Silk Hiding Steel/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A girl is lady-like and gentle but possess a strong will to manipulate or fight.

  • Straight: Alice is demure young lady who works as a maid in the mayor's home: cooking, cleaning, and making small talk with him and his family. She essentially runs the city this way.
  • Exaggreated: Alice is a Purity Sue who can transform into a Mary Tzu.
  • Justified: Alice lives in a society where openly powerful and assertive women aren't taken seriously. Instead, she works through indirect means and hides a dagger or two in her Opera Gloves.
  • Inverted: Alice is a Stripperific Boisterous Bruiser who trips when she wears dresses. Her idea of 'subtlty' is a Groin Attack instead of a punch to the face.
    • Alternatively, she starts with steel and grows into the silk. Or visa versa.
  • Subverted: Alice appears to be the Maid Behind the Mayor but she's really an Upper Class Twit whose parents are trying to Break the Haughty.
  • Double Subverted: Its an act. She's actually a Rich Idiot With No Day Job and her parents are her Secret Keepers.
  • Zig Zagged: Alice appears to be the Chessmaster manipulating the mayor but she's really just an Upper Class Twit that just happens to work for him. Then terrorists try to hold them hostage and she defeats them all with Deadly Dodging, but when asked about it later, she giggles and says it was a Coincidental Dodge. Nevertheless her pull with the major increases, All According to Plan.
  • Parodied: Alice wears a Pimped out Battle Ballgown that's so heavy she can't move. When asked about it, she tells Blatant Lies like a Proper Lady at a party.
  • Deconstructed: Alice can't be open and frank with anyone because of her reserved personality. When she tries they all suspect her of manipulating them with Politeness Judo or a Wounded Gazelle Gambit
  • Reconstructed: She has a handful of friends who trust her and 'lets her hair down' only around them.
  • Lampshaded: "Beware. She may look like the mayor's maid but she may as well be the mayor herself."
  • Averted: Alice is a a simple and innocent maid not a Chessmaster.
    • Alice is an Iron Lady who happens to like the look. No one dares comment.
  • Enforced: "We have a maid for {{fanservice}] but to expand her appeal we should make the hidden strategist guiding the heroes.
    • "How's this for a twist: The maid that everyone thinks is a Fragile Flower turns out to be a Ninja Maid and saves the day?"
  • Invoked: The mayor's bodyguards won't let anyone with an agenda near him, so Alice pretends to be a maid delivering snacks and makes a few polite remarks while she's there.
  • Defied: Alice refuses to get involved in the major's career despite her charisma and/or unshakable will.
  • Discussed: " "How are you sweet and scary at the same time?" *smile* "Practice."
  • Conversed: "I bet Alice is the mastermind. She's so friendly and submissive no one would suspect her."
  • Played For Laughs: Alice is The Matchmaker for Arranged Marriages and she actidentally sets up comical situations where the bride and groom fall in love before they find out.
  • Played For Drama: Alice is part of a Deadly Decadent Court and so must carefully shift her social and political weight while remaining demure and gentle. She carries a fan made of daggers in case of assassins.
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