Troperiffic: Difference between revisions

{{examples}}

* ''[[Record of Lodoss War]]'' is based on a ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' campaign its creator played. It shows. And yet it's still a classic.

* On the other hand, ''[[Slayers]]'' skewers all of those very same [[cliche]]s (with a good healthy dose of pop culture references) for laughs.

* ''[[The World God Only Knows]]'' heavily relies on the main character's ability to [[Better Than a Bare Bulb|invariably recognize]] numerous [[Dating Sim]] tropes and [[Stock Character]] archetypes, which it [[Playing with a Trope|plays with]] in every possible way.

* ''[[Astro City]]'' is extremely casual about things like, say, Earth being the only portal between the realms of the warring Frigions and Thermeons. Even their ''names'' are troperiffic.

* ''[[Gold Digger (Comic Book)|Gold Digger]]'' takes tropes from a half-dozen genres, superheroes, SF, fantasy, martial arts flicks, [[Indiana Jones]]-style adventure movies, and mixes them all together.

* ''[[Sin City]]'' plays every trope [[Frank Miller]] loves.

* ''[[Shinji and Warhammer40K]]'' takes all the respective tropes from its [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|parent]] [[Warhammer 40,000|series]] and mixes in heaping helpings of [[Serial Escalation]], [[Crazy Awesome]], [[Rule of Cool]], and [[Holy Shit Quotient]].

* Compare ''any'' fic by [[Big Name Fan|Killashandra]] to the [http://www.invisibleplanets.com/kirk_spock/KSCliches.htm Big List of K/S Clichés.] Yet, she is one of the biggest names in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' [[Slash Fic|Slash]] fandom, and her fics aren't half bad, [[So Cool Its Awesome|either]].

* From the ''[[Pokémon]]'' fandom, ''[[Latias' Journey]]'' and its [[Brave New World (fanfic)|sequel]]. It helps that [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|the author is a troper]].

* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6400777/1/Fanfiction_is_SO_Cliched Fanfiction is SO Cliched]'', a ''[[Pokémon]]'' fic which variously [[Deconstructor Fleet|subverts, lampshades, or deconstructs practically every fanfic cliché in the book.]]

* ''[[Doom: Repercussions of Evil]]'' gets special mention for sheer density. The page lists 31 tropes at the time of this writing: roughly one trope every seven words. It's even noted that the works page is longer than the story itself.

* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes: The Series]]'' uses a ''lot''' of tropes from several genres: [[adventure]], [[Science Fiction]], the occasional [[Film Noir]]...

* [[Red Line]] is possibly the most troperiffic racing movie ever, rivaled only by [[Speed Racer (film)|Speed Racer]], and with even more insanity and more explosions, and it will explode with its color and art style into your retinas forever.

* ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' mixes all the best parts of the [[Disney Animated Canon]] in a bowl, adds [[Fractured Fairy Tale|a few twists]] for extra spice, then [[The Big Easy|deep-fries it like a beignet.]]

* ''[[Megamind]]'' advertised itself saying "The superhero movie will never be the same again." Granted, it was the same, but only for the first fifteen minutes or so... and then we have some lovely plot twists that kind of turn a parody of Superman into its own engaging story. Whether or not you like this film, you probably have to admit that the people working on this movie REALLY knew their [[Superhero Tropes]] well; just look at Megamind's [[Character Development]] and you'll get what I mean.

* ''[[Wanted (film)|Wanted]]'', [[The Film of the Book]] [[Wanted (Comic Book)|comic book]] is an incredibly played-straight [[Hero's Journey]], or more accurately Anti-Hero's Journey (it also took [[Follow the Leader|some liberal inspiration]] from ''[[The Matrix]]'').

* Arguably, the ''entire work'' of Timur Bekmambetov, be it Russian- or Hollywood-era. He is fond of playing common film tropes unflinchingly straight—all while adding enough [[Lampshade Hanging|tongue-in-cheek remarks]] and [[Exaggerated Trope|intentionally over-the-top antics]]. As [[Caustic Critic|Anthony Lane]] put it in ''The New Yorker'',

* ''[[Attack of the Killer Tomatoes]]'': I'm sure the next film will be written by scanning this website for any they missed.

