Title: Theory / Unimportant / Art / Writting / TVtrope / Trope
Tags: examplesSwitchExample1 hasSeenConjDef

Name: Fridge horror
Definition: When something becomes terrifying after the fact.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror
Example: Frozen-by-time
Example2: Quickthaw
Example3: The fear Harry learns when he sees what kind of proper protections he should have had in place when doing transfiguration/science experiments with Hermione.
Applied to3: HPMOR

Name: Frozen-by-time
Definition: As a young one, you are too young to comprehend the Nightmare Fuel right before your eyes, but as an older person, you immediately wonder how you got through it unscarred.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror

Name: Quickthaw
Definition: The Nightmare Fuel isn't there until you take a good, long, deep thought and think about it.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror

Name: Fridge logic
Definition: some illogical or implausible plot point that the audience doesn't realize during the show, but only long afterwards
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror
Name2: Popcorn logic
Intuition: Half an hour after the show is over, a random viewer is staring into his refrigerator, vaguely bemused by the fact that his six-pack of beer has somehow become a two-pack of beer.
Name3: refrigerator door question

Name: Jellybean moment
Definition: Fridge logic in SF
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror

Name: Headscratchers
Definition: section where you can put all those nagging questions that have had you scratching your head about various stories.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror
Context: tvtrope

Name: Wild mass guessing
Definition: silly pet theory on a story you enjoyed?
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror
Context: tvtrope

Name: fanon
Definition: the set of theories based on that material which, although they generally seem to be the "obvious" or "only" interpretation of canonical fact, are not actually part of the canon.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeHorror
Context: tvtrope
Definition2: the body of information provided by otherwise-official sources
Conjdef: Either
Etymology: fan canon

Name: Word of God
Definition: stuff the primary creators have said is true about their universe, even though it's not in the actual work.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfDante
Context: tvtrope

Name: Word of Saint Paul
Definition: stuff that the secondary creators (such as major actors in a movie) have said, or
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfDante
Context: tvtrope
Definition2: stuff that those with close connections to the secondary or primary creators (such as close friends or family members) have said.
Conjdef: Either

Name: Deuterocanonicity
Definition: stuff that neither the creators nor anyone remotely involved with the work has said is true about their universe — but everyone assumes it is true because an independent authority, scholar of the work, Big Name Fan, or the creator of an adaptation has said it — often with supporting arguments
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfDante
Context: tvtrope
Name2: Word of Dante

Name: Getting jossed
Definition: the elaborate Epileptic Trees or Fanfic that we have lovingly built upon canonical elements is abruptly disproved by further canon or Word of God
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Jossed
Definition2: gutwrenching main character death
Conjdef: Either
Etymology: Joss Whedon used to do this a lot in his shows

Name: Death of the author
Definition: an author's intentions and biographical facts (the author's politics, religion, etc) should hold no weight in determining an interpretation of their writing
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeathOfTheAuthor
Definition2: a writer's views about their own work are no more or less valid than the interpretations of any given reader
Intuition: Books are meant to be read, not written, so the ways readers interpret them are as important and "real" as the author's intention

Name: Author existence failure
Definition: Autor die before completing their work
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AuthorExistenceFailure
Definition2: a writer's views about their own work are no more or less valid than the interpretations of any given reader

Name: postmodernism
Definition: philosophy of questioning everything in general
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Postmodernism
Definition2: In storytelling: largely a questioning on the nature of narrative and plot and characterization.

Name: Applicability
Definition: the story simply happened to be comparable and applicable to many Real Life issues.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Postmodernism
Context: tvTrope

Name: Fatal method acting
Definition: A performer dies suddenly while on the job.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FatalMethodActing
Context: tvTrope

Name: Value resonance
Definition: The fact that some things, created years or centuries ago, resonate with today's concern
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ValuesResonance
Context: tvTrope

Name: Laconic subpage
Definition: brief statements describing the core idea of the page they are attached to.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LaconicWiki
Context: tvTrope

Name: Fridge brillance
Definition: When something makes a lot of sens afterward
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeBrilliance
Context: tvTrope

Name: rewatch bonus
Definition: where the creators show off just how much work they put into writing the story! You just happened to miss it the first time through because there were bigger things drawing your attention.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RewatchBonus
Context: tvTrope
Example: Dumbledore explains basically everything he knows about the plot in his first meeting with Harry, and calls Harry's ultimate fate as being not a hero, but a very young Wise Old Wizard. He just intentionally fills it with nonsense to keep Harry from noticing. You can also tell the exact moment when he figures out that Harry is basically a good Voldemort after the Incident at Potions.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Hilarious/funny in hindsight/retrospect
Definition: when a later event, such as a current event or something that happened in the series, is funnier than it originally was
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HilariousInHindsight
Context: tvTrope
Name2: Life imitating Art
Name3: reverse funny

Name: Have a gay old time
Definition: This trope occurs when "language drift"—natural changes in the common vocabulary—causes a word or phrase originally intended as wholly innocuous to be potentially taken as startling, confusing or just plain funny in a different time or place
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HaveAGayOldTime
Context: tvTrope

Name: "Funny Aneurysm" Moment
Definition: when a scene, joke, or offhand line that was originally meant to be funny or lighthearted becomes cringeworthy due to the unfortunate and/or traumatic events in future
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FunnyAneurysmMoment
Context: tvTrope
Etymology: Buffy hopes that her mother will have "a funny aneurysm" when she sees the cost of Buffy's college textbooks. This would come back to bite her in the next season.

Name: Heartwarming in Hindsight
Definition: Some event happens in a work, and then a later event, in either another work or Real Life (often through Reality Subtext or Life Imitates Art), comes along and makes that first event give you warm and fuzzy feelings.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeartwarmingInHindsight
Context: tvTrope

Name: It makes sense in context
Definition: a phrase to use when describing a complicated story point, because really, a person does not need to hear the history of Star Trek from the beginning to understand the use of a trope.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItMakesSenseInContext
Context: tvTrope

Name: A rare sentence
Definition: when odd conditions prompt someone to say something utterly crazy-sounding, and someone else (usually the local Deadpan Snarker) comments that "I doubt that's ever been said before" or "Now there's a sentence that doesn't get used much", or similar.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ARareSentence
Context: tvTrope

Name: Stock phrases
Definition: a line of dialogue which get repeated very often in different fictional works, but always carrying the same meaning each and every time they're used. In many cases, they will only be uttered in a specific situation, and often with the same exact words each time.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StockPhrases?from=Main.StockPhrase
Context: tvTrope
Example: In lampshade-heavy works, may be followed with "I Always Wanted to Say That".
Name2: Trite Phrases

Name: the Geryon Principle
Definition: the writers' trick of dealing with any element of the story that threatens the audience's Willing Suspension of Disbelief, whether a very implausible plot development, or a particularly blatant use of a trope, by calling attention to it and simply moving on.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging
Context: tvTrope
Name2: Lampshade hanging/spotlighting it/hanging a lantern on it
Etymology: Geryon come from Dante, stating that its true story is really fantastical
Name3: Hanging a red flag (in film industry)
Abbreviation2: Lampshading

Name: Genre blindness
Definition: A condition afflicting many fictional characters, seen when one demonstrates by their behavior that they have never in their life ever seen the kind of story they're in, and thus have none of the reactions a typical audience member would have in the same situation.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GenreBlindness
Context: tvTrope
Definition2: Worse, they are unable to learn from any experiences related to their genre.

Name: Necessary weasel
Definition: The fact that some trope is mandatory in a genre
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NecessaryWeasel
Context: tvTrope

Name: Medium awareness
Definition: the characters acknowledge and interact with elements and conventions of the medium that shouldn't technically "exist" in-universe
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MediumAwareness
Context: tvTrope

Name: pun
Definition: a form of word play where a word with more than one meaning is exploited to make a joke based on this double meaning.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Pun
Context: tvTrope
Name2: play on words

Name: Don't Explain the Joke
Definition: explaining the punchline of a joke just makes it not funny, whether or not it would be otherwise
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DontExplainTheJoke
Context: tvTrope

Name: Allegory
Definition: a work that's designed to be a metaphor for something else
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Allegory
Context: tvtrope
Example: "Alice and Bob had tea together", but in actuality, Alice represents Capitalism, Bob represents Communism, and the "tea" is actually a meeting of the UN.

Name: Anvilicious
Definition: a writer's and/or director's use of an artistic element, be it line of dialogue, visual motif, or plot point, to so unsubtly convey a particular message that they may as well etch it onto an anvil and drop it on your head.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anvilicious
Context: tvtrope
Etymology: portmanteau of anvil and delicious

Name: Author Filibuster
Definition: where the plot stops dead in its tracks to give the author an opportunity to preach their message to the readers or audience, often very political or ethical in nature
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AuthorFilibuster
Context: tvtrope
Example: John Galt's monologue

Name: Writer on board
Definition: Obvious authorial intrusion. When the characters start behaving like idiots or acting against their established characterization because the writer damn well needs them to in order to tell the story in a particular way, often to make a point. Who cares if the characters become less believable as a result?
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WriterOnBoard
Context: tvtrope

Name: Author avatar
Definition: A fictionalized version of an author who appears as a character in the events of the story is often called upon to comment upon the situation, deliver the author's verdict, and possibly break the Fourth Wall in a self-deprecating fashion
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AuthorAvatar
Context: tvtrope
Name2: Raisonneur

Name: Straight Man
Definition: Person who set up the joke so the funny guy can deliver the punchline.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StraightMan
Context: tvtrope
Name2: comedic foil

Name: Sanity ball
Definition: When characters on the same show take turns being the Only Sane Man or Straight Man, but only one of them is sane at a time
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SanityBall
Context: tvtrope

Name: The Comically Serious
Definition: A character which remains so serious in an embarrassing, undignified, or just plain bizarre situations that it becomes comic
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheComicallySerious
Context: tvtrope

Name: Deadpan Snarker
Definition: A character prone to gnomic, sarcastic, sometimes bitter, occasionally whimsical asides. They can vary wildly from rare, funny one-liners to complete obnoxiousness.
Page: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadpanSnarker
Context: tvtrope

Name: A canon sue
Definition: A professional work in which a canonical character already has the attributes of a MarySue/MartyStu.
Context: tvtrope
Definition2: A Possession Sue.
Conjdef: a MarySue/MartyStu who happens to be a canonical character. This could be one of two things

Name: Possesion sue
Definition: A fanfiction where the author consider themself as a character
Context: tvtrope

Name: Ship-to-Ship Combat
Definition: verbal arguments between people with different opinions about romantic relationships between fictional characters
Context: tvtrope
Name2: Shipping Wars.

Name: Accidental Innuendo
Definition: thanks to poor word choice, unusual inflection, bad object placement or some other factor, what was obviously meant to be taken at face value takes on some sexual subtext
Context: tvtrope

Name: Getting Crap Past the Radar
Definition: instances in which a writer, artist or other creator sneaks inappropriate content — stuff that would be shocking not only to the Media Watchdogs and Moral Guardians, but to everyone else — into their material, either by hiding it as a kind of Easter Egg or by using implication or allusion rather than stating it straight out.
Context: tvtrope
Example: Dumbledore has an instrument that counts the, ah, "sneezes" of left-handed witches within the borders of France.^note Pro tip: sneeze is code for orgasm. Though, the radar was for the sake of Harry himself.

