r/TopCharacterTropes

1. Napoleon Bonaparte - The son of impoverished Corsican nobility yet rose through the ranks of the revolution to become master of Europe. Slept like three hours a day for two decades and made a habit of citing artillery pieces with a hail of bullets and cannonballs flying around him even though he was commander. Placed the crown of France on his own head to symbolize it was earned by his merit rather than the approval of God or the church. Altered the continent of Europe so much through his administration that the monarchs who came after couldn't turn back the clock even if they wanted. So feared in battle that the only answer was to avoid fighting him directly and at Dresden when this strategy was ignored, the 200,000 man army of the coalition suffered a crushing defeat with over 40,000 casualties even though they massively outnumbered him. So much aura that regiment after regiment sent to arrest him simply defected to his side and numerous European nations declared war on him personally as an individual. Used his own exile as a chance to turn himself into a martyred hero which only added to his fame. Even after death, his name alone was enough to help put a relative called Napoleon III on the throne and keep serving as a symbol for anti reactionary movements for decades.
2. Audie Murphy - Guy farmed so much aura that he asked filmakers to tone down his real life story because it wouldn't seen believable otherwise. Standing all alone on a burning tank destroyer using a machine gun, he held off 250 and six tanks. Got addicted to sleeping pills after the war as a side effect of being that badass and then proceeded to lock himself away in a motel room for a week and emerged with his addiction broken.

Ragatha and Kinger (The Amazing Digital Circus)

Sombra and Sigma (Overwatch)

Killer moth (Teen Titans): Amongst all of his evil plans he still tries to find his daughter a date to her dance even if he has to force robin to do it.

Doofenshmirtz (Phineas and Ferb): Every scene with the doctor and his daughter is so cute and heartfelt. Making sure she’s ok and reminding her he loves her, you know he’d do anything for her.

Mifune (soul eater): While not totally a villain he still works with arachnophobia for the sake of protecting (his basically adopted daughter) Angela, who is constantly targeted because she is a witch. Fighting the likes of black star and Sid for her sake rather than arachnophobia’s goals.

Ra’s Al Ghul (Batman): This is another that is somewhat debatable since sometimes Ra’s isn’t the best dad forcing Talia to decide between the league and her own goals. But ultimately, Ra’s sees his daughter as an equal and heir to the throne who is a vital piece of the league which is why her relationship with Batman bothers him so much. He wants what’s best for her but doesn’t always go about it Im the best way.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: "The Turtles sound like kids!" Duh! That's the point! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are actually played by teenagers. "But they don't sound like their balls have dropped yet." Have people on the Internet only seen teenagers in movies where they're played by 25-year olds? When this movie came out, Nicholas Cantu (Leo) and Shamon Brown Jr. (Mikey) were 18, Micah Abbey (Donnie) was 15, and Brady Noon (Raph) was 17. Puberty doesn't make your voice go from Emmanuel Lewis to James Earl Jones overnight.

Duck And Cover: "Hiding under a desk isn't going to protect you from getting vaporized by a nuke." A common misconception about nukes is that they can turn cities into deserts and kill every living organism within their blast radius. If you've read the manga Barefoot Gen (or saw the movie), the titular character survived getting nuked because he crouched at just the right time behind a ledge. The author of the manga, Kenji Nakazawa, based the story on his own experience surviving the nuking of Hiroshima. Yeah, ducking and covering won't guarantee your survival, but it has a sliver of a chance of helping.

Pearl Harbor (2001): "They let somebody who couldn't swim in the Navy!?" This one got some groans from the audience and ignited a pretty long crashout from the Nostalgia Critic. It's pretty understandable why some would think this is dumb. People in the Navy are required to always be around water, so you'd think there'd be a requirement to know how to swim. Yeah, that's the rule in this day and age, but during WWII? Yeah, before the attack on Pearl Harbor, swimming was not a required skill in the Navy. Some Naval units required it, but for the most part, it was a bonus skill.

1. Battle Beast (Invincible)

2. King Sisyphus (ULTRAKILL)

3. Conquest (invincible)

4. Hajime Kashimo (Jujutsu Kaisen)

I’ve been seeing this trope a lot lately, and it’s always awesome. Characters driven by their will to fight strong opponents is always interesting.

