Ellie (The Last of Us Part II): In her quest for revenge against Abby, Ellie brutally kills dozens of WLF soldiers, cultists, and dogs, leaving a massive trail of blood across Seattle. However, in the final fight, just as she is finally drowning Abby, she decides to spare her life in order to "break the cycle of violence."

Ezio Auditore (Assassin's Creed II): Over the course of two decades, Ezio stabs, poisons, and hurls from rooftops hundreds of Italian guards who were simply going about their duties. Yet, upon reaching the final chamber in the Vatican, he decides to spare the main villain, Rodrigo Borgia, the person directly responsible for his family's death, arguing that killing him "won't bring his family back."

Matt Murdock (Marvel's Daredevil): Spends years cracking skulls, fracturing spines, and leaving hundreds of street-level thugs with permanent brain damage or dead. Despite this daily brutality, he adamantly refuses to kill Wilson Fisk, claming "Im not the bad guy"

​

Whenever there are characters that are all adorable, bubbly and sweet but being canonically adults, there are some idiots call them children for some reason

like Lanney from Gwain Saga

In Gwain Saga's official wiki page, her age is "18+", but in the show she's all adorable, bubbly and innocent. Basically being a bean character. Well, a bean character that will kick your ass. But i saw some idiots calling her child because of how she behaves. For fuck sakes, she even drank a beer and got so drunk she passed out.

And Emily from Hazbin Hotel

She's a seraphim, so she's obviously god knows how old, but by appearance, she's like in her 20's. She's so cute, sweet and energetic. And hell, She's even tall like Charlie, who's (approximately) 6'2". And a lot of haters called her a child and that whoever simps for her is a pedo.

Such judgment just looks like that only kids are allowed to be adorable and bubbly

A childless (sometimes elderly) couple unable to have children discover a magic child.

1). Superman:
The Kent family find a young Kal-El's escape pod. And raise him as their son, Clark Kent.

2). Adventure Time:
After accidently turning the ancient evil known as "The Lich" into a giant baby. Finn and Jake leave him on the doorstep of the elephant, Tree Trunks, and her new husband Mr. Pig. "Sweetpea" is raised into a nice young man.

3). Momotarō:
An elderly couple find the titular character inside of a peach.

4). The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter:
An elderly bamboo cutter finds the young Princess Kaguya inside a bamboo shoot. He takes her home and raises her with his wife.

5). Hercules (1997):
In a stark departure from the traditional story, an immortal baby Hercules is turned human. A human couple discover the child and adopt him as their son.

6). The Odd Life of Timothy Green:
A married couple accidently summon a supernatural being known as "Timothy Green." He takes the form of a boy with leaves growing out of his legs.

Baxter Stockman (TMNT 2012) The turtles and even his villain allies get his name wrong all the time, like Dexter Stockboy, Blitster Stockwell or Stinkman

Goku and Glorio (Dragon Ball Daima) Goku always gets Glorio’s name wrong, but in their final interaction, he says it correctly

Stephan (Pokemon Black and White) Everyone gets his name wrong or pronounces it wrong,

Basically, a sign reads something, but the sign is blocked by something else that when removed, reads something different.

• In The Amazing World Of Gumball episode 'The Nemesis'. Rob/Dr. Wrecker sees a sign blocked by a bush that appears to read 'Elmore Dam'. Giving him the idea to wreck what he perceives to be a control panel that if wrecked would destroy the dam and wreck Elmore. But when Gumball and Darwin go to stop it. It turns out the control panel was connected to a simple vending machine. Upon moving the bush, the sign actually reads 'Elmore Auto Damage Repair Center', and the town never even had a dam in the first place.
• In the Simpsons Treehouse Of Horror I episode (forgot name). Lisa finds an alien cook book that reads 'How To Cook Humans'. But it turns out that there was dust on the book and after some back and forth we see the book actually reads 'How To Cook For Forty Humans'.
• In 'The Among Us Show', Lime goes to the weapons room and sees a supposed closet that reads 'WEAPONS'. But after seeing only strange aprons inside he notices that parts of the sign were covered up. When removed the sign actually says 'WEIRD APRONS'.

