, how did Alice stay alive with all those head bashing? It's like she had a head made of iron or something!"
Back to Head Desk.