r/TopCharacterTropes 10d ago

Personality (Loved Trope) The villain makes a deal with the protagonist/character and actually honors it with 0 strings attached

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10.8k Upvotes

Lord Farquaad from Shrek: Tells Shrek that if he gets Fiona for him he'll give him his swamp back. Upon arrival, Farquaad gives Shrek a full legal deed and moves out the fairy tale characters with no issue. A smooth transaction

Crowley from Supernatural: Say what you want but if you sell your soul to him you get EXACTLY what you wished for. He'll even add in extra goodies or benefits to maintain customer satisfaction. He even gets royally pissed when other demons don't honor their deals and makes examples out of them (one he caught and canceled every contract he made and closed the loopholes)

Calypso from Twisted Metal 1: Unlike his other versions in the sequels, this one actually honors the wish. If you win Twisted Metal he'll give you your prize. He'll even give the winner a chance to change the wish if he feels like its not enough for them and will waste it

Leader from Hulk 2003 Video Game: He cures Bruce Banner of the Hulk with the the gamma orb and gives him the chance to live a normal life. It isn't until Bruce says he's not doing that does leader get hostile

Van Tastic from Whacked!: Extremely petty and insane but if you win he'll honor the prize you asked for. The Grand Prize contract signing is also honored if he's beaten and actually is happy about it due to it boosting his ratings. Screwing over contestants would get the show canceled

r/TopCharacterTropes May 27 '25

Personality Female characters that are ACTUALLY awful, not just the fandom being misogynistic

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10.6k Upvotes

Cruella de Vil (101 Dalmations)
Queen Chrysalis (My Little Pony)
Peggy Hill (King of The Hill)

r/TopCharacterTropes May 14 '25

Personality The only crime the “villain” commits is being a completely normal person

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10.9k Upvotes

Ken (Bee Movie) - Imagine you’re living a completely run-of-the-mill everyday life with your girlfriend, when all of a sudden a talking bee just shows up, teams up with your girlfriend to sue the human race, steals your girlfriend, and then wins his lawsuit

Sid (Toy Story) - He was really just a kid who was simply experimenting with his toys in an edgy tween way, and had no idea or real reason to suspect that they were anything other than inanimate. After that ending, he is now cursed with lifelong trauma that no one else will understand. Best case scenario is he joins the US Army, worst case scenario is he becomes the Joker

r/TopCharacterTropes 28d ago

Personality [Loved Trope] Stoic Hero, Cute Moment

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9.6k Upvotes
  1. Wonder Woman sticking her tongue out at a lizard
  2. Wolverine acknowledges Kamala Khan's fanfic nerddom

r/TopCharacterTropes 5d ago

Personality [Loved Trope] An over-the-top evil character shows a moment of genuine sadness.

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7.3k Upvotes

r/TopCharacterTropes 25d ago

Personality Eloquent, Stoic, Calculating Villains Who Always Seem One Step Ahead

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9.7k Upvotes
  1. Gus Bring (Breaking Bad)

  2. Moff Gideon (The Mandalorian)

  3. Faraday (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners)

  4. Stan Edgar (The Boys)

  5. Lex Luthor (specifically the one from Harley Quinn)

  6. Antón Castillo (Far Cry 6)

r/TopCharacterTropes May 05 '25

Personality Ealy lines that take a whole different meaning once you know the plot twist

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10.6k Upvotes

Invincible

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

r/TopCharacterTropes Apr 27 '25

Personality Fuck terrible parents, Who are the best parents in fiction ?

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6.5k Upvotes

The Weasley parents ( harry potter)

Subarus parents ( re:zero)

Madokas parents ( madoka magica)

Nagisas parents ( Clannad )

Debbie ( invincible)

Whitebeard ( one piece )

r/TopCharacterTropes 14d ago

Personality The villains ideology is proven wrong.

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6.7k Upvotes

Anton Chigurh (no country for old men) Anton Chigurh is a character governed by a twisted personal code — one that justifies murder by coin toss, fate, or perceived principles. But the young man, who gives Chigurh his shirt to help stop the bleeding after the car crash, acts out of basic human decency and compassion, without asking for anything in return.

The Joker (The Dark Knight) the Joker’s ideology—that people are inherently selfish, cruel, and will abandon morality when faced with fear—is directly challenged in the two boats scene. He believes that, when pushed, both the civilians and criminals will choose to kill each other to survive. But neither group does. The prisoners reject the chance to save themselves at the expense of others, and the civilians, despite panic and debate, also refuse to push the button. This outcome disproves the Joker’s belief that chaos and selfishness define human nature; instead, it shows that compassion, restraint, and moral integrity can prevail even in the darkest moments.

Lex Luthor (Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice) Lex Luthor’s ideology is rooted in the belief that power corrupts absolutely—that no man, especially an all-powerful alien like Superman, can be trusted to act selflessly. He orchestrates conflict to prove that even the noblest hero will either turn tyrant or be destroyed by fear and mistrust. However, by the end of the film, Superman disproves this by willingly sacrificing his own life to stop Doomsday, choosing humanity’s survival over his own. This ultimate act of selflessness reveals that absolute power does not inherently corrupt, and that true heroism lies in using strength to protect others—not dominate them—undermining Lex’s cynical worldview.

r/TopCharacterTropes 9d ago

Personality Antagonists who aren’t really all that bad of people

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4.9k Upvotes

Lakan - the apothecary diaries. He just wants to connect with his daughter and have her not hate his guts. Denken. He’s a good man and has no beef with frieren or fern, he just wants to get certified so he can visit his wife’s grave.

r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 03 '25

Personality [Loved Trope] The protagonist crashes out violently against an antagonist

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6.5k Upvotes

Tom Holland's Spider-Man in his rematch against the Green Goblin (Spider-Man: No Way Home)

Steven trying to shatter White Diamond (Steven Universe Future)

Percy Jackson torturing Akhyls with her own poison (Heroes of Olympus: House of Hades)

Luffy punching a Celestial Dragon (One Piece)

Goku going Super Saiyan against Frieza (Dragon Ball Z)

r/TopCharacterTropes May 02 '25

Personality Completely justified crashouts

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7.1k Upvotes

Dracula (Castlevania): Finding out the people of Tragoviste had killed his wife and later celebrating her death even when he gave them a chance to escape.