When a lighthearted scene/song has an unexpectedly poignant line. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it gives you whiplash.

- “Do you think God stays in heaven because he too lives in fear of what he’s created? Here on Earth?”

In Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, Steve Buscemi’s mad scientist character drops this philosophical warhead on the audience.

- “Only the dead have known the end of war!”

Galaxy Hamster by Ninja Sex Party is an otherwise goofy song about a rodent superhero, but between verses this war cry is let out.

- “Daddy, do you even love me? Well I wish you’d show it, ‘cause I wouldn’t know it…”

Adventure time is probably the king of this trope. This early episode has Marcelline the Vampire Queen improvising a song about a time her dad ate her fries, but quickly turns into a reflection of her abandonment issues.

Essentially there are certain items, techniques or powers that need the user to belong to a specific gender, though I focused more on the powers, I figured to open the door more

Ben 10:

Anodites only have women members that can access their powers, for example, due to Grandpa Max having children with an Anodite but only Gwen due to being the woman being born in the bloodline got the energy and magical powers of one

Bayonetta:

Only women can be Umbra Witches and only men can be Lumen Sages, however an union between them is forbidden and what kicks off the game

About Time:

The family that the main character, Tim comes from all has this ability where the men can travel back in time

When a piece of media goes on for long enough, the characters may have power crept a bit too much to keep things interesting. INTRODUCING: THE POWER RESET BUTTON! Examples:

1. Kratos (God of War: Ragnarok): Between God of War (2016) and God of War: Ragnarok, many years has passed. During this time, titular character Kratos has been training his son, Atreus, and bonding with him while they stay in hiding. At the start of the game, during a fight with Thor he comments multiple times about how Kratos isn’t as powerful as he was, including a very meta-heavy comment about “trying to remember your old moves”. It makes sense that all the skill tree and experience point buying from the previous game has reset because Kratos hasn’t had a serious fight in years
2. The Great Mending (Magic: the Gathering): in 2007, Wizards of the Coast addressed the growing power creep of Planeswalker cards by adding an event to the ongoing MtG story: the Great Mending. This event concluded with the noted Planeswalkers losing most of their god-like abilities, and in the real world Planeswalker cards had some reworks to make them less overpowered
3. Buffy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer): Even for a ‘monster-of-the-week’ type show, power creep is real. By season 5, Buffy had grown past simply killing vampires and the spare demon or monster, had defeated ancient demons akin to gods and killed LITERALLY unkillable creatures. However, in the first episode of season 5 and a continuous theme throughout the season is that Buffy had been slacking on her training and her self-realization of her Slayer heritage, thus she has become much less sure of herself and not as adept. This allows for a return to an actual struggle, and a reason why she might not be slaying gods every other episode

EDIT: I was corrected on the Magic: the Gathering example, before the Mending Planeswalkers were NOT playable cards, the “Player” was a Planeswalker in the gameplay canon and since they wanted to start printing Planeswalker cards they had to severely depower them. My mistake

Yes of course I know many of these examples were already evil/controversial before losing weight, but I think there is a pattern of controversial behavior or scandal becoming more public after going through a major body transformation into something considered more conventionally attractive

Ethan Klein/h3h3– has gone through several weight fluctuations throughout his life but has been on the thinner side for the last several years, and has also become more ingrained in controversy online

David Harbour— Cheating scandal and harassment allegations coming to light after significant weight loss

Chris Pratt— was at one point a widely loved celebrity but has fallen into many controversies and weird political/religious associations.

Schmidt (New Girl)— needed a fictional example lol, I’ve never seen this show but apparently this character got arrogant and selfish after losing weight

Endacopia: Has a secret image where the creator says "FUCK YOU DECOMPILERS!