* ''[[Enchanted]]'' is entirely based on Disney gathering up a list of both tropes from its [[Disney Animated Canon|classic animated films]] and from modern romantic comedies, putting them in one movie, and subverting, inverting, and generally [[Playing with a Trope|dicking around with and laughing at all of them]].

* ''[[Tropic Thunder]]'' is basically one giant parody of Hollywood and movie-making as a whole.

* ''[[Zombieland]]''. It's what happens when a [[Genre Savvy]] [[Action Survivor]] teams up with a [[Crazy Awesome]] [[Badass]] in a [[Zombie Apocalypse]].

* ''[[The Quick and the Dead (1995 film)|The Quick and the Dead]]'' puts every [[The Western|Western]] stock character into a [[Quick Draw]] tournament to find The [[Fastest Gun in the West]]

* TV channel Five US are currently celebrating '80/90s action film tropes via the medium of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_GmuIHL_EM hair rock full of lampshades]. Celebrates (at least, just the lyrics) [[Car Fu]], whatever-the-heck-the-trope-is-for-indestructable-hair (although they show a [[Hair Reboot]] in the video), [[Dodge the Bullet]] (while showing [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy]]), [[Stuff Blowing Up]], [[Good Old Fisticuffs]], [[Outrun the Fireball]], and [[Pre-Mortem One-Liner]] within the space of under a minute.

* Every [[Simon R. Green]] series ever. The characters are literally walking tropes, complete with their catchphrase and taglines which they often introduce themselves or others with. Jon Taylor, in particular, often tells people, "It's Jon Taylor and Suzie Shotgun, otherwise known as "Oh God it's her, run!""

* The ''[[Chronicles of Prydain]]'', by [[Lloyd Alexander]], are gleefully full of [[Older Than Print]] tropes from [[Celtic Mythology|Welsh myth]]. And they're still awesome. Although he does take a few liberties for purposes of fiction—for instance, converting Arawn to an Evil Dark Lord.

** ''[[Codex Alera]]'' is a [[High Fantasy]] series in which a plucky underdog [[Farm Boy]] from a backwater of the imperiled kingdom undergoing a succession crisis becomes a [[Heroes Prefer Swords|sword-wielding]] [[Badass]] and saves the world, making friends of ancient enemies as he goes. {{spoiler|And he's [[Secret Legacy|the heir]] [[Rags to Royalty|to the throne]] and [[Authority Equals Asskicking|consequently]] has the most powerful magic of... [[Person of Mass Destruction|well, pretty much anyone]].}} Yet the setting is such an unusual twist on [[Medieval European Fantasy]] and Tavi is so [[Guile Hero|brilliant]] and [[Crazy Enough to Work|insane]] that you probably won't even notice the fact that so many elements of the story are old fantasy cliches. You'll be too busy going "[[HSQ|Holy shit]], [[Crazy Awesome|that was]] ''[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesome]]''."

* Pick a [[Terry Pratchett]] novel. Any Terry Pratchett novel. The man seems to have a fetish for tropes, as his novels consist entirely of deconstructing, reconstructing, parodying, averting, subverting, and inverting various tropes of all shapes and sizes. Coupled with his decisively British humor, it makes for consistently entertaining literature.

* ''[[Stardust (novel)|Stardust]]'' takes every fairytale trope [[Neil Gaiman]] could think of and turns it [[Up to Eleven]].

* ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]''. Mostly because it was such a lengthy series, but contains just about every type of character you can imagine.

* ''[[The A-Team]]''. Part of the appeal is knowing, blow by blow, how each episode will play out before you watch it. There will be a scene where B.A. throws a guy over a car. Murdock will act silly and tick B.A. off. Face will fall in love with every remotely attractive woman he sees. It's just fun. [[A-Team Firing|And lots of machine guns will get fired, but no one will get shot.]] The [[Big Bad]]'s car will ramp off another vehicle, fly twisting sideways over a ground camera, and crash on its roof. The [[Big Bad]] and his Mooks will crawl out, uninjured, and surrender. The basic formula stays the same, but the writers switch up the specifics. Take Murdock, for instance: he'll act crazy, of course, but ''how?'' Will he decide he's a cab-driving superhero? Pretend he's [[Moby Dick|Captain Ahab]]? Act like an artsy filmmaker? Psychoanalyze a bunch of pecans while switching between a German accent and just plain German? ...And yeah, he did all of those things.

