Tropescilloscope: Foil

A character who highlights another character's trait(s), usually by contrast. (read more at tvtropes.org)

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