Name: Parental bonus
Definition: A joke on a children's TV show that children of the appropriate age would likely never get, but which their parents would.
Context: tvtrope
Example: Homage to a movie or TV show that children would not normally be familiar with.

Name: Genius bonus
Definition: A joke or tidbit meant for people knowledgeable in a certain field. The rest of the audience doesn't get it, but it's usually subtle enough for them not to care.
Context: tvtrope

Name: No Celebrities Were Harmed
Definition: Were a character is a parody/hommage of a celebrity
Context: tvtrope

Name: exported character
Definition: a character from one series who is unambiguously and deliberately based on a character in another, older series
Context: tvtrope
Abbreviation: Expy

Name: Shout-Out
Definition: (a name, line of dialogue, or prop) in a show that refers to fans or family members of the cast or crew, or to another source of inspiration.
Context: tvtrope
Name2: allusions

Name: Spiritual Successor
Definition: a type of sequel that is not part of the same world or story as its predecessor, but is nonetheless considered to be a successor because it's made by the same creators; shares common themes, styles, or elements; or, most likely, both. In other words, it's a sequel "in spirit".
Context: tvtrope
Example: creators are unable to retain the rights to their original work, which makes a direct sequel impossible

Name: Captain Ersatz
Definition: This character's design is a mix of legal issues and homage.
Context: tvtrope
Example: Japanese Man 1: Run! It's Godzilla!
Japanese Man 2: It looks like Godzilla, but due to international copyright laws, it's not.
Japanese Man 1: Still, we should run like it is Godzilla!
Japanese Man 2: ...though it isn't. [winks at camera]
— Austin Powers in Goldmember
Etymology: a person who wants to write Captain Original, but can't because a rival comic company owns the trademark, will create Captain Ersatz.

Name: Bland-Name Product
Definition: When you want to refer to a well-known brand name, but the legal department is advising you to avoid using trademarks in your show, you can just change a few letters around to thinly disguise the brand name (Coca-Cola → Coke Colan) or snowclone the name (Dr Pepper → Mr Topper) or use the same color scheme.
Context: tvtrope

Name: Composite Character
Definition: Creating a character out of two or more characters.
Context: tvtrope
Example: An adaptation, where we want to lower the number of character of a real life/other story event
Example2: HPMOR: McGonagall takes part of Canon's Hagrid and Dumbledore

Name: Copy Cat Sue
Definition: A character marked by uncanny resemblance to a canon character
Context: tvtrope

Name: Sailor earth
Definition: Inserting a new character in a hierarchy, in order to blend the canon instead of breaking it.
Context: tvtrope

Name: Alternate Company Equivalent
Definition: When two author create simultaneously very similar characters (same superpower, same name, job...)
Context: tvtrope

Name: Lawyer-Friendly Cameo
Definition: Having a very famous character doing a cameo in another comic/anime
Context: tvtrope

Name: Brand X
Definition: A brand without name, or with a single letter name
Context: tvtrope

Name: Product Displacement
Definition: Removing the name of a product from the image to avoid doing free product placement
Context: tvtrope

Name: Denied parody
Definition: When a creator specifically denies that it made a parody whereas it is clear that it is one
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeniedParody

Name: Defying the censors
Definition: When an artist present his art to censor bureau's face
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeniedParody

Name: Aborted arc
Definition: When a Story Arc disappears off the face of the storyline without warning, never to be heard from again.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AbortedArc
Example: HPMOR: Harry's quest to find the real rules of magic experimentally disappears less than a third of the way into the story.

Name: Angrish
Definition: A character is so angry, pissed off, or shocked that he or she is literally unable to form a coherent sentence. Other strong emotions are sufficient to render a person unable to speak proper English (or whatever language is being spoken at the time), but shock, anger, and pure rage are the most common. GYAAARRRRGH! It usually takes a little while for him or her to recover, at which point he or she explodes into rage normally.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Angrish
Example: HPMOR: Harry is physically and mentally incapable of speaking after seeing a Quibbler headline proclaiming that he has gotten Malfoy pregnant.

Name: Abusive parents
Definition: Parents are supposed to be the protectors of children, but these parents are either so damaged themselves that they can't do the job, greedy or villainous to the point that they never had any interest in doing the job properly, or would rather use the child as a means to an end. Sometimes they're just sadistic assholes.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AbusiveParents
Example: Harry Potter
Counterexample: HPMOR: mentionned but avorted

Name: Academy of Adventure
Definition: A school where adventure abounds, weirdness is everywhere, and anything that could happen, will happen. Teachers turning out to be villains, strange beings stalking the school grounds, random (or maybe not so random) students getting kidnapped while the Unlikely Hero has to chase after them... Never a dull day, no matter how boring the classes are.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AcademyOfAdventure
Example: Harry Potter and HPMOR

Name: Action girl
Definition: a female badass who is tough and kicks butt.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ActionGirl
Example: Hermione, with her SPHEW
Example2: Dagny Taggart

Name: Adaptive ability
Definition: An enemy whose power is to adapt to any power used against it.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdaptiveAbility
Example: HPMOR: Quirrel's rule

Name: Adults are useless
Definition: In some shows that revolve around teenagers, preteens, or younger children, adults can't do anything right
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdultsAreUseless
Example: HPMOR: Hermione must act to stop bullying
Counterexample: HPMOR: Harry decide to speak of chamber of secret to McGonagall

Name: An Aesop
Definition: The episode ends with a moral
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnAesop
Example: each chapter
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Ain't Too Proud to Beg
Definition: when the hero of his own accord begs for mercy, or bows, kneels, cowers, or does pretty much anything covered under Kneel Before Zod
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AintTooProudToBeg
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell feels this is an important quality to instill in Harry.

Name: Alien Geometries
Definition: A world whose geometry is not the same than the ours
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlienGeometries
Example: HP: Hogwarts, everywhere

Name: Alternative Character Interpretation
Definition: When a character is subject to multiple interpretations about precisely who they are and what makes them tick.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlternativeCharacterInterpretation
Example: HPMOR: Draco's internal thoughts make references to stories and plays which are obviously versions of Death Note, Gargoyles, and Thunder Cats, with the heroes portrayed as villains and vice versa.

Name: Always Save the Girl
Definition: The hero makes it plain that they value the life of their Love Interest over those of everyone else: friends, family, True Companions, strangers, even all other life in the universe.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlwaysSaveTheGirl
Example: result of a Sadistic Choice, only having enough time to rescue one person out of several, a case of the Dulcinea Effect, or whatever other requirements the plot puts in their way and plainly making a decision.
Counterexample: HPMOR: Quirrell offer to save live of everyone except Hermione

Name: Always Someone Better
Definition: The character who is the best-of-the-best with a supporting cast that Can't Catch Up comes across someone even better than them; someone more powerful than the Super Hero, or more skilled than the ninja, or smarter than The Professor, or richer and more important than the rich important guy, or a better banjo player than the master banjo player, etc.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AlwaysSomeoneBetter
Example: Harry for Hermione and vice-versa
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Ambiguous disorder
Definition: This character's behaviour is bizarrely outside the norm — it's way beyond mere ordinary quirkiness. No reasons are given for the strange behaviour. No specific diagnosis is ever mentioned in the story. In fact, any resemblance to any real disorder is likely accidental; the character's symptoms are exactly those symptoms the writer wants them to have.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmbiguousDisorder
Example: HPMOR: Hermione seems very socially inept in her first appearance. She thinks that reading a book is inviting people to talk to her.

Name: Ambiguous Situation
Definition: A certain situation is so ambiguous that the viewers/readers can't know for sure what's going on.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmbiguousSituation
Example: HPMOR: It's not clear what is Quirrel exactly

Name: Ambiguous Syntax
Definition: A simple statement becomes a bit of wordplay caused by an unclear modifier.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmbiguousSyntax
Example: HPMOR: When Harry asks McGonagall if the prophecy mentioned the Potter family by name, she says "No". She means "No, I'm not answering that question", but he interprets it as "No, the prophecy did not use a name". Which puts McGonagall in a bit of a bind, because it's true.
Name2: syntactic ambiguity
Example2: A cries "X!" referring to seeing an X approaching, but B interprets it as the answer to his preceding rhetorical question.
Example3: Literal genie are used to play of words
Name3: squinting construction

Name: Anachronic order
Definition: One step further than Back to Front, the story order and the chronological order are not directly related at all. Either the storyline jumps back and forth along the timeline, or portions of the story are re-told along a period of time already covered.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnachronicOrder
Context: TV trope
Example: HPMOR: ch 24 and 25: acts 3, 2, 1, 5, 6 and 4

Name: And That's Terrible
Definition: When the bad guy's acts are unquestionably evil, but the show's writers feel the need to have characters or the narrator say this out loud.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AndThatsTerrible
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell stating that Defense official course is terrible

Name: Anti-Hero
Definition: a protagonist who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero. They may be bewildered, ineffectual, deluded, or merely apathetic. More often an antihero is just an amoral misfit.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiHero
Example: HPMOR: Harry almost destroy the world

Name: Anti-Magic
Definition: The ability to completely negate magic or other supernatural effects.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiHero
Example: HPMOR: Azkaban's force field prevents magical travel crossing its border. Quirrell seems able to nullify spells coming his way, too.
Example2: White magic fail, and you can't be healed
Example3: Kryptonite-proof suit

Name: Anyone Can Die
Definition: where no one is exempt from being killed, including pets, children, the elderly, even the main characters (maybe even the hero!)
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnyoneCanDie
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore, Hermione, Flanel die

Name: Arbitrary Skepticism
Definition: the tendency of characters who deal with the strange and bizarre on a daily basis to dismiss anything "strange" off-hand rather than consider that, in light of everything else they've seen and experienced, a "fantastic" explanation really isn't that far-fetched.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArbitrarySkepticism
Example: HPMOR: doubt soul and after life and philosopher's stone
Intuition: used to define the extent of the fantasy of the world
Counterexample: HPMOR: When Harry claims that he managed to create a plothole in reality in chapter 17 and gets called out by Dean Thomas, Harry points out that they're in the middle of a broomstick lesson and tells him to shut up.

Name: Armor-Piercing Question
Definition: A single question, well phrased and well timed, can collapse a person's mental defenses and throw their entire worldview into doubt.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArmorPiercingQuestion
Example: HPMOR: The Sorting Hat tries to deliver one to Harry: "What happens if you fail?" But even though it goes on to spell out the answer, Harry still refuses to hear it.
Intuition: Socratic method taken to its extreme
Example3: Detective Del Spooner: Robots don't feel fear. They don't feel anything. They don't eat, they don't sleep...
Sonny: I do. I have even had dreams.
Detective Del Spooner: Human beings have dreams. Even dogs have dreams. But not you. You are just a machine. An imitation of life. Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?
Sonny: ...can you?
— I, Robot

Name: Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking
Definition: When listing three or more things, the comedy rule is to not finish strong, but to list some strong examples followed by a very weak example, for the funny.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking
Example: HPMOR: Harry reels from the current understanding of physics being completely undermined by Animorphism, but takes a moment to disdainfully lampshade the Canis Latinicus of Wingardium Leviosa.

