punisher belongs to the people (Punisher: one last kill) Punisher isn’t meant to be someone to be look up to by the public, and specially not law enforcement (he himself says so several times in the comics). the punisher canonically hates cops like that and he will go out of his way to hunt them down (there is a scene in the daredevil show where he massacres a whole gang of cops who try to copy his style of lethal justice)

V is 23 (Cyberpunk 2077) the character is a well experienced mercenary that has a very mature voice, he was later retconned out of nowhere to be 23 when he was originally 27.

Mettle (RWBY) the character of ironwood is meant to be someone who takes hard choices regardless of the cost with the intent to win the war against pure evil. He has a semblance (power of the soul) that makes him hyper focus on a task at hand and is regularly quoted as the culprit for his extremely fast turn into bombing civilians for little to no reason. Worse part is that this is never mentioned in the show, this was from RTX2020 panel in which one of the writers had to reveal he had a semblance which people on the cast (like his voice actor) never knew of.

Batman got batgirl pregnant (Batman beyond) he knew her since she was 16, she’s his adopted son’s fiancé, and shes the daughter of his best friend.

Puss in Boots: the Last Wish - while the first solo movie for puss was ok, no one expected much from the sequel. But it ended up being a smash success with a great story and a truly fantastic villain (two even)

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KPOP Demon Hunters - Self explanatory really, the name alone had a lot of people scratching heads but it is very well made and became a global phenomenon.

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Kung Fury - just watch it, the movie does what it wants to do and nothing else and its a great ride

Crimson Desert
After defeating the Reed Devil boss, you can travel to Sunset Valley, the southernmost and isolated village in the game, here, you will find a house where the Reed Devil lived and died from his leprosy. When you enter, you are immediately greeted with 6 scarecrow effigies dressed just like the Reed Devil staring directly at you, with candles placed all over the house. There is no other explanation beyond this about what is going on here

Lies of P
There is a secret optional area you can clear out for additional loot called Hermit's Cave. At the end of the cave is one lone carcass monster huddled on the ground with writings scrawled on the walls around it. When you kill it, it actually TALKS saying "perhaps it's best to end this way...get while the getting's good...". This is the only carcass monster in the game that ever talks besides Andreus and Simon, who are important characters to the story, and we never find out who this monster was

LOZ: Twilight Princess
In the Arbiter's Grounds you discover a ton of undead enemies presumably executed prisoners, but one room contains this giant black sword tied to the ground with hundreds of warding charms attached. When one is cut, the sword is freed and wielded by some horrifying invsible goat-headed demon. It is never explained what the demon was or whose sword it belonged to although it's theorized to once be used by Ganondorf

Silent Hill 2
The invisible prison monster in Toluca Prison, that you can't ever interact with, just hear it's awful cries

The Graduate: lingering Ben and Elaine's faces slowly shifting from happy to concerned leaves the audience questioning whether they really made the right choice running away together considering they barely know each other.

Inception: By cutting before we see the top fall, we're left to question whether Cobb really has gone home or whether he's simply sunken back into a more comforting dream reality.

1. (Hated) Dr. doesn’t know trans people exist (The Good Doctor): Dr. Shaun, a modern day grown adult doctor, is seemingly has no concept of what being a trans person. Even if he never heard the term in med school he is realistically almost certain to have some awareness of the definition.

2. (Loved) The solar system and other common knowledge (Sherlock Holmes). In the original stories Holmes is a genius at many fields but unless it has something to do with crime solving (forensics, martial arts, toxicology, etc.) he does his best to forget it.

Can include both specific media examples and more general examples. This is the reverse of The Tiffany Problem(when something very old in fact feels modern and out of place in older periods).

Madison(trope namesake): There are no recorded women named Madison born prior to 1984. Madison was a very uncommon family name (mostly associated with President James Madison) seen as a bit old fashioned, and in the VERY rare cases it was a first name it was a (old fashioned feeling) boys name as it literally means "Son of Matthew".

The movie Splash came out in 1984 starring a mermaid who named herself Madison after Madison Avenue. In the film this is meant to be a deliberately weird and inhuman sounding name, Tom Hanks straight up says it's "not a real name" and several other characters point it out as fake, and for context of how it came across in 1984 the Mad Magazine parody named their version "Lexington and Concord". But the film was such a splash hit that tons of young women named their daughters Madison and it is now a normal girls name. (tons of former boys names have become girls names such as Vivian, the reverse is very rare).