1. Red Vs Blue: In Season 17, they employ some Time Travel stuff, and long story short, Washington has to find Carolina in the past after Project Freelancer. Problem is, after Project Freelancer, she went into hiding. So he tries to grab info during his Freelancer days, but since at the time, Washington was seen as someone not worth talking to, and Carolina was a bitch. So, in the middle of all that, Wash decides to talk to the Triplets and vent his frustrations. They actually ask him on the situation and ask that since he can time travel anywhen, they ask why can't he just time travel to after their character arcs and are friends, then just ask her. This turns out to work, and he immediately screams in his helmet for how simple the solution was.

2. Scott the Woz: This is a bit off as it's just played for laughs, but in it, Scott and his friends get trapped outside of time and space, since he did nothing between playing Mario Party 2 and 1. But in this void, Scott finds an N64 and a copy of Mario Party 3. They come to conclusion that they should play Mario Party 3, and it'll lead to a way out. Turns out, they could have simply pressed a button to fix this whole mess. By the time Scott realised this, his friends are dead and before he presses the button, it's too late.

3. Batman: Wayne Family Adventures: This on is a bit mundane, but in it, Bruce is on his way to a party with Damian and Duke , where they have to wear a suit and tie. Problem is, Alfred is out of town, but he manages to get them prepped in time... until they have to wear ties. Bruce tries to help them wear it at first, but turns out, he has no idea what he's doing. So, he decides to call the Justice League for help, but absolutely none of them know how to put one on either. It gets resolved as Wonder Woman comes in and just tells them to not wear ties, since who would kick out the Waynes just for not wearing a tie?

Knives Out series: Jeremy Renner the actor, and his hot sauce, exist in Glass Onion but plays a role in Wake Up Dead Man.

Ocean's 12: Tess Ocean, played by Julia Roberts, must pretend to be Julia Roberts for a heist.

Avengers End Game: Lots of examples in this franchise, but Tony Stark refers to Thor as "Lebowski", referencing a film starring Jeff Bridges who also played Tony's nemesis, Obadiah Stane, in Iron Man.

1. Mark and Debbie Grayson from Invincible: white to asian/wasian
2. Ned Leeds from Spiderman: white to asian
3. Annie and her dad from 2014 Annie: white to black

EDIT: PEOPLE RELAX OKAY I DIDNT KNOW PEOPLE WERE SO PASSIONATE ABOUT 2014 ANNIE they're tearing me up in the comment section but I stg gen z and gen alpha never complained or cared and we were the actual target demographic and now the movie is pretty beloved NOW!!!!! IN MY AGE GROUP!!!!!! HULLO!!! NOT REFERRING TO MILLENIALS!!!! THANK YA!!! and the songs are fire so guys chill OKAY IM SORRY!!!!!

1. Grover from Percy Jackson: white to black (and south asian in the most recent reboot)

Jim (Passengers) - When he wakes up ~90 years too early on a trip to a new planet, he spends a year alone on the ship, unable to go back to cryosleep. He eventually gives in to the temptation of waking someone else up, this person being Aurora, an author he had grown an attraction to, basically condemning her to death.

Gordon (The Orville) - After some time travel stuff, Gordon is sent to the present day (hundreds of years ago from the perspective of the story). In order to not damage the timeline, he sticks with the protocol, staying isolated for 3 years. But by the time the crew of the Orville arrives, he’s already created a family and a life. But this can have disastrous consequences on the timeline, creating countless unknown possibilities.

Now to see how long it takes for someone to make a “passengers should’ve been a horror movie” comment…

A couple of years back,shonen Jump did a crossover of it's biggest works,that would be Dragon Ball(makes sense)One Piece(also makes sense) and...TORIKO???Yeah, this was around a time when for some reason Shonen Jump thought Toriko was going to be the next big thing and look no offense to Toriko fans but are you seriously telling me that Toriko somehow is worthy to stand alongside Dragon Ball and One Piece when you have works like Naruto,Bleach,Hunter x Hunter and others who are much more popular and much better?