Name: Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving
Definition: Long list of bad thing, ended by an exceptional good one
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndLifesaving
Example: "I've heard a great deal about you, Fa Mulan. You stole your father's armor, ran away from home, impersonated a soldier, deceived your commanding officer, dishonored the Chinese Army, destroyed my palace, and... you have saved us all."
— The Emperor, Mulan
Example2: In any Cop Show where the protagonist is a Cowboy Cop especially prone to causing mayhem in the process of catching the bad guys, episodes will often end with their boss dragging them into their office. Da Chief will then proceed to go down the Long List of regulations the Cowboy Cop has bent or broken, capping the list with the one heroic thing they did that will make the boss give them a begrudging congratulations instead of the axe.
Example3: HPMOR: The Weasley twins think they are going to be expelled after disobeying orders and helping Harry try to save Hermione. In fact they are commended for their actions.

Name: Ascended Extra
Definition: A minor character who is given a greatly expanded role in the later part of the series, a new adaptation of a story, or in the Expanded Universe.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AscendedExtra
Example: Some characters with only background roles in the original series have much more fleshed out parts, most notably Blaise Zabini. All members of S.P.H.E.W. have much more fleshed out motivations than in the original series. Amelia Bones is probably the most significant adult example.

Name: Ask a stupid question
Definition: When a character asks to confirm something which is obvious
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AskAStupidQuestion
Example: Mr. Tweedy: Oooh, that's champion, that is... What is it?
Mrs. Tweedy: It's a pie machine, you idiot. Chickens go in; pies come out.
Mr. Tweedy: Oh, what kind of pies?
Mrs. Tweedy: Apple.
Mr. Tweedy: (excitedly) My favourite!
Mrs. Tweedy: Chicken pies, you great lummox!
Example3: HPMOR: "Seriously, who reads this stuff?" "You."
Example4: When Bellatrix Black incredulously says, "I'm... alive...?", Harry is tempted to say, "No" just to see the reaction.

Name: Atlantis
Definition: The fabled lost Utopia (or dystopia), often described as sinking due to man's hubris and descent into decadence
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Atlantis
Etymology: Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, where it is a sort of thought experiment related to his visions of the ideal society. In this original version it was an all-conquering empire only successfully resisted by his ideal Athens, which was destroyed in the same cataclysm.

Name: Author Tract
Definition: When the point of writing is not to shape worlds or create characters, but to preach their ideological beliefs.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AuthorTract
Example2: HPMOR; Atlas Shrugged

Name: Doorstopper
Definition: A common literary term that refers to a book being so thick and heavy that it can be used as its name indicate
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Doorstopper
Example2: HPMOR would be 1900 page long

Name: Crosses the Line Twice
Definition: So many pain accumulate that it become ridiculous, thus funny
Example: Kyle: Dude, why is your store called The Indian Burial Ground Pet Store?
Shop Owner: Well, there was an Indian burial ground here before I bought it.
Stan: So you just built your store on top of Indian burial ground?!
Shop Owner: Oh, hell no! First, I dug up all the bodies, pissed on 'em, and then buried them again upside-down.
Kyle: Why?
Shop Owner: Why? I don't know. I was drunk!
— South Park

Name: Awesome, but Impractical
Definition: awesome, powerful, unstoppable... but not as useful as it might seem (if it's useful at all).
Page: Crosses the Line Twice
Example2: HPMOR: Ligth saber spell in melee combat, since its hard to qury them
Example3: All of Harry's idea to fight war game.

Name: Back from the Dead
Definition: A major character, possibly even a popularly nasty Big Bad, has been killed, pronounced dead and buried. However, the established laws of the universe allow for Functional Magic, a Sufficiently Advanced Alien, Applied Phlebotinum, Deus ex Machina or similar agency to intervene and subvert what naturally follows dying. Namely, staying dead. (In some cases, an explanation isn't even bothered with.)
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BackFromTheDead
Example: Ghost, vampire, zombi
Example2: Reincarnated
Example3: HPMOR: Narcissa
Example4: HPMOR: Hermione

Name: First Law of Resurrection
Definition: "If the creator wants to bring back a dead character, then that character will come back."
Name2: "Comic book death"

Name: Contractual Immortality
Definition: When the viewer knows a death is false because it would contradict information from outside of the story
Example: George: No, wait, I've got it! Quick, stand next to me!
Proto Man: Why?
George: My name's in the title of the comic! I can't die!
— Bob and George
Example2: In television, actors have contracts, and if an actor's contract ends we probably would have heard that the actor has quit or been fired long before any on-screen death.

Name: Badass Army
Definition: Army made of 100% badasses and there is absolutely nothing that can stop them short of overwhelming numbers or some similar army
Example: HPMOR: First year armies

Name: Badass Boast
Definition: A character boasting with class
Example2: "My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!"
— Smaug the Tremendous, The Hobbit
Example3: HPMOR: "I make you this one offer," said the Boy-Who-Lived. "I never learn that you've been interfering with me or any of mine. And you never find out why the unkillable soul-eating monster is scared of me. Now sit down and shut up."

Name: Badass fingersnap
Definition: When a character needs to do something impressive, they'll often do it with a snap of their fingers.
Example: HPMOR: Most of the students in Hogwarts think that Harry Potter can do anything by snapping his fingers.

Name: Bag of holdings
Definition: A specific portable item which is Bigger on the Inside than it is on the outside
Example: Marry Poppins' bag
Example2: HPMOR: trunk and bag

Name: Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults
Definition: The usual set up for this goes like so: Alex is doing his business in a stall, when who should walk in but Charlie and Bob. Both of them start trash-talking Alex.
Example: HPMOR: Hermione overhears girls talking about her in the shower. They're not really insulting, but it causes Hermione to realize that she's becoming nothing but a side character for the extravagant life of Harry Potter.

Name: Batman gambit
Definition: A plan that revolves entirely around people doing exactly what you'd expect them to do
Example: HPMOR: The Philosopher's Stone is hidden in Hogwarts because Voldemort tricked Flamel into believing that he had a method of locating it infallibly, when in fact he had nothing of the sort and just wanted it to be moved to a known location.

Name: Beat Them at Their Own Game
Definition: Our hero is really in a pickle this time. The latest villain uses a unique weapon, technique or tactic which beats anything else the hero can do. So how does the hero get out of this? By using the same tactic himself!
Example: HPMOR: Draco's learning «rationality»

Name: Beneath the Mask
Definition: When a character reveal what he really thinks, instead of its socially accepted mask.
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore is very aware of the consequences of his decisions to win the next war.
Example2: HPMOR: Harry's darkside

Name: Being Good Sucks
Definition: Showing that doing the right thing doesn't always feel good, is hard to pull off, can be painful, sometimes even harmful, to yourself and others.
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore has a room for the death he caused
Example2: HPMOR: Voldemort tried both side and found bad is funnier

Name: Berserk Button
Definition: A minor trigger always enraging a character
Example: HPMOR: Don't imply Harry's adoptive parents are abusive.

Name: Beyond the Impossible
Definition: actions and events that defy the limits set within a series.
Example: HPMOR: partial transfiguration and destroying dementors

Name: Beware the Nice Ones
Definition: Sometimes, trying to Break the Cutie has consequences. Sometimes, the nicest person in the story gets pushed to the limit of what they can take... and the results are not pretty.
Example: HPMOR: Hermione wins her first battle

Name: Big Bad
Definition: The cause of all bad happenings in a story. Behind every threat, not necessarily the threat themselves.
Example: Comet moving to the hearth
Example2: Voldemort, Emperor in Star Wars

Name: Big "No!"
Definition: The moment when a character realizes that something awful has happened, or notices that something awful is about to happen, and screams "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Example: HPMOR: Early in the story, based on the Quibbler headline about how Harry gets Malfoy pregnant, the author got several e-mails asking if Luna was a seer, and if the story was going to turn into an HPDM bottom!Malfoy mpreg fic. The author regretted that fanfiction.net did not allow a larger font with which to say NO.

Name: Black and Gray Morality
Definition: Introducing flaws in their heroes. But no redeeming qualities in their villains.
Example: HPMOR: According to Draco, many Death Eaters knew Voldemort was evil but joined him anyway because they thought Dumbledore was worse.

Name: Black and White Morality
Definition: the battle between pure good and absolute evil.
Example: HPMOR: Hermione's point of view

Name: Blackmail
Definition: Alice knows something that Bob doesn't want anyone else to know. So Bob has to do something for Alice so that she doesn't tell anyone.

Name: "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word
Definition: X character accuses Y of Z.
Y does not denies, but ask to call it Z'.
Example: HPMOR:"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimization."

Name: Black Widow
Definition: the woman whose husbands/Love Interests keep on dying.
Example: HPMOR: Blaise Zabini's mother

Name: Blood knight
Definition: Someone whose only goal is to fight.
Example: HPMOR: Neville becomes one

Name: Bluff the Impostor
Definition: Someones speaks to X stating they are Y. To test it, X state something Y would now to be false. If the person does not react, they are not Y
Example: HPMOR: Quirrel is asked a question about a trip he never made

Name: Bully hunter
Definition: A character who seems particularly adept and eager to take down bully-type characters with extreme prejudice, or at least show he has this streak in him
Example: HPMOR: S.P.H.E.W., Hermione's little Amazon Brigade of aspiring heroines, decide their first step to being heroines is to stop bully attacks within Hogwarts. It spirals out of control very quickly.

Name: Brick joke
Definition: At least two jokes. First one introduce a feature used in last one.
Example: The brick joke (obviously)

Name: Having Brass Balls
Definition: When someone does something that's very brave, or at least very risky
Example: HPMOR: Harry's first interaction with Snape. Complete with increasing gasps and lapses in breathing from the other students, all the way up to Neville diving under a desk when Harry Crosses the Line Twice.

Name: Brainwashed and Crazy
Definition: A character is hypnotized/mind-controlled/whatnot and sent to kill their friends or do something similarly destructive. This may lead them to believe that their once-friends are enemies they have to take down.
Example: HPMOR: Bellatrix Black, according to Voldemort
Example2: HPMOR: Professor Sprout had been serving as Voldemort's (presumably brainwashed) patsy.

Name: Boxing Lessons for Superman
Definition: Take an already abnormal character and teach them some sort of mundane skill to take their badassery Up to Eleven
Example: HPMOR: "Most wizards," Professor Quirrell said, "do not bother much with what a Muggle would term martial arts. Is not a wand stronger than a fist? This attitude is stupid. Wands are held in fists."
Intuition: Got Super Strength? How about some karate to avoid being Unskilled, but Strong?

Name: Boring, but practical
Definition: To win, avoid beauty and only use what works
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell: The Killing Curse is unblockable, unstoppable, and works every single time on anything with a brain. If, as an adult wizard, you find yourself incapable of using the Killing Curse, then you can simply Apparate away!

