Tropescilloscope: Fatal Flaw

The ultimate problem with a character. (read more at tvtropes.org)

More Tropes Lighter and Softer Visual Pun Mythology Gag Red Herring War Is Hell Gainax Ending The Dragon The Mole Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass Insane Troll Logic Title Drop Motor Mouth Gold Digger Jump Scare Brother–Sister Incest Shipper on Deck Spiteful Spit Improbable Aiming Skills Break the Cutie Large Ham Breaking the Fourth Wall Russian Films Would Hit a Girl Creative Closing Credits The Ghost Intergenerational Friendship Soundtrack Dissonance Malevolent Masked Men The Ace Overprotective Dad Frame-Up Villainous Breakdown An Aesop Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds Determinator aka: The Determinator Shout-Out Combat Pragmatist A God Am I Henpecked Husband The Big Guy N-Word Privileges Big Damn Heroes Male Frontal Nudity Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy Fantasy Films Off with His Head! Stepford Smiler Artistic License – Physics Insistent Terminology Running Gag All There in the Script Good Is Not Nice Soft Glass Failed a Spot Check Woman Scorned Arc Words The Film of the Book Nice Guy And the Adventure Continues Car Fu Bury Your Gays Reality Has No Subtitles Your Head A-Splode Cluster F-Bomb Curb-Stomp Battle Death Seeker The End... Or Is It? Children Are Innocent Crucified Hero Shot Not So Above It All Action Prologue Foregone Conclusion Kubrick Stare Vomit Indiscretion Shot Blatant Lies Vacation Films Psycho for Hire Slasher Movie Creepy Child From Nobody to Nightmare Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene Tagline Book-Ends Not So Stoic Antagonist Title Pragmatic Villainy Non-Indicative Name Genre Savvy Death of a Child Fatal Family Photo Impaled with Extreme Prejudice It Will Never Catch On Spell My Name with an "S" Meaningful Echo Evil Brit Body Horror Sports Stories For the Evulz Blood from the Mouth Stuff Blowing Up Corrupt Corporate Executive Real Life Writes the Plot Pay Evil unto Evil Four-Temperament Ensemble Pet the Dog Girl-on-Girl Is Hot Back from the Dead Lampshade Hanging Faking the Dead Recycled IN SPACE! Roaring Rampage of Revenge Fun with Acronyms Dwindling Party Bare Your Midriff Hypocrite Ominous Latin Chanting Truth in Television Creator Cameo Stylistic Suck Danny Peary Cult Movies List Bilingual Bonus Roger Ebert: Great Movies List Retcon The Sociopath French Films Rule of Funny Badass Bookworm Pragmatic Adaptation Hidden Depths Big Brother Instinct The Vamp The Lancer Funny Background Event Wretched Hive Action Girl timeperiod Kick the Son of a Bitch Evil Is Hammy Bait-and-Switch Mooks Karmic Death Big "NO!" Superhero Cat Scare Toplessness from the Back '80s Hair Almost Kiss Screw the Rules, I Have Money! Hollywood Law Mistaken for Gay Dramedy Deliberately Monochrome Parental Neglect Mexican Standoff Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas Black Best Friend Laughing Mad Redemption Equals Death Neck Snap Gender Flip Adaptational Attractiveness Adaptational Heroism Laser-Guided Karma How We Got Here Kids Are Cruel Took a Level in Badass Armor-Piercing Question Bond Villain Stupidity Heroic BSoD Bad Boss Ragtag Bunch of Misfits Bullying a Dragon Unreliable Narrator Meet Cute Berserk Button Romantic Comedy Villain with Good Publicity Vitriolic Best Buds Crazy Jealous Guy Rape as Drama Here We Go Again! Alpha Bitch A Minor Kidroduction Horror Comedy Hell Is That Noise The Bully Obviously Evil Chewing the Scenery Jerkass Has a Point And Starring Contrived Coincidence Token Minority Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking Costume Porn Manic Pixie Dream Girl Hate Sink Stock Footage Historical Hero Upgrade Evil Plan Super Strength The Musical Face–Heel Turn "Shaggy Dog" Story Gorn Apocalypse How Cowboy Cop Epic Fail Demonic Possession Crapsack World Eye Scream Deliberate Values Dissonance Catch-Phrase Pyrrhic Victory Be Careful What You Wish For I Need a Freaking Drink Eiffel Tower Effect Cruel and Unusual Death Badass Grandpa Batman Gambit Wounded Gazelle Gambit German Films Big Fancy House Pre-Asskicking One-Liner Public Domain Feature Films Colour-Coded for Your Convenience aka: Color Coded For Your Convenience Rousing Speech Camp Gay Red Oni, Blue Oni Intrepid Reporter Badass Boast Took a Level in Jerkass Ass Shove As the Good Book Says... Dying Moment of Awesome Blonde, Brunette, Redhead Not Even Bothering with the Accent Femme Fatale Light Is Not Good Protagonist Title Adult Fear Exact Words Eyepatch of Power Slasher Smile Knight Templar Foil Brick Joke Those Two Guys Friend to All Children Character Development I'm a Humanitarian 20 Minutes into the Future Dogged Nice Guy Celebrity Paradox Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer Wham Line Cold-Blooded Torture Easily Forgiven Heroes Want Redheads Cool Guns Needs Wiki Magic Love Missing Mom All Girls Want Bad Boys Face Death with Dignity Facial Horror A Date with Rosie Palms Author Avatar Dirty Coward Sealed Evil in a Can Screw the Money, I Have Rules! As Long as It Sounds Foreign Fish out of Water Evil vs. Evil Small Name, Big Ego Whole Plot Reference Cloudcuckoolander Say My Name Last-Name Basis Heel Realization Wicked Cultured All for Nothing "Well Done, Son!" Guy Papa Wolf Age Lift Insult Backfire Not Using the "Z" Word Love at First Sight Flipping the Bird Men Are the Expendable Gender Loophole Abuse Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday Dumb Blonde British Films Big Bad Duumvirate Very Loosely Based on a True Story Obfuscating Stupidity Ghost Fiction Drives Like Crazy Daylight Horror Half the Man He Used to Be Adaptation Distillation Destination Defenestration Italian Films O.O.C. Is Serious Business Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! Depraved Bisexual The Atoner Word of God Riddle for the Ages Bound and Gagged Greater-Scope Villain Stealth Pun Naked People Are Funny Bavarian Fire Drill Hope Spot Romantic False Lead Abusive Parents Sacrificial Lion Blackmail Silence Is Golden Yandere She's Got Legs Foreshadowing Ironic Echo Fainting Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique Chuck Cunningham Syndrome The Brute Arch-Enemy Advertised Extra Hair-Trigger Temper Mind Screw Bring My Brown Pants Sequel Escalation Sequel Hook Captain Obvious Martial Arts Movie Artistic License – Geography Twist Ending Developing Doomed Characters Affably Evil Eagleland Mercy Kill Break the Haughty Historical-Domain Character Obstructive Bureaucrat Catapult Nightmare Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism You Have Got to Be Kidding Me! Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! Worthy Opponent Ambiguously Gay Poor Communication Kills Dirty Cop Sole Survivor Victoria's Secret Compartment Extremely Short Timespan Throwing Your Sword Always Works Ambiguous Disorder What Happened to the Mouse? My God, What Have I Done? Let's Get Dangerous! Mighty Whitey Only Known by Their Nickname Suspiciously Specific Denial Mundane Made Awesome Posthumous Character Hong Kong Films Damsel in Distress Homage Unusual Euphemism Award-Bait Song Demoted to Extra Plucky Comic Relief Manipulative Bastard As You Know Villain Song The Dog Bites