WELCOME, ladies, gentlemen, and tropers, to Darth Wiki's Favorite Game Show...
[Catchy Theme Song plays]
Hello! Hello! How are you all doing today? How are the kids?
All right, you all know how to play the game! Contestants will take a piece of media... and, through a number of deliberate misunderstandings, a few Alternate Character Interpretations, a fallacy or two, taking some things out of context, assuming that everything presented was meant to be taken as instructional and serious, identifying moments that dilute and/or undermine what was actually being taught, finding morals that were handled haphazardly, and reading in more than a little Fanon, make it seem like the creators were attempting to deliver a terrible, terrible message to the kids at home... no matter how utterly off-base it is!
But, before we begin, let's just go over the three rules of the game, shall we? Rule #1! Make sure to read the above paragraph before adding an example. Rule #2! This is not Headscratchers with a sarcastic tone, and if you think it is, Get Out!. And, last but not least, rule #3! This page is Just for Fun; serious attempts at finding a moral, and Real Life examples will be purged. Oh, and remember, folks, complaining and whining will not be tolerated, and will only land you in one of two places: 10,000 meters into the air, or in the dumpster behind the studio.
...and whatever you do, don't change the channel to Sugar Wiki for Sweeten That Aesop or the Neutral Zone for Boil That Aesop. And don't mix this show up with Things We Have Learnt from Media — that's just facts, this show is about 'truths' and principles. Change to our sister channel, the TV Tropes Forum for That's an awful Hindsight shoehorn, where you can connect all sorts of coincidences and see how Life Imitates Art!
Ok, now that we've got all of that out of the way, first to 10,000 points gets an extra lifenote , a copy of our Home Game, and Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat!
Round One! Ready.... GO!
Subpages:
- Anime & Manga
- Comic Books
- Fan Works
- Film — Animation
- Film — Live-Action
- Literature
- Live-Action TV
- Music
- Music Videos
- Professional Wrestling
- Tabletop Games
- Theatre
- Toys
- Video Games
- Webcomics
- Web Original
- Western Animation
- Tropes
- In General:
- OBEY. CONSUME. STAY ASLEEP. SUBMIT.
- Ads for harmful things like cigarettes are a thing of the past. Surely these days ads tell nothing but the truth and wouldn’t dream of persuading one to consume something that is harmful to their body.
- Only those who are rich enough to pay for premium accounts deserve to be free from the constant subliminal messaging that permeates all of society.
- You are absolutely hideous. If you don’t look like a photoshopped supermodel you need to buy hundreds of beauty products so that people don’t vomit at the sight of you.
- People who consume fast food, candy, and soda look like healthy athletes and supermodels. If you are overweight and unhealthy, it must just be you.
- Apple and CinnaMon: Fruit is nasty and evil, only eat sugar for breakfast.
- Post-2007: Fruit flavoring is a perfectly healthy substitute for actual fruit.
- Bones Coffee: Vampires love jelly donuts, Aliens love ice cream, and making either of them into coffee flavors is a guarantee to keep them from killing their human employers.
- The Burger King: Make sure your mascot is horrifically creepy. That way, meme-culture can do all the advertising for you.
- Charlie the Tuna: Someone who repeatedly begs you to kill him and eat his corpse is completely sane, but you should still eat other corpses instead because they taste better.
- Chick-fil-A: Eating fried chicken means you hate the gays.
- Chick-fil-A Cows: Meat is murder, but only if it's beef. Screw the chickensnote .
- Cows are super-racist against chickens and are plotting for genocide.
- To prevent the slaughter of your own species, advocate for the slaughter of another species. Might as well apply this to things like race as well.
- Chick-fil-A Cows: Meat is murder, but only if it's beef. Screw the chickensnote .
- Dumb Ways to Die:
- It's ok to laugh while watching someone die in front of you if they died after doing something really stupid.
- Avoid public transportation at all costs, those trains are menaces out for your blood.
- If you die while holding money, you can keep it while in the afterlife.
- Lucky Charms: Hey kids, here's a fun game to play! Chasing someone to steal something they have and you want! Even if they escape, you'll face no consequences for it whatsoever!
- McDonald's: Your restaurant can make any kind of food regardless of your customer base as long as you give it a cute prefix; McDLT, McRib, McPizza, McNoodles, McFlurry, McLobster, McCurry Pan, McNürnburger, you get the Mcpicture.
- There is nothing wrong with deliberately targeting children with extremely unhealthy food that will cause them a myriad of health issues later in life.
- Obesity and diabetes are worth it if you get to play at an indoor playground and get a toy in your Happy Meal.
- The only way to keep your child happy is gradual artery clogging.
- Messin' with Sasquatch:
- If you buy Jack Link's Beef Jerky, you're Too Dumb to Live.
- Nature is so boring people will mock a killer ape monster like it was a nerd in gym class.
