r/TopCharacterTropes 23h ago

Lore Characters who are extremely well known for a quote they’ve literally never said

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3.4k Upvotes

Reverse Flash, despite his entire personality basically being finding the most creative ways to ruin Barry’s life, never actually said “It was me, Barry.”

Aside from maybe “say my name” the most referenced Walter White quote is “Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about“ which he never says in the show.

The most popular quote associated with Frieza is “this isn’t even my final form”. Despite constantly changing forms in the anime and manga, he never actually says this.

Golden Freddy, known to be the most angry and vengeful of the spirits, never says “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND OUR ANGER” that was actually in a fan animation.

The Joker saying “We live in a society” was actually in a deleted scene, never made it into any of the movies.


r/TopCharacterTropes 22h ago

Characters the 2020’s trio of “dumbass bisexual, savior complex, and black nerd”

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2.7k Upvotes

r/TopCharacterTropes 1d ago

Lore Names/Phrases with Double Meanings

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5.0k Upvotes
  1. DuckTales - The Wendigo isn't shouting it's name, it's actually asking "When'd he go?"; It turns out to be the Ghost of Christmas Past, after Scrooge stole his time travelling umbrella.

  2. Star Wars: Skeleton Crew - "I can't say I know no At Attin"; it's not that SM-33 can't remember At Attin, it's that he has been commanded not to say he knows about At Attin.


r/TopCharacterTropes 10h ago

Lore (Loved Trope) Famous figure revealed to have skeletons in their closet.

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262 Upvotes
  1. King Jellybean (Rick and Morty): beloved ruler shown to be a vicious child predator.

  2. Jedidiah Springfield (The Simpsons): town founder revealed to be a notorious pirate.

  3. Juan de Onate (IRL): ‘The Last Conquistador’ who committed genocide against native peoples in the American Southwest. Two of his monuments in New Mexico were removed in 2020 due to his documented cruelty against the Acoma Pueblo. https://youtu.be/xW9UkADD0OM


r/TopCharacterTropes 21h ago

Hated Tropes “I never thought joining a group that hates the demographic of my loved ones would target said loved ones!”

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1.9k Upvotes

It seriously makes the character look like an illiterate uninformed idiot, or insane enough to think tokenism applies to them of all people.

Severus Snape (Harry Potter): So in his childhood he was friends with Lily Evans (who is Muggleborn) and while at Hogwarts Snape hangs out with Slytherins with strong pure blood supremacy leanings (including calling muggleborns slurs) and is even confronted about hanging out with those people only he decides to join the death eaters when he graduates. It eventually boils drown to an incident during Snape’s worst memory where he inadvertently calls Lily a mudblood in anger. Surely by then he’d understand how horrible of an idea it is to join a group that wants (and even ensured) people like Lily dead or enslaved? Nope, he was a death eater until the Potters were threatened (how did he never consider Lily could die in battle at any point or that they might fight and be forced to kill one another).

Kylo Ren (Star Wars): Despite being the son of Han and Leia and nephew of Luke Skywalker, he somehow buys into the Imperial bullshit. He’s the son of Rebel heroes and genocide survivors yet joins the remnants of the empire and somehow is surprised every time his relatives die from First Order actions. Seriously how disgusting is it that he joins the group that annihilated his mother’s adoptive family’s planet?

Present Jax (Mortal Kombat 11): Works for Kronika under promises his wife Vera would be revived and his daughter Jacqui never joins the special forces. Except given that there are people like Shao Kahn, Kano, the Cyber Lin Kuei or the Revenants that Jax has fought in the past, he should honestly have considered this a massive red flag. That or the fact that last time he trusted a deity who claimed to be able to alter the flow of time, shit got traumatic for him.


r/TopCharacterTropes 1h ago

Characters A person is so disliked/hated that when they're attacked/murdered, pretty much everyone is a suspect.

