Raya and the Last Dragon — Trust blindly, even if it costs you everything

The core theme of the movie (which it makes very clear) is to have faith in the goodness of people, and to trust those you otherwise might not. Good, simple moral. But what they actually show is Raya being punished over and over for putting faith in people, even getting Sisu (the Last Dragon) killed because she “didn’t trust” the antagonist Namaari, You know, who currently had a crossbow pointed at her friend’s heart. In the end, everyone basically dies except Naamari, who only saves the day because she has a last minute crisis of conscience. So the takeaway is to blindly trust people who’ve repeatedly screwed you over, because not doing so might ruin your life. And if you (very understandably) view certain people with suspicion, whatever harm they might do to you is actually your fault.

Peppa Pig — Mr. Skinnylegs

This one isn’t serious but it’s fun so I included it. In episode 47, season 1 of Peppa Pig, Peppa and George find a little black spider hiding in their toys. The kids initially freak out, before being calmed by their dad, who explains that spiders are harmless friends. The episode ends with the kids holding the spider in their bare hands and having a tea party with it. In Britain, spiders by and large are harmless. In Australia, where the show is also popular, they very very much can kill you dead. So for a few years, the ABC had to take down the episode, lest Australia’s children start thinking huntsman spiders and redbacks are playmates. The episode has since been allowed to be shown.

Laurel Hedare (Catwoman Movie): Her newly released cosmetics will cause people's faces to melt. Not only would that create a class action lawsuit but a full product recall.

Voldemort and Death Eaters (Harry Potter): Death Eaters constantly underestimate muggles. They would get massacred by the British military because a gun is faster to pull the trigger then shouting a spell.

1 - Gantz-O (2016): Suit teleportation

2 - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009): Apparition spell

3 - Half Life 2 (2004): Teleporter malfunction

“Woke” as an insult - So you are telling me a word describing consciousness and clarity is used by generally stupid and ignorant people to label people they disagree with? What is this? A Kindergarten for Creatively stunted?

Nominative determinism - So let me get this straight…Not only you named fastest recorded person Usain BOLT and CEO of Nintendo Doug BOWSER, but you are telling me people are canonically likely to have professions or hobbies matching their names…? Guh?

“2 bodies recovered in MURDERKILL River” - Sure bro…I guess…bro…

Frieren, Beyond Journey's end: In the anime/manga the eponymous Frieren is an Elf who's spent the better part of a millennia learning magic specifically to kill demons. She's learned countless spells, tricks and even spent most of her life suppressing her power all for the purpose of killing them. At first we simply see that humanity is at war with them, and even question if her crusade against demon-kind is justified, after all it's hard to antagonize an entire sentient species. But no, demons are very much a species to be feared; they are not normal animals or creatures, they are monsters (shown by how they disintegrate when they die), they are predators that evolved speech for the sole purpose of tricking and catching humans off guard, are naturally extremely powerful and possess magic that humanity often can't use. While they feel emotions to some extent, their way of thinking is so fundamentally incompatible with humanity's mindset that the series shows many mages with the ability to read minds struggle or find it painful and harmful to try and read a demon's thoughts. Tools that are meant to control them fail not because they're faulty but because simple order such as "hold no ill will or commit no malicious acts" don't compute the same way in their brains, as what we consider evil is normal for them.

Marvel Comics: In a run of the Storm solo series, she visits an underground superhuman hospital run by Night nurse and Doctor Daye, a mutant with the power to diagnose any illness. When she requires treatment she is in turn reject by the doctor, she of course assumes this is blatant discrimination to which the doctor agrees. Storm assumes the doctor refuses to treat mutants, something they are very much used to in Marvel. But he ends up revealing that about 80% of everyone he treats are mutants, and that he simply refuses to treat any member of the X-men. Why? because his special hospital was built via several donations by the superhero community. From the Avengers, to the Defenders, Fantastic 4, heroes for hire. Hell, even Moonknight of all people contributed to the hospital. But the X-men never once gave anything to it, even though they preach the safety of mutant-kind and such a hospital is essential for those who can't seek medical treatment out of fear of prosecution.

Frank Herbert’s Dune: Interstellar travel is only possible thanks to the spice melange, a rare substance only found on the dessert planet Arrakis. The addictive psychedelic spice grants members of the Spacers Guild a form of prescience that allows them to predict safe paths through folded space. This unique property makes spice the most valuable commodity in the Dune universe.