* ''[[Chuck]]'' seems to tend towards this, with many tropes played straight, though often for laughs. It's predictable, but humorously so (often dialed [[Up to Eleven]]). Someone sets a trip wire to stop Thanksgiving thieves at the Buy More? A bad guy ''will'' trip over it before the end of the episode.

* ''[[Everybody Hates Chris]]'' did this with [[Race Tropes]].

* Nearly half the lines in ''[[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (song)|Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny]]'' have been linked to an established trope (see page). Appropriate for the subject matter.

* It's [[Tenacious D]]'s entire schtick.

* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' takes every sci-fi trope and cliché ''imaginable'', [[Darker and Edgier|paints it black]], [[This Is Your Premise on Drugs|pumps it full of a cocktail of every drug known to man]], [[Incendiary Exponent|sets it on fire]], [[Rule of Cool|sends it off into space screaming WAAAGH! and waving a chainsaw sword]]. As an example, [[Super Soldier|Space Marines]] are recruited with an extreme form of [[The Spartan Way]] which only one in every hundred aspirants survive, [[Training from Hell|given years of insanely dangerous training]] and [[Church Militant|religious indoctrination to turn them into utterly fearless, pitiless fanatics.]] They're equipped with [[Ancestral Weapon|gigantic millenia-old suits of]] [[Powered Armour]] and spend their days fighting [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|unkillable zombie robots]], [[Horny Devils|gigantic flaming-head sex demons and the like.]] This is what ''one faction'' does with ''one trope'' as background for its ''basic troops choice''. And they have [[Chainsaw Good|Chainswords]].

* As implied at the top of the page, ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' campaigns can get like this. Really, the game is designed so that an enterprising DM can run a fantasy campaign based around just about ''any'' model: versatility is the game's greatest strength. The 4th Edition DM's book actually encourages it:

{{quote|''Don't be afraid to steal ideas from books, movies, and other sources for your personal use. The DM's job is to entertain, not to be original.''}}

* "''[[Exalted]]'' is a game where one of your main antagonists is Death, Creator of the Underworld. Except there's several of him, probably six or seven. Oh, and he's got 13 dread henchmen, one of whom was probably you at some point in time. Also, Hell has a personal grudge against you this time. Did I mention Magical America regularly trains and sends ninjas out for you personally? Ninjas specially trained in *** -kicking? Which, if they won't work, they keep giant robotic suits of armor on reserve for. Oh, and the Transformers have united under Omicron, and are invading. The Jedi have corrupted Heaven and usurped your rightful place as the Masters of Everything. Your ex-wife just dropped by, and she's a two thousand year old shape-changing man-eating monster now, interested in maybe going on a date next Thursday. Your best friend from your last life and while growing up now seeks to cover all the lands of Middle Earth in darkness, if he can just find this damn ring. And your God has the world's biggest crack habit, and needs some serious rehab." -- '''Darius Solluman'''

* ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'', a fan-made line of the ''[[New World of Darkness]]'', is filled to the brim with science-fiction tropes and treats the [[Applied Phlebotinum]] tropes as blueprints.

* ''Cleopatra's Caboose'', a [[Affectionate Parody|tongue-in-cheek]] European-style board game that throws in just about every cliched Euro-game theme or mechanic the designer could think of: trains, ancient Egypt, bidding, building, special powers, resource management, limited actions...

* ''Strike Legion'' is so derivative it digs right out the bottom of [[Cliché Storm]] and becomes this. [http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=196770 A MST].