Back when DC Comics was still a total mess,Dwayne the Rock Johnson tried to put himself as the star of the franchise by using his character Black Adam,besides his movie there was a also a superpets movie produced by his ex-wife which besides having Krypto being voiced by Dwayne had a really weird and out of place scene featuring Black Adam and his pet Anubis(both also voiced by Dwayne) and Black Adam appeared in multiverse,and the best part is that The rock refused to participate in the Shazam movies even though Black Adam is associated with Shazam.This whole thing is really weird,like Black Adam was never that importat,yes he had it's moments but he was never a main player and he was definetly not the second most powerfull character likeDwayne kept shoving in every interview,he had one or two fights with Superman sure but saying he was Superman nemesis is like saying Captain Boomerang is a batman villain because he fought him a couple of times,that would be like if Marvel started shoving Abomination or sabertooth in every work except featuring their most hated enemies,thankfully that didn't lasted long as Black Adam failed at the box office

1. House MD - Your favorite show about such great doctors as Domicile, Pursuit, Black Man, and the Republic of Cameroon

2. Breaking Bad - Waltuh put your dick away waltuh

3. Arcane - Lesbians

4. Five Nights at Freddy's - Children die, but also haha funny purple guy

>!I didn't want to do this since it goes against the trope itself, breaking the logic of explaining the origin, but those are the rules of the sub, so, names:!<

>!1- Phineas and Ferb!<

>!2- Loss!<

>!3- AMONGUS !<

>!But I'll leave it censored so as not to spoil it too much. !<

Jurassic World Dominion scooter guy

Two giant carnivorous dinosaurs roaring and stomping loudly, dozens of people running and screaming around him, and this guy seems calm as a clam on his slow scooter until the Carnotaurus roars literally right behind him and he turns around like “Oh wow, a dinosaur!” before getting munched by the Allosaurus that was in front of him.

War of the Worlds crowd running towards the aliens

So Robbie makes the decision to abandon his family and run towards the hill where the military are battling the aliens because he wants to join the fight. As annoying and stupid as his character is, it’s at least consistent with how he’s written. Why though are all the dozens and dozens of other unarmed civilians also running towards the very obvious gunfire and explosions? What are they even trying to accomplish? The only reason the military is even there at all is to sacrifice themselves delaying the aliens so the civilians can escape. And when the military gets defeated 2 minutes later, any civilians dumb enough to still be loitering around get blasted by the aliens anyway.

Dawn of the Dead (1978) mall biker

Flesh eating zombies have broken into the mall, his friends are all panicking and dying around him, so obviously it’s the perfect time for this one biker to rush to a blood pressure station and sit perfectly still as the zombies slowly surround and then devour him.

Breaking Bad: Pretty well known example by now. Originally, Jesse was going to die in Season 1 at the hands of Tuco. This was going to prompt Walt to kidnap Tuco, and keep him in his basement, where he would slowly dismember him. Walt would set up a shotgun pointing at him, that he could trigger at any point to end his suffering. Eventually Walt Jr would find Tuco, and approach him to help, at which point Tuco would trigger the shotgun killing them both.

This would not only have been way too dark for Walt to do so early in the show, but it'd have also robbed us of the amazing character that Jesse was, and the writers would have had to come up with a way to make Walt keeping a man in his basement and his family not noticing believable.

The Walking Dead: Originally, the comic would have ended during the Alexandria arc. Rick was going to give a speech about how they'd rebuild society, and there would be a time skip showing a deteriorated statue of Rick among the ruins of the town.

Fortunately, Kirkman didn't feel ready to end the story when he got to Alexandria, and came up with Negan and the Saviors to extend it. When the actual ending came around, he didn't feel so fond of a downer ending anymore, and changed it for the relatively more hopeful ending we got where Rick dies but the community he built is still thriving many years later. Even Kirkman admitted that the original ending would have rendered the story pointless, because it was just bleak for the sake of being bleak, in an already bleak story.

In The Walking Dead Morales and his wife an 2 kids split up from Rick‘s group to try to meet up with family The world has ended like the chances of finding family members are close to 0 or they got turned into zombies🤦🏿‍♂️ his two kids and wife should’ve just stayed with Rick They failed to reach family in Birmingham and morales was the only survivor left.

