Literal-Minded/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Someone has a tendency to take things literally in defiance of common sense.

  • Straight: After telling Alice to "Hit the road", Alice goes out and punches the road.
  • Exaggerated: Telling Alice to go to hell will cause the gates to hell to open, and a giant black hand will spring from it, pulling her in.
  • Justified: Alice is a robot, and her AI is not programmed with figures of speech.
  • Inverted: Alice tells Bob to go punch the road, and Bob just leaves.
  • Subverted: Alice is told to hit the road; she looks like she's going to hit it, but she just leaves.
  • Double Subverted: However, when she's told to go fly a kite, she does so.
  • Parodied: In a short time frame she "hits the road", "goes kite flying", "chases a wild goose", "shoots a fish in a barrel" and "puts and elephant in the living room".
  • Deconstructed: Alice stops punching the road.
  • Reconstructed: Alice then easily finds "a needle in a haystack."
  • Zig Zagged:"Hit the road Alice": Alice punches the road. "Go fly a kite" Alice "OK so I made a mistake". "Alice could not hit the broad side of a barn" Alice shoots a barn,
  • Averted: Despite the cast using many ideas nobody ever takes them literally.
  • Enforced: We need people to know Alice is a robot. Let's have her punch roads
  • Lampshaded: "Um, OK, but I don't see what I'm accomplishing by doing this..." *punch*
  • Invoked: ???
  • Defied: ???
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: Bob "You got to stop punching roads Alice" Alice "Then stop telling me to."
  • Played for laughs: Bob "Well I will be a monkey's uncle." Alice "You should talk to your brother about his taste in women."
  • Played for drama: Alice is nearly hit by a car while she is hitting the road.
  • Played for Black Comedy: Bob "Alice you kill me." Alice "If you say so." *picks up an Axe*

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