Opposite Gender Protagonists/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A boy and a girl are the protagonists of the story.

  • Straight: Alice and Bob are the main characters in Alice and Bob.
  • Exaggerated: The only characters in the entire show are Alice and Bob.
  • Downplayed: Alice and Bob starts out as the main characters, however over time, more characters are introduced.
  • Justified: Alice and Bob are Childhood Friends or a Brother-Sister Team
  • Inverted: The main character is a boy and another boy, or a girl and another girl.
  • Subverted: The Hero Alice decides she had enough of Bob's antics and pulls a Second Act Breakup, opting out of the adventure and settling down in a small, quiet town.
  • Double Subverted: Alice finds Charles, who, just like Bob, drags Alice into another adventure.
  • Parodied: The characters in Boy and Girl are a boy and a girl. The girl is called "Boy" and the boy is called "Girl".
  • Zig Zagged: There are 999,999,999,999 duos in the show. Some are only talked about. Some have a boy and a girl. Some have a boy and a boy. Other duos never show up on screen. There are 27 main duos, and the work spends exactly 12 seconds on each before moving onto the next one.
  • Averted: The main characters are a Ragtag Band of Misfits
  • Enforced: "Hey, dude, our ratings kinda suck right now. You know how to make our ratings increase? Appeal to more people. More explosions! More actions! Most importantedly, more romance between the main characters! Let's make the main characters only a man and woman, that'll do the trick!"
  • Lampshaded: "You two adventurers would make a perfect couple!"
  • Invoked: Alice knows the quickest way to find a boyfriend is to go on an epic adventure, and a boy will magically show up! Sure enough, once she departed to find the Jewed Stone of Aysteria, Bob joins the adventure.
  • Exploited: In a work where the main characters are teenagers, Big Bad Sir I-Am-Very-Bad creates a love potion and makes the heroes fall in love. Teen Drama ensues, and the two will be too busy trying to confess to each other to stop Sir I-Am-Very-Bad's plans.
  • Defied: Alice sees his Childhood Friend Bob pack a sword to slay a dragon. Alice, deciding she values her life, nopes right out of town and does a Screw This, I'm Outta Here
  • Discussed:

Announcer: "Congratulations, Alice and Bob for being voted the Best Adventure Duo of the year! So, why do you think you two make such an effective duo?"
Bob: "I think it's because we have each other to look out for. You know, if one of us gets kidnapped and Bound and Gagged the other one will come to our rescue immediately."
Alice: "Yeah, what this does is it gives us something to look for, some sort of, you know, emotional connection, if you get what I mean? But don't take this the wrong way, because He Is Not My Boyfriend!!!"

  • Conversed: "Why is it that in these shows, the main characters are always a boy and a girl?"
  • Deconstructed: Alice and Bob, surviving through their adventures, falls in love. They decide that the other person is too valuable to lose, therefore they put down their swords, keep a low profile, and settles down in the local village. What started out as an action-adventure series quickly devolves into a Slice of Life work.
  • Reconstructed: Alice and Bob falls in love, but decides that, for the better of the world, they must continue on their adventure and slay the Big Bad and dragon.
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