Back Broken Pedestal In Name Only Ax-Crazy An Axe to Grind Not So Different No Good Deed Goes Unpunished The Un-Favourite aka: The Un Favorite Adaptational Villainy Broken Aesop Better to Die than Be Killed Villain Opening Scene Monumental Damage Black Comedy Rape Evil Laugh Biopic There Is No Kill Like Overkill Country Matters Leave the Camera Running Screw This, I'm Outta Here! Did Not Get the Girl Leaning on the Fourth Wall Decoy Protagonist Drill Sergeant Nasty Call-Forward Random Events Plot I Did What I Had to Do Pun aka: Incredibly Lame Pun Maybe Ever After Adaptation Name Change Adorkable Enemy Mine Film Noir Index The Alcoholic Actually Pretty Funny Broken Bird Empathic Environment Bittersweet Ending Neck Lift The Lost Lenore Smug Snake Self-Deprecation Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil Defrosting Ice Queen Show Within a Show Overly Long Gag Setting Update Same Language Dub Dark Is Not Evil Kill It with Fire World of Ham Based on a True Story Plot Hole Sexy Discretion Shot Pretty in Mink Abhorrent Admirer Downer Ending Villain Protagonist Revenge Grievous Bottley Harm Animated Credits Opening Evil-Detecting Dog Retired Badass Bolivian Army Ending Reality Ensues Accidental Murder Dark Reprise It's All About Me Psychopathic Manchild Shower Scene Black Comedy Narrator Expy folderlabel Famous Last Words MacGuffin A.I. Is a Crapshoot Gory Discretion Shot Freudian Excuse Only Sane Man Vomit Discretion Shot Camera Abuse Eldritch Abomination Sci-Fi Horror Tempting Fate Affectionate Parody Together in Death Death by Adaptation Immune to Bullets Sir Swears-a-Lot Fanservice Evil Sounds Deep As Himself Killed Mid-Sentence Punctuated! For! Emphasis! Scenery Gorn Conspicuous CG Artistic License – History From Bad to Worse Film Noir Mugging the Monster Guile Hero Never Found the Body Jerk Jock Badass Longcoat Only One Name Recap / RiffTrax aka: Riff Trax Movies Darker and Edgier Framing Device Bunny-Ears Lawyer Improbable Weapon User Despair Event Horizon Parental Abandonment Bloodier and Gorier Unspoken Plan Guarantee Becoming the Mask Knife Nut Daddy's Girl Retirony The Stoic Dutch Angle Informed Ability The Cavalry Fingore Black Dude Dies First Translation Convention NO INDOOR VOICE Reasonable Authority Figure Disney Villain Death Bland-Name Product Rule of Symbolism Peek-a-Boo Corpse Scary Black Man Market-Based Title Chase Scene All There in the Manual Continuity Nod No Name Given I Have Your Wife Jitter Cam Jerk with a Heart of Gold Put on a Bus Leitmotif Pre-Mortem One-Liner Video Credits Ascended Extra The Oner Deus ex Machina Anyone Can Die Meaningful Name Unusually Uninteresting Sight Politically Incorrect Villain "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue Idiot Ball Exactly What It Says on the Tin Everyone Has Standards Beauty Is Never Tarnished It's Personal Time Skip Fate Worse than Death Green-Eyed Monster Deal with the Devil Badass Normal Covers Always Lie Star-Crossed Lovers Central Theme Double Entendre Ms. Fanservice Novelization The Place Get Out! Beware the Nice Ones Irony Military and Warfare Films Loads and Loads of Characters "Awesome McCool" Name Sadistic Choice Noodle Incident The Starscream No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Our Vampires Are Different Anti-Hero Product Placement Fan Disservice Really Gets Around Oh, Crap! Darkest Hour Scenery Porn Only a Flesh Wound Deconstruction Serious Business Gilligan Cut Made of Iron Adaptation Dye-Job Calling the Old Man Out Beta Couple Driven to Suicide Double-Meaning Title Butt-Monkey Fatal Flaw Storming the Castle May–December