Undertale: Had a new replaced secret creepy message telling the decompilers to not leak things so the secrets aren't ruined. After it all got decompiled, it was replaced with creepy laughter

Project Moon's The City

Due to the series' extreme hypercapitalistic setting, gender, race, queerness are completely and utterly irrelevant compared to your wealth and status. It is not profitable to discriminate, so systemic oppression is only for poor people. Other esoteric forms of discrimination do exist, but they are more speciest or human supremacist in nature; sapient non-humans and sentient machines are completely disallowed to enter the City under the threat of immediate execution by roided up super-soldiers and goth women with magic powers. The rare time ideology that isn't greed rose up was against people with machine prosthetics, once again rooted in human supremacy, but it isn't that prevalent in the common population as of now.

edit: iirc during a crossover with Arknights, the limbus cast were actually dumbfounded by the idea of racism. some of them pretty much went "what i dont get it why do you get hated for having weird ears"

Deadlock

Traditional discrimination doesn't seem to exist (at least in New York City) and occult magic and supernatural beings shook traditions heavily. Heavy discrimination only really exists against Ixians, a non-human species that resemble demons, so they may have served as scapegoats that removed the need for racism.

Alright, let me explain myself clearly. I’m referring to instances in a story—where different races coexist—in which racism or discrimination against a specific group is portrayed without being explicitly said. This is conveyed through things the characters say, how they interact with one another, and seemingly trivial details about the world.

Chainsmoker Cat: throughout the series—amidst the poop jokes, addictions, and giant dicks—there is clear racism directed toward the "beastfolk." They are subject to numerous stereotypes; for example, many people are surprised that Yani’s sister barely meows. beastfolk cannot pass down surnames to their children; consequently, individuals like Hameko—whose parents are both beastfolk—are born without a surname and must choose one later in life. It is mentioned that, in the past, beastfolk were barred from many professions, such as teaching or practicing law, and were relegated to seasonal labor—a situation not all that different from the present day. To make matters worse, they have been, and continue to be, subjected to intense fetishization. All of this is taking place while the characters live in Nyagamihara—a city built and inhabited primarily by beastfolk—so just imagine what it must be like in cities where the beastfolk are a minority.

Coyote vs. ACME (Spoiler Alert): This might be a bit of a cheat—since it becomes a central plot point in the second half—but from the very beginning, it’s clear that Toons are not held in the same regard as humans. For instance, legal cases involving Toons as victims are dismissed as trivial because they recover from injuries so quickly; meanwhile, a receptionist mistakes Coyote—an expressive, anthropomorphic Toon—for a pet. Even by the end of the film, once the world realizes that Toons do indeed experience pain (despite their rapid recovery), it is still somehow deemed acceptable to use them as test subjects for ACME products.

1) The Incredibles 2: Wait 14 Years

The only memorable thing about the villain was how obvious Evelyn Deavor (evil endeavor) was going to be the villian. The movie basically switched Bob and Helen's roles from the first one but worse.

2) One Punch Man - Season 3: Wait 6 Years

The animation fell off a cliff. The second season was a step down from the first first but the third season turned into a powerpoint presentation with partial redrawn manga panels to still images sliding down a hill.

3) Game of Thrones - Season 8: Wait 2 Years

Never has a series gone from a large part of the zeitgeist to never being mentioned again immediately after it aired. So many mysteries and storylines rushed to end in 6 episodes because the showrunners wanted to go do Star Wars and sUbVeRt eXpEcTaTiOnS.

Edit: No hate on anyone who enjoyed The Incredibles 2. To each their own

1. Monty Python's Life of Brian. After Brian and everyone else are crucified, they all start singing "Always look on the bright side of life".

2. One Piece. The Rumbar Pirates are a crew dedicated to music, but they were poisoned and realize they're all going to die. They decide to sing Binks' Brew one last time and record it so that their friend Laboon will be able to hear it, dying as they're singing, until they're just down to a quarter, a trio, a duet, and finally a solo. Then finally the pianist Brook dies, but comes back as a revenant skeleton.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The British Government is executing every man, woman, and child suspected of piracy or having ever helped a pirate en masse. About to be hanged, a young boy starts singing "Hoist the Colours", and then everyone else does as well. They all die, but the song summons the Pirate Lords to convene and deal with the threat.

