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'''All things are better when they're bigger. You know you wish you had tropes this big. Unless of course, you're''' <small>[[Tiny Tropes]].</small>
<tabber>
▲== Bigger Body Parts ==
* [[Bigger Is Better in Bed]]
** [[Gag Penis]]
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* [[Gag Nose]]
* [[Giant Foot of Stomping]]
* [["Growing Muscles" Sequence]]
* [[Mega Twintails]]
* [[Shoulders of Doom]]
* [[Base
* [[Big Fancy Castle]]
* [[Big Fancy House]]
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* [[Unnecessarily Large Interior]]
* [[Giant Poofy Sleeves]]
* [[Giant Waist Ribbon]]
* [[Always a Bigger Fish]]
** [[Summon Bigger Fish]]
* [[Animals Not to Scale]]
* [[Attack of the 50
* [[Big Creepy
* [[Big Friendly Dog]]
* [[Canis Major]]
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* [[Rodents of Unusual Size]]
* [[Doorstopper]]
* [[Epic Movie]]
* [[Summer Blockbuster]]
* [[Adipose Rex]]
* [[Amazonian Beauty]]
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* [[Statuesque Stunner]]
* [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier]]
* [[Big Bulky Bomb]]
* [[BFG (weapon)|BFG]]
** [[Hand Cannon]]
** [[Wave Motion Gun]]
* [[
* [[
* [[More Dakka]]
* [[Tank Goodness]]
* [[Everything Is Big in Texas]]
* [[
* [[Giant Food]]
* [[Gigantic Gulp]]
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* [[Treasure Is Bigger in Fiction]]
* '''[[Bold Inflation]]'''
* [[Compensating for Something]] (a common [[Lampshade Hanging]], because [[Freud Was Right]])
* [[Evil Is Bigger]] (the reason many of these tropes are more common among villains)
* [[Square-Cube Law]] (Some of the above tropes are impossible because of this)
</tabber>
{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
▲* The eponymous [[Gun Buster]].
* [[Great Mazinger]] was notably larger than [[Mazinger Z]].
** For that matter, just about all the robots in [[Super Robot]] shows are bigger than [[Mazinger Z]]. Many classic [[Super Robot]] shows had the heroes at least 40 meters tall, compared to [[Mazinger Z]] being just 18 meters. (Which incidentally, is the same height as the original [[Mobile Suit Gundam]].)
* In ''[[Gundam SEED Astray]]'', Lowe makes a [[Katanas Are Just Better]] [[BFS|big enough to be wielded by a Mobile Suit]]. When he finds a huge cache of [[Phlebotinum]], what's the only thing he can think of to make with it? An even ''bigger'' Katana, so big he has to strap it to the side of his ship, and has to build a [[Humongous Mecha]] for his normal [[Humongous Mecha]] to pilot in order to actually use it.
* The core logic ([[Rule of Cool|if you can call it that]]) of the Getter Rays from ''[[Getter Robo]]'', being the energy of evolution itself. Their sole purpose is to grow larger and more powerful, and this often results in [[Humongous Mecha]] on an enormous (and in some cases ''galactic'') scale.
* Jack Rakan from ''[[
** Not to mention {{spoiler|Ku Fei's}} artifact; a staff that can instantly expand to many times it's original size, meaning anyone standing at the end of it when it expands is effectively hit by a train.
* Subverted in ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (
{{quote|
* In ''[[Night Wizard]]'', [[Emotionless Girl]] Akari usually wields a [[BFG]], but during one of the final episode, she briefly upgrades to a RIDICULOUSLY oversized ANTI-FLEET weapon. It's so big, she needs another wizard to handle the reloading. Rather than firing from the hip as is her general style, she finds it necessary to carry it on her shoulder... did I mention that it's basically the size of an interstate bus?
* ''[[
** The movie version goes even farther, featuring a [[Combining Mecha]] ''formed from several of those''. Then plays with it by making this mecha the reincarnation of their founder come back from the grave (again). This is the series that named [[Beyond the Impossible]] for a reason.