- M&M's: Rule 34 really can apply to anything.
- Only strive to make one of your mascots more politically correct when you need to distract the public from your child slavery lawsuits by manufacturing a pointless controversy.
- Removing your mascots will cause more public outrage than any war on the globe.
- Never Say No to Panda:
- Pandas are abusive assholes.
- Capitalist Egypt is one big Protection Racket and they will cut a bitch if you don't buy their products.
- Obey Your Thirst: Never drink anything other than Sprite.
- Partnership to End Addiction:
- "Like Father, Like Son": If you use drugs, you are 100% guaranteed to have a child who will use drugs.
- "Final Lesson": Cool, you taught your daughter to ride a bike, build a telescope, and become a pro tennis player! Oh, what's that? She's thirteen and you haven't taught her not to use drugs yet? Congratulations, now she's a crack addict being taken away in an ambulance! Good job!
- "Faces": The worst physical side effect of drug addiction is wrinkles.
- "Puppet Boy": One puff on a joint is enough to kill you.
- "Brainwaves": Marijuana users have brain activity on par with coma patients. Definitely accurate.
- Pepsiman:
- Getting seriously maimed is funny if the person getting hurt is Serkis Folk. Check your privilege, meat-spacers!
- If your Super Hero is so lame that he gets himself seriously maimed every time he gets to the scene of the crime, make him a delivery boy and call him a Good Samaritan.
- Being out of Pepsi is serious business.
- Pop-Tarts
- If you eat poptarts, you are a horrible person.
- Eating your friends alive is silly fun for everyone!
- Progressive Insurance:
- Sequin socks are a desired Christmas gift.
- Muy Thai is a completely different skill set from Karate.
- Sprinkles are for winners.
- If you think a spokesperson is annoying, just wait until you meet their family.
- The Real Cost:
- Don’t smoke or you’ll be left in a freakish labyrinth to die!
- Start smoking just to spite us, the consequences we show being comically exaggerated means that smoking won't actually destroy your lungs.
- Respect the Pouch: If you do not take special care of your beverage, you deserve infinite suffering as a subhuman freak.
- Segata Sanshiro: If you do not buy a Sega Saturn, you deserve days of suffering in a hospital bed courtesy of Hiroshi Fujioka wearing a white gi.
- Special K: Being fat is the worst thing that can ever happen to you and you should never eat any junk food, even if it includes slamming a door on a child offering donuts.
- Skittles: If it's in bright and unnatural colors, then it is consumable.
- Suzy Puppy: Puppie farms manufacture cute little plushies!
- Trix Rabbit:
- Kids Are Cruel and prejudiced against rabbits.
- If you're not the target demographic of a certain product you're not allowed to buy it or even enjoy it.
- Wilkins Coffee
- Drink or die.
- If someone doesn't like the same thing as you, it is now morally acceptable to murder them.
- There was a commercial for Glade candles that showed a woman peeling the "Glade" label off her candle and claiming it was a fancy, expensive candle, getting foiled only by the fact that the label stuck to her skirt when she tried to throw it away. The intended message was "Glade candles are of such good quality that they could be mistaken for a more high-end candle." The message many people got from the ad was "Our customers are ashamed to admit that they use our product."
- True Art Is Ancient.
- True Art Is Angsty.
- True Art Is Boring.
- True Art Is Incomprehensible.
- The only thing that determines artistic genius is if enough people say it is. Actual adherence to the fundamentals of art has nothing to do with it.
- Once enough people with degrees say a work is good, or that a work is bad, no one is allowed to disagree with that sentiment, ever.
- All artistic movements were given pejorative names by people who irrationally hate them, yet fail to explain themselves, or actually say that the movement sucks. Never mind that exactly the same criticisms were made at the critics when they were younger.
- Public nudity is only fine if it's a mockup of a person. Sometimes.
- Self-Portraits: Narcissism is integral to being a content-creator of any kind.
- Still lifes: You and your life is defined by your possessions.
Movements
- Abstract expressionism: Let's all make art a child could do, and say it's great.
- Academic Art: People in the future will hate you for no reason, despite the quality of your work.
- Art Deco: Nothing more creatively authentic than art that looks like it came off of an assembly-line
- Art Nouveau: Any work of art that looks vaguely plant-like is therefore French.
- Cubism: Screw you, anatomy!
- Culture jamming:
- Screw you, anti-vandalism laws!
- The best way to stop capitalism is to fight propaganda with propaganda.
- Dadaism: Anything you pick up from the dump can be art if you sign your name on it. Screw you, intellectual property laws!
- Expressionism: Screw you, coherency!
- Fauvism: Screw you, color theory!
- Fluxus: The results can suck monkey-fuck as long as the process of making it is interesting.
- German Expressionism: Poverty can drive people crazy.
