Manly Tears/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A male character cries.

  • Played Straight: Bob sheds a tear.
  • Exaggerated: Bob breaks down and starts bawling.
  • Justified: Something really bad has just happened, is happening, or is about to happen. And, yes, men have feelings too.
  • Inverted: Bob is The Stoic or a Kuudere, and doesn't really express much emotion.
  • Subverted: Bob's eyes are watering from seasonal allergies...at least, that's what he says.
  • Double Subverted: But he really is sad about whatever went down.
  • Deconstructed: Alice sees Bob crying and thinks him less of a man because of it.
  • Reconstructed: ... but Carol likes him more because he can express his emotions.
  • Parodied: Bob is literally crying over spilled milk.
  • Exploited: The Big Bad uses the Post-Rape Taunt ploy to make Bob too upset and emotional to fight him properly.
  • Intended Audience Reaction: Someone asks "What's wrong?" and it's shown that Bob is chopping onions.
  • Lampshaded: "Look what you did! Even Bob's crying!"
  • Averted: Bob doesn't cry.
  • Enforced: Trying to show that a) the event was a really tragic one or b) that Bob is a wuss.
  • Invoked: Alice, the love of Bob's life, dies suddenly, just when Bob was going to ask her to marry him.
  • Defied: Bob doesn't want to be seen as a wuss, so he holds back his tears and feelings, no matter what.
  • Played For Laughs: See "parodied" and "intended audience reaction".
  • Played For Drama: See "justified" and "invoked".

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