{{quote|
* ''[[
* [[The Master of Disguise]] had a major romantic subplot about Pistachio's love for Jennifer Baker ''despite'' her "tiny, butter bottom". Given the size of his mother, it looks like the Disguisey family's men think
== Card Games ==▼
* [[Player Archetypes|The "Timmy" demographic]] in ''[[Magic the Gathering (Tabletop Game)|Magic the Gathering]]'' is defined as caring first and foremost about massive creatures that can slam the opponent (or, in a broader sense, any spell with a huge, sweeping effect), and ''Magic'' sure as heck has no shortage. The classic "biggest and baddest" is [http://beta.gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=108920 Leviathan]; other notables include the devastating [http://beta.gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=43711 Dragon Tyrant], the unspeakably large [http://beta.gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=135250 Denizen of the Deep], and the majestic [http://beta.gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=175105 Godsire]. The single biggest, baddest, most ''monstrous'' monster in the whole game, though? The dread goddess [http://magiccards.info/rep/en/10.html Marit Lage], who is so powerful she can't even be summoned by normal means.▼
** Spoofed in the (deliberately silly and not tournament-legal) ''Unglued'' expansion set with the [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=9780 B.F.M. (Big Furry Monster)], a creature so big it doesn't even fit onto a single ''card''.▼
** Even more so now with the release of Rise of the Eldrazi, which feature [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=194908 some] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=220553 of] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=198171 the] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=194911 largest] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=193632 creatures] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=193452 EVER] printed in the history of the game.▼
** The shard of Naya, the home of Godsire, was noted for its "big creatures matter" mechanic. There was even one card that would [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=180620 win you the game if you had a 20-power creature after you untapped at the beginning of your turn], [[Make My Monster Grow|as well as speeding your creatures on a path to such a size]].▼
== Comics ==▼
* ''[[FoxTrot]]'': Roger buys a four-foot tall cell phone from "Mobytel" ("I assume the "Moby" is short for mobile"). It turns out to not work out so well as both the ends are too far away to actually have a conversation.▼
* Parodied in ''[[Over the Hedge (Comic Strip)|Over the Hedge]]'' with a SUV:▼
{{quote| "How many humans fit into one of those?"<br />▼
"Usually... one." }}▼
▲== Films ==
▲* [[The Master of Disguise]] had a major romantic subplot about Pistachio's love for Jennifer Baker ''despite'' her "tiny, butter bottom". Given the size of his mother, it looks like the Disguisey family's men think [[Bigger Is Better|bigger is ''always'' Better,]] [[BBW|when it comes to women]], [[Fetish Fuel|especially their buttocks]].
▲* [[Everything's Better With Dinosaurs|Dinosaurs]] (also [[Truth in Television]]):
** ''[[Jurassic Park]] III'''s ''Spinosaurus'' was bigger than ''[[Tyrannosaurus Rex|T. rex]]'', because... well... ''T. rex'' just wasn't cool enough any more.
*** Interestingly, the Velociraptors in the first movie were ''much'' bigger than in reality (they were actually pretty much Deinonychus...) while the dilophosaur was ''much'' smaller. But it could spit poison, so...
* Death Stars in ''[[
** It probably says something that all of the Original Trilogy movies, along with ''Revenge of the Sith'', opened with a Star Destroyer, which is more than a kilometer and a half long. Other [[Incredibly Lame Pun|big]] contenders are the ''Executor'' (so big, it used ENGINES bigger than Star Destroyers), Ackbar's five-kilometer-long flagship, the three-kilometer Trade Federation ''Lucrehulk'' battleship, and the seven-hundred-meter ''Acclamator'' troop transport. And that's just the movies; the EU has things like [https://web.archive.org/web/20120617043424/http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/9/91/Maw.JPG the Maw Installation], seen in comparison to a prototype Death Star, Centerpoint Station, which was 300 kilometers long, and the [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:Galaxy_Gun_egwt.png Galaxy Gun].
** Parodied by ''Spaceball One'' in ''[[
* ''[[Godzilla]]'' is king of the monsters. Are ''you'' king of the monsters? No. You're ''too small''.
** To his credit, [[Fire Breather|Belloc]] is more open-minded about his successor.
* In [[Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure|Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey]] Bill and Ted were nervous about the Station twins knowing what they were doing. The twins did a [[Fusion Dance]], turning into Big Station. Suddenly there were no more worries. Apparently Big Station was more obviously a great scientist than the Station twins?
== Literature ==
* Subverted in Sergey Lukyanenko's novel ''[[Genome]]'' with the Taii - an ancient galactic superpower whose strength waned after a devastating war with another equally-powerful race. Their colossal ships are still allowed to patrol space that now belongs to younger races, but they are little more than relics of ages past. It is mentioned that a tiny by comparison human destroyer is able to completely incinerate one of these Taii battleships with a single volley.
* Played completely straight by [[Bolo
* John Keefauver's story "The Great Three-Month Super Supersonic Stack-Up of 1999" satirically depicted a near-future with planes so huge that they could be stacked up for ''weeks''. ("Six feet longer than ten football fields! Six feet wider than three football fields!")