- History Painting: You're being patronized by nobles and the Church, so make nothing but propaganda.
- Impressionism: Screw you, proper technique!
- Minimalism: True Art Is Incomprehensible and should exist in a vacuum. Relatability via representationalism is for uneducated pions.
- Modern Art: Screw it, anything goes. Even if it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
- Naive Art: Amateurs sure are stupid, huh? And even though we used to be no better, let's mock them by making bad art on purpose!
- Kitsch: Wait, the amateurs are actually good? Let's just say they suck!
- Neoclassicism: Only Ancient Grome is allowed.
- Outsider Art: You're wasting your money going to art classes and learning a craft professionally. Just start making stuff blindly and you'll magically be amazing.
- Pop Art: Being sarcastic about commercialism is brilliant and totally isn't hypocritical and doesn't get old after five minutes.
- Post-Impressionism: Impressionism wasn't that great, but we're gonna continue everything silly about it anyway.
- Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Paint the same woman over and over, just in different costumes.
- Primitivism: Non-whites sure are stupid, huh?
- Socialist Realism:
- True Art is about promoting your ideology and praising your Glorious Leader.
- All other art, even if made by other communists, is decadent, bourgeoisie, and possibly even fascist.
- Surrealism:
- Screw you, making sense!
- If you're not a communist fellow traveler, then you're not a true surrealist even if you paint exactly like us.note
Art
- Civic Virtue Triumphant over Unrighteousness:
- Metaphor? What's that?
- Americans are all prudes who are intimidated by immodesty.
- The Mona Lisa:
- National icons can only be forged from attempted theft.
- Whether or not a figure is smiling is one of life's greatest mysteries.
- North America: Portrait of a Continent: Sucks to be you, people from the Aleutian Islands and Lesser Antilles.
- Nue Couchée: With just a few alterations, anyone can look like chunks of uncooked chicken.
- Nymphs and Satyr: Revenge is awesome.
- The Rape of Proserpina (Bernini): Kidnapping looks amazing.
- Psyche and Cupid (Bouguereau): If "The Rapture of Psyche" is to be believed, being abducted by the guy who's infatuated with you is awesome!
- The Dream Of The Fishermans Wife: Bestiality is okay as long as you're a woman on the receiving end.
Artists
- Banksy: Vandalism is legal if it makes you famous.
- Zdzisław Beksiński: Inflicting Political Theory onto art is a waste of time and takes all the fun out of it.
- William-Adolphe Bouguereau: Modern Art sucks.
- The Guerrilla Girls: The best way to promote feminism in art is via gorilla masks.
- Takashi Murakami: When sensory deprivation is the artistic status quo, the best way to get noticed is inflicting sensory overload.
- Jackson Pollock: You can literally throw anything on a canvas and become a national and artistic icon in the process.
- Motu Patlu: Eating a ton of snack food will always solve all your problems.
- Noonbory and the Super 7:
- Weaponize your allergies.
- If someone wants to join your clique, deny them every chance you get, because they're not worthy. Don't even help them to be more like you and your friends, because it takes a long time.
- "Wangury and the Windbike": Assault via dragging someone around by their tongue is a justifiable retribution for stealing a bike.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Trying to feed your family is evil. Not only is it evil, it will also result in you failing and being injured.
- Aesop's Fables:
- "The Boy Who Cried Wolf": If you ignore the known liar when they actually tell the truth and all your livestock is killed as a result, it's entirely their fault!
- "The Dilemma of the Bat": Neutrality will get you shunned from society. Pick a side or you'll face the consequences.
- "The Grasshopper and the Ants": Refusal to partake in manual labor is punishable by death.
- "The Tortoise and the Hare": Taking a rest during a sporting event is far more morally reprehensible than being caught using steroids.
- The Little Mermaid: You'll meet your own true love the second you step into the outside world! Wait, you first stepped into the outside world as a newborn leaving the hospital? Good luck finding them!
- The Little Mouse The Little Bird And The Sausage: If you find forged letters on a living being, you are entitled to eat them
- Little Snow White: If you see a beautiful corpse in the woods, make a servant carry it around so you can have dinner with it. Then, when they hit said heavy corpse in frustration, it just might come back to life.
- The Snow Queen: If your best friend gets kidnapped by an otherworldly snow abomination, you, a seven year old girl, can definitely rescue him by yourself!
- The Steadfast Tin Soldier: Don't fall in love, or you and your partner will be burned to death.
- Three Billy Goats Gruff: The grass is greener on the other side, patience is not a virtue, violence solves everything, pass the buck if you're scared of facing a problem, and never mess with goats.
- The Ugly Duckling: You might think you're an ugly human child now, but you could turn out to be a handsome gorilla.
- Warp That Aesop: It's okay to distort the truth and promote bad morality if it entertains you.
- Complaining about aesops you don't like or the work it's from is okay if you coat it with a thin coat of snark.