Name: Call-Back
Definition: A relevant reference to an event taking place earlier than the timeline of the present story.
Example: Brick joke
Example2: Chapter 15: "My, I wonder how long it will take before Miss Granger does something deserving of a dinnertime announcement? I look forward to seeing it, whatever it may be."
Chapter 93: When Professor McGonagall makes an announcement about Hermione at dinnertime it is to announce Hermione's demise.
Example3: Chapter 17: Professor Blake was caught in a closet with no fewer than three fifth-year Slytherins last February...
Chapter 75: Arty Grey, the seventh-year who was leading in their competition by three witches and a Defense Professor...

Name: Calling Your Attacks
Definition: If you can do something more impressive than just throw a punch, your attack(s) must have an equally impressive name. More than that, you have to call it out as you launch the attack.
Example: HP: casting a spell require to call its name

Name: Calvinball
Definition: Games which don't have a codified ruleset In-Universe; the players aren't playing to win, but just to have fun, and they'll happily change the rules to make it more fun.
Definition2: Games which don't exist In-Universe either, but are rather pretext or have an ulterior motive; the players are making it up as they go along, without other characters' knowledge.
Example: HP: The aurors on duty at Azkaban are playing Dragon Poker, from the Myth Adventures universe — although they've added dementor-related rules.
Conjdef: Calvinball is a game which we see characters play but whose rules we don't know. This allows authors to create games that are absurdly silly, complicated, or arcane. Such games typically fall into these categories:
Definition3: "Nomic-style" games, which do have rules, but also have built-in mechanics for changing the rules during play; they're well-defined, but they're never played the same way twice, and they look baffling to onlookers.
Definition4: Games which aren't described in full because it's just funnier that way.

Name: came back strong
Definition: The Hero is fighting The Dragon, or the Big Bad, and finds out he is hopelessly outmatched. The villain decides to go ahead and kill him off, and it's over. The hero is dead.
Or is he? He starts to fight again, and reveals that thanks to his defeat, he Took a Level in Badass and may have access to powers that he never had before.
Example: "Darkness took me. But it was not the end.
I've been sent back until my task is done."
Example2: Hermione is brought back to life with the additional benefits of the latent magical traits of a mountain troll and a unicorn.

Name: Canon Illustrations
Definition: accurately follow the text. (This is generally the case when these illustrations have been vetted by the authors themselves.)
Definition2: the illustrations may include prominent details that don't contradict the text, but also aren't mentioned.
Example: Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, (self-admittedly poorly) drawn by the author himself. Re-illustrated versions are heresy.
Conjdef: one set of illustrations for a book or series, especially a classic, becomes so ubiquitous that those images become our cultural idea of what the scene or character "looks like," regardless of how it's described in the text. It is either
Definition3: the illustrations may outright contradict the textual descriptions.
Example2: Sherlock Holmes and his deerstalker hat, added by Strand artist Sidney Paget (but only when Holmes was in the countryside).

Name: Carnivore Confusion
Definition: There's an unspoken awkward issue in fiction involving Talking Animals. If everyone can talk, and everyone at least implicitly has the same thoughts and feelings as everyone else regardless of species, does this mean predatory creatures are forced to engage in a form of murder to eat? Or is it more like cannibalism? And then what happens when human characters are added into the mix? Let's not get started on Anthropomorphic Food...
Example2: "Let me get this straight. You know her; she knows you. But she wants to eat him. And... everybody's okay with this? DID I MISS SOMETHING?!"
— Timon, The Lion King
Extra: add detail ?
Example3: HPMOR: When Harry discovers Parseltongue, he stops eating meat in case snakes and other animals really are sapient — and then wonders in horror if plants are, too. (It turns out there's no evidence they are.)

Name: Cast from Experience Points
Definition: Particularly powerful spells may *lessen* a caster, bumping them down a Power Level for years until they recover.
Example: "An ordinary Charm, Mr. Potter, can be cast merely by speaking certain words, making precise motions of the wand, expending some of your own strength. Even powerful spells may be invoked in this way, if the magic is efficient as well as efficacious. But with the greatest of magics, speech alone does not suffice to give them structure. You must perform specific actions, make significant choices. Nor is the temporary expenditure of your own strength sufficient to set them in motion; a ritual requires permanent sacrifice."
— Professor Quirrel, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Name: Cast from Lifespan
Definition: Power whose cast is a part of lifespan
Example: HPMOR: Patronus 2.0

Name: Catgirl
Definition: a character that looks mostly like a human but she has some parts like a cat, usually the ears, tail, eyes, and sometimes claws or even a natural Fur Bikini. Should still have human skin, human hair, a human face, a completely human nose, and a human skull and torso structure.
Example: HP: Hermione, because of Polyjuice potion
Counterexample: Furry

Name: Cathartic Scream
Definition: Things have been getting crazy, the plot has been thickening, and The Hero has been keeping calm the whole time, despite the fact that the one thing The Hero wants to do is to go off and scream for a little while.
Counterexample: HPMOR: the cast listing states that McGonagall, in addition to needing something alcoholic, desperately needs to find someplace quiet where she can scream for a while.

Name: Celebrity Paradox
Definition: the complications that arise from creating a fictional universe in which that fictional universe does not exist, and the actors playing roles within it do not exist either.
Example: in Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't exist and is not the governor of California

Name: Celibate Hero
Definition: Someone who has better things to do than romance.
Example: Harry's a bit young for that kind of thing.

Name: Character death
Definition: A character dies.
Example: HPMOR: Hermione Granger dies. The repercussions are severe. Also, Albus Dumbledore gets trapped outside time.

Name: Chekhov's Gag
Definition: Chekhov's Gun being used as a joke in its first appearance.
Example: HPMOR: Harry prevents Hermione from being sent to Azkaban for allegedly attempting to murder Draco is inspired by the fake setup of the Weasley twins' prank on Rita Skeeter.
Harry: It would seem that one Mr. Arthur Weasley was placed under the Imperius Curse by a Death Eater whom my father killed, thus creating a debt to House Potter [...] Do people actually do that sort of thing around here?
Example2: HPMOR: Harry's started to learn Memory Charms, but is only good enough to erase all of your memories that involve your left arm. He pacifies Voldemort, not by killing him since he'd just come back, but by removing almost all his memories.

Name: Chekhov's skill
Definition: Training in any kind of skill, ability, or knowledge that will likely later come in handy. A character takes time in-story to become proficient at something.
Example: HPMOR:Partial transfiguration of nanotube
Example2: Steve Jobs took a course in calligraphy at college. It later proved invaluable in Apple pioneering the Graphical User interface. Now think of how far CGI has gone ahead since that development. Specifically, Jobs insisted on making the fonts on the Macintosh completely WYSIWYG adjustable. This earned the new machine an instant place in the heart of the publishing industry and proved that GUIs were more than just window dressing.

Name: Chess Motifs
Definition: Using chess to represent wars in a media
Example2: Frequent references to someone's "game," "pieces," "pawns," and "sacrifice" (in the context of sacrificing a piece to further one's political game, not magic rituals that require sacrifice).

Name: Child by Rape
Definition: a character is conceived through rape.
Example: HPMOR: Likely the case with Bellatrix Black's son Lesath Lestrange, as Voldemort "gave" her to the Lestrange brothers.

Name: Chirping Crickets
Definition: A character says or does something intended to elicit an enthusiastic response from a group watching him, such as the audience in a theatre or a band of comrades. But instead of the reaction he expects, he hears nothing but the sound of crickets chirping, suggesting that nobody is responding, and they may in fact be stunned into silence, completely baffled, or missing altogether. A Flat "What." may follow.
Example2: HPMOR: The noises made by the various gizmos on Dumbledore's desk fill the awkward pauses in his conversations with Harry.

Name: Chronic Hero Syndrome
Definition: an "affliction" of cleaner heroes where for them, every wrong within earshot must be righted, and everyone in need must be helped, preferably by Our Hero themself.
Example2: HPMOR: Neville: Do you have to do literally anything anyone asks you?
Harry: Do? No. Feel guilty about not doing? Yes. [...] Every time someone cries out in prayer and I can't answer, I feel guilty about not being God.

Name: Clap Your Hands If You Believe
Definition: enough belief in something will cause things to happen.
Example: creates a vicious cycle for non-believers, as magical events are "disproven" in their presence because they don't believe in the first place, thus cementing their disbelief.
Name2: Tinkerbell effect
Example2: one character turning to the audience and asking them to clap their hands/stomp their feet/whatever to accomplish whatever needs to be accomplished at the time.
Counterexample: mart characters may take advantage of this and bypass foes and other threats by simply rejecting or ignoring their existence.

Name: Cliffhanger
Definition: ends an Act Break, episode, or even a whole season (or a film or novel in a series) with some or all of the main characters in peril of some kind and the audience is made to wait for the outcome
Example: HPMOR: The test for reader to solve
Example2: Sherlocks' faked death in the TV series

Name: Colourful Theme Naming
Definition: One form of Theme Naming is to name characters after colors.
Example2: HPMOR: Trying to remain incognito and failing during his first trip to Platform 9 3/4, Harry asks Ron to call him Mr. Black. Malfoy arrives and says it is a good name, but the Black family may object. He suggests Mr. Silver instead. Ron counters with Mr. Gold, but Harry decides to Take a Third Option within the theme and chooses Mr. Bronze, foreshadowing Harry's sorting a few chapters later.

Name: Comically Missing the Point
Definition: A character completely misses a really obvious point for comic effect. The point is the sort of thing that any reasonable or informed person will spot and understand given a few seconds or enough information.
Example2: "I started to walk down the street when I heard a voice saying: 'Good evening, Mr. Dowd.' I turned, and there was this big white rabbit leaning against a lamp-post. Well, I thought nothing of that, because when you've lived in a town as long as I've lived in this one, you get used to the fact that everybody knows your name."
— Elwood P. Dowd, Harvey
Example3: HPMOR: Harry feels this way about the entire rest of the wizarding world after Malfoy tells him that as far as they're concerned, the most important implications of his Parselmouth abilities involve him possibly being the Heir of Slytherin. Harry, meanwhile, has more important things to think about: "SNAKES ARE SENTIENT!?"