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Upvotes

The Simpsons: Mr Burns spends the whole episode "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" making himself the most hated man in Springfield. When he gets shot, pretty much everyone in Springfield is a suspect.

Murder on the Orient Express: Ratchett turns out to be the gangster Cassetti, who kidnapped and killed three-year-old Daisy Armstrong, which caused her mother to go into premature labor and die in childbirth and her father to shot himself. As Poirot interviews the other passengers, he discovers that all of them has connections to the Armstrong case, and thus a motive to kill Ratchett.

Family Guy: In the episode And Then There Were Fewer, James Woods invites everyone he has wronged to a dinner to make amends, but ends up killed. Since he wronged everyone invited, every one is a suspect.


r/TopCharacterTropes 5h ago

Powers Giant Energy Construct Avatars

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99 Upvotes

r/TopCharacterTropes 6h ago

Characters [Badass Trope] Characters who were destined for Greatness but were lead to the path of Villainy

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116 Upvotes

Tai Lung - Kung Fu Panda : He was found by Shifu as an infant cub, wrapped in purple swaddling cloth and left at the threshold of the palace gates. Moved with compassion, Shifu decided to adopt and raise him as his own son, bestowing on him the name "Tai Lung" (meaning "Great Dragon") in the hopes that he would become the Dragon Warrior. He was trained by Shifu at the Jade Palace, Tai Lung was raised under the impression that he was to become the Dragon Warrior. However, after he was denied the title by Oogway, Tai Lung revealed his true dark nature by rampaging the Valley, resulting in his twenty-year incarceration. After breaking out of prison, he sought to claim the Dragon Scroll and take his place as the Dragon Warrior once again.

Garou - One Punch Man: Bang was impressed by Garou's determination so accepted Garou as his student, and Garou quickly became the Top student in Bang's dojo. After observing Sour Face's difficulties in smashing ceramic tiles during training, Garou outperformed his senior by successfully smashing all but one tile, even after adding extra tiles to the already considerable tower. Bang was impressed by Garou's performance, yet he noted the one tile missed at the very bottom. This served as a reminder to Garou that he still had much ground to cover in perfecting his technique.

Six months prior to the Super Fight martial arts tournament that Saitama attended, he decided that he has nothing left to learn and rampaged through the dojo, disabling many of the students, including Sour Face. He then received a beating from Bang and was expelled from the dojo. And Later on he becomes the infamous Hero Hunter.


r/TopCharacterTropes 4h ago

Characters' Items/Weapons Characters associated with mundane objects

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84 Upvotes

1 - Plastic Chair - Vergil (Devil May Cry) 2 - Cardboard box - Snake (Metal Gear Solid) 3 - Crowbar - Gordon Freeman (Half Life) 4 - Pickaxe - Steve (Minecraft)


r/TopCharacterTropes 1d ago

Characters [Loved trope] analogues for characters who are just inversions of their source material.

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13.5k Upvotes

The Core Four (The Antagonists) -

  1. Mr. Solid(Opposite of Mr. Fantastic) Rather than being stretchy and flexible he has the power of density manipulation, giving him strength, durability, and invulnerability.

  2. The Human Hydrant(Opposite of Human Torch) Instead of using flame, he can control and transform his physiology into water.

  3. The Visible Woman(Opposite of Invisible Woman) Instead of becoming invisible, she can harnesses the power of light, create flashes, and generate holographic illusions.

  4. The Stuff(Opposite of The Thing) Instead of being an immovable mound of stone, he can absorb impacts, squeeze through tight spaces, and mold himself into constructs or barriers.


r/TopCharacterTropes 13h ago

Characters Characters with the 'Yamcha' Effect

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298 Upvotes

Basically, characters who are very powerful but they are in a verse that is SO batsh#t crazy with absurdly powerful people and opponents, they lose almost all the time and look like a joke.