Romance Bi the Way BFG Have a Gay Old Time The '60s Film Series Christmas Movies Index Genre Throwback Slashed Throat Madness Mantra The Stoner Karma Houdini Wham Shot Bond One-Liner Stealth Hi/Bye Married to the Job Those Wacky Nazis Hero Antagonist Drowning My Sorrows Index of Film Westerns The Alleged Car Undying Loyalty One Steve Limit Vampire Fiction Adaptational Badass Sanity Slippage Straight Gay Extreme Doormat Actor Allusion Outrun the Fireball Major Injury Underreaction Mystery and Detective Films Big Applesauce Would Hurt a Child Interrupted Suicide Big Eater Heterosexual Life-Partners Credits Gag Not What It Looks Like Ship Tease Spanner in the Works Cool Shades Parental Substitute Aside Glance Evil Cannot Comprehend Good The Smurfette Principle Cool Old Guy Chekhov's Gunman Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Black and Gray Morality An Arm and a Leg Villain Ball The Chessmaster Dramatic Gun Cock Cool Old Lady Corpsing Dissonant Serenity Anguished Declaration of Love Animal Title Index No-Sell Never My Fault Offscreen Moment of Awesome Spared by the Adaptation Artistic License – Military Rasputinian Death Television Movie Index You Killed My Father Bar Brawl Left the Background Music On Dirty Old Man Names to Run Away from Really Fast Disproportionate Retribution Comically Missing the Point "The Reason You Suck" Speech Five-Man Band Dropped a Bridge on Him La Résistance Skewed Priorities Rule of Three The Dreaded Casting Gag Red Shirt Well-Intentioned Extremist Kick the Dog And I Must Scream Suddenly SHOUTING! Attempted Rape Epic Movie Woman in White Drugs Are Bad Alliterative Name Horror Films Cain and Abel Anachronic Order Even Evil Has Standards Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" Dark Action Girl Bloodless Carnage Training Montage The Voiceless Awesome, but Impractical The Ditz Pimped-Out Dress The '80s Never Trust a Trailer aka: Trailers Always Lie The Mafia Imagine Spot Fantastic Racism Getting Crap Past the Radar The Reveal Asshole Victim Coming-of-Age Story Funny Foreigner Ripped from the Headlines Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping The Casanova Fourth Date Marriage Auto Erotica Accidental Misnaming Does This Remind You of Anything? For Want of a Nail Playing Gertrude Re-Cut Guns Akimbo Evil Is Petty True Companions Shut Up, Hannibal! Artistic License – Gun Safety Documentary Curse Cut Short Instant Death Bullet Alas, Poor Villain The Load Refuge in Audacity Unwitting Instigator of Doom Male Gaze Implacable Man Naïve Newcomer Bad "Bad Acting" Rule of Cool No Antagonist Mood Whiplash Red Right Hand Wrong Genre Savvy The '70s Lock and Load Montage Music Stories Meaningful Background Event My Beloved Smother Dramatic Irony The Remake Morality Pet The Chick After the End Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane Defiant to the End Domestic Abuse Genre Shift Shown Their Work Expository Hairstyle Change Canadian Movies Mr. Exposition Fiery Redhead Race Lift Suspiciously Similar Substitute Call-Back In Medias Res Australian Movies Death by Sex Composite Character Slap-Slap-Kiss Not Quite Dead Paper-Thin Disguise Science Fiction Films Trailers Always Spoil Mad Scientist Stalker with a Crush Establishing Character Moment Every Car Is a Pinto Evil Counterpart Amoral Attorney Does Not Like Shoes No Celebrities Were Harmed Disappeared Dad Fake Shemp Anti-Villain The '90s Ugly Guy, Hot Wife Police Brutality The Quiet One Logo Joke Line-of-Sight Name This Is Gonna Suck Taking You with Me Room Full of Crazy B-Movie Humiliation Conga Rewatch Bonus You Have Failed