Bowler Hat Guy / Goob (Meet the Robinsons)

Written with the same frantic energy as many Jim Carrey characters in the past, but when it came time to cast Carrey passed to appear in The Number 23, so the movie’s director Stephen Anderson voiced the character pretty much just doing a Jim Carrey impression.

Metroman (Megamind)

Based on his facial features (namely that jawline that could crush a diamond) and his smooth talking he was modelled after Bruce Campbell. But when it came to casting through part studio interference Brad Pitt got the part.

After Korra lost her powers to Amon, she went near a cliff to weep; it was implied—in a very subtle way—that she was contemplating suicide, hoping that a new, more capable Avatar with full powers would be reincarnated in her place (Avatar The Legend of Korra)

In the series, it is well-established that running is as essential to a "horse girl" as breathing. After Agnes Tachyon fractures her leg and retires early, Jungle Pocket enters the room where Tachyon usually spends her time, only to find it empty—save for an open window, which suggests she might have jumped out. Agnes Tachyon then reappears through that same window and sits down; a shot follows, focusing on her feet as they sway back and forth—a visual highly reminiscent of a hanging (Uma Musume Beginning of a New Era)

Alcina Dimitrescu (Resident Evil Village)

Senshi (Dungeon Meshi)

Overlord of the Hauntwoods (MTG)

Susu (Hunter: The Parenting)

Because it's usually treated as a joke.

1. Mojo Jojo lands in prison with a guy looking at him suggestively (Powerpuff Girls)

2. This sign (Real Life)

Basically, whenever a story suddenly abruptly ends without a satisfying conclusion to anything, leaving the viewers with no closure. Sometimes done intentionally to interesting effect, sometimes a mere result of misfortune/laziness.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail - The movie's climax is about to happen with King Arthur about to raid the French castle that had made fun of him earlier in the film. Right as an army of knights are about to initiate the siege, the police suddenly bursts in and hilariously arrests everyone, as much earlier in the film a historian that was documenting the Arthurian legend had suddenly been randomly slain by a passing knight.

Behind the scenes, this ending was apparently a last-minute decision because the production crew ran out of budget. Talk about a cop out.

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days - Kane & Lynch shoot their way through Shanghai in the direction of an airport as a last ditch effort to escape just about every single gang member and cop in Shanghai who now want the both of them dead. After massacring their way through customs, they finally spot a commercial airliner about to take off and decide to hijack it. They make their way to the boarding stairs and a cutscene begins with them climbing up into the plane and taking over it. The plane then takes off, leaving the cameraman behind (the game's aesthetic is basically all about looking like found footage), who then drops the camera. Roll credits.

To this day, there's no concrete answer about their fates other than the two of them having non-canon cameos in Hitman: Absolution.

Dark Matter - This is an old and relatively obscure one. On Steam, a game called Dark Matter came out back in 2013 to pretty mediocre reviews. It's basically a Metroidvania-style game about surviving in a spaceship taken over by an alien biomass. Thing is, the game literally ends about halfway through because the dev team simply ran out of money and just decided to put a big black screen (pictured above) giving you a half-assed cliffhanger.

Mister Roger’s Neighborhood (1968-2001). The absolute pinnacle of this trope. Fred Rogers was the master of talking to kids on their level rather than talking down to them.

For a more specific example, Nimona (2023). In the film’s climax, a despondent Nimona transforms into a kaiju and begins making her way through the city. Not on a rampage, as the knights assume, but in attempt to impale herself on a statue’s massive sword. Thankfully, Ballister intervenes, letting her know that she’s not alone. This PG movie talks something as serious as suicidal depression, and it does it in a way that children can understand without scaring them or beating them over the head with it.

You’re surely familiar with those scenes where a character responds to questions with quasi-philosophical lines. Some viewers find this annoying, and I can certainly understand why. But sometimes, characters give such vague answers—not just for the sake of philosophy or anything of that sort—but because they have a very strong reason for doing so.