4. The Simpsons. A comet is about to destroy Springfield, and after getting kicked out of the shelter, Ned Flanders start singing Que Será Será. However, the people of Springfield felt guilty about kicking Ned out, and they all go with Ned and join him in singing, awaiting death. But then the comet is mostly destroyed by Springfield's thick layer of pollution, and in the end the only thing it destroys is the shelter everyone had just left.

5. The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. As Spongebob and Patrick are being dehydrated by a heat lamp, they realize that they didn't completely fail, they actually did make it to Shell City after all. With their last strength, they defiantly sing the Goofy Goober Song with tears of joy in their eyes. However, their tears shortcircuit the lamp, activating the sprinklers and restoring them.

Family Guy - Peter Griffin knowing the of Farewell to Arms

SAO: Abridged - Kirito is surprisingly knowledgeable about English media and literature. At one point referencing Flowers for Algernon, a book from 1958. This actually becomes plot point later as him being the only one to understand Kayaba's references is what leads to the reveal that him and Heathcliff are the same person.

Worm - Kid Win knowing a lot about Victorian dolls and being the only one to know what the name Parian was referencing.

Hunter: The Parenting - After mentioning the Merkava, Boy has to clarify that he wasn't talking about the tank, he was talking about the chariot of god, whose name was apparently revealed to him in a dream.

Deadlock - Seven is the spirit of a death row inmate possessing an electric chair and lives in the sewers under New York. He's also extremely opinionated about fashion.

Fantasy High - Despite taking place in a fantasy setting, Fig somehow knows enough about earth pop culture to reference Greenday and Farrah Fawcett by name

Star Wars The Deceaniated: First seen in Rogue one and then more closely in Solo: A Star Wars Story these cyborgs are the result of kidnapped human victims that are Lobotomized and their brain removed and replaced with cybernetics that turn them into unwilling servants for the galaxy's underworld.

Warhammer 40K Servitors: Once Human these slaves are often criminals or lab grown biologicals that have their memories wiped and programed to do simple tasks. Some of them still retain speech functions should the task they need include it but for the most part they are as hollow as the metal that was painfully stapled to their bodies.

Sometimes a character disappears/is written out and they're never seen again. Then there are characters who disappeared for a time and it seemed we'd never see them again, only for them to actually come back and feature (at least somewhat) prominently in the show again.

The Sopranos - Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero

A few episodes before the end of season 1, Tony's friend Pussy is arrested in a raid on a mob social club. After he gets out on bail, Tony starts suspecting that Puss turned informant. Eventually his suspicion fades (as it turned out another mobster arrested in the raid was a rat), but Pussy unexpectedly disappears right after. It seems like he's just gone, and even the show's creator David Chase planned to never bring him back at first. Then in the first episode of season 2, Pussy reappears at Tony's house, explaining he was just in Puerto Rico for a time to treat his bad back. The truth is that he actually was an informant, and he just disappeared until the FBI decided it was safe for him to return. Tony later finds this out and has to kill him.

Game of Thrones - Gendry

Gendry is the bastard son of King Robert Baratheon. Across the first 3 seasons he is found as a blacksmith in King's Landing, sold to the Night's Watch, captured by the Lannisters, escapes with Arya, joins the Brotherhood Without Banners, is sold again, and is brought to Stannis Baratheon. He's meant to be a sacrifice to increase Stannis's power, but Davos Seaworth helps him escape, recognizing that he's an innocent nephew who wasn't interested in the throne. He leaves in a rowboat, and seems to keep rowing for a long time cuz he's gone for 4 seasons. Several fans even thought that he was forgotten about and wouldn't be brought back at all. Then in season 7 Davos finds him again for a dangerous mission beyond the Wall, and through the remainder of the show he gets legitimized as a Baratheon and has a brief romance with Arya.

Ricky Bobby (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby): After crashing while racing, Ricky Bobby believes has been paralyzed from the waist down. But there is nothing wrong with his body, and he even uses his legs to kick other players during a game of wheelchair basketball. He gets angry when his friends tell him that it's all in his head, and in an attempt to prove them wrong, stabs himself in the leg. When he feels pain and stands up, only then does he realize he's not paralyzed.