Me Real Life Too Dumb to Live I Just Shot Marvin in the Face Red Eyes, Take Warning Jerkass All Men Are Perverts He Knows Too Much The Hero Aluminum Christmas Trees Silent Movie Pretty Little Headshots Your Cheating Heart Beard of Evil Dies Wide Open Annoying Younger Sibling Death by Irony Adults Are Useless The Faceless Big Bad Didn't Think This Through Tranquil Fury Nice Job Fixing It, Villain! Determinator A Father to His Men Works Set in World War II What the Hell, Hero? Closed Circle Punch-Clock Villain Zombie Stories Fire-Forged Friends Big-Bad Ensemble Our Zombies Are Different Police are Useless My Greatest Failure No OSHA Compliance Adaptation Expansion Distracted by the Sexy Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other The Bad Guy Wins It Can Think Shell-Shocked Veteran Deadpan Snarker Brutal Honesty Early-Bird Cameo Match Cut Up to Eleven Bloody Hilarious Due to the Dead Reality Is Unrealistic Blood Knight Ungrateful Bastard Mr. Fanservice Dull Surprise Improvised Weapon Heroic Sacrifice Totally Radical Never Trust a Trailer Crazy-Prepared Disney Death Nothing Is Scarier Man on Fire Dressing as the Enemy Properly Paranoid I Want My Beloved to Be Happy Smoking Is Cool Scare Chord Hero of Another Story Thriller Redshirt Army Fanservice Extra Earn Your Happy Ending Eureka Moment Tap on the Head Psychological Thriller Air-Vent Passageway Dark and Troubled Past Belligerent Sexual Tension Humans Are Bastards Nice Hat You Have Outlived Your Usefulness The Smart Guy The Hero Dies Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Groin Attack Punny Name Chekhov's Skill Make It Look Like an Accident Boom, Headshot! Action Genre He Who Fights Monsters All Just a Dream Older Than They Look Hollywood Darkness Ambiguous Ending Cassandra Truth Cool Car Taking the Bullet Historical Villain Upgrade Author Appeal Arranged Marriage Love Triangle Grey and Gray Morality The Un-Reveal Final Girl Department of Redundancy Department Made of Explodium No Ending Action Survivor Handicapped Badass Happily Married Authority Equals Asskicking Captain Ersatz Card-Carrying Villain Shoot the Shaggy Dog The Power of Love Historical In-Joke Serial Killer Adapted Out Gratuitous English Bowdlerise Manchild Kill 'em All One-Word Title The X of Y The Cameo More Dakka Amusing Injuries Animal Motifs Diabolus ex Machina Mama Bear What You Are in the Dark Chiaroscuro Gone Horribly Right Moment Killer Cat Fight Faux Affably Evil Badass in a Nice Suit Babies Ever After Honor Before Reason Rich Bitch Chekhov's Gun Offscreen Teleportation Hypocritical Humor Japanese Films One-Man Army Anachronism Stew Betty and Veronica Race Against the Clock She Cleans Up Nicely Sassy Black Woman Off-into-the-Distance Ending Important Haircut Rated M for Manly Brainless Beauty Unresolved Sexual Tension Toilet Humour aka: Toilet Humor Take That! Hooker with a Heart of Gold Improbable Infant Survival aka: Infant Immortality Flashback The '50s Precision F-Strike Sinister Minister Parental Incest Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? Shirtless Scene Spiritual Successor Early Installment Weirdness Canon Foreigner Heel–Face Turn Once More, with Clarity! Bottomless Magazines Only in It for the Money Agony of the Feet In the Back Freeze-Frame Bonus Artistic License – Law Bald of Evil The Stinger Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome Manly Tears Fat Bastard Dual Wielding Even Evil Has Loved Ones Artistic License – Biology Those Two Bad Guys Hoist by His Own Petard The Great Depression Death Glare Disguised in Drag Take a Third Option Reckless Gun Usage