- Everything you watch, everything you read and every game you play is teaching you a horrible lesson.
- Every warped aesop presented here is unironically what tropers think the intended message is.
- Every last iota of anything in the public eye sends a message whether intended or not; every joke, every plot-point, everything! The devil is quite literally in the details, so keep your eyes peeled for anything that doesn't gel perfectly to every last corner of the human experience. It's our right and duty to rub all those Unfortunate Implications in their faces!
- The Web Original sub-page: Don't post anything on the internet ever.
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic sub-page: The people who write that show are all naive Glurge Addicts who clearly have no clue how Real Life works.
- Darth Wiki: Ruining your eyesight and being snarky go hand in hand.
- Dethroning Moment of Suck: One bad episode is all it takes to permanently damage an entire series for a single person.
- Lacking a sense of humour is a valid reason for hating something that wasn't made just for you and you alone.
- It is a-okay to drop a show for having politics you don't agree with!
- The Pokémon (Anime) subpage: It's okay to have unrealistically high expectations for characters that are around 7-10 years old.
- The Web Original subpage: People who make content online for fun should be held to the same standard as people who make media professionally.
- The Angry Video Game Nerd subpage: Enjoying any episodes made after The Movie is the sign of you either being a Troll, mentally unwell, or your standards being far too low.
- The Western Animation subpage: Cartoons are very Serious Business. Enough to write academic essays on why they're terrible.
- Most Tropers Are Young Nerds... very easily offended young nerds eager to go off at anything that rubs them the wrong way.
- The Robot Chicken subpage: If you don't like Black Humour, you should watch shows filled with it anyway just to complain about it on the Internet.
- The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic subpage: Having hate boners of fictional characters are completely healthy.
- Discredited Trope / Dead Horse Trope: Complaining about tropes you don’t like is okay as long as you have a real or imaginary excuse for why.
- Nightmare Fuel: Don't worry, it's more than perfectly okay to read an entire page of things guaranteed to give you nightmares at night, hence the page title!
- Children can't handle anything remotely scary in movies or shows made for them. Most are too scary for adults too.
- Tropers are gigantic pansies who are afraid of their own shadows.
- Via the power of mental gymnastics, even innocent children's media can be high-grade horror!
- No Real Life Examples, Please!: You aren't allowed to say that Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, or Pol Pot were evil.
- You can never have nice pages on The Internet because people get so butt-hurt over things they disagree with.
- Poison Oak Epileptic Trees: Tropers are all sickos.
- Sugar Wiki: All good things have to have girly color schemes.
- If you aren't an edge-lord on Darth Wiki, you're apparently Barbie and friends.
- Sweeten That Aesop: People try to fish for a family friendly aesop, even when there isn't one.
- People want their media to be safe and wholesome and will delude themselves into thinking that it is no matter what.
- Troper Tales: Complaining about your life on the internet will solve all your problems.
- Bragging about being a badass makes you awesome!
- Trope Pantheons: Anime, video game and cartoon characters are all really Odd Job Gods who demand your sacrifices.
- Want to circumvent the rules on Tv Tropes? Just make a massive group-written crossover Fan Fiction.
- That Troper: You never make mistakes or do anything wrong on TV Tropes, it's always some other evil troper doing it on purpose.
- TV Tropes would be great if it was just you and maybe two other people editing it.
- Welcome to Heaven: People's idea of what Heaven is like is having their every hedonistic desire met with no effort.
- Welcome to Hell: People want to be tortured for all of eternity so badly that they'll freely give their torturers ideas how to do it.
- YMMV Only: Do not put non In-Universe examples on the main pages!... unless for some reason we let examples on these, in that case proceed to moan about shows you don't like to your heart's content.
- Ask The Tropers: There's nothing wrong with snitching on your fellow tropers for usually minor infractions or pretending you're one of the moderators.
- Zero-Context Example: Anyone who posts an example without explaining how it fits the trope doesn't know how the character or work they're talking about fits, even if the trope name is so self-explanatory that elaboration would be redundant.
- Chuck E. Cheese:
- The best middle name for your child is "Entertainment".
- Pizza Time Theatre era:
- Regularly insulting your co-stars and employees is all fine and dandy, especially if your name is over the door.
- Smoking a cigar close to small children is acceptable.
- Pizza Time Theatre era:
- The best middle name for your child is "Entertainment".
- The Rockafire Explosion:
- Breaking someone's neck is an acceptable form of punishment.
- Owning a "sidewalk surfboard" is more morally reprehensible than being a murderer.
- Smoking Crayolas is bad. Smoking Cra-Z-Art and RoseArt crayons, on the other hand, is perfectly acceptable.
- Alcoholism will eventually turn you into a Gadgeteer Genius.
- (Promotional Consideration provided by Trope Co.)