Love Martyr/Playing With
Basic Trope: A character stays with their significant other despite their major, major flaws.
- Straight: Alice is dating Bob, who is violent, abusive, and drinks like a fish. She stays with him because she truly loves him.
- Exaggerated: Bob beats Alice bloody and has nearly killed her on more than one occasion, but she sticks with him.
- Downplayed: Bob is kind of a jerk, but Alice stays with him.
- Justified: Bob really does have a very deeply Hidden Heart of Gold, and Alice is trying to bring that out of him.
- Alice has incredibly poor self-esteem and thinks she can't do any better.
- One or both grew up in a household where their parents were going through a similar situation, so they think it's normal.
- Bob is forcing Alice to stay through bribery, blackmail, and/or intimitation.
- Alice and Bob are in an Arranged Marriage and if she leaves him, her family will disown her.
- Alice's parents arranged the matched and brainwashed her into overlooking all of Bob's faults no matter how severe.
- Inverted: Bob is a saint, but Alice refuses to stay with him because she thinks she doesn't deserve him.
- Subverted: Alice puts up with some of Bob's shenanigans, but leaves after things get too hairy.
- Double Subverted: Then she comes back after a while, because she feels like Bob needs her.
- Parodied: Bob threatens Alice with a switchblade, beats her silly, and drinks until he blacks out, but she just ignores it for the sake of love...until he leaves the toilet seat up.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alice leaves after the first sign that Bob appears to be evil.
- Enforced: "Like, OMG! This fanfic about Bob and Alice is gonna be soooo good! I'll just have her say that she loves him when she gets beaten!"
- Lampshaded: "Let me guess, you love him, right? That's why you keep letting him do that?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Bob is truly a horrible person, but he makes sure to undermine Alice's self-esteem to the point where she feels like she can't do any better.
- Defied: "If you hit me again, I'm gone. I don't care if we're dating."
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Played For Drama: It almost always is.
"Why are you going back to Love Martyr? That's a horrible page!" "No it's not! You just haven't seen the real page, beneath the surface!"