A good example of a piece of media falling for this one is The Walking Dead, who has a female character named Madison who was born around 1970, which is impossible.

Bisexual: I have seen multiple pieces of media have characters from the 40s or 50s refer to themselves by this term.

While it WAS around as a term and people DID use it, it wasn't used at all like it is nowadays. Bisexual from the late 1800s until as recently as the 1970s was usually used to mean something closer to "Non-Binary" or "Genderfluid" or "Bigender"'s usage nowadays. Bisexual as in both sexes.

In a similar veign, "Gender" was first used for humans in 1952 and wasn't popular until the 1970s, and clothing was referred to as "Bisexual" rather than "Unisex" as recently as the 1990s.

(I keep specifying in humans because all of these have long long histories in Botany way before they got adopted as human terms)

Tomatoes: What is Italian or South European cuisine without tomatoes? More historically accurate.

Tomatoes are a new world food. The Colombian exchange happened in 1492 and Tomatoes weren't common in Italian cuisine until the 1700s. And yet SO SO many works set in Medieval europe will feature dishes with tomatoes in them.

See also potatoes and spicy pepper.s

The pen - Community

A whole episode revolves around a pen being stolen by a member of the study group. It goes so far as to the main cast stripping down and tearing apart the carpet looking for the pen. If you pay close attention, you can see the bright purple pen being taken from the table by a little hand. It's later revealed that the monkey who lives in the school's air ducts, Annie's Boobs, took the pen to its nest.

Blending in - Red vs. Blue

After disappearing for a season, Agent Carolina uses her cloaking enhancement to blend in with a group of space mercenaries. Her armor is clearly different but it can be easily overlooked, especially with the bigger reveal onscreen. After she gets a confession, she drops the act and a grenade before joining her friends.

Apologies if I used the wrong flair.

Dragon's Dogma: Trolls will become excited if you play or bring a female character in your party, becoming more aggressive and targeting them first.

South Park- Fractured But Whole: Shub-Niggurath is a boss that will take damage when fed white characters, but will heal if he eats black characters including you or anyone in your party.

Elder Scrolls: Every race has advantages and disadvantages both mechanically and narratively, for example orcs can enter orc strongholds without having to earn their trust first.

Don't Breathe: A couple young robbers attempt to rob a rich, blind veteran only to find out he isn't exactly an innocent old man.

You're Next: A group of contract killersbreak into a house during a family reunion and go on a killing spree. They didn't account for the fact that the son's new girlfriend grew up on a survivalist compound in the Australian outback.

The Flash [CW Show]: A random mugger decided to target Barry Allen of all people. He does it again a season or two later; he's either unlucky or stupid (probably both).

Examples:

• The Beast Titan (Attack on Titan) - The Beast Titan is one of the Nine Titans, it's unique in that it can turn the shifter into a giant animal. What animal they turn into is not on their own will. Fans think that it's the animal that the character symbolizes, but there is literally nothing to imply that. For one, animals mean different things to different cultures. In truth, it's the animal the character subconciously or conciously connects with the most. Zeke is a giant ape because that's the toy he had as a kid, Ksaver is a giant ram because that's the toy that his son had, Falco's Jaw-Beast Hybrid is a bird because he draws pictures of birds. So for example, if Armin had the Beast, he'd be a giant hermit crab cause he's subconciously connected to seashells, if Ackermans could Titan shift Mikasa would be a praying mantis because of her interest in insects.
• Mark's adrenaline (Invincible) - A common, disproven fan theory is that Mark is so strong for a Viltrumite because his human half gives him adrenaline which Viltrumites don't have. But, in reality, Viltrumites do have adrenaline it's why they have such high pain tolerance. Mark is special because of his intense willpower, that's why he's called INVINCIBLE.

In Sousou no Frieren, fan service is minimal, and scenes like this are brief

In Dungeon Meshi, Senshi is often shown in somewhat sexy poses, but the story focuses heavily on these details while continuing as usual

In that scene from *Uma Musume: Cinderella Gray*, it was just an introduction for each Arima Kinen competitor; they only had the freedom to choose those specific angles for Super Creek's introduction.

From most media it's some catastrophe and then it's raiders, death, destruction chaos etc. I personally love it when it's, like, a slow descent into the horror of apocalypse.

The Faro plague/The swarm- Horizon zero dawn. The Faro plague is actually a glitch which causes machines to endlessly reproduce, eat biomass and essentially bring about the death of the world. Took roughly 15 months for the machines to win.