John Scalzi’s The Interdependency Books: The planetary systems of the titular empire are connected by the Flow, a network of one-way interstellar tunnels that connect specific known entries and exits. The Interdependency derives its power from controlling access to these conduits, placing its capital at the central hub of the network. Even with the Flow, travel between stars takes a long time (9 months to End, the empire’s most distant planet).

Event Horizon: Dr William Weir (R.I.P. Sam Neill) invents a device called the Gravity Drive to allow ships to fold space and travel instantly between distant stars. On its maiden voyage with the Gravity Drive, the Event Horizon disappears and mysteriously reappears 7 years later. Dr. Weir and the crew sent to investigate discover the Gravity Drive actually opened a portal to a Hell dimension that possessed the ship and its crew, torturing and killing them.

Characters who died without the chance of a goodbye… neither suffering.

- Robin Ward (The Boys S1 E1) - when she is pulverized in a high-velocity impact by A-Train.

- Polka Dot Man (The Suicide Squad 2021) - when he is crushed by Starro’s leg.

Dawn of the Dead (2004): The movie finishes on a hopeful note as the remaining survivors escape the zombie-infested mall on a yacht, sailing into the sunset. The found-footage style post-credits scene completely reverses this happy ending by showing them running out of food, arriving at an island, and being immediately swarmed and killed by an infected horde.

Prince of Persia (2008): The main game ends with a beautiful, poetic sacrifice where Elika gives her life to heal the corrupted world, leaving the Prince mourning. During the credits, the player is forced to control the Prince as he cuts down the trees he just saved, undoing the entire game's progress and releasing the dark god Ahriman just to resurrect her, completely corrupting the ending and dooming the world.

Season 4 just ended of fromville and it’s canonically only been about a month. Which makes it weird seeing people heal from injuries, change hair styles or grow out beards between episodes. Season 4 has only been like 4 days iirc.

Arkham franchise is the poster child for this trope. Every game takes place in one night. If you know what you’re doing you can absolutely beat the games in around 9 hours.

The beast, in doctor who is an ancient evil from a previous universe that survived until our time. Its so ancient that the cave paintings were unable to be translated by the Tardis which can translate all existing languages in the universe [Doctor Who]

While not explicitly canon its such a cool concept I cant not mention, the idea that the backrooms have existed since the beginning of time, never changing no matter the era, it transforms the back rooms into a cosmic horror. [Credit to Project crater and Venus for images 2 and 3]

The dinner scene from Temple of Doom has a temple give indie and friends a live snake and monkey brains for dinner. It’s a pretty offensive depiction of Indian cuisine, but it wasn’t originally going to be. There’s cut dialogue where Indie recognizes they’re at the right temple because real Hindus don’t eat this food. They were trying to scare them off by purposefully serving them disgusting stuff.

Probably the most famous deleted ending was I Am Legend which had Robert discover the infected were emotional sentient beings and one of them had a wife. Test audiences hated it and they reshot the ending, removing the entire point of the movie.

Films or shows with seemingly happy endings that take on completely different meanings if you pay attention to stuff going in the background in the final scene.

THE SOPRANOS: The series ends seemingly at random in the middle of a scene where Tony is eating food in a diner. If you pay attention you’ll notice a person going into the bathroom earlier in the scene, with the implication being they were retrieving a gun and the “cut to black” is Tony being shot and killed (foreshadowed by multiple scenes earlier in the series)

IT FOLLOWS: The film ends with the characters seemingly killing the entity… until you notice someone slowly walking towards them in the background in one of the final shots, implying the entity is still alive

The Screaming Goat Thing — Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)

The original screaming sheep meme went viral in 2012, and was already getting old when it was prevalent in commercials and movies, such as Ice Age : Collision Course in 2016. Yet in the year of our lord 2024, Dreamworks still thought it would be funny to add multiple screaming goat clips. The mean stopped being funny a decade ago. Let it die.

“Haha, Dad can’t take care of us” — The Breadwinner (2026)

Nate Bargatze’s 2026 family comedy centers around a working “breadwinner” father suddenly being forced to become a stay at home parent, and his “hilarious” struggles to do simple housework and take basic care of his children. This joke stopped being funny (to me) in the early 2000s when seemingly every family comedy relied on dad being a total inept dipshit. In 2026, there is no excuse to keep playing out this tired ass trope. Most dads are actively involved in their kids’ lives and aren’t totally dumbstruck by the idea of changing a diaper. It’s not funny. Let it die.

