Character Tropes (not a pokemon reference) - Tray

 After reading a whole bunch of books and shows, I’ve realized there are a few common character types in the wilderness of media-land. Whether it be inexplicably hot murder hobos or wannabe Voldemort fanboys, you’ll probably see one or two of these folks in the media you peruse from day to day. The tropes I’m writing about today aren’t the only ones that exist, but the ones that I keep note of whenever I see them. 

Anger Issues™

Type: 🔥

Always annoyed, irritated, and/or angry. Their anger makes up about 80% of their personality, and they always have an exasperated expression on their face. Most of the time, this trope will be on the hero’s team, though some of the supporting characters might object or find them annoying. This character is often used for comic relief or to make dynamics with other characters more entertaining, but they can also be used for more serious matters as well. 

One of my favorite things about this personality is that you can combine it with a bunch of different things and get a completely different flavor of personality. For instance, you can make this character exceedingly edgy, suffering from something in their past that makes them have anger issues. You can also do the exact opposite by making them a persistent goody two shoes, only mad at other people because they’re not following the rules. Make them loud, make them quiet, make em proud, or a riot. 

Even though water is a hard counter to fire, if you pour water on someone with the Anger Issues™ personality, prepare to get a faceful of knuckle sandwich. 

Characters with this trope: 

• Donald Duck (Disney) 

• Bakugo (My Hero Academia) 

Master of The Eyebrow Raise

Type: 🔥🧠🔥

They’re chill, they’re charming, and everyone seems to simp for them. This guy (almost always a guy) is never uncomposed and has a smug smile glued to his face. This trope can be commonly found as a likeable villain, anti-hero, or companion. The main character might be suspicious of this person, and will sometimes even hate them; unless it’s a romance, in which they’re almost always the character that the MC will end up with. 

A lot of criminals in stories seem to embody this stereotype very well, whether they’re a scam artist trying to con you out of five bucks in your pocket or a crime lord ready to murder anyone who gets in the way. They’re always relatively good-looking, sometimes using their good looks and charm to manipulate other people to their whim. They’re often the person that the fans really like despite (or because of) their slimeyness. There might be a few people who don’t like them, but most of the community can’t resist their charms. 

These characters are fire-psychic type because of their top-notch manipulation skills. There are two fire emojis ‘cause hot attractive brain goo

Characters with this trope: 

• Laurent (The Great Pretender) 

• Sans??? (Undertale)

• 1 out of 3 characters in every other love triangle 

Evil Drama Queen

Type: ✨✨💀😈💀✨✨😟💧😭💧💧

This is the person you see wearing an eyepatch or an unnecessary number of belts. Their goal? To be evil (or at least intimidating). They might have an obsession with the occult, extremely dramatic monologues, or even murder. This character is always a comic relief character, and most of the time can be pretty funny. However, if there are too many of the same gags over and over again then it might get annoying. 

Some reasons why they might not be able to reach peak evilness is 1) their appearance makes them either too short or too cute to be evil-looking. 2) They might aspire to be the best villain there ever was, but their instincts tell them to be kind to others. Or they’re just so pathetic that it’s hard to imagine them as a villain. 3) For some reason, whenever they try to rob someone, some sort of supernatural force always prevents them from doing so.

This trope aspires to be a dark type, but is ultimately a normal type with a bunch of sparkles and crying emojis. You could probably counter this by placing their food source on a too-high shelf. 

Characters with this trope: 

• Kaido (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.)

• Veigar (League of Legends)

Those were just a few tropes that I’ve noticed. Hope this will help you catch all the types in the world and become the character trope master. Best of luck on your journey.