Name: Comically Small Bribe
Definition: when a character tries to bribe somebody, but the bribe is either pathetically small or involves something of no conceivable value to the recipient.
Example: Dr. Venture: Okay, I see how it is. And what would you prescribe for... (brings out a ten-dollar bill) Alexander Hamilton?
Dr. Ernesto Guavara: Not much.
—The Venture Bros., "Dia de los Dangerous!"
Example2: Doubling the payment of voluntary or forced labour, and when they refuse on the grounds that double of nothing is still nothing, the briber offers to triple the payment.
Example3: Attempting to use Monopoly money or a minor coupon in place of real cash.
Counterexample: Sometimes gets inverted; the initial bribe is very large, at least by the standards of the person offering it. The other character refuses it but accepts something comparatively worthless instead, maybe even making the reduced counter-offer themselves.
Example4: HPMOR: It's apparently common knowledge that for the right price, the aurors guarding Azkaban will ignore people sneaking in to give the prisoners time with a patronus, or a supply of chocolate. For Auror Li, that price is "two Knuts and a silver Sickle", because he hates Azkaban.
Counterexample2: Paying a single dollar because law oblige both side of a contract to give something

Name: The Complainer Is Always Wrong
Definition: Alice, Bob, and Carol are friends. Alice and Bob want to paint their clubhouse green. Carol thinks brown would be better. She goes to the paint store to buy brown paint to try and force the issue, but has trouble climbing the ladder with one hand and falls and spills paint everywhere and gets covered in it, and Alice and Bob say that this happened because Carol was so wrong to act alone. Never mind the fact that Carol is already naturally clumsy, or that it was just plain stupid to climb a ladder with one hand.
Example: HPMOR: Harry argues against Quirrell's call for unity by pointing out that this trope is what you get when you have too much unity.

Name: Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like
Definition: Instead of thanking the rescuer, they blame him for not rescuing well enough
Counterexample: HPMOR: Hermione does not want to fulfill this trope

Name: Complexity Addiction
Definition: A character who can't help, but make complex plane instead of simpler easier one
Example2: HPMOR: Dumbledore, who thinks one should keep as many ploys as possible alive, so all the ones that don't pan out can be diversions.
Counterexample: HPMOR: Lucius's rule of three

Name: Confusion Fu
Definition: A fighter whose main proponent is unpredictability
Example: HPMOR: The tactic adopted by Harry's Chaos Legion, with appropriately varying effectiveness.

Name: Continuity Nod
Definition: a reference to some aspect in a series' past or an occurrence within the universe
Example: HPMOR: One of the first spells Harry and Hermione experiment with is a spell to conjure a glowing neon-green bat. Much later in the year, such a bat is mentioned in passing as one Hermione uses in an army battle against Draco.

Name: Cool and Unusual Punishment
Definition: a reference to some aspect in a series' past or an occurrence within the universe
Example2: Ford: If we're lucky, it's just the Vogons come to throw us in to space.
Arthur: And if we're unlucky?
Ford: The captain might want to read us some of his poetry first...
— The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Example3: HPMOR: The only possible explanation for how this mode of humming came to exist is that it was deliberately designed by some unspeakably cruel genius who woke up one day, feeling bored with ordinary torture, who decided to handicap himself and find out whether he could break someone's sanity just by humming at them.
Counterexample: Tortured character has such bad taste that they enjoy it

Name: Couch Gag
Definition: A trope throughout a series by which a part of the opening or ending credits is interchangeably switched, and the content can be different every show. Some of the same shows also have couch gags at the end as a Credits Gag. Alternatively, this gag may occur at the end of The Teaser, just before the credits start
Example: HPMOR: The J.K. Rowling attribution at the beginning of the first 30 chapters.
Etymology: opening sequence of The Simpsons.

Name: Courtroom Antic
Definition: When a lawyer is loosing a case, they do thing to win time and destabilize
Example: HPMOR: Despite Dumbledore's severe warning that doing anything fancy will just make things worse, Harry eventually succumbs to this trope when it becomes clear they're going to lose Hermione's trial. He then escalates his antics, and then escalates a little more... then once more at the end just to impress everyone.

Name: Courtroom Episode
Definition: an episode that's structured around a court case, in a series not normally focused on litigation
Example2: HPMOR: The main characters are present at a Wizengamot trial over the course of two chapters.

Name: Cow Tools
Definition: Mysterious stuff lying around lab, market, bazaar,... mostly as props
Example: HPMOR: Even Dumbledore doesn't know what most of the magic nick-knacks in his office do, they were created by his predecessors. The ones he does understand do completely pointless things like count the, er, 'sneezes' of French witches. He is personally rather proud of his own contribution, which he doesn't think Minerva will ever figure out.

Name: Crazy-Prepared
Definition: a character is excessively prepared for a scenario, no matter how unlikely.
Example: Random Cop #1: Someone call the Avengers or somethin'—
Random Cop #2: — And tell 'em what? A polite robot just walked into the U.N.?
Random Cop #3: [into radio] — got a 4-3-7 at the U.N. —
Example2: HPMOR: Amelia Bones, Head of Magical Law Enforcement, has come up with a procedure manual which includes possibilities such as a code RJ-L20: "Guard requires relief because prisoner is attempting psychological warfare against him/her and is succeeding". It also states that it is not up to the person receiving this code to determine whether or not it is valid. They are merely required to act on it immediately. Its validity will only be evaluated after the guard in question has been relieved.

Name: Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass
Definition: A character quickly change from fool/old/weak to a super strong opponent
Example2: Star Wars: Jar Jar Binks is an excellent fighter, always by accident. Similar to Agent Clouzeau and Inspecteur Gadget
Example3: HPMOR: Professor Quirrell seems to flip between narcoleptic weirdo and intensely passionate professor regularly. Apparently, he's also a sixth dan master in at least one martial art, and he completely outclasses a veteran auror in combat. Though, this is perhaps to be expected given that he's Voldemort.

Name: Cryptic Conversation
Definition: characters will often hold entire conversations (one sided or not) using only vague, cryptic, ominous, and frequently Double Entendre laden terms and phrases to confuse the player and character
Definition2: HPMOR: Harry and the Sorting Hat argue about in which house he belongs, and why. Harry is too slow on the uptake to figure out that everything he says about not meeting his potential outside of Ravenclaw is actually forcing the Sorting Hat into the conclusion that he belongs in Slytherin.
Example: HPMOR: Harry talks to Snape about a bully and a love interest, the identity of whom he finds out too late.

Name: The Cuckoolander Was Right
Definition: one of the characters is a little... odd. He's a Talkative Loon who rambles, talks to people and things that aren't there, and rarely pays much attention to what's going on around him. So it's just natural that the other characters ignore everything this guy has to say...
Until, in a strange twist of hindsight, it turns out he was right all along.
Example: HPMOR: Some of the ridiculous things The Quibbler prints turn out to have more than a grain of truth to them. In Chapter 38, it says that Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew are the same person. It turns out that, in this continuity, Peter Pettigrew was a metamorphmagus instead of an animagus, and an actually guilty Sirius Black avoided being sent to Azkaban by arranging for a transformed and Confunded Peter to be arrested and imprisoned in his place.

Name: Curb-Stomp Battle
Definition: A fight that's extremely one-sided, where one side just absolutely trashes the other with little-to-no effort. Commonly used as a way of establishing a character as being very strong, especially if the person on the receiving end of the beating is known for being very rough and tough.
Example2: HPMOR: Quirrell vs. Auror Bahry in chapter 53. It ends in an unexpected way nevertheless.

Name: Curiosity Causes Conversion
Definition: when an evil character who cannot comprehend good is on the receiving end of kindness, love, or mercy, she will get an insistent and annoying urge to know just why the hero and his cadre have done such an inexplicable thing. There's no way this Worthy Opponent would do something as stupid as save or help an enemy, she'll reason. She'll assume he's being The Chess Master and is trying to manipulate her, perhaps foolishly expecting her to feel she "owes him one."
So it eats away at her. She'll "study" good to try and understand how the hero will turn such an unfathomably idiotic act to his benefit. As the obsession grows, she'll probably spy on the hero and slowly develop a bit of a crush. She'll try getting close to him and understanding his actions by donning a disguise and doing minor good things, only to discover to her horror that Good Feels Good and she's Becoming the Mask, until eventually she does a Heel–Face Turn.
In a weird, unintentional and roundabout way, by helping her the hero has managed to manipulate her to his advantage. And they say good is dumb.
Example: HPMOR: Part of Harry's plan for Draco.
One case of true curiosity had the same sort of redeeming power in rationality that one case of true love had in movies.
Counterexample: HPMOR: Harry try to use this on Quirrell.

Name: Curiosity Is a Crapshoot
Definition: by its very nature, Curiosity Is a Crapshoot and the only possible way to have a clue about whether it's rewarded or punished is to be Genre Savvy
Example: A character is at one point "almost killed by his lack of curiosity."^note Harry is so distracted by Neville's rememberall and getting admonished for improper time-turner usage that he doesn't realize broomsticks work by Aristotelian motion. In Chapter 59, he attaches a quite powerful Newtonian rocket to a broomstick with unexpected consequences.

Name: Curse Escape Clause
Definition: There is the tendency for every magic spell (usually Curses) to have a condition that negates the effect. Maybe the curser is trying to teach the cursee a lesson, maybe they're making it the most unlikely thing imaginable, or maybe there's something in the magic that requires the escape clause in order to function.
Example: HPMOR: the solution to the curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts/Battle Magic teacher's position is to have the 7th year class teach the younger classes, as they will be leaving at the end of the year in any case.

Name: Cutting the Knot
Definition: The hero has only a limited amount of time to do something, be it rescue, transport, repair, or simply Outrun the Fireball, but has a problem. Namely, a very complicated problem that would need time to solve, time the hero definitely doesn't have. After trying (or not trying) in vain to solve the problem the technical way, the hero just shrugs and Takes a Third Option, namely, by getting rid of the problem altogether, often through violence.
Example: HPMOR: How, on a budget of forty Galleons, did the Weasley twins fake the massive amount of evidence needed to convince Rita Skeeter that Harry was betrothed to Ginny? They didn't. They (and/or their contact) simply False Memory Charmed her into believing she had seen it.

Name: Curse Escape Clause
Definition: a traumatic, disillusioning event that drives many heroes to more morally dubious methods or outright antivillainy
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell is one for the Hogwarts students as a whole and Harry in particular while teaching Battle Magic. In keeping with his ambiguous characterization, he makes some good points and is even applauded by some outside observers. After Hermione's death, he fears he succeeded a little too well and tries to reverse his effects a bit.

Name: Eater alive
Example: Hermione Granger in HPMOR

Name: Eccentric Mentor
Definition: a sagacious figure who seems eccentric and possibly foolish; a font of power and respectability who acts like comic relief
Example: Dumbledore

Name: Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors
Definition: Using a set of elements, each with particular property. Directly or as a symbol
Example2: when Professor Quirrell asks Harry how to hide something permanently, Harry responds using the Western five elements of Earth, Fire, Water, Air, and Aether/Void (outer space).

Name: Empathic Environment
Definition: The environment is similar to the mood of the described scene
Example: HPMOR: The chair in McGonagall's office has been transfigured so many times it seems to reflect her moods. At one point, it is so big and soft it seems to be giving Harry a hug.
Example2: HPMOR: Quirrell's room in the infirmary has no natural light. It may be that the infirmary has a variety of rooms for different tastes, or that Hogwarts alters rooms to suit patients.
Counterexample: HPMOR: Harry wish for orage when he made an important decision

Name: Empty Shell
Definition: A character who is still alive, move, talk, eat, sleep, but they have no drive, ambition, or capacity for emotion.
Example: HPMOR: Harry becomes this for a few paragraphs due to prolonged exposure to a dementor. He still acts and reacts, but his internal monologue is utterly mechanistic.