* [[LEGO]]'s ''[[Bionicle]]''- a [[Darker and Edgier]], [[Merchandise-Driven]] [[Science Fantasy]] series powered by [[Rule of Cool]]. It starts out with a bunch of [[Cyborg]] [[Hobbits]] living in [[Elemental Nation|Elemental Tribes]] on a [[Schizo-Tech]] [[Patchwork Map]] Island being terrorized by a mysterious [[Big Bad]]. Then a [[Five-Man Band|Six Man Band]] of heroes with [[Mask of Power|magic masks]] and [[Elemental Powers]] ([[Personality Powers|that conveniently match their personalities]]) comes along to fight the [[Monster of the Week|various beasties he sends after them]], before confronting the [[Big Bad]] himself and learning about [[The Power of Friendship]]. The series then starts deconstructing a lot of the tropes- it turns out [[All Myths Are True|the myths may not be entirely true]], that the [[Schizo-Tech]] is left over from an [[Apocalypse How|apocalypse]] [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|no-one remembers]], and the impossible [[Patchwork Map]] island [[That's No Moon|may not be an island after all...]]

* The first ''[[Atelier (franchise)||Atelier Iris]]'' is this to a fair number of people. [[Winged Humanoid|A girl with wings]]! A [[Catgirl]]! A hero on a vague quest for knowledge and reputation! A wisecracking older dude who's along mostly just because! Ancient evil! Recent evil! [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain]]s! And yet, the game plays with the cliches just enough (such as making [[The Hero]] the ''[[White Mage]]'' of the party, and making him the [[Butt Monkey|butt of every joke imaginable partially for it]] yet ''still'' making him seem legitimately badass and awesome) that the game just ''clicks'' for a lot of people.

* Anything [[Blizzard Entertainment]] ever made. Nothing in their game catalog is [[Cliché Storm|even remotely original]] but they have a knack for taking every single [[High Fantasy]], [[Heroic Fantasy]] and [[Space Opera]] cliché in existence, throw them into a blender and then [[Schedule Slip|slooooowly]] cook the resulting stew into something so [[Shown Their Work|polished]] and superbly entertaining it somehow becomes [[Rule of Cool|fresh and delicious]] again.

* ''[[Asura's Wrath]]'', Of course. The setting is [[Space Opera]] and [[Science Fiction]] meets Asian Mythology, for starters.

* The ''[[When They Cry]]'' series is excellent at this.

** ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' deserves a particular mention, combining [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]], [[Groundhog Day Loop]], [[Closed Circle]], [[Clueless Mystery]], ''and'' [[Fair Play Whodunnit]] into one [[Visual Novel]]. It has [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|debates]]! [[Recycled in Space|IN COLOR]]! The characters are also quite [[Genre Savvy]] when it comes to dealing with mysteries, and even lampshades the use of the related tropes.

* ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' has an impressive list of tropes, and it's a game about [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]] lawyers.

* If individual characters can be Troperiffic, ''[[Antihero for Hire]]'''s Dr. Nefarious is.

* In-story example: In ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', Dr. Disaster's [[Hard Light|holo-simulator]] plugs its users into a story straight out of [[Raygun Gothic|1950s pulp sci-fi]]: [[Latex Space Suit|Latex Spacesuits]], [[Death Ray]]s, and alien moon fortresses are played gleefully straight. Antimony is the [[Meta Guy|only one]] who [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|has any problem accepting this]], and even she eventually lightens up and has a great time.

* ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'', like ''[[Adventurers!]]'', goes out of its way to use, [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade]], avert, subvert, invert, and [[Affectionate Parody|pay homage to]] nearly every single RPG and Adventure game trope out there, culminating in one of the most gloriously surreal [[Final Boss]] battles ever, as all the tropes collapse in on themselves like some giant [[Post Modernism|Post-Modernist]] singularity.

* ''[[Homestuck]]'', the [[MS Paint Adventures]] currently in progress, does the same thing for simulation games, fantasy, and sci-fi that ''Problem Sleuth'' did for adventure games, noir, and Anime-style action. Many time travel tropes, a jillion different kinds of [[Applied Phlebotinum]], video game themed [[Techno Babble]], characters with increasingly bizarre traits, and a great big heaping of [[Tropes of Legend]] all mix together with a great soundtrack and whimsical art style into the one of the most Troperiffic things in existence. The main work page itself [[Troper Critical Mass|became so long]] that the tropes listed had to be put into folders! In fact, ''Homestuck'' as well as other hugely Troperiffic franchises are in part responsible for some of the recent server crashes. They have so many tropes they are crashing the site.