- Eddie Carr (The Lost World: JP) - Tried to save his friends from the cliff until Buck and Doe (T. rex parents) destroy his vehicle and gets ripped apart.
- Zara Young (Jurassic World) - Gets lifted by a Pteranodon, gets pecked by the pterosaur, and both she and animal get devoured by the Mosasaurus.
- LeClerc (JW: Rebirth) - Tossed a hammer to the Hatzegopteryz Quetzalcoatlus to save Loomis and Zora, but ends up being swallowed alive.

Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire: A couple hundred rogue mercenaries without authority from their government conquer an empire of millions. Oh, the empire? It’s also several technological eras behind the mercenaries.

Adolf Hitler: A non-native of a country is so mad that the country lost the war that he wins an election to their highest office and leads them in a campaign of revenge against their enemies. Oh, the country? It’s old emperor is still alive and thinks he’s going to retake power.

Assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand: The heir to the throne is killed because his driver gets lost and returns to the assassin who failed To kill him before. Oh, the assassin? He’s from a group that the Archduke is wanting to help become more equal In the empire.

Alexander Hamilton’s Affair Scandal: One of the leaders of a new nation to protect himself from accusations of financial embezzlement writes a pamphlet exposing his affair with a woman, torpedoing his political future. Oh, the woman? She seduced him as part of a blackmailing scheme that he decided to stop paying.

1. Pennywise's "Deadlights" which will cause anyone looking to be immediately paralyzed and killed.

2. The sky from Bird Box is filled with entities that, when you look at them, cause you to commit suicide.

3. Medusa themed Villains

The above are just a few of my favorites:

The Office

Adventure Time

Ratatouille

Incredibles 2

Hermione Granger and SPEW — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (book)

In the fifth HP novel, Hermione Granger is outraged to discover that Hogwarts has a small army of enslaved House Elves that do nearly all of the domestic duties around the castle, including cleaning the Gryffindor common room every night. When she tries to convince the elves to fight for their own rights, they refuse, saying they prefer servitude. Her fellow students and friends mock her for caring. She manages to free one elf, Winky, by deception when she refuses her freedom willingly, leading to Winky becoming a depressed alcoholic. By the end, the elves boycott cleaning any Gryffindor areas of the castle because they hate Hermione specifically

Samwell Tarly and Democracy — Game of Thrones (show)

In the season 8 finale of the television series, the surviving great lords of Westeros gather to discuss the future of the kingdom following the devastation wrought by 7 seasons of war and backstabbing. When Sam, who has proven to have “novel” ideas, suggests that maybe the millions of Smallfolk who suffer at the hands of noble houses should get some representation in the government, rather than be the pawns of rich lords with absolute power. We are then greeted by a prolonged, cringy segment of the other lords laughing in Sam’s face, asking if the dogs and horses should also get a vote.

1. The Opening Scene (Ghost Ship). Considered one of the best horror opening scenes or scenes in general within horror movies, but the rest of the film is considered to be pretty bad.

2. The Ending Scene (The Grinch 2018). While most adaptations of the Grinch end with him suddenly being able to fully integrate with the Whos after his change of heart, the 2018 version initially struggles to socialize, awkwardly walking past people, and struggling to hold conversations, acknowledging that despite his change of heart, the Grinch is still someone who isolated himself for years.

3. Past T800 VS Current T800 (Terminator Genisys). A cool fight scene showing two versions of the Terminator from different points in time fighting it off.

4. Solo Leveling's Ending. Tbh, I haven't actually read Solo Leveling, but after hearing about how it ended VS how Chainsaw Man ended made want to include it for shits and giggles. Like Chainsaw Man, Solo Leveling ends with a reset. But unlike Chainsaw Man, it actually manages to tie up loose ends and have the payoff of the ending be satisfying.

The Elder Scrolls - Within some Dwemer ruins of ESO we can see a special type of Animunculus. A Dwemer Arquebus, which has a cannon for it’s arm and shoots emp grenades at foes.
The reason why we don’t see this technology more often (besides the fact Dwemer disappeared their knowledge with them) is that within the setting and cosmology of Elder Scrolls firearms really wouldn’t be that useful.