== Live-Action TV ==
* The [[Naughty Nurse Outfit|nurses]] in ''[[Cop Rock]]'''s musical number say the phrase Bigger Is Better and wear [[Stripperiffic]] dresses. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg3WjK1axBs Cop Rock - Perfection]
* Played with in ''[[
* In the ''[[Victorious]]'' episode "Survival of the Hottest", the main characters (minus Cat) get stuck in an RV on a particularly hot day. Tori suddenly remembers that she brought a battery-powered fan, searches her bag for it and presents a tiny, two-bladed fan.
{{quote|
'''André:''' Oh, stop.
'''Trina:''' That's it!?
'''Robbie:''' That's your fan?
'''Tori:''' ''(insulted)'' Yeah...
'''Beck:''' It's not big.
'''Jade:''' It's an embarressment!
'''André:''' You teased us...
'''Tori:''' Okay... Okay, fine, then I guess I just won't turn it on.
''(Everyone protests desperately)''
'''Tori:''' Yeah, yeah, now you like my tiny fan, don'cha!? }}
== Music ==
* Satirized in [[Peter Gabriel]]'s "Big Time":
{{quote|
And I greet them with the widest smile
Tell them how my life is one big adventure
And always they're amazed
When I show them round the house, to my bed
I had it made like a mountain range
With a snow white pillow for my big fat head
And my heaven will be a big heaven
And I will walk through the front door!" }}
== Newspaper Comics ==
▲* ''[[FoxTrot]]'': Roger buys a four-foot tall cell phone from "Mobytel" ("I assume the "Moby" is short for mobile"). It turns out to not work out so well as both the ends are too far away to actually have a conversation.
▲"Usually... one." }}
== Tabletop Games ==
=== Board Games ===
* This is the basic principle behind the design of most, if not all, weapons, vehicles, and equipment in ''[[Warhammer
** Also most, if not all, Orks.
* In the ''[[Star Wars]] Saga Edition'' RPG, there's a simple way to estimate the challenge level of any given starship. Is it a fighter? It's probably low-challenge. If it has a CL of 16 or higher, there's a 99% chance the vehicle in question can cause a nasty localised eclipse, followed by reducing the eclipsed area to ash with its [[Frickin' Laser Beams]].▼
** A fan-made, impossibly humongous ship apparently dubbed the Imperium "Ultra" Class Star Destroyer with all the fixin's inspired someone to write [http://crossproduct.net/~md/sdsd.txt a status report] concerning the maiden flight of the ''SDSD Freudian Nightmare'' and all the problems that would come with maintaining said impossibly huge ship. It's hilarious.▼
▲=== Card Games ===
▲* [[Player Archetypes|The "Timmy" demographic]] in ''[[Magic:
▲** Spoofed in the (deliberately silly and not tournament-legal) ''Unglued'' expansion set with the [https://web.archive.org/web/20080529181024/http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=9780 B.F.M. (Big Furry Monster)], a creature so big it doesn't even fit onto a single ''card''.
▲** Even more so now with the release of Rise of the Eldrazi, which feature [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=194908 some] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=220553 of] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=198171 the] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=194911 largest] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=193632 creatures] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=193452 EVER] printed in the history of the game.
▲** The shard of Naya, the home of Godsire, was noted for its "big creatures matter" mechanic. There was even one card that would [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=180620 win you the game if you had a 20-power creature after you untapped at the beginning of your turn], [[Make My Monster Grow|as well as speeding your creatures on a path to such a size]].
=== Tabletop RPG ===
▲* In the ''[[Star Wars]] Saga Edition'' RPG, there's a simple way to estimate the challenge level of any given starship. Is it a fighter? It's probably low-challenge. If it has a CL of 16 or higher, there's a 99% chance the vehicle in question can cause a nasty localised eclipse, followed by reducing the eclipsed area to ash with its [[Frickin' Laser Beams]].
▲** A fan-made, impossibly humongous ship apparently dubbed the Imperium "Ultra" Class Star Destroyer with all the fixin's inspired someone to write [https://web.archive.org/web/20160402192210/http://crossproduct.net/~md/sdsd.txt a status report] concerning the maiden flight of the ''SDSD Freudian Nightmare'' and all the problems that would come with maintaining said impossibly huge ship. It's hilarious.
== Video Games ==
* Throughout [[Sword of the Stars]]. Large guns are better than small guns. Large hulls have better colonisers, sensors, command & control, and tankers than small hulls. Large planets are easier to defend and more productive. Better engine systems are larger, too.