Chris Haversam (Fallout New Vegas): Chris was a reactor engineer in a vault, and when he experiences male pattern baldness, believes that he has become irradiated and turned into a ghoul. He embraces his identity as a "ghoul" and joins a ghoul religious cult. They try to convince him that he's a human, but he doesn't listen to them. He calls humans "smooth skins" despite looking like any other human.

Brick (Anchorman 2): Brick thought he was dead, and spoke at his own funeral.

Hub and Garth (Secondhand Lions) Throughout the story the two brothers tell stories of their crazy youth to their great nephew stories about foreign adventures, sword fights, a beautiful princess, a wealthy sheikh, and a stolen fortune. but the story never makes it clear if they’re telling the truth or not. As many locals believe that they were working for the mafia and that’s how they got all their money.

Years later, a descendant of the sheikh arrives and meets their nephew, having heard stories about these exact two Americans from his grandfather, revealing that all of those stories were true.

No-Bark Noonan (New Vegas) He is Novac’s local nut job and conspiracy theorist… He insists that he witnessed an invisible, two-headed chupacabra armed with a rapidly firing weapon killing the local livestock. And nobody believes him, but if you look into what he is talking about, the attacks reveal an invisible Nightkin Super Mutant armed with a minigun. No-Bark misidentified what it actually was, but he was telling the truth.

Grandpa Max (Ben 10) in the early parts of the show. He seems just like a mildly eccentric grandfather who has lived an interesting life and knows a bit about aliens. But the show reveals that Max was once a member of a secret organization that dealt with extraterrestrial threats, so every story he shares is true.

Vergil (Devil May Cry 5) - I havent actually played DMC yet, but I knew he had to be here to avoid any "playable themed bosses" comments

The Gunslinger (Enter the Gungeon) - The Gunslinger is what the final boss, The Lich, was before he became an evil skeleton guy. As a playable character he starts with "Lich Eye Bullets," a passive that instabtly gives him the synergies of any gun he picks up, and the synergies in this game are fucking WILD.

The False Son (Risk of Rain 2) - If you manage to purify the Halcyon Seed, you can unlock the new boss in the Seekers of the Storm expansion as a playable character, and hes absolutely nuts. He gets stronger the more max health he gets, he can apply a crippling debuff via lightning strikes, and he has a club smash that can decimate villages. He's generally agreed to be the single strongest survivor in the game.

The Anima Harvester (Risk of Rain 2) - Second verse, same as the first. Hallowed Concepts adds a new boss you can unlock as a character called The Acolyte. She cant normally heal and her kit is built around combos, but you can sacrifice enemies to temporarily turn into the Anima Harvester, where you have the same moveset as the boss fight with giant soul tornados, laser scythes, and lifesteal.

In a lot of zombie media they use don't say zombies they say stuff like "infected" "shamblers" "bitters" just things that sound more stupid than just saying zombies but this also applies to other monsters like Vampires

"Walkers" get a bit of a pass because the point is that zombies don't exist in media sense in that universe (TWD)

A very annoying example is from Back 4 blood with the "ridden" no one would actually say ridden during an apocalypse they'd say zombies (Back 4 blood)

1) Fake John Lark: Mission Impossible: Fallout

When Ethan Hunt and August Walker first meet the fake John Lark, he is quickly ambushed and knocked out as they try to clone his face. However, after Lark comes to, he rapidly overpowers the two and sends them reeling with throat punches. Not even Walker's fist reload helped in their fight as Lark wrestles for the gun. He is about to kill Hunt, when Hunt is saved by Ilsa suddenly showing up and shooting Lark.

2) Harpists: Kung Fu Hustle

We first see Pigsty Alley being liberated from the Ax Gang by a trio of undercover martial artists. However, the Ax Gang soon hires a duo of harpists with a magical guzheng that can manifest blades and other weapons. The kicking master is ambushed and bisected, leading to the iron rings master and spear master confronting the harpists together. Unfortunately, the harpists send a fusilade of weapons toward the masters, cracking their iron rings and splitting their spears, easily dispatching them. Only the intervention of the Landlady and her Lion's Roar defeats the harpists.