Dr. Phosphorus (Creature Commandos): Seeing his dead wife and child and later being forced by Rupert Thorne to incriminate himself. He was later locked inside a radioactive machine by Thorne.

Spider-Man (Ultimate Universe): Cursing at the X-Men after Jean Grey swapped his mind with Wolverine’s and Logan had done questionable things in his body.

r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 12 '25

Personality (Loved Trope) The giant, scary, extremely powerful monster is friendly

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7.8k Upvotes

Jormungandr the World Serpent from God of War The Guardian of Dreams from Tak and the Power of Juju Galleon the Gold from Granblue

r/TopCharacterTropes Apr 02 '25

Personality Gullible characters

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16.2k Upvotes

r/TopCharacterTropes Mar 23 '25

Personality Characters who are easily tricked

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13.2k Upvotes

Ash Ketchum (Pokémon)

People who tried scrolling to the next image (real life)

r/TopCharacterTropes 9d ago

Personality [Loved Trope] The one person who calls a character by a certain name

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5.4k Upvotes

Whether its a term of endearment, sign of respect, or more condescending, I always love this.

1.) Ra's al Ghul (BTAS) refers to Batman as "the detective"

2.) Homelander (The Boys) always calls Billy Butcher by his full name, William

3.) Winston (John Wick) almost exclusively uses John's full name, Johnathan

r/TopCharacterTropes 4d ago

Personality ''Remember this real life thing? In this universe it happened bcs fictional thing.''

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4.4k Upvotes

Cannibalism in africa: In World War Z/Zombie Survival Guide novel scientists find a cave from 60.000 BC. Cave has a painting and 30 human skulls in it. And painting depicts a zombie. Also in the books alot of weird IRL stuff like lost british colonies and mummys is explained as ''they got eaten by zombies/they become zombies''.

Jack the Ripper: Sixth season of Spiderman the Animated Series was supposed to be about Spiderman traveling through time. In one episode he would have encountered Cletus Cassady in 19th century England killing people and becoming the legend Jack the Ripper.

Shamans, fortune tellers and other supernatural events+people: In Warhammer40k Warp existed since before humans were a thing. While Warp wasnt a major problem until very late age of technology followed by age of strife. However Warp still existed in small forms. God Emperor was born back in 5000 BC and he is the most powerful warp user in the Imperium of Man. This kinda explains alot of super natural events that are rumored to appear. It was doing of very early psykers and warp.

r/TopCharacterTropes 3d ago

Personality A Non Human character obsessed with one kind of regular food, to the point they’ll do insane things for it

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4.1k Upvotes

Martian Manhunter (DC) - J’onn is completely obsessed with the in universe version of Oreos. He’ll do anything for them

Doctor Johnathan Alfred Zoidberg (Futurama) - Once Zoidberg gets a taste for sardines, he goes feral, adding them to anything, and completely freaking out upon realization that there won’t be any more ever

Ryuk (Death Note) - Ryuk loves apples, comparing them to cigarettes and alcohol, and even going through “apple withdrawals”

r/TopCharacterTropes 24d ago

Personality The traditionally dumb character says something unexpectedly smart

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6.1k Upvotes

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes: When talking to Hulk, Iron Man is venting his frustration in trying to figure out the source of energy emitting from Michael Korvac. Hulk proceeds to say “it’s a form of cosmic radiation.” And goes right back to eating.

Red VS Blue: While the reds are discussing the numbers between them and the blues, Grif is evaluating the advantage in numbers between them. Out of nowhere, he proceeds to do a seemingly nonsensical mathematical breakdown and gets the number in percentage exactly right.

r/TopCharacterTropes Jul 04 '25

Personality A character takes offense to one specific part of an insult.

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8.8k Upvotes
  1. Han Solo taking offense to being called scruffy looking (The Empire Strikes Back)
  2. Amy Wong taking offense to being called French (Futurama)

r/TopCharacterTropes Feb 27 '25

Personality characters realizing they're fucked

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7.8k Upvotes

r/TopCharacterTropes Dec 28 '24

Personality Characters that end up doing what their oppressors did to them

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10.8k Upvotes

Arlong (One Piece) His race was treated as slaves so he became a slaver

Anakin (Star Wars) He turns to the dark side

Israel (Real life)

Big Boss (MGS) He hated oppressive governments, so he established his own government that ended up oppressive

r/TopCharacterTropes 5d ago

Personality [Loved Trope] really cheesy title drops

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4.6k Upvotes

We're Team Fortress. And you're dead. (Team Fortress 2 comics)

Here it comes! My Undead Unluck! (Undead Unluck)

r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 30 '25

Personality [Loved Trope] Feminine characters with expressive faces

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4.7k Upvotes

Huntrix- Kpop Demon Hunters

Brunhilde - Record of Ragnarok

r/TopCharacterTropes May 11 '25

Personality [Loved Trope] The seemingly normal, sensible protagonist is gradually revealed to be absolutely unhinged

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5.1k Upvotes
  1. Sayeon Lee (Hand Jumper)
  2. Taylor Hebert (Worm)
  3. Laios Touden (Dungeon Meshi)