The precocious and insightful child, intelligent beyond his years, who is able to drive right to the heart of the adult’s motivations and failings. I don’t mean a teen, but a 10-year-old. Or younger.
I’d make an exception for Professor Theophilus Branestawm, the hero of the British series of childrens’ books by Norman Hunter. Said gentleman is an archetypal hugely brilliant but utterly absent-minded and unworldly professor: among very many other accomplishments, he’s fluent in something like 254 languages – with 27 of them, he is the only person in the world who knows them. I love these books – would consider that they rate a pass re the theme of this thread, because the Professor’s immense linguistic knowledge is never of the slightest practical use in any way.
If he’s the only one who knows the language, how did he learn them and how can anyone else tell if he’s actually fluent?
“I’m a mild mannered milquetoast, but I’ll do anything to protect my FAMILY! To protect my KIDS!”
…
“You can’t do that! This is horrible, psychotic behavior! You’ll be a murderer, or worse!”
“I’m doing this for my FAMILY! Dammit, all I do, is for my KIDS!”
“Oh. Right-o, well, carry on, then.”
…
[protagonist discovers heinous plot]
Dying Antagonist: [whispers hoarsely] It was … all … for my … FAMILY … for … MAH KIDSSSSsssss …
[heroic music swells, indicating moral redemption]
…
From Cersei Lannister (“Game of Thrones”) to Walter White (“Breaking Bad”) to Marty Byrde (“Ozark”) this one is goddamn every-fucking-where.
As someone with no children (intentionally) and no husband (not so much) I kinda wanna know where my get-outta-shit card might be. Apparently, if you’re married with children, you’re allowed to do whatevs … as long as you frame it as being in the best interest of those children.
You got to admit, Walter White is a bit of an outlier here (if you watch to the end)
" I did it for me. It was fun. I liked it…"
I think this is more of an “antihero” trope. One that comes to mind is a movie with Rutger Hauer and Gene Simmons, ummm…googling…ok, “Wanted: Dead or Alive”. Jeez, 1987? Thought it was more recent than that. Anyway, don’t know how necessary it is to spoiler tag a 33 yo movie in which the basic premise of the ending has already been described, but here goes:
Ex-CIA bounty hunter Rutger Hauer captures criminal terrorist mastermind Gene Simmons, and hands him over handcuffed to authorities, in what feels like an anticlimactic ending. Then Rutger has a change of heart (I think spurred on by Simmons taunting him). Rutger takes out a grenade, jams it in his mouth, and pulls the pin. Everybody steps back and watches Gene’s head asplode.
Yeah, Breaking Bad was kind of meta in that it seeemd to actively play with tropes. Every time it seemed like a plot point was going to settle in a comfortable trope rut, there was a sudden left turn.
I’m looking at you Darth Vader and Kylo Ren!
Well, she did have that awkward lunch with Mike Yanagita!
Gwen DeMarco: [shouts] Look! I have one job on this lousy ship, it’s stupid, but I’m gonna do it! Okay?
Point taken…
The carefree bachelor hero, who has always played the field, finally falls genuinely in love for the first time in his life. All his friends and workmates are happy that he has finally found “the one”.
Of course she dies at the end of the episode.
“Threat Level Midnight” from The Office contains as many cliches that can possibly be squeezed into it.
Perfect example: every member of the Cartwright family on Bonanza. Being in a love relationship with Little Joe was especially deadly. I just watched a particularly gruesome one:
Little Joe falls in love with the daughter of a neighboring rancher who’s in a feud with Ben Cartwright, “Romeo and Juliet” style. The head ranch hand, who is egging the feud on for his own purposes, is also in love with the girl and apparently tries to rape her at one point, when LJ shows up and fights him. In the melee she manages to get herself pitchforked.
But it’s the only way Lenny stayed in half-decent shape on Law & Order.
SF movies/shows/books that are set after the great war that killed a lot of people
The old “Cartwright Curse” https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CartwrightCurse
Not exactly a direct response, but this made me think of the ONE TIME that the countdown in the movie was EXACTLY the real time it was supposed to be. At the end of William Cameron Menzies’ original version of Invaders from Mars* you see them setting the timer on the bomb for 5 minutes. And, by gum, it’s five minutes later in the movie that it actually blows up.
This was notable to me, because it made me appreciate just how long five minutes can be. If you’re busy with something, five minutes is over in a flash. But if you’re watching a movie, it can take an agonizingly long time (just look how long that one minute countdown takes during the “When I’m 64” sequence in Yellow Submarine). They had to fill in the time during those five minutes with flashbacks and stock footage of military maneuvers. You were pretty relieved when the ship actually blew up.
*An incredibly overrated film. It scared the heck out of me as a kid, but when I saw a showing of it at the Dryden Theater at Eastman House in Rochester – a high-class art cinema venue where they have no snack bar, and people actually get dressed up to watch movies – the usually sophisticated audience was yelling abuse at the film before it was halfway over. I’d forgotten (or missed) how overall stupid the movie is.
Double bonus points when the Bad Guy’s entire master plan requires manipulating the hero into doing something specific at the end of the movie, despite trying to kill the hero multiple times throughout the rest of the movie.
I have now fallen completely in love with you.