Name: An enemy mine/Enemy mining
Definition: Doing something so bad that two enemy decide to ally against you.
Example2: HPMOR: After Hermione is murdered, Lucius Malfoy realizes he's been played and allies with Harry against their common enemy, together bringing in enough allies to get the board of governors to act on Harry's plans for security.

Name: Enemy within
Definition: the enemy is behind the hero's eyes, and its time is coming when it can take over. Until then, it'll do all it can to control him and get him to give in to its Horror Hunger. The ennemy is a mandatory part of the hero, e.g. it give him power
Example: HPMOR: Though Harry is a superb rationalist, he resorts to his dark side when he needs to bring out the big guns.
Typ: A specific form of Split Personality.

Name: Entertainingly Wrong
Definition: When somebody comes to a completely logical conclusion from what they know, and are completely wrong.
Example: HPMOR: When he sees a photo of Ginny "sighing longingly" over a photo of himself, Harry thinks this has probably been staged.

Name: Epic fail
Definition: When a normal, run-of-the-mill failure just isn't enough.
Example: HPMOR: Only mentioned after the fact, but Harry once had a pet rock. It died. Though, we (and Harry) later learn that the pet rock only died because Dumbledore murdered it.
Example2: Supervillain decides to shoot a random minion, but misses — and the bullet ricochets off two walls, smashes the instrument panel on his Doomsday Machine and ends up inches from the minion's head, weakening a structural support and causing the base to come crashing down. And the minion is the only survivor.

Name: Eternal English
Definition: People in distinct past/future speak language of today. Thus time travel does not forbid communication.
Counterexample: HPMOR: language of people in old portraits

Name: For Happiness
Definition: an entire system of morality based on the pursuit of happiness.
Example: HPMOR: Harry, more or less
Name2: Ethical Hedonist

Name: Even Evil Has Loved Ones
Definition: Showing that the evil love some people, to humanize they
Example: HPMOR: Lucius for Malfoy. Rogue for Lily

Name: Even Evil Has Standards
Definition: When some person is so bad another evil guy reject they
Definition2: Having a vilain reject something for ethic reason
Conjdef: Either
Example2: HPMOR: Quirrell hates Nuclear weapon. He hates Perenelle for betraying Baba Yaga
Example3: HPMOR: Death eater use homophobia and racism against muggles

Name: Everything's Better with Sparkles
Definition: Precious, magical thing, cute, glitters a lot.
Example2: HPMOR: Daphne is cursed to sparkle by upperclassmen as part of their teasing.

Name: Every Man Has His Price
Definition: a character or group of characters in a narrative are repeatedly able to use their money as "persuasion" for anyone in their way, with little to no resistance from those being bribed.
Example: The aurors guarding Azkaban will overlook people sneaking in to give the prisoners chocolate or patronus time, for the right bribe. Auror Li, who hates Azkaban, will accept a Comically Small Bribe (see above). Auror Bahry, whose wife is ill and needs expensive treatments, demands a lot more.

Name: Evil Cannot Comprehend Good
Definition: when the villain has developed a devious plot that is prepared for anything and the hero might do — except for one glaring flaw. For some reason, the villain has not considered the possibility of a Heroic Sacrifice. After all, you'd never catch him throwing his life away to save a bunch of lazy, ungrateful civilians who don't care about anybody except themselves.
Example: Quirrell can not understand Hermione's standard. And that Harry pay for her.

Name: Evil Counterpart
Definition: A character who has similarities to a good or not as evil character, but is evil(er).
Example: Grindelwald was Dumbledore's "dark mirror," and Dumbledore thinks Voldemort must be Harry's. Harry is dubious. (and wrong)
Bellatrix being counterpart of Hermione.
Unlimited killing curse is the counterpart of Patronus 2.0

Name: Evil Is One Big, Happy Family
Definition: Having all evil together. The story explaining it only because they are «evil»
Counterexample: HPMOR: Each ennemy has is own agenda

Name: Evil laugh
Definition: A laugh, made by a winning evil person
Example: HPMOR: Harry use them a lot

Name: Evil mentor
Definition: The Hero, or a member of the heroic band, finds a Mentor with new secret techniques to teach. The student eagerly signs on, only to learn later that there's a catch — the mentor is evil, has a hidden agenda of his or her own, and those new abilities are seriously nasty (though certainly not useless).
Example: HPMOR: Quirrel to Harry

Name: Evil Me Scares Me
Definition: Scared by an evil version of oneself
Example2: HPMOR: Dark's side of Harry

Name: Evil Overlooker
Definition: Box art or advertisement that features the villain's head "watching" the hero.

Name: Evil Overlord List
Definition: The infamous lists of "Things I'll do if I ever become an Evil Overlord".
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell has his own version

Name: Evil Sounds Deep
Definition: A character whose voic is deep, to make it sounds evil
Example: HPMOR: Harry hardly can do it

Name: Evil vs. Evil
Definition: An evil person goes after another one, for evil motif of cours.
Example: HPMOR: Draco believes (as do most Slytherins, apparently) that Dumbledore was the greater evil and that Voldemort and his Death Eaters, though bad, were the only people with a chance to stand up to him.

Name: Evil versus oblivion
Definition: An evil character who want to live fight another evil character who want to destroy the world
Example: HPMOR: Quirell want to avoid nuclear war

Name: Exact Words
Definition: When the exact wording of a rule, promise, prophecy, etc. matters more than the spirit of the wording
Example: General Chang: You'll never take this city while I'm alive, monster!
The Death Knight: Terms accepted. [stab]
Example3: Any wish granting genie, or prophecy

Name: Expospeak Gag
Definition: A joke based on describing something mundane using such technical language that it takes the audience a while to work out what's being talked about
Example2: HPMOR: "Dementor Exposure Treatment" (chocolate).

Name: Dying alone

Name: Dull Surprise
Definition: A vague, wispy look given by a character in response to something that, theoretically, should produce a more intense or specific expression of shock, horror, or revelation.
Example2: HPMOR: Harry's reaction to the first wingardium leviosa

Name: Dropped a Bridge on Him
Definition: When a character is permanently written out of a show, especially killed off, in a way that is unexpectedly anti-climactic or mundane, they Dropped a Bridge on Him.
Example: HPMOR: Mrs. Norris gets eaten offscreen. And in chapter 89, Hermione dies while Harry desperately tries to save her.
Etymology: the death of Captain Kirk (William Shatner) in Star Trek: Generations, which was expected to be a key, climactic event after 30 years of adventuring. Instead, he was killed beneath a collapsed bridge in a manner typically reserved for Red Shirts.

Name: The Dreaded
Definition: A villain or Anti-Hero whose primary characteristic is the fear the other side has of them.
Definition2: They are usually invisible, at least for a part of the show.
Example: "Keaton always said, 'I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of Him.' Well, I do believe in God... and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Söze."
— Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects
Example2: HPMOR: Harry is for Dementor and Voldemort.

Name: Dramatic thunder
Definition: The Thunderous Underline
Definition2: The Thunderous Confrontation,
Example: "Thunder rolled. It rolled a six."
— Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!!
Conjdef: Either
Definition3: A Storm Is Coming
Definition4: Thunder Equals Downpour
Counterexample: Harry: I'm wondering if there's a spell to make lightning flash in the background whenever I make an ominous resolution.

Name: The Thunderous Underline
Definition: marks a recently-spoken sentence or word as particularly important, illuminates a recently-arrived character as particularly dangerous and/or sinister, or provide appropriate mood lightning for a villainous laugh.

Name: The Thunderous confrontation
Definition: a fierce thunderstorm provides an appropriately chaotic background to a battle — of weapons or of wills

Name: A storm is coming
Definition: adds thunder as a sound effect to a dramatically brewing storm as part of the Foreshadowing

Name: Thunder Equals Downpour
Definition: when the thunder announces the torrential downpour, for which there is no other clue.

Name: Dramatic Reading
Definition: Audio adaptation read as really epic

Name: Dramatic irony
Definition: letting the audience see the whole picture when The Protagonist, or even the entire cast, is kept largely in the dark. You, the viewer, are actually ahead of the characters.
Example: Many of the things that Quirrell and Dumbledore say, largely concerning horcruxes, the prophesy, and Deathly Hallows, have hidden meanings that Harry misses because he lacks backstory to make alternative hypotheses plausible.
Name2: Suspense

Name: Double Standard
Definition: when members of two or more groups are treated differently regarding the same thing

Name: Double Reverse Quadruple Agent
Definition: people who have exacted layers and layers of deception, normally as a massive Gambit Roulette to satisfy their wishes, or their true employers' wishes.
Example: HPMOR: Blaise Zabini becomes a quintuple agent during the period when traitors are allowed in the armies. He pretends to be loyal to each of the three armies, is supposedly working for Professor Quirrell above that, and is ultimately working for a mysterious fifth figure.

Definition: Using «doom» as a funny epic word
Example2: HPMOR: The Chaos Legion's marching song is repeating the word "doom" set to the tune of the Imperial March.

Name: Don't Call Me "Sir"
Definition: A character is in a position of high authority or status, and as a part of this, is owed respect and even obeisance from those considered beneath him.
However, this person refuses to take advantage of the situation. He insists that he be addressed by name rather than title, he stops people who try to bow to him, he corrects people who try to avert their eyes. While still being cognizant and proud of his position, he tries to minimize the social distance between himself and members of other classes.
Example: HPMOR: "Please, Harry! Headmaster sounds so formal. Just call me Heh for short."

Name: Dodge the Bullet
Definition: A character who can stroll into the middle of a firefight and emerge unscathed. Guns Are Worthless against them. They aren't Immune to Bullets, but they're so fast they might as well be. If you shoot at them from any farther than point blank range, they'll jump out of the way, or use some impressively small object to deflect the bullet, Improbable Aiming Skills be damned.
Example: or Matrix
Example2: Dr. McNinja: The problem with your gun is you have to point it where you want to send the bullets, and I can see that.
Frans Rayner: The bullets are supposed to be faster than you and you know that!
— The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
Example3: HPMOR: what wizard do, since killing curse is unblockable

Name: Divide and Conquer
Definition: get two of your enemies to fight each other instead of you. If one wins, he should be weakened enough from battle that you can knock him off before he recovers.

Name: Disguised Hostage Gambit
Definition: the villains have restrained the hostages, forced them into their uniforms, put tape on their mouths and fastened weapons to their hands.
Example: "The SWATs are targeting the wrong people.
The clowns are the hostages."
Counterexample: Amelia Bones warns her aurors to make sure this isn't being pulled on them.

Name: Difficult, but Awesome
Definition: A character which is powerful, but complicated. Person winning with him deserve a lot of respect.
Example: HPMOR: In the battle of the Self Actualization arc, Harry and Neville had to train very hard to be able to wear full suits of armor and cast Stupefy. Still, the spell takes a LOT out of Harry's magic reserves to use, but allows him and Neville to take out Sunshine Army by themselves.