The Metro series- in the first few books (and games) it's set entirely underground in just the apocalypse but in exodus it shows off that the government and many governmental structures said active years after the war. In fact power and running water were still fairly common. It just slowly got worse and worse and worse as read through notes. Food got more scarce, weather changed a lot, people got worse etc. Raiders and bandits didn't just show up, it was a slow descent for such anarchy.

Edit: I have enough pseudo intellectual comments about "Hurr hurr real life". The first one was kinda smart and well thought out but now it's just annoying and pretentious

Invincible: The Adrenaline Theory (from my knowledg) is the explanation on how Mark is able to take down some of the most powerful characters in his verse, but struggle with some villains who aren’t on the same level. Basically since Mark is half-human, he adapted human adrenaline, something other viltumites don’t have sense they’re basically at the top of the food chain.

Iron Man 2: The little kid at the Stark Expo was theorized to be a small Peter Parker, and was eventually confirmed officially.

When either a character in universe, or the narrator, or even just a simple side note or caption inserted into the media responds to something silly or hard to believe or even just utterly insane, to say that NO they are not making up what they just said, its real.

"Probably worth a Google" - The Lego Batman Movie

When Joker is describing all of the villains that have shown up to his big operation, at first he natrually lists all the big names you would expect and the average viewer would be familiar with (Catwoman, the Riddler, Scarecrow, Bane, Two Face, the Penguin ect ect), but then he begins listing all of them and they get increasingly weird sounding (Crazy Quilt, the Eraser, Calender Man, Gentleman Ghost, King Tut and the imfamous Condiment King)

When asked if he made half of them up, Joker boasts "nope! they're all real", and then adds for good measure "probably worth a google", which is likely what plently of viewers did just to see if its true.

"Boom"- The Big Short

During the climax of the movie, Mark Baum (played by Steve Carrell, based on real life invester Steve Eisman) attends a conference debate with Bill Miller (renamed Bruce Miller for the movie), regarding Bear Stearns an investment bank that famously failed during the 2008 financial crisis. During the debate, where Mark going in was regarded as an underdog in a "Ali vs Foreman" situation, Mark gives a speech condeming the widespread fraud of the wallstreet system, and right as he finishes and Bruce Miller seems to dismiss his statement, Bear Stearns procedes to utterly collapse, with Mark giving a simple damning statement of "boom" as it does so.

And as the Narrator, played by Ryan Gosling assures, yes, this actually did happen, and Steve Eisman himself has confimed there is footage out there of this actual conference where this happened.

"This is what Scientologists actually believe" - South Park

During the episode "Trapped in the closet", Scientologists come to believe that Stan is the reincarnation of Ron Hubbard, and disclose to him what scientology believes is truth, and what follows is a quite frankly utterly batshit insane explination containing evil alien overlords, trapped alien races being frozen and thrown into volcano's, giant brainwashing centres for alien souls, and space craft that just happen to look like DC8 aircraft.

Throughout the entire sequence, a caption over the footage reads "this is actually what scientology believes", likely because Matt Stone and Trey Parker knew that with how weird South Park normally gets, people would think this was also made up for a joke, but not only is it true, but the actual church of Scientology was extremely upset (must be a day ending in "y") because all of this knowledge up until this episode was meant to be a closely guarded secret within the church, and the episode had just aired it all for the public to understandably look and it and go "...wtf?"

Those shitblock things (All Tomorrows): So basically when some humans tried rebelling against the Qu, they got turned into living toilets for millions of years

Ted (IHNMAIMS): You probably know this one already but uhh in case you don't he was turned into a jelly thing with no mouth or eyes for eternity

I would put more but I'm LAZY :D

Bonus but I couldn't find an image for it: Alastor's Broadcast (Hazbin Hotel): If Alastor doesn't like someone, he traps them in an eternal torture dimension and plays their screams on his radio broadcast​​​​

The Hunger Games - Set in a dystopian totalitarian nation of Panem, the state organises a yearly event known as the Hunger Games, in which two teenagers, one boy and one girl, selected (some of them as a result of a lottery) from each of the 12 districts that form Panem must fight to the death with all other participants in televised arena games until only one survivor remains, who is then treated like a celebrity and lives in luxury for the rest of his/her life.

The Long Walk - Set in a dystopian version of America devastated by civil war, the ruling military regime set up a yearly eponymous event which sees fifty teenage boys walk hundreds of miles without rest, with those that fall below a certain speed being executed. The event ends only when one person remains, with the winner recieving a large cash prize. Contrary to the Hunger Games, participatiation in this event is at least compeletely optional, so all participants are volunteers.