* ''[[Shadow of the Colossus]]''
* The Valzacard in ''[[Super Robot Wars W]]'', which is a [[Combining Mecha]] made of two mecha... and two ''battleships''. Lined up with the rest of the [[Original Generation|Banpreso Originals]], the second largest doesn't even come up to it's ''knees''.
** Before the Valcazard was the Geant Chevalier from ''[[Super Robot Wars Destiny]]''. In that case, it was more an instance of ''longer'' is better, clocking in at over one hundred meters long. And it's a ''[[Real Robot]]''. One ''longer'' than [[Space Runaway Ideon|Ideon]] is tall.
* The fundamental military strategy of [[Command
** The fundamental military strategy of the Soviet Union in the ''Red Alert'' series is to build big '''''everything'''''.
* Ork [[Funetik Aksent|Shoota]] [[Xtreme Kool Letterz|Boyz]] specifically say this when having been upgraded with "Big Shootas" in ''[[
{{quote|
* ''[[
* This list is okay, but The [[King of All Cosmos]] wants a [[Katamari Damacy|bigger, nicer list]].
* Master/Hell Mel from ''[[Lunar:
* In most of the ''[[Dynasty Warriors]]'' and ''[[Samurai Warriors]]'' games (and thus, by extension, in ''[[Warriors Orochi]]''), each warrior can obtain 4 different tiers of weapons. Each higher tier has higher attack, awesomer appearance, and a noticeably bigger
* The [[Nintendo D Si]] XL, which has 94% bigger screens and is marketed towards old people, but tends to [[Periphery Demographic|sell better outside such demographic]] for the sake of bigger being better.
* ''[[
* ''[[
▲== Web Comics ==
* Played with in ''[[
▲* Played with in ''[[Schlock Mercenary (Webcomic)|Schlock Mercenary]]''. Schlock loses his [[BFG]], and is offered a new model which is much more powerful and doesn't need to warm up. On the downside, it is smaller, and doesn't make an ominous hum when warming up. Schlock manages to find another of the old model. To be fair, Schlock uses both the size and the ominous hum as much for intimidation as he uses the gun for blasting things. Although he does like blasting things.
* Aylee during one of her [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20070223 transformations] in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]''.
*
{{quote|The bigger it is the more it hurts!
uhhh...
She's used to swords... }}
* In ''[[Girl Genius]]'' it seems to be the case, and certainly is a matter of much [[Hypocritical Humor]]. First we see Gilgamesh Wulfenbach pointing out the error of Dr. Beetle, who - being a small man - created one HUGE, impressive enforcer clank instead of a bunch of smaller and thus put all eggs in one easy to hit bin. Then the Castle Heterodyne [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080829 says] "All the Wulfenbach [[Mad Scientist|sparks]] are known for their oversized machinery, you know. I mean, just ''look'' at castle Wulfenbach. What ''exactly'' are we trying to ''say'', here?" But then, the Heterodynes also [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20110420 rarely built ''anything'' small]... and the Castle itself is a huge aboveground building that extends deep down, and counting peripheral devices in its direct control (like the thorn hedge), sprawls ''well beyond the city walls''.
* In ''Dangerously Chloe'' it turns out that a succubus can be much more sensitive about the size of horns than [[A-Cup Angst|about measurements of other visible parts of her figure]]. Maybe because the horns themselves are [[Fantastic Arousal|rather sensitive]].
== Real Life ==
* [[Everything Is Big in Texas|Popularly, anything from or associated with Texas.]]
* Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV)
** The Hummer and its offspring
** The Montana
** If the gasoline crisis hadn't hit, I was looking forward to the rollout of one called "Jupiter".
* Sex, and a [[Freud Was Right|man's worth as a human being]].
* Engines. The bigger, the better, especially if you want the huge block just to cruise around the town. It ''is'' possible to squeeze 750
** Sports cars usually have V-8 engines, twice as much as your average family car.
** The Bugatti Veyron, the second-fastest production car in the world, has a ~1000
** The [
*** The Ultimate Aero TT is also geared to top out at 270 MPH.
** The Dodge Challenger SRT-8 has a 6.1-liter V8 that comfortably hits 425
** There's also the Chevrolet Corvette C6 Z06, which makes 505
** Hell, any muscle car fits this trope. There's no replacement for displacement, after all.
** [[Formula One]] in the 1980s subverts this somewhat. Per the rules, forced-induction engine sizes were capped at a minuscule 1.5 liters. Despite this, it was quite common for such engine to be able to produce up to (and beyond) ''1,500 hp''. The designers simply increased the size of the turbochargers to ridiculous extremes.