Name: Diabolus ex Machina
Definition: the introduction of an unexpected new event, character, ability, or object designed to ensure that things suddenly get much worse for the protagonists, much better for the villains, or both
Intuition: Evil Counterpart of Deus ex Machina

Name: Devil's Advocate
Definition: The Devil's Advocate is a person who attempts to provide justification for something that opposes their personal viewpoint in a particular instance
Example: HPMOR: As a rationalist, Harry has it as a defining character trait that he must assess all available sides of an argument, even if no true advocate of that argument is present, or even exists. This has led to him acting as the Devil's Advocate for himself, as well as using the trope for other people as a form of the Socratic method of argument.

Name: Design-It-Yourself Equipment
Definition: completing given objectives with the tools, equipment, units, or vehicles that are given to you by the game's designers
Example: HPMOR: What happens when transfiguration is commonplace.

Name: Department of Redundancy Department
Definition: When listing things, a character will repeat an item.
Example: "I do not talk like that! The way I communicate is much different. I do not reiterate, repeat, reinstate the same thing over and over again. I am clear, concise, to the point!"
— Mojo Jojo, The Powerpuff Girls
Example3: RAS Syndrome (i.e. Redundant Acronym Syndrome syndrome).
Example4: Snape: Seers are the pawns of time, Mr. Potter. Coincidence is beneath them, and they are above it.

Name: Demoted to Extra
Definition: When an important character become an extra in a sequel
Example3: HPMOR: Hagrid, Ron

Name: Democracy Is Bad
Definition: A character presenting democracy as an ineffectual form of government highly prone to corruption, demagoguery and takeovers by radicals and, in some portrayals, as a form of mob rule which tramples on individual rights to appeal to public sentiment.
Example: HPMOR: Professor Quirrell strongly argues this to Harry in favor of a strong magical dictatorship which could fend off a dark lord and set things right.
Example2: "Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch."
— Marvin Simkin, often attributed to Benjamin Franklin

Name: Deliberate Values Dissonance
Definition: A dissonance between values of the time the story is written, and the time the story is supposed to occur
Example: HPMOR: Salazar Slytherin could cast a patronus, but many modern Slytherins can't despite sharing most of his values. Harry hypothesizes that Salazar's hatred for muggleborns was more "innocent" in that it was a product of its time, and as such he didn't link it to self-loathing. This would mean he was happy enough to cast a patronus despite being a bigot. On the other hand, modern Slytherins simply need muggleborns as a scapegoat to hate because on some level they realize that they are pathetic and weak despite their proud Slytherin tradition.

Name: Death Seeker
Definition: A character who try to seek death, not by suicide, but by finding someone good enough to defeat him.
Example: HPMOR: Sorting hat

Name: Deadpan Snarker
Definition: A character prone to gnomic, sarcastic, sometimes bitter, occasionally whimsical asides. They can vary wildly from rare, funny one-liners to complete obnoxiousness.
Example: HPMOR: Snape, when asking if he teachs Polyjuice

Name: Dead End Job
Definition: A job with a high turnover.
Example: HPMOR: Everyone knows they'll only have Quirrell for one year, and just hopes they'll at least have him for the whole year. Whatever it takes.

Name: Dark Is Not Evil
Counterexample: HPMOR: Harry has admitted "that although 'Dark' and 'evil' may not technically be the same thing, there's a great big statistical correlation".

Name: Dan Browned
Definition: An author who tell that everything is true, come from strong research. But not.
Example: HPMOR: (but the author thinks to believe in themselve)
Etymology: Dan Brown state that 99% of Da Vincy Code is true

Name: Facepalm
Definition: raising your hand to your forehead will have the dual benefit of temporarily obscuring your vision of the idiocy as well as cradling the on-coming headache

Name: Faking the Dead
Definition: When a character's death is faked
Example: HPMOR: Quirrel (the prof) is not dead.
Example2: Voldemort
Example3: HPMOR:Narcissa Malfoy

Name: False Reassurance
Definition: If you can't or won't lie, it can be hard to deceive others. But fear not, because there are ways to pull the wool over another's eyes and never once be dishonest.
Example: "Don't worry - I'm on your side. A violent death is the last thing that'll happen to you."
— Mr. Teatime, Hogfather
Example2: "I'm not a psychopath, I'm just very creative", which is hardly any less ominous.
Counterexample: Inverted in chapter 30. "Dragon Army has never lost a single battle, and Hermione Granger... has a very good memory."

Name: Family-Unfriendly Death
Definition: Depicting graphically how someone die
Example: Hermione Granger dies of blood loss after her legs are eaten by a troll.
Example2: "So the mother wiped the axe and laughed."
—The Rose Tree

Name: Fantastic Time Management
Definition: Having some extraordinary way to manage one's time, in order to fulfill every obligations
Example: Time Turner in Hogwart

Name: Feed the Mole
Definition: Telling false information to the mole, in order for the ennemy to trust them
Example: HPMOR: traitors in army

Name: Felony Misdemeanor
Definition: Writers think this isn't that bad, but exaggerate for effect. So this isn't moral dissonance, it's just Anvilicious. Even if the thing is wrong, presenting it as something magnitudes worse usually makes it a Clueless Aesop. Can't Get Away with Nuthin' uses this a lot.
Definition2: Writers use Values Dissonance for dramatic effect. This is common in Dystopias, police states, Historical Fiction, and cults. But it can also be used to make organizations look like this when they aren't, like with Straw Dystopias. But thanks to Values Dissonance, this is often about real cultures from the past or present.
Conjdef: when somebody does something wrong, but it's a mild wrong, like a white lie, a low misdemeanor (as in a $20 fine), or something that at most gets a "Hey! Not cool!" from your friends, and then the show treats it as crossing the Moral Event Horizon, or at least coming dangerously close.
Definition3: Writers invoke Values Dissonance for Comedic Effect. A lot of the well-written animated shows, even dating back decades, would do this. And Sitcoms will do this as well. Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking or Selective Enforcement is often invoked here. This can overlap with the second case when the intent is dark humour.
Example2: Hermione: I have a lot of Quirrell points, don't I?
Professor Quirrell: You do indeed. Though one less than you had before. Terrible, isn't it? Just think, if I don't like your reason for coming here, you could lose another fifty. Maybe I'd take them away one... by one... by one...
Hermione: You're really evil, did anyone ever tell you that?

Name: Figure It Out Yourself
Definition: when one character reasonably asks for information and another character simply refuses.
Example: "If you gotta ask, you'll never know."
— Louis Armstrong, defining Jazz
Example2: HPMOR: destroying a dementor. How to have a phœnix

Name: Brown Note
Definition: A Brown Note is a sensory input that is inherently harmful.
Example2: HPMOR: How to destroy dementor
Etymology: the urban legend about an audio tone that, when played, causes the listener to lose control of their bowels and spontaneously defecate.

Name: The Film of the Book
Definition: A film which is an adaptation of a book

Name: Final-Exam Boss
Definition: A boss that can only be defeated by using every (or almost every) item and power you've acquired throughout the game (often in the same order you got them, even)
Example: HPMOR: Harry is facing down the final villain in a seemingly hopeless situation. The author declares this is the audience's final exam: using only the skills and abilities Harry has demonstrated in the story so far and the methods of rationality they've hopefully learned through the course of reading it, the audience at the time he was writing it are challenged to devise a way for Harry to win the fight.

Name: Fingore
Definition: Bad thing which can be done to fingers
Example: HPMOR: A bully threatens quite seriously to "accidentally" break Harry's fingers.
Example2: "Now I'm gonna ask you ten times, Shelly, ten times..."
— Micky Malnato, Bound (1996)
Intuition: 10 times more fun, Relatable thing we hurt our fingers

Name: First Girl Wins
Definition: In romantic works, the first girl introduced — either overall or as a potential Love Interest — has a very good chance of ending up with the protagonist (especially if the protagonist is male).
Example: HPMOR: Invoked by Harry's and Hermione's parents, who are already hearing wedding bells just because Harry is the first boy Hermione's ever seemed to notice in "that way" and Hermione is the first child Harry's ever seemed to notice even exists.

Name: First-Name Basis
Definition: The sudden switch in nickname or honorific when referring to a character, usually from their family name to their given name
Example: HPMOR: Harry sometimes addresses Professor McGonagall as "Minerva" in private, when they're interacting as fellow members of Dumbledore's conspiracy rather than as professor/deputy headmistress and student.
Intuition: used to demonstrate a significant change in the relationship between two characters

Name: Flat-Earth Atheist
Definition: A self-styled hardline atheist that just happens to live in a high fantasy setting brimming with both huge pantheons of gods rampaging around the landscape constantly causing all sorts of things to happen, and the worshipers that pray to (and immediately hear back from) said pantheons of rampaging deities.
Example: HPMOR: Discussed in the author's notes — Yudkowsky stated that he wished to demonstrate that even though there is an afterlife in the canon Harry Potter series, the dearth of available evidence (without, you know, dying) meant that disbelieving in its existence was still a thoroughly reasonable standpoint. This arguably required Dumbledore to do a fairly poor job of presenting said evidence.
Example2: "It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going round to atheists' houses and smashing their windows."
— Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic

Name: Flat "What."
Definition: You've just been witness to something so bizarre, so eye-crossingly stupid (or possibly so mind-crushingly terrifying as to put you beyond the capacity for rational thought), that your brain no longer has the cognitive faculties to put together a more articulate response.
Example: HPMOR: Happens in the very first chapter:
Then a boy's voice said, calmly and quietly, "What."
In chapter 24, Harry mentions stealing gold from his own Gringotts vault. This is Draco's reaction. This is Harry's reaction to hearing that Voldemort is going to extreme lengths to help Harry resurrect Hermione and keep her forever alive because he's afraid that without Hermione's influence to restrain him, Harry will destroy the Universe. This is Amelia Bones's reaction when Alastor Moody asserts that Harry, not Hermione, defeated Voldemort.

Name: Forbidden Friendship
Definition: Prejudice. Whether it's class differences, racism, or any other difference, an entire group of people is declared "evil" and must be avoided if one is to be socially accepted.
Definition2: Personal vendetta. Sometimes one family hates another, and won't allow their own to hang out with the other family. Not everyone in the family shares that dislike, however, and they might become friends anyway.
Example: HPMOR: Hermione and Draco. One's a "mudblood," and the other's the son of the top Death Eater. Everyone in Slytherin expects Draco to destroy her.
Conjdef: A character wants, very badly, to be friends with someone specific. But sadly, the rules of family or society look down upon the friendship, and won't allow it. There's a number of possible reasons for this:
Definition3: Safety. Sometimes the society or family has a fear of a specific individual, whether warranted or not. And who wants to see their friend hanging around someone who might kill them?
Definition4: Bad influence. Sometimes the specific individual isn't so much a threat to the character, as to society's value system. Friends who do drugs, get into trouble, and so on, might be disallowed as company for the main character.