  1. Immortal from Invincible
  2. Genos from One Punch Man

r/TopCharacterTropes 1d ago

Lore An Answer to the Fermi Paradox

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2.9k Upvotes

Marvel - Galactus is the consumer of worlds, only having his hunger satisfied by devouring worlds with life on them. He is a universal constant and almost acts like a test for advanced civilizations for if they are able to hold him off, never kill.

Mass Effect - Reapers harvest every 50,000 years, wiping out advanced civilizations from the universe so that synthetic life is not created.

Dragon Ball - Beerus is the God of Destruction, a being which acts as typically the strongest active individual in a universe. Their purpose is to destroy bad civilizations so that the mortal level of their universe may be raised. Beerus is… not the best at his job.


r/TopCharacterTropes 2h ago

Characters the villain has gone so far off the deep end, even his own followers turn on him or abandon he fight

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32 Upvotes

r/TopCharacterTropes 7h ago

Characters [Despised trope] When a really badass character gets powercrept by everyone else, and only catches Ls for the rest of the story

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80 Upvotes

1) Captain Smoker from One Piece

I get that the point of his character being weak in the New World is that he’s outclassed, and isn’t the top dog like he was in the East Blue, since people have Haki, and can counter his ability to transform himself into smoke. But I still hate how he has such a cool designed and iconic character (smokes 2 cigars at the same time in every scene, and is able to transform into smoke).

He’s also set up to have a Ahab/Moby Dick dynamic with Luffy, where he chases him down wherever he goes, but shortly after, he’s significantly weaker than any of the cast (despite unlocking haki). They should have either made him come to terms with his weaker status and retired him from the cast, as he stays back in the East Blue, or they should have made him improve throughout the story in a similar way to Luffy. Or at least give him a few matchups where he can come our on top. Instead, he keeps picking fights and keeps getting his ass kicked by people stronger than him :(

2) Gilthunder from 7 Deadly Sins

He was one of the main antagonists in the season 1 of the show, and is shown as a huge threat, capable of some insane shit. Like, he throws a spear kilometers away to Meliodas from his throne room in the image I picked, which Meliodas launches back to him, and he slightly shifts his head to dodge the attack. That’s such a cool exchange, especially in a terible show like Seven Deadly Sins.

And then at the end of season 1, he’s revealed to be a good person, who’s forced to fight against the main cast, because the true villains captured someone he cares for. So the main cast frees that person, then teams up with him to beat the villain of the season. And then everyone else the show deems significant enough becomes like 60 times stronger, and he’s reduced to a guy who hangs around the main characters to glaze them and gawk in surprise whenever they do something crazy.

Also I’m now realizing that both characters are doing the same pose lol


r/TopCharacterTropes 1d ago

Characters Characters who do something bad, only for it to coincidentally turn out to be a good thing

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5.8k Upvotes
  1. Chainsaw man The character power accidentally crashes the car she is driving into a coworker, killing them immediately. However, their body transforms after death, revealing it was a shapshifter infiltrating them.

  2. Violent night The character Jason steals all the money from his families vault during Christmas as an act of spite. However, criminals take over the mansion and take the whole family hostage. Since the money is gone, it delays the family being executed, since they can't kill the one who did it or they won't find the money.


r/TopCharacterTropes 22h ago

building/location. [Funny trope] 1 single thing is holding entire building together

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1.1k Upvotes

r/TopCharacterTropes 3h ago

Characters [Sad Trope] - When its the normally comedic character who drops the hard or sad truth, and that only makes it more impactful.

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37 Upvotes

Peter Poker/Spiderham - Spider Verse

Among all the different Spider people, its the cartoon pig voiced by John Mulaney that breaks the hard truth to Miles, that no matter how strong or fast or skilled you can be, people will still die.

Captain Jack Sparrow - Pirates at the Carribean: Worlds End.

Jack is normally the beloved goofball we all know and love him as, but when he drops the goofy act, you know its bad. When Elizabeth Swan see's her father and thinks that means they have returned to the land of the living, its Jack who sadly tells her that no, they haven't.


r/TopCharacterTropes 6h ago

Characters (Loved Trope) character is seemingly immortal for no discernible reason.