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** [[Older Than They Think|Stonehenge]] which is, after all is said and done, nothing more than a big sundial.
* [[Tourist Trap|Balls of String]]. There are multiple places claiming to have the World's Largest Ball of String, and probably a very thriving rivalry among them all.
* ''[[Pee
* Food
** Would you like a plain hot dog? Or a ''foot-long'' hot dog?
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** If it exists, the Multiverse. An infinite number of infinities? How does one top THAT?
*** [[Up to Eleven|Two Multiverses?]]
**** [
* Inverted with most high-tech devices. Needless to say, people are more impressed with the Macbook AIR than the room-sized behemoth computers of yesteryear (except in a "whoah, they used to be that big?" sense).
* In an unusual, and clever, application of this trope, the USSR did this with a substantial amount of their military weaponry during the Cold War, making it larger than equivalent NATO weaponry. The difference wasn't large in most cases, and was often limited to ammunition casings, although larger weapons such as main battle tank guns had larger bores. This had the effect of allowing them to use captured NATO ammunition in their weapons with the addition of a simple adapter sleeve or sabot (the latter used for tank and artillery rounds), but prevented NATO from capturing and using any Warsaw Pact ammunition.
** This Russian fascination with all things big predates and postdates USSR. Check out [
* Hitler would have loved to have invoked this trope further than the [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazis]] already did, particularly with the Maus heavy panzer and the ridiculously large Ratte, which really can't be described as anything other than a ''battleship on wheels''. The armaments minister Albert Speer [[Awesome but Impractical|realized how impractical they were]] and strangled the ideas in the cradle.
** Don't forget the Landkreuzer P. 1500 Monster! A tank so big, it was designed to be submersible, not for naval warfare, ''but because it was too heavy to take bridges, so had to go straight through any rivers it came across''.
* Cuckoos. They lay their eggs in other birds' nests, and their chicks are so large, they monopolize the parents' attention and food supply.
** It helps that as soon as the cuckoo chick hatches, it kicks the other eggs out of the nest so that it's the only one remaining.
* [[Cracked
* Computer components are going this way. Take graphics cards for example: at first, all graphics cards took up a single expansion slot, and barely extended beyond the socket. Today, dual-slot coolers are the norm (due to the increase in heat put out,) and the highest-end cards can be over ten inches longs (
** CPU coolers, as well. They can be so large as to not fit in particularly narrow cases.
*** If you've been tinkering with computers for a while, you can see how heatsinks have grown over the years from being completely absent on a 486DX, through a little one
** Motherboards, too. The crowing example would be EVGA's Classified SR-2, a dual socket monster that uses its own form factor, and can only fit in a handful of cases on the market without major modifications.
* Australia seems rather fond of big things as tourism landmarks, such as the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoiwIl-_PYU On Pitch segment] on ''[[The Gruen Transfer]]'' had the winning ad use such big landmarks as cooling towers on nuclear reactors to try and sell nuclear power to Aussies.
* Justified in the case of many animals that seek out the biggest available mates, as a large potential partner is probably older than a small one. If a big mate lived long enough to ''get'' big, while eating well enough to grow a massive body, then it's probably got better genes to contribute than some dinky youngster.
** Also played straight with trees. If one tree in a forest is bigger, it casts a shadow over the ones surrounding it. They, in turn, grow bigger, therefore casting their own shadows, and so on. Bigger is therefore the only way to get full access to light.
* Telescopes, professional and amateur. The bigger the main lens or mirror, the more light the telescope lets in, the fainter it can see; this trope absolutely applies. In 1789, Herschel constructed a telescope with a main mirror 4 feet wide, in a tube 40 feet long, supported on a huge scaffold frame. It was the world's largest for half a century, until Irishman William Parsons built one with a 6-foot main mirror (weighing three TONS), held up by stone walls looking straight of a medieval castle. In 1917, American Hale trumped that with a telescope main mirror of over 8 feet. Currently the world's largest telescope has a primary mirror over THIRTY-FOUR FEET across, large enough to park a bus on.
** For amateur telescopes, in the mid 20th century 8 inches was considered fairly large. Now 16-inch telescopes are not uncommon, and there are some as large as 50 inches available to the wealthy amateur astronomer, so big you need to stand on a ladder to look through the eyepiece.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]▼
[[Category:Universal Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Everythings Better With Indexes]]
▲[[Category:index]]
▲[[Category:Trope]]
|