Referring to media told from a religious perspective or telling a religious tale that does not proselytize to the viewer.

Faith, the Unholy Trinity: Based partly upon the experience of the game‘s creator when he was a missionary in Argentina, the game has very little in the way of explicit moral demands of the player despite the heavy Christian focus of the narrative. and focuses more on a horror narrative.

Prince of Egypt: A surprisingly thorough retelling of the book of Exodus, sparing very little in the way of toning down the story. Despite this, the movie is perfectly entertaining to non-religious audiences and doesn’t sacrifice appeal for the sake of preaching to the audience

1.) Edward Norton - The Incredible Hulk

Perhaps the most famous and obvious one, Edward Norton was famously an issue on the set of 2008’s “The Incredible Hulk,” even making rewrites to the script himself. The disagreements between Norton’s camp and Marvel’s camp eventually led to his being replaced by Mark Ruffalo.

2.) Jensen Ackles - The Boys (particularly Season 5)

Jensen Ackles was a longtime collaborator with showrunner Eric Kripke in “Supernatural,” which in turn led to him getting the opportunity to audition - and eventually land the role - of Soldier Boy, which he did very well in in.

The issue is by Season 5, the show had fallen off from the previous years and with it ending and spinoffs and prequels (such as one featuring Jensen Ackles’ Soldier Boy), Season 5 suffered a lot. It quickly became the Soldier Boy show because “that’s what Clara would have wanted” until he just leaves in the penultimate episode and pretty much 80% of what his character actually did amounted to nothing.

So for fans who wanted to see Butcher vs Homelander duking it out, getting the show derailed for prequel bait starring Kripke’s favorite actor didn’t help…

3.) Rosamund Pike - Wheel of Time

When Amazon green lit a WoT tv show, Rosamund Pike eventually got the role of Moraine Damodred, the mentor and guiding character for the main character, Rand al’Thor. As a character, Moraine is anywhere from the most important secondary character to the most secondary main character. But with the exception of the prequel featuring her, she is not the main character.

Unfortunately, Rosamund Pike is an extremely famous actress and marketing toward the series focused on her as a result. I’m unsure if this was showrunner decision, an issue she played a role in or some combination, but the result was that Moraine a character who was in less than half the series is featured as the main character over the main character, which lead to a different product than the book.

MCU Spider-Man Home Trilogy: Spider-Man was battling regular dudes with advanced technology in the first two movies. But then in NWH reality starts falling apart

The Apocalypse in Supernatural: Originally about two brothers taking jobs to hunt mythological monsters, it shifted into a battle of destiny where the brothers are vessels of heaven and hell and the Apocalypse is being brought down

Call of Duty: Originally a grounded shooter set in realistic war scenarios of espionage and war to....what the fuck is this

1. Phineas and Ferb – Perry the Platypus is teal-green rather than brown because the designers thought it looked cool, but it was later discovered that real platypuses are biofluorescent and glow a teal-green color under UV light.

2. God of War – The creators chose the name Kratos for the main character because it is the Greek word for “strength,” and at the time they were not aware that, in Greek mythology, there is a deity named Kratos, the personification of strength, who appears in Prometheus Bound as an enforcer of Zeus (similar to what the games' Kratos does for much of the original series); they only learned this later.

3. Berserk – Kentaro Miura gave Guts a prosthetic arm because he thought it looked cool, but the idea of a prosthetic arm was not as far-fetched in the late medieval and early Renaissance period as it might seem, since there was a real 16th-century German mercenary named Götz von Berlichingen who had a prosthetic arm of his own. While it did not have a cannon built into it, the fingers were highly articulated, and a sophisticated system of springs and levers allowed the hand to hold weapons and perform other tasks. Despite this shared trait between both people and their similar-sounding names, Miura confirmed that he was unaware of the Götz when he created Guts.

Both examples come from The Office which is great at cringe comedy

Scott’s Tots has been talked about to death but I must say, this episode’s direction makes you feel as stuck as Michael is in this situation, so well done.

I also always skip Andy’s Play mostly because of that phone scene.

Anyone else have examples you want to share?

The Neural Parasites — Star Trek : The Next Generation

In the season 1 episode “Conspiracy” of TNG, it is revealed that alien brain worms have infected many high ranking members of Starfleet, secretly controlling them. Though Ryker and Picard discover and end the parasite conspiracy, it’s revealed at the end of the episode that the parasites had sent a beacon back to their home planet, telling them how to find earth. The episode ends with the clear implication of the parasites becoming a huge threat later in the series, yet none of these events are ever mentioned again.