They could work against lowly bandits, sort of, but there wouldn’t really be a precedent to improve or adapt this technology. Because it would always be outclassed by magic of this world.
Also due to the disappearance of Dwemer the technology has been pretty much lost.

Harry Potter - Wizards live within periphery of the “real world” meaning they live alongside world that uses firearms and are even familiar with them.

So how come they don’t utilize this gear for combat? I mean it is easier to use, projectiles are faster and could be enchanted further. Can you just imagine wizard with endless m1911?

There is plethora of reasons for this. But most notable is what I would describe as wizards being immune to logic. (Vis image above) They simply cannot understand methods of muggles even if one explained it to them directly.

(Yes. I know the real reason is, because Joanne didn’t want wizards to use guns and didn’t want to think about connotations of putting magic into a real modern world. But come on! Let me have fun!)

Lord of the Rings - In spite of how much Tolkien disliked allegories it is clear Orcs were an allegory to industrialization, which he was a huge critic of.

In battles they are the ones using the war machines. Instead of swords made by artful blacksmith, they use crude, mass-produced blades devoid of identity. Instead of relying on elegance of archery, they use crossbows. They burn forests, crack mountains open to gain more ore. Their very production is affront to whimsy of a magical world like Middle-Earth.

They could totally come up with a matchlock mechanism and keep on improving it until they come up with machine guns. They were intercepted before they could however

I hate this trope, when the "underdog good guys" actually win, gain major military and political power, fleets, warships, etc, but because the writers don't want to write the good guys governing and exercising their power, and instead, find a contrived way to reset all the progress so that the good guys can forever be the

"scrappy heroic underdogs fighting the power"

1) Star Wars Sequel triology, rather than exploring new Republic fleets, power, and technology, they have them all wiped out so that the "resistance" can hog the spotlight

2) MCU: shield makes a helicarrier fleet, a fleet of ships able to contest alien invasion, but that would steal the spotlight from heroes, so all of them have to be destroyed

3) Halo: the UNSC finally outlive the covenant, develop strong ships like the UNSC infinity, only for it all to be reset by the Guardians and the Banished, reduced again to underdog humans.

Basically when something seems anachronistic to a period/place of history but is actually fully accurate to the period.

1) the name Tiffany: the thing that named this trope, basically the name Tiffany can be dated back to the Middle Ages and the earliest record of it being spelled in the modern spelling comes from the 16th century.

2) the use of OMG, despite this feeling so modern as a form of slang/abbreviation here’s a letter directed to Winston Churchill using it in 1917

3) Hair Dye: the earliest forms of dying hair can be dated back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and this specific advertisement for hair dye is from the 1840s

4) Inuit Thongs: despite how weird it is to imagine pre-colonial Inuit people wore what was essentially fur thongs in their homes and when they were in their igloos it might have been the only thing they would be wearing.

1. We Happy Few - Taking your “joy” pill
   Deciding to take the pill at the beginning of the game causes your character to go back to work and triggers an ending

2. Infineural by Mike Klubnika - Drinking the coffee
   Deciding to drink the coffee offered to you skips the entire game and sends you straight to the end, resulting in an ending with no memory of what had occurred

1.Saving Private Ryan (1998) - Americans shoot down surrendering Wehrmacht soldiers in Omaha and joke about it. Turns out they were Czechs forcibly conscripted from their homeland.

"Please don't shoot me! I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone! I am Czech!"

1. The Thing (1982) - Lars, one of the last survivors of Norwegian base try to shoot down the dog that is running away and the Americans shoot him dead because they thought he was crazy. Turns out he was trying to warn them.

"Get the hell away! That's not a dog! It's some kind of thing! It'll imitate a dog! Get away, you idiots!"

1. All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) - Paul Baumer stabs a French soldier to death who was aiming a gun at him and breaks down in guilt. Turns out the Frenchman had no intention to kill him.

"Surrender!"

- Gipsy Danger dragging an oil tanker (which actually lengths 180 meters… but the film portrays it slightly smaller than Gipsy) and use it as a bat against Otachi? HARD (Pacific Rim)
- Owen and a gyrosphere standing near Rexy, who’s crushing a Carnotaurus’ neck, and roaring while Isla Nublar’s volcano explodes? HARD (Fallen Kingdom)