* The ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' is a heartless, ruthless secret organization dedicated to containing (and occasionally destroying) hundreds of abnormal objects that variously subvert, deconstruct, or play straight loads of [[Urban Fantasy]] and [[Cosmic Horror]] tropes.

* In a podcast, the ''[[Loading Ready Run]]'' crew have expressed a desire to use every trope in the main [[TV Tropes]] directory. Good luck to them.

* Everything by the [http://www.youtube.com/user/duncanbros Duncan Bros]. Their hallmark is a short movie of around 5 mins which takes on a given genre and crams in as many tropes and clichés from the genre as possible while still being very funny.

* If it's a Super Hero trope, or a [[Gender Blending Tropes]], it's probably found somewhere in the ''[[Whateley Universe]]''.

* [[Tropes Are Not Good]]: Both ''[[Neko Sugar Girls]]'' and ''[[The Ugly Barnacle]]'' <ref>though the latter isn't bad as much as [[Broke the Rating Scale|not applicable]]</ref> are highly Troperiffic, containing several tropes per minute/word. But that's just because they're so short in the first place.

* The [[Cracked.com]]/BriTANicK.com video ''[[A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever]]'' has most of the tropes in popular Oscar winners.

* On the note of [[That Guy With The Glasses]], [[Obscurus Lupa]] is an especially trope saturated show; the show's page examples are a good measure of this.

* If ''[[Gaia Online]]'' isn't the most Troperiffic online community, then we don't know what is.

* ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'' took what could have been a cheap knock-off show and turned it into [[Rule of Cool|pure awesome]] through a combination of [[Genre Savvy]] and this trope. Zurg gets extra points for being [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]]...[[Card-Carrying Villain|most of the time]].

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. Example: it takes [[Elemental Powers]], plays them to the hilt by having the benders use their powers for more than just fancy martial arts. There are a few subversions, notably {{spoiler|Azula's interruption of Aang's Avatar transformation and Zuko's subverted [[Heel Face Turn]] at the end of the Season 2 finale.}} This just makes those trope subversions all the more jarring and awesome.

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', in spades. Just check out the length of their page.

* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]''. Their favorite is [[Better Than a Bare Bulb]], but judging from the page length, they're no strangers to ''any'' trope—almost every single one has been played straight, subverted, double-subverted, inverted, etc.

* ''[[Sym-Bionic Titan]]'' is just one huge love letter to the super robot genre and tokusatsu and boy, does it ever show.

* ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]''. The show isn't even two seasons long yet, but the page for it is filled with tropes.

* ''[[Adventure Time]]''. This entire show is just one big love-letter to [[The Nineties]]' cartoons.

* ''[[Regular Show]]'' is another, if not bigger love-letter to [[The Nineties]]' cartoons and even goes as far to have many references to [[The Eighties]]. Its characters, crazy plots, and overall surreal nature is loved by many a tv troper.

* ''[[Total Drama Island]]'', both because of its parody of reality show tropes and its 24+ different character types with their own personalities.

* ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'', for ''starters'', features both an [[All-Stereotype Cast]] and nearly ''every'' horror/comedy trope in existence.

* [[Earthworm Jim (animation)|The ''Earthworm Jim'' cartoon series]] basically combines this with a Cartoon/[[Superhero]] [[Cliche Storm]] for [[Played for Laughs|maximum comedic effect]].

* Eric Berne wrote a book called ''Games People Play'', which was essentially a collection of tropes of human interaction. Berne gave them games memorable titles such as "Now I've got you, you son of a bitch," "Wooden leg," "Yes, but...," and "[[Let's You and Him Fight]]."

* [[Tropes Are Not Good|More disturbingly]], [[Nazi Germany]] could be called this. Part of their strategy for drumming up the support of the German people was using a lot of pageantry, theatrics, and such to [[Villain with Good Publicity|make being a Nazi seem exciting]]. Not to mention the truly staggering amount of [[Villain]] Tropes they embodied... [[Those Wacky Nazis|They]] [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|inspired]] [[Ghostapo|some,]] [[Godwin's Law|too.]] [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]] would be just as sociopathic.