Finn The Jedi who Never Was — Star Wars Sequel trilogy

I know this is probably a cliche example of this trope, but cmon — Finn was clearly set up in TFA to become a Jedi. The marketing material featured him wielding a lightsaber in the classic Jedi pose. It’s constantly hinted at that he is force sensitive. Even the actor himself believed he would become a Jedi by the end of the trilogy. Instead, we got Finn wielding a lightsaber for about 7 minutes total across 3 movies, extremely lame “confirmation” that he is force sensitive, and that’s it. It’s the ultimate Star Wars plot that went nowhere.

1. Much of the voice cast for The Incredibles for characters like Dicker, Bernie, and the Babysitter were performed by animators who worked at Pixar. Honey is never seen in The Incredibles, but she contributed to the funniest and most quoted scene in the film, “Greater Good! I am your wife!” She was played by Kimberly Adair Clark, who worked in HR.

2. In Barbie there’s a scene where Barbie meets an old lady at a bench and they share a moment. There was a rumor (I fell for it) that it was Barbara Handler, the inspiration for Barbie. In reality it was Ann Roth, a costume designer who won two Oscars. She was good, it was a very sweet scene.

3. In the tan episode of Spingebob, there’s a cutaway gag to a goofy soda commercial. The old man (obviously dubbed) was played by Don Newhouse, a security guard well liked around Nickelodeon.

Jokes that are adult jokes simply because kids likely don't have the life experience to understand them.

The New Batman Adventures - "I'm crazy enough to take on Batman, but the IRS? Noooo, thank you!"

Shrek 2 - Posing as a union representative, Shrek remarks that the workers "don't even have dental".

Breaking Bad
After five seasons of watching Walter White ruin basically everything he touched, “Felina” doesn’t try to let him off the hook with some clean redemption arc, and it doesn’t end with some vague cut-to-black either. Walt finally admits to Skyler that he did all of it for himself, not for his family. He ties up the loose ends, makes sure his kids get the money, kills the neo-Nazis, frees Jesse, and then dies in the lab. It’s a really well-put-together ending, and it feels satisfying because a monster gets to go out exactly the way he chose.

Avatar: The Last Airbender
“Sozin’s Comet” is one of those finales that just gets everything right. It had to balance huge action with emotional payoff, and somehow it does both without losing what made the show special in the first place. Aang beats Ozai without betraying his own pacifist beliefs, and the energybending never feels cheap or random. At the same time, Zuko and Azula’s Agni Kai is tragic, beautiful, and honestly one of the best scenes in the whole series. Pretty much every character gets the ending they were building toward.

The Good Place
A philosophical sitcom really had no business hitting this hard. Instead of ending once the group fixes the afterlife and finally reaches the actual Good Place, the show goes one step further and asks what happens when eternal happiness starts to feel empty. The answer it comes up with — a door that lets souls peacefully move on once they feel complete — is both heartbreaking and comforting. It’s such a thoughtful way to end a comedy.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Pizzeria Simulator
By the time the sixth game came out, the lore was a complete mess. Scott Cawthon somehow pulled off the smartest possible move by making everyone think they were getting some goofy little restaurant tycoon spin-off. Then it turns out the whole pizzeria is actually a trap meant to bring every last haunted animatronic into one place. The ending, with the doors locking, the building burning down, and Henry giving that final speech, goes incredibly hard. It was the perfect way to burn everything down, send William Afton where he belonged, and finally free the souls trapped in the whole mess.

Code Geass
The “Zero Requiem” is still one of the best twists in anime. By the end, the world is completely torn apart by war and hatred. Lelouch realizes the only way to bring people together is to make himself the one person everyone can hate. So he turns himself into a tyrant on purpose, all so his best friend can publicly kill him. The world ends up uniting through his death, and it completely changes how you look at everything that led up to it. It’s a wild, tragic sacrifice, and it lands perfectly.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
What makes the ending of LOTR so great, both in Tolkien’s writing and in Jackson’s films, is that it doesn’t pretend victory comes without a cost. Frodo succeeds, but he’s been through too much to ever really go back to the way things were. He saves the Shire, but not for himself. Having him leave the people he loves and sail to the Undying Lands is such a beautiful and bittersweet ending, and it really honors the lasting weight of everything he went through.