Week 6 Story Lab: TV Tropes

This week, instead of doing a storytelling (and since I was only able to do one reading this week), I did one of the Story Labs. More specifically, I did the TV Tropes rabbithole (which is a trope). Despite the “TV” in the name, TV tropes are found in any form of storytelling, whether it’s on page, on a screen, or even told orally. Not all TV tropes are bad, and indeed it’s not bad to use them, although doing so abundantly isn’t the best thing to do.

Some tropes aren’t super obvious, such as the Ensemble Dark Horse, which refers to characters that unexpectedly become popular within the fanbase, resulting in demands of the creators to expand upon the character. Examples include Minions from the Despicable Me movies, or Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. These are minor characters, relatively speaking, but for whatever reason, the fan base latches onto the character and demands for more of them from the creators. Usually (ironically) they also get upset when this happens, as the character will do something that the fan base feels is out of character (but we’re not going to get into the issue of fan bases feeling they own a character).

I refuse to post a picture of a minion on my blog (Source)

Then there’s the “Everyone Calls Him ‘Barkeep’” trope, which is where the character is referred to by their job title or a descriptive word. It can also be a nickname that is used so commonly that for all intents and purposes, it is the character’s name. Examples include Beast from Beauty and the Beast (in the original movie his real name is never given, although in the musical they reveal his name to be Adam), or the title character from the book The Giver. Often the character’s real name is mentioned once somewhere in the media form, but it’s only done once and rarely brought up again. They’re just referred to as their nickname.

Beast, as portrayed in the original movie (Source)

Speaking of Beauty and the Beast, there’s also the trope of the Grand Staircase Entrance. Most likely populated by the Disney’s Cinderella, this is the trope where the (usually) female character makes a grand entrance by appearing at the top of a grand staircase, dressed to the nines and looking much better/fancier than she usually does. Plenty of time is given for the audience to admire the change from the character’s typical appearance, and to see what fancy outfit she has on. 

Hermione gets her own staircase entrance in the movie Goblet of Fire (Source)

So, to conclude, it can be really fun to go looking through TV tropes. The website is great about pulling examples from all kinds of media to show examples, and even some real life ones sometimes. Plus there’s often a slight amount of snark in the articles, which is hilarious.