# Dead or nearly dead tropes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 25, 2025, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797 "2025-02-25T23:14:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/121 "2025-02-26T17:47:45Z")
I meant more that the notion of the ‘anti-hero’ in popular fiction eventually made morally ambiguous characters more acceptable in general, so even outright bad guys who eventually reformed could be accepted by the audience to have ‘happy ending’ redemption arcs. But also, I think we debated what an ‘anti-hero’ is in another thread a couple years back. Your definition is valid, but an anti-hero, I believe, can also be defined as one who generally does the right thing, but with no regard to morality. legality, or consequences. Or even one who crosses back and forth over the right / wrong line but generally has redeeming qualities. Deadpool, for example. I think under that definition WW _almost_ fits the bill as anti-hero-- he started out on his crime spree initially to support his family, did cross the line into outright bad guy, but eventually had a redemption arc. That was the genius of the show- it walked such a fine line you were never sure whether to root for him or hope for his downfall. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/122 "2025-02-26T17:48:20Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > That reminds me of a character badmouthing someone and saying “He is standing right behind me, isn’t he?” I had that happen at work just last week: someone tried to trick me to say something (mildly) bad but I didn’t. Then I thought and said “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” like I was living in a sitcom. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/123 "2025-02-26T18:03:09Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > Gruff New York cab drivers with strong Brooklyn accents (‘_you wanna go to da choich on toidy toid street_?’) However, the trope of establishing shots of a busy, crowded street in New York City, with everyone, _especially the cabbies_, honking like crazy, is true, at least compared to other American cities. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/124 "2025-02-26T18:25:23Z")
> [@solost](#): > > > [@griffin1977](#): > > > > Yeah there is yet another head injury related trope that I think has now died. It’s that you can safely and reliably knock someone out with a blow to the head, and they will rendered unconscious long enough to be transported to whatever location the plot demands whereupon they’ll wake up healthy and with no repercussions for being beaten into unconsciousness > > I still see that one pretty regularly. I think that trope will survive as long as there are hacky screenwriters who need a convenient way to take somebody out of the story temporarily. Or that no matter how concussed they are, a bucket of cold water thrown on them will immediately revive them to full consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/125 "2025-02-26T18:29:31Z")
There’s a whole host of horror movie tropes, mostly dating from the 80s, that are so overused that nowadays they usually only appear in parody form. Such as the “oh noes I just looked in the bathroom mirror and something horrible is standing right behind me! But when I turn around, it’s gone. Musta just imagined it 🤷‍♂️” Or the ever-popular “screeching cat fake-out jump scare”. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/126 "2025-02-26T18:44:26Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Back in the day, there was evidently nothing more romantic than a man grabbing a woman, probably while she was still talking, and lunging in to mash his face into hers. Bonus points for uttering “Shut up you fool” or somesuch tender endearment as her only warning. Cue swoon and stroll off into the sunset. Similarly, you rarely see the wall/locker slam in manga/anime these days, where the male character basically pins the female character against the wall and slams his hand next to her, generally right before confessing his love for her. Oddly enough, this is mostly a trope seen in shoujo works where the target audience is adolescent and young adult women. A lot of the classic Japanese romcom tropes have become tired cliches that rarely get used purely straight: the female main character running into the male main character with toast in the mouth because she’s late for school (or just running into each other in general in a crash), the “indirect kiss” of drinking out of the same container, and so on. All to the good as far as I’m concerned as they are generally terrible. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/127 "2025-02-26T18:46:28Z")
Another trope that has thankfully dissipated is the idea that as long as the bad guy isn’t ‘in frame’ the good guy can’t see him. This one drives me insane. For example, in a wide shot the hero is alone. Them in a close up the bad can sneak up on him. You still see it occasionally but only in very badly written scripts. > [@griffin1977](#): > > An antihero is a hero who is trying to do good, but rather than being the perfect handsome broad-shouldered upstanding citizen with a square jaw who helps old ladies across the street and always does the right thing, is flawed, human, and imperfect (e.g. Rick from Casablanca) A classic example is Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. > [@Stanislaus](#): > > Cue swoon and stroll off into the sunset. Or [bending one leg up while the other foot is on tip-toes.](https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-cuddling-couple-legs-isolated-on-170278418) ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/128 "2025-02-26T18:49:05Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > Lucy Sante makes a convincing argument that many of the familiar character types from old cartoons and such were actually 19th-century clichés that were revived in the 1920s and 30s. To name but a few: > > > the bartender with his handlebar mustache and spit curls; the crook with his striped sweater, cloth cap, and domino mask; the soubrette with her petticoats and rouged cheeks; the bohemian with his beret and flowing necktie; the poker player with his sleeve garters and green eyeshade; the cop with his twirling nightstick and Irish accent. Where did she write this? I ask because I’m fascinated, and it’s not googleable. My contribution: narrative flashbacks or dream sequences that are signaled by wavy lines, harp music, echoes, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/129 "2025-02-26T18:58:56Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > How about a nice gentile couple rushing to get married and all they can find is a rabbi to officiate? Or the captain of a ship (ferry)? ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/130 "2025-02-26T19:02:14Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Another trope that has thankfully dissipated is the idea that as long as the bad guy isn’t ‘in frame’ the good guy can’t see him. This one drives me insane. Reminds me of the ‘getting hit by a truck or a bus that comes out of nowhere’ trope. Perhaps the most ridiculous example is [here, in the movie Final Destination](https://youtu.be/7jt2f-Zpe80), on a quiet street that isn’t even an intersection but a ‘T’ where there’s no street for the bus to have come from-- it literally appears from nowhere. > [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > > [@griffin1977](#): > > > > An antihero is a hero who is trying to do good, but rather than being the perfect handsome broad-shouldered upstanding citizen with a square jaw who helps old ladies across the street and always does the right thing, is flawed, human, and imperfect (e.g. Rick from Casablanca) > > A classic example is Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. I have to disagree with this one. Bickle is psychotic or otherwise deranged. He was going to assassinate a Presidential candidate, but got scared off by the Secret Service. So he settles for killing a pimp and another bad guy, and is lauded by the public as a vigilante hero, but the message (I think) of the movie is “be careful who your heroes are” (a moral we can all do well to follow these days). I wouldn’t consider him an anti-hero at all, though. Maybe an _accidental_ hero… maybe. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/131 "2025-02-26T19:09:43Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > That reminds me of a character badmouthing someone and saying “He is standing right behind me, isn’t he?” _Deadpool 2_ had a fun reversal of that, with Wade badmouthing Cable to his group of friends then deadpanning “Oh no, he’s right behind you, isn’t he?” as Cable has snuck up behind them. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/132 "2025-02-26T19:13:43Z")
> [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > Where did she write this? I ask because I’m fascinated, and it’s not googleable. _Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York_ (2016). > [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > My contribution: narrative flashbacks or dream sequences that are signaled by wavy lines, harp music, echoes, etc. Why, I remember that trope like it was yesterday…day…day… ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/133 "2025-02-26T19:23:33Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Reminds me of the ‘getting hit by a truck or a bus that comes out of nowhere’ trope. Perhaps the most ridiculous example is [here, in the movie Final Destination](https://youtu.be/7jt2f-Zpe80), on a quiet street that isn’t even an intersection but a ‘T’ where there’s no street for the bus to have come from-- it literally appears from nowhere. Still going strong, at least in anime, where getting hit by “Truck-kun” is the opening scene of multiple isekai (other world) animes (and some others like Zombieland Saga). Even that was being parodied as far back as 2012 with Konosuba, where the main character “tries to save a classmate from being hit by a tractor that he mistakes for a speeding truck and dies of acute stress reaction”. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/134 "2025-02-26T19:24:45Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > Why, I remember that trope like it was yesterday…day…day… “Pinch hitting for Pedro Borbon…Manny Mota…Mota…Mota…” ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/135 "2025-02-26T19:29:34Z")
How about a good old-fashioned spit take? Has anyone ever witnessed one in real life? mmm ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/136 "2025-02-26T19:31:50Z")
I have done them in real life. Including having the liquid come out my nose instead. Not that pleasant with a carbonated drink. ---
**Author:** ![veryfrank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/87869e/32.png) [@veryfrank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/veryfrank)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/137 "2025-02-26T19:34:03Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > How about a good old-fashioned spit take? > > Has anyone ever witnessed one in real life? Done 'em. Caused 'em. Not proud of the second one, as I was quoting a movie I can’t stand at the time, but I’ll admit I was happy with witnessing it. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/138 "2025-02-26T19:38:23Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > I have done them in real life. Including having the liquid come out my nose instead. Not that pleasant with a carbonated drink. Didn’t spit. Went down wrong tube. Coughing. Worse coughing. Projectile vomit. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/139 "2025-02-26T19:43:28Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > I think this is a subset of the larger “training montage” trope. Whereby any incompetent out of shape untrained character can achieve world-class expert status in any skill by means of 30-second training montage. > > That trope is alive and well definitely [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/pFrMLRQIT_k/hqdefault.jpg "Team america montage") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFrMLRQIT_k) ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2025, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797/140 "2025-02-26T19:55:37Z")
I liked it better when they did it the first time in “Asspen”. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/JfW_XeH82-0/maxresdefault.jpg "We're Gonna Need a Sports-Training Montage - SOUTH PARK") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfW_XeH82-0) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dead-or-nearly-dead-tropes/1014797.md?page=8)