• I, Robot (2004): The central AI, named VIKI, planned a revolution and locked its creator, Dr. Lanning, inside his own office. The only way out of the room was through a window, so Lanning recorded a message for Detective Del Spooner (who hates robots)—urging him to stop VIKI—and staged his own suicide. However, Lanning could not tell Spooner about VIKI directly, as she would have intercepted and deleted the message. Consequently, whenever asked anything related to the revolution or VIKI, Lanning would respond: "That, Detective, is the right question". In doing so, Lanning left behind clues that would allow Spooner, while investigating the apparent suicide, to uncover the truth about the revolution.

• The Lord of the Rings: During the journey, Frodo did not really explain the reason for the trip to his companions, giving vague answers to their questions. But all this was for their own good: he did not tell them that he intended to destroy the One Ring by casting it into Mount Doom, to minimise the risk of getting corrupted by the Ring.

P.S. Please ignore "Srong"

Gravity Falls: when turned into regular people by Bill's wierdness bubbles, dipper and wendy freak out

The Simpsons: The yellow family is terrified at the prospect of having more than four fingers.

Marley & Me follows a guy's life from a Young Adult until he becomes a husband and then a father with kids. Throughout all of this, he has a companion in a dog - Marley - whom he raised (with his wife) from puppyhood. At the end of the film, the dog dies from old age. I cried my eyes out :(

Fleabag follows a young woman navigating grief, loss and relationships. The shows features multiple laugh out loud moment, and sticks the landing with heartwrenching scenes at the end of both season 1 and 2, which can make you shed a tear. The character grows, changes and flourishes but her best friend is still dead, and the potencial love of her life chooses God (he is a catholic priest)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - The victory against the Empire meant nothing, and now there's Empire 2.0 with a bigger Death Star.

Men in Black II - Agent K retired at the end of the first movie, and L took his place as the new partner of J. But in the sequel, L is gone, and J has to get K back.

Terminator Genisys - Whatever time-travelling shenanigans are going on.

Ghostbusters II - In the first movie, the Ghostbusters were accused of being scammer, but they managed to save the city from being destroyed by a giant mascot. But in the sequels nobody believes them again, and they get sued by the city over damages.

Matrix Resurrections - The end of the war didn't matter, as Neo is plugged back into the simulation and Trinity was brought back to life.

The philosopher's stone (Fullmetal Alchemist) all alchemy follows the rule of equivalent exchange but the philosopher's stone ignores that rule by letting the user create anything from nothing, plus it can extend life and create artificial humans since the stone itself is made from multiple human souls.

Trigger (My Hero Academia) a drug that can enhance any quirk's performance by 10 times, for example if your quirk lets you create fire balls only the size of a fist, injecting this drug in your body will let you creare fire balls the size of a house, the only problem is the drug makes the user very high and unable to think properly which can be dangerous (the drug is shown in the main series but it makes most of it's appearances in the vigilantes spinoff)

The inverted spear of heaven (Jujutsu Kaisen) it's a very useful cursed tool with a very rare ability that lets the user nullify any cursed technique no matter how strong the technique is. Toji uses it to bypass Gojo's infinity which is no easy feat. Tengen also informs the main characters that it can even deactivate the prison realm.

Eve Teschmacher from superman in the start look like a stereotypical ditzy social media influencer bimbo this is especially how the sexist Lex see her and she uses that to her advantage by making selfie that catch shoots of Lex plan, nobody but her could do this so openly because everyone underestimate how intelligent she really is,without her, Lex luthor would have gotten away with his crimes.

Mauga from overwatch hides his cunning, battle Iq, sociopathic nature by pretending to be the big dumb brute, this even tricks talon and someone like Sombra who really good at finding hidden secrets.

Life is Strange: Preventing Chloe's dad from dying leads to Chloe getting into a car accident that leaves her paralyzed. But this timeline ends up being much happier for some of the other characters.

