Tanks for Nothing/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Tanks are useless.

  • Straight: Tanks are sent in to dispatch a giant monster. They do no noticeable damage and are destroyed afterwards by the giant monster.
  • Exaggerated: Tanks are sent in to dispatch a common thief armed only with a pistol. The thief blows them all up effortlessly using his pistol before the tanks can fire a shot or run him over.
  • Justified: The opposition is just that strong.
    • The tanks have poor performance due to hasty deployment, inherent flaws, mechanical failures, etc.
  • Inverted: Tank Goodness.
  • Subverted: Tanks are sent in to dispatch a giant monster, and their shots seem to cause the monster to bleed...
  • Double Subverted: ...but it turns out that the monster is actually turning red and is physically unharmed, simply enraged by the tank shots. The monster then lets loose a gigantic fireball that completely melts the entire tank division.
  • Parodied: ?
  • Deconstructed: Due to how useless tanks are, military commanders either stop using them or try to improve their performance to actually become useful.
  • Reconstructed: ?
  • Zig Zagged: Tanks are sent in to dispatch a giant monster, and while they kill the monster, an even bigger monster appears and destroys those tanks without a hitch. More tanks are sent in, and they finally kill the bigger monster. But then they face another monster from outer space that destroys those tank reinforcements with ease.
  • Averted: No tanks appear.
    • Tanks are useful as they should be.
  • Enforced: "Tanks are vastly overrated, so let's show how useless they can be!"
  • Lampshaded: "The tanks should have killed the monster, right?"
  • Invoked: The monsters wear metal armor under their skins to absorb the tank shots.
  • Defied: "Let's use the tanks with the most powerful cannons on that monster."
  • Discussed: ?
  • Conversed: ?

Go back to Tanks for Nothing. Just don't use a tank, okay?