3) Thanos: Avengers: Infinity War

When we first meet Thanos, we see Heimdall wounded, Thor restrained, and Loki pacified. Later on, Hulk surprises Thanos and seems to be getting the upper hand, when Thanos recovers and skillfully outfights Hulk. Not even Loki's trickery could defeat Thanos, leading to his death. The fight only ends when Heimdall teleports Hulk away to warn the others.

Galdera from Octopath Traveler- The final battle starts out with Galdera giving himself 99 Shield which is a ridiculous amount and makes it seem completely hopeless for the player. But it's actually a fake-out and when you kill his limbs, his 99 shield goes down to a manageable 9 shield.

Anna from Pokemon Reborn - In final battle against Dreamsick Anna she has an entire team of level 999 Pokemon. But it's purely visual and her Pokemon only have level 150 stats.

Mettaton NEO from Undertale - In the Genocide Route, Mettaton reveals a brand new form not shown in any of the other routes. Except he hilariously dies in one hit, showing how much stronger the player is at that point.

Because it's nearly Halloween, I suppose I should've started with a Horror trope. But as someone who enjoys writing fiction, as well as being obsessed (sometimes... often too much) with wondering if something "would do this," I look up a lot to animal behaviors.

And giant monsters relentlessly hunting humans is a trope that I really don't like, under the reasoning of: "Would a predator actually try to hunt down prey it's never hunted down before?"

Especially under the reasoning of: "Would a predator really waste energy chasing this featherless biped?"

I mean. Between you and the internet, dear reader, how often do you hunt down individual ants to eat?

No. Whenever something gigantic is actually passive, or actually doesn't care about humans enough because THOSE humans might be dangerous, and/or a waste of time and energy, I really like that, as it implies that, these are living, thinking creatures who are cautitious enough to be careful on who they're treading on.

And sometimes.

It's just too big to care about the ants.

To name the creatures I've added on this list:

• The Behemoth - The Mist. It's so large that it doesn't care about the protagonists and ignores them.
• Sea Emperor Leviathan - Subnautica 1. It actually communicates with you! Telepathically.
• Reefback Leviathans - Subnautica 1 again. Very passive. More like sentient props to stare if you're bored, or captured by the majesty, or frozen in fear because of how large they are. Maybe.
• Leviathans - Kenshi. Lots of leviathans in this list. Giant mother hubbards that can decimate a party. Passive though and will not attack until provoked.
• Tyrannosaurus Rex - Jurassic Park. Odd entry, I know. My justification is: In the scene/GIF that I shared, it haunts down one of the gallimimus in the pack instead of being hellbent on finding Alan Grant aand the kids. I know how the movie ends, but, this particular scene is what I had in mind.
• Giraffatitan - Jurassic Park again. The more straightforward example. A large herbivore who aren't at all threatened by the humans underneath her feet and shows up for 3 more movies after this.
• Elephants - Real life. I really like how smart elephants are and it makes me sad knowing they're poached.

Now, granted, I will admit something.

Plenty of the entries are not harmless. But that's not the point. The title is: "Just because it's big, doesn't mean it's evil." Not that "Friendly Giant" sadly. Just in case someone is confused.

Pokemon Sword & Shield is a very controversial entry in the franchise, but most people seems to agree that it nailed the Gym Battle atmosphere, especially when the song change as Gym Leader throw in their last Pokemon.

Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens and Go Rush is controversial as it's seemingly the most childish entries, but it's generally agreed that its treatment of female characters were much better than all the previous seasons. As Yu-Gi-Oh is a franchise that's kinda infamous for always shafted female characters, most of them has more loss than wins, get kidnapped and brainwashed easily, or just doesn't get the screentime that they deserved. Meanwhile the Rush era od the franchise actually had their female characters win important matches(It's also the first time female character legitimately beat the protagonist without shenanigans), first female rival in Sevens and then first female MC in Go Rush.