Name: Forbidden Fruit
Definition: Something is far more interesting once it is forbidden
Example: HPMOR: Harry muses on how susceptible people are to this after he discovers that he desperately wants to be able to leave Hogwarts only once he's not allowed to.
Etymology: Eve and Adam's apple

Name: Forced to Watch
Definition: Forcing a hero to watch the cruel death of a loved ones.
Example: HPMOR: The martial arts instructor who wouldn't teach Voldemort had to watch his students be tortured and killed.
Example2: Weasel: Shall I repose^note of [Eddie Valiant] right now, Boss?
Doom: Let him watch his toon friends get Dipped. Then shoot him.
— Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Name: Foreshadowing
Definition: A clue or allusion embedded in the narrative that predicts some later event or revelation. It could be a wayward comment or action, an event that doesn't make sense until later, a Meaningful Name, a rare blood type... so many things can warn us of the future.
Example: HPMOR: In chapter 6, when Harry is trying to convince McGonagall to let him buy the Emergency Healing Pack Plus. He describes Hermione's death almost word for word.
"What sort of contingency do you imagine this kit might prepare you for, young man?"
"One of my classmates gets bitten by a horrible monster, and as I scrabble frantically in my mokeskin pouch for something that could help her, she looks at me sadly and with her last breath says, 'Why weren't you prepared?' And then she dies, and I know as her eyes close that she won't ever forgive me—"
After McGonagall awards Harry ten points for thinking of putting protective shells on Spimster wickets, thereby increasing Harry's House Point lead over Hermione, but still earned non-academically:
"PROFESSOR!" Harry shrieked. "This is our war! Stop meddling!"
"Now you have until Thursday of next week, Mr. Potter. Unless, of course, you engage in some sort of mischief and lose House Points before then. Addressing a professor disrespectfully, for example." Professor McGonagall put a finger on her cheek and looked reflective. "I expect you'll hit negative numbers before the end of Friday."
Guess what happens on Friday. McGonagall continues, likely referring to the events in Self-Actualization.
"My, I wonder how long it will take before Miss Granger does something deserving of a dinnertime announcement? I look forward to seeing it, whatever it may be."
In chapter 20, Harry finds out that Quirrell loves the idea of space travel, and secretly cast some kind of spell on the Pioneer plaque. Harry then wonders aloud about the nature of the spell, one suggestion being binding someone's ghost to the plaque. Upon hearing this, Quirrell immediately tells Harry not to talk of such things, as any spell like that would be considered Dark. It turns out that the Pioneer plaque is one of Voldemort's horcruxes. In chapter 38, some clever ones are delivered in rapid-fire mode, courtesy of the Quibbler:
SLOSHED SEER SPILLS SECRETS: DARK LORD TO RETURN, WED DRACO MALFOY
- "Gosh," Harry said half a minute later, "you get a seer smashed on six slugs of Scotch and she spills all sorts of secret stuff. I mean, who'd have thought that Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew were secretly the same person?"
- "Not me," said the vendor.
- "They've even got a picture of the two of them together, so we know who it is that's secretly the same person."
- "Yup," said the vendor. "Pretty clever disguise, innit?"
- "And I'm secretly sixty-five years old."
- "You don't look half that," the vendor said amiably.
- "And I'm betrothed to Hermione Granger, and Bellatrix Black, and Luna Lovegood, and oh yes, Draco Malfoy too..."
- "Goin' ter be one interesting wedding," said the vendor.
The scene with Neville's remembrall occurs mostly the same as it does in canon, with one major difference: When Harry picks it up, it lights up like a sun. At the very end of the story, we find out that due to being a mind copy of Voldemort impressed upon the infant Harry Potter, he's essentially an amnesiac Tom Riddle missing some sixty years of memories. In perhaps the most blatant short-term example to ever go unnoticed on a first read:
...now and then passing statues of witches and dragons and even the occasional wizard-knight in plate armor or chainmail...
...while Harry and Neville are wearing armour to block Sleep Hexes and Harry even says in the dialogue that it doesn't count as "transfiguring a Muggle Artifact" since some wizards used to wear it as seen in statues.
Example3: Snape: Now before we begin, I'm going to give you all your very, very first pop-quiz. Can anyone tell me what a portkey is? Yes, Ms. Granger.
Hermione: A portkey is an enchanted object that when touched will transport the one or ones who touch it to anywhere on the globe, decided upon by the enchanter.
Snape: Very good! Now can anyone tell me what foreshadowing is? Yes, Ms. Granger.
Hermione: Foreshadowing is a dramatic device in which an important plot point is mentioned earlier in the story, to return later in a more significant way.
— A Very Potter Musical

Name: For the Evulz
Definition: villains cannot be reasoned with because there is nothing reasonable about their reasons for acting... well, evil.
Example: HPMOR: Harry and Dumbledore ponder why Voldemort has become so inhumanly evil. The best answer they can come up is that a dark wizard might look at the injustice of the world and ask, "Why not?"
Etymology: a portmanteau of "evil" and the Internet phrase "for the lulz."

Name: Friendship Moment
Definition: A sort of platonic version of Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other — a moment of pure love and empathy displayed by one friend to another that goes beyond the call of duty or against their character, that may not quite reach the level of a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, but is still pretty 'Aw' worthy anyway.
Example: HPMOR: Harry and Draco: When they first meet while getting fitted for robes and try to cover for each other. Draco ends up declaring he's always wanted to be in Gryffindor. To McGonagall. In front of his father. Hilarity Ensues. Harry to Hermione: Offering her his Deathly Hallow so she can fight bullies. Giving Lucius Malfoy his entire fortune and then some to save her from Azkaban. Harry to Quirrell: Deciding to not lose during the Stanford Prison Experiment in order to save him. Hermione to Harry: Going to face the dementor again to figure out how it's attacking Harry. The story ends on a HUGE one between Harry and Hermione.

Name: From Bad to Worse
Definition: Things are very bad. Some character say: it becomes worse.
Example: HPMOR: First, Hermione runs off in mortification from a conversation with Harry. Then, a troll on the loose in the castle is announced at dinner and Hermione, off crying elsewhere, doesn't know. Unlike in canon, Harry and company don't get there in time and she dies a truly gruesome death while Harry desperately tries to save her.

Name: Gambit Roulette
Definition: A convoluted plan that relies on events completely within the realm of chance, yet goes off without a hitch.
Your first reaction to seeing The Plan unfold is "There is no way that you could have planned that would happen!"
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore whole life
Counterexample: HPMOR: Lucius' rule of three

Name: Game-Breaker
Definition: a legitimate element of the game used in an unintended way
Example: HPMOR: Most spell, used creatively
Example2: "The Assyrians were the first people to start using iron weapons instead of bronze which, to put into a modern perspective, is sort of like showing up for a knife fight with the Death Star. Using iron made the Assyrians so near-invincible that, really, the other guys might as well have been swinging around bananas."
— Cracked, "The 5 most terrifying civilizations in the history of the world." ^Elaboration

Name: Genius thriller
Definition: a very intelligent protagonist, who we will call Alice, finds herself faced with some kind of pressing problem or overwhelming enemy (let's call it Bob), usually a problem which she can't possibly defeat by brute force. Alice attempts to solve the problem primarily with the power of her own intellect. This is fun to watch both because of the tension in figuring out whether Alice can outsmart Bob at all, and also seeing how she does it: what clever plan she uses to defeat Bob.
Example: HPMOR: Whole fanfic
Typ: A subgenre of Psychological Thriller.

Name: Genre Savvy
Definition: A character who do know of stories like their own and what worked in them and what didn't. They may attempt to apply the lessons they've learned from movies, books, or other fiction to their own situation, or they may restrict themselves to snarky asides and observations.
Example: HPMOR: Harry has read enough stories to know that the key to preventing his mysterious dark side from taking over isn't to never get angry, but to accept that this dark side is actually a part of him and learn to control it, instead. His "dark side" doesn't even have super-powerful magical ability compared to normal.

Name: Ghostapo
Definition: Making nazy worse by giving them ghost/dark mage, etc...
Example: HPMOR: It's strongly suggested that the Nazis were Grindelwald's followers in the muggle world, with the Holocaust actually being a blood magic ritual to give him power.

Name: Girls Have Cooties
Definition: If you're male and under 11 years old, you have to automatically think romance and females are gross.
Example: HPMOR: Harry when they speak of Hermione as romance

Name: Cooties
Definition: Originally: body lice
Definition2: In Trope: germs that come from the opposite gender and make you sick and look disgusting.

Name: A Glass in the Hand
Definition: A character has a glass in hand and clench it so hard that it shatters in their hand
Example2: HPMOR: What Snape does when sorting hat state: Slytherin

Name: A Glass of Chianti
Definition: Many Big Bads, being more high-class than most heroes, like to sip some wine, usually red, while lounging on their throne. This makes them seem refined and worldly, even when relaxing. Heroes and more petty villains go for the more boorish beer, usually because they either can't afford wine or they have no taste for the stuff.
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell's usual drink in Mary's Room. No, not evil at all...

Name: A God Am I
Definition: A character speaking of themself as god
Example: HPMOR:Harry's ultimate goal is:
To understand everything important there is to know about the universe, apply that knowledge to become omnipotent, and use that power to rewrite reality because I have some objections to the way it works now.

Name: Golden Snitch
Definition: Create a sense of tension for the heroes, who had been on a winning streak up to this point, but now have to worry about being defeated in the finals (usually because their star player has been taken out of play due to an injury, or the heavenly angels decided to stop helping the team).
Definition2: On the flip side, allow for the losing heroes to have a come-from-behind win.
Example: HPMOR:Harry's ultimate goal is:
To understand everything important there is to know about the universe, apply that knowledge to become omnipotent, and use that power to rewrite reality because I have some objections to the way it works now.
Conjdef: A competition involving a series of events or activities, in which the final round counts for a disproportionately large percent of the team's total score — and in fiction, will tend to be worth more than all previous events combined. Thus, whoever wins the final round earns enough points to win the entire match, regardless of just about everything else that happened before it.
Mostly for:
Definition3: Allow one person (typically The Hero) to be solely or at least largely responsibly for winning a team game.
Etymology: Harry Potter

Name: Golden Mean Fallacy
Definition: When an author state that their argument is superior because its a mix between the two extreme opposite arguments
Example: HPMOR:Dumbledore compromising on things like letting Azkaban keep existing and leaving bullies to their game.
Conjdef: A competition involving a series of events or activities, in which the final round counts for a disproportionately large percent of the team's total score — and in fiction, will tend to be worth more than all previous events combined. Thus, whoever wins the final round earns enough points to win the entire match, regardless of just about everything else that happened before it.
Mostly for:
Name2: Argument to Moderation
Example3: some say cyanide is a lethal and dangerous poison and should never be consumed. The opposite position would be that cyanide is nutritious and beneficial to your health and should be consumed frequently. The golden mean fallacy would state that cyanide should therefore be consumed in moderation.
Name3: Gray Fallacy

Name: Gone Horribly Right
Definition: When an author state that their argument is superior because its a mix between the two extreme opposite arguments
Example: HPMOR:Dumbledore compromising on things like letting Azkaban keep existing and leaving bullies to their game.
Example3: HPMOR: Quirrell push Harry's determination so well a prophecy say it threaten the world
Example4: HPMOR: So many answer to Yudkowsky's test that he needed help

Name: Good Angel, Bad Angel
Definition: When someone wrestles with a temptation