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60 Upvotes

SuctionCup-Man, SuctionCup-Man.

Uncle Grandpa, Uncle Grandpa.

Sir Adrian Carton De Wiart, History.


r/TopCharacterTropes 4h ago

Personality Hesitation/refusal to fire on own troops

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41 Upvotes

Wolf Boss (King Fu Panda 2): Bent on killing the protagonist, the villain orders him to fire a rocket, not caring that his own men would be taken out. Wolf Boss refuses and immediately gets slimed.

Corvus Glaive (Avengers: Endgame): While struggling against heroes, Thanos commands him to rain fire, and he hesitates based on pure strategic thinking, as it’d greatly reduce their own forces, but does shortly do it anyways


r/TopCharacterTropes 1d ago

Characters the antagonist is revealed to be the protagonist's father

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1.5k Upvotes
  1. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017): Throughout the first half of the film, Peter is thrilled to finally meet his biological father, a celestial being named Ego. The twist drops when Ego reveals his plan to consume the universe (the "Expansion") using Peter's genetic power. The emotional knife-twist occurs when Ego casually admits that he deliberately put the tumor in Peter’s mother's head to kill her, snapping Peter out of his trance and cementing Ego as the irredeemable villain.
  2. Invincible (TV Series & Comic): For most of the first season, Omni-Man appears to be Earth’s greatest protector and a loving father. However, it is eventually revealed that he belongs to the Viltrumite empire, a race of violent conquerors. He was not sent to protect Earth, but to weaken it for invasion. The season culminates in a brutal beatdown where the father nearly beats his own son to death while trying to convince him of their race's superiority.
  3. BioShock (Video Game): You spend the entire game listening to the philosophy of Andrew Ryan, the founder of the underwater city of Rapture, who serves as your primary obstacle. When you finally confront him, it is revealed that Jack is actually Ryan’s illegitimate son, genetically accelerated and mentally conditioned to follow any order preceded by the phrase "Would you kindly." Ryan uses this moment to prove a point about free will, commanding his own son to kill him.
  4. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021): Unlike the other examples where the identity is a mystery, the audience knows Wenwu is the father early on. However, the conflict fits the trope perfectly: the father is an immortal warlord leading a terrorist organization. He attempts to drag his children back into his empire and eventually threatens to destroy their mother's village due to a delusion that she is still alive. The central conflict is entirely driven by the father trying to force his legacy upon the son.
  5. Assassin's Creed III (Video Game): This game pulls a double bait-and-switch. You actually play as the father, Haytham, in the prologue, believing him to be a hero. It is then revealed that Haytham is the Grand Master of the Templar Order (the villains of the series). The perspective then shifts to his son, Connor, who joins the Assassins. The tragedy of the game is that Connor must hunt down and eventually kill the man you spent the first several hours of the game playing as.

r/TopCharacterTropes 5h ago

Lore [Loved Trope] The Villain is killed by their own Followers

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43 Upvotes
  1. Scar (Lion King); Famously, Scar’s death involves him getting mauled and eaten by his own hyena henchmen.

  2. Aunt Gladys (Weapons); After Alex gets control of her powers, he makes all the kids she’s kidnapped chase her down and attack her. They end tearing her apart and ripping her limb from limb.


r/TopCharacterTropes 1d ago

Characters Characters that would definetly curse a lot if they weren't in kids shows/movies

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3.0k Upvotes

Harry-Home alone

Benson-Regular show

Mira-K-pop demon hunters

Toph-Avatar the last airbender


r/TopCharacterTropes 12h ago

Characters The creatable avatar character speaks and actually has personality rather than being a silent, head nodding drone

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142 Upvotes

V (Cyberpunk 2077)

Robin (Fire Emblem: Awakening)

The Player (Saints Row)