28 days later: guy kisses his zombie wife who’s strapped down clearly infected Which causes him to get infected and he causes a mass outbreak again🤦🏿‍♂️

A character with so much aura they had to be removed from the plot. characters in the story recognize their absence. every now and then the plot will directly compare an impressive feat to the missing character because they would've been able to do it, but better.

Satoru Gojo from JJK. Gojo is the wielder of the Six Eyes and the Infinite/Limitless technique. he possesses an understanding of cursed energy rivaled by none and uses his understanding to operate at 100% efficiency; this gives him the highest durability/defense, speed, DPS, and combat IQ in the verse. >!Gege had to write him out of the story by having his dead best friend seal him away into a cube and yeeting him into the ocean, because he could solve any problem.!<

Will Shane from Slug Terra. Will was an elite gunslinger with knowledge on every Slug and Caravan in the setting and had a strategy for every occasion, in addition to rare and highly evolved slugs the experience to use them perfectly. He went missing after battling the spreading corruption that turns slugs into ghouls, sacrificing himself to contain a much larger threat deep in the caverns. His disappearance keeps him from overshadowing Eli (his son and the main character), and forces him to restore balance and do the plot. While Eli interacts with members of the caravans his dad worked with, they always compare him to Will and mention how he could solve a lot of the current problems.

1. Shocker (Spectacular Spider-Man): - Mostly known as an expendable lanky that needed a bag who was thrown in with a powered suit and often lost, as well as the 90s version hilariously running away from black-suit Peter. While this version is also a hitman, he became a coolheaded Texan with some true grit and principles that easily beats the spider in their first round.
2. Aquaman (New 52): - Writers like Geoff Johns redefined the 'fish-talking' dude as a powerful Atlantean king, a battlefield leader, and someone who commands terrifying ocean forces. Less camp, more proper warrior.
3. Killer Croc (2004 The Batman): - Mostly another muscled hitman who gets thrown in for a quick heist job. The 2004 version has him as a proper crime boss with a real clever plan of flooding particular parts of Gotham to make the banks easier to infiltrate. Ron Perlman gives him a great personality and his coolheaded wits make him much more formidable against Batman than just being brawn.

WHVH Shin megami Tensei franchise

In every game he or any of his various forms show up, he is consistently shown as the biggest dickwad in the multivers. A selfish god, YHVH ruins the univers in such a way that he is and always will stay the top god, consequences be damned. This usually involves screwing over all other gods in the pantheons and enslaving humanity. As you can imagine, this never goes well for him.

Fanglongmon, Digimon franchise

While Yuggdrasil is also god and also a dick, Fanglongmon is digimon's equivalent of Arceus, except he is not benevolent at all. Fanglongmon strives to be neutral in most conflicts, how ever, he is also actively antagonistic at a times. He isn't deliberately evil, he is just an ass hole when he wants to be. He usually doesn't give a shit about humanity, even on the best of days, and in the worst of days, he is actively antagonistic. Either way he is usually the highlight of what ever story he exists in.

Jubileus, Bayonetta

The capital G god of the story, Jubileus hates pretty much everything and wants to start from scratch, so she sends her army of angels to wipe out any and all opposition against her reset.

Men In Black : we only understand in MIB3 why

Agent K is seemingly cold in general and with Agent J

Spoiler : >!Agent K is cold because he feels guilty he couldn't save Agent J's father when J was just a child!<

Zombie land : the grumpiness of Tallahassee

Spoiler : >!he lost his young son to zombies early in the outbreak!<

1. Orcs from Lord of the Rings.

Pretty much everyone already knows this but the fact the army of little evil guys in a medieval fantasy world speak and act like 20th century soldiers. They drill, march in formation, produce equipment in factories, argue production quotas with superiors, and perform troop inspections. This makes them feel like a species meant for war and more evil and unnatural in a world like Middle-Earth.

2. Iron Warriors, Warhammer 40k

Like orcs, no two iron Warriors look the same, but unlike their other Chaos Space marines cousins, the Iron Warriors retained much of their pre-heresy organization. They remain in groups called Grand Battalions, use guns more than the average chaos worshipper, maintain supply lines with the Dark Mechanicum, and make use of well maintained vehicles and fleets. It helps differentiate a Legion which would otherwise feel like a Black Legion-lite as the more organized and militaristic side of Chaos.