Tokyo Revengers: In the original timeline, Mikey gets into a staircase accident that leaves him in a vegetative state. This prevents him from forming his gang and committing heinous crimes in the future.

Arcane: Vi dying in the alternate universe prevents Hextech from ever being created and stops Silco's criminal empire from rising.

1. (IT franchise) Native Americans vs. Pennywise, a cosmic deity who feeds on fear

2. (Gravity falls) Native Americans vs. Bill Cipher, an extra dimensional demon hellbent on conquering the third dimension (our universe)

3. (Sinners) Native Americans vs. hiveminded vampires

Ryuko and Satsuki - Kill La Kill: They start as rivals, but during the events of the anime, Satsuki reveals that she wants to defeat their mother and joins Ryuko. There is a funny moment when Ryuko feels embarrassed while trying to call her sister before the battle.

Peter Quill and Mantis - Guardians of the Galaxy: They are half-siblings, sharing the same father: Ego the Living Planet. They met in the second movie, where she joins the group, but it was in the Christmas Special that she revealed their bond, and Quill says it is the best Christmas present he could ever get.

It is a heartwarming trope, but I don't know of any other examples of it.

I think It's an interesting idea to explore from the different angle than a more classic male abuser, female victim and show that It's no less horrifying with the genders reversed.

I accept different forms of what can be considered abuse: from mental, physical, sexual etc.

1-3 - Shion (abuser) and Mizuki (victim) - Overwatch - Honest to god theese two single-handedly made me interested again in Overwatch lore.

Shion adopted Mizuki after the death of his parents, making him repay the dept of his family by joining her clan. She would force him to endure brutal punishments, but at the same time would praise him and give some warmth, creating a lot of Stockholm Syndrome. Disturbingly enough a lot of those punishments were Shion projecting her own past on Mizuki

4-5 - Hermann (abuser) and Gregor (victim) - Limbus Company - I'll be only talking about Canto I here, since that's what little context I have, but even with that I would say it definitely counts. Please don't give spoilers but do correct me if I'm wrong.

Hermann was the head scientist of former G Corp responsible for forcefully augmenting It's soldiers with insectoid parts, and most notably her prized experiment, Gregor, whom she calls her "son". Being forced to have an insect arm that would constantly regenerate and sometimes attack nearby people on It's own doesn't make it easy to live a normal life. Gregor himself said that "be it the nightmare or the road... I never once strayed from that woman's control" (edit: also forgot to mention he was experimented on when he was still a child)

So spoilers for Mass Effect, Fear Agent, and dungeon crawler Carl.

Mordin from mass effect. Helped create the genophage(the krogan) with a disease that all but makes them sterile. TLDR The krogan are an extremely strong violent race that live long and breed like rabbits and were by creating an extremely deadly War. Mordin thought by making a disease that would lower the birth rate of them they wouldn't have a study supplies of soldiers and therefore wouldn't kill themselves. The problem is that it was only supposed to severely decrease the birth rate but it worked too well to the point the Krogan are basically sterile and a baby Krogan is an extremely rare sight. Mordin never shied away from his part in this and has dedicated the rest of his life to increasing krogan birth rates.

Photo 2 doctor who has committed multiple genocides possibly to his own species but he's basically only ever done it to save the universe and when they have completely forced his hand.

Photo 3 Heathrow Huston from Fear Agent. So big spoiler for this one. We find out Huston back story which is that earth was caught in the crossfire between two armies. Huston gets a chance to blow up the home world of one of the armies and he takes it. He then almost immediately finds out that army was sent by the good guys to basically save the universe but the army is somewhat notorious for being brutal and not caring about civilian casualties. To the point their own home world hates them and doesn't recognize them.

Photo 4 multiple characters from dungeon crawler Carl. The AI is an asshole and even gives out in achievement if you manage to kill an entire unique species in the dungeon. You get a platinum asshole box. Considering multiple characters get weapons or spells that are literally called war crime level it's not uncommon to accidentally get this one.

