Manly Tears/Playing With

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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.
  • Men Don't Cry
• 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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