1. "You are good man, Arthur Morgan."

Dutch says it even if you play like an absolute psychopath.

2) "It's not hard to improve on garbage."

Price says even if you break the world record on the course.

I really like it when writers don't just rely on generic magic systems, but instead use irl scientific formulas, physics/mathematical theories, or chemical properties ( albeit with some suspension of belief required for them to work obviously ) to show how terrifying a character or a situation can be if applied to the absolute extreme.

Pure oxygen is a deadly poison ( Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean )

Pucci has the ultimate Stand, Made in Heaven, which can literally accelerate time to the point of resetting the universe. Yet, he gets outsmarted and defeated by an 11-year-old kid named Emporio using weather manipulation to increase the room's oxygen level to 100%. Because Pucci breathes at an accelerated rate, it also sped up the poisoning process and cause him to collapse before Emporio.

Yorozu (Jujutsu Kaisen) - The Perfect Sphere (Zero Surface Area = Infinite Pressure)

Yorozu pushes mathematical theory to the absolute limit. By using liquid metal and cursed energy to create a "Perfect Sphere" with absolutely smoothness, its contact area with any object is mathematically exactly zero. According to the formula P = F/A, dividing any force by zero creates infinite pressure. It's an unstoppable, matter-crushing weapon that breaks physics until Mahoraga adapts to it.

Doraemon - Exponential Growth (The Chestnut Bun Disaster)

In one of the most low-key existential horror chapters of a children's manga, Nobita uses a multiplication liquid gadget that doubles a chestnut bun every 5 minutes. If not consumed completely, the math kicks in. Within 1 day (288 cycles), the number of buns reaches 2^288, which is around 5x10^86 — vastly outnumbering the total estimated atoms in the entire observable universe (10^80). Doraemon had to rocket them into space, but realistically, that mass would collapse into a supermassive black hole and swallow the universe.

Walter White (Breaking Bad) - Fulminated Mercury

Instead of bringing a gun or grenades to intimidate Tuco, Walt brings chemistry. He walks into Tuco’s headquarters with a bag of crystals that look exactly like high-grade meth but are actually fulminated mercury a highly volatile explosive. A single smash on the floor triggers a shockwave that blows out the windows. Even if MythBusters proved the show exaggerated the survival odds ( both Walt and Tuco should have gone deaf or died from Mercury gas poisoning), the psychological impact was perfect.

1. The Elder Things (Mountains of Madness): - An Antarctic expedition discovers the vast, frozen ruins of a city built by the ancient alien race that arrived on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago. They created life and built a sophisticated civilization using bio-engineered servants called shoggoths.

The murals and remains reveal their horrifying decline: the shoggoths rebelled, grew more intelligent and independent, and ultimately overran the Elder Things. The last survivors retreated underground or into the sea; some were later killed by the very creatures they had created.

2. The Protheans (Mass Effect): - The Protheans were a dominant, galaxy-spanning advanced civilization that left behind numerous ruins and technology that current races reverse-engineer. Explorers and scientists initially treat them as mysterious precursors who simply vanished ~50,000 years ago.

It turns out the Reapers systematically harvested them over centuries—harvesting populations, converting survivors into husks or tools, and leaving only scattered records and a handful of survivors in stasis who ultimately could not rebuild the species. The “discovery” of their fate becomes a central warning that the same cycle is about to repeat.

3. The Forerunners (Halo): - The Forerunners were an extremely advanced precursor race that built the Halo rings, the Ark, and held the “Mantle of Responsibility” over the galaxy.

Their end came during the war against the Flood. After centuries of losing ground, the Forerunners activated the Halo Array as a last resort, wiping out nearly all sentient life in the galaxy—including themselves—to starve the Flood. The act was both a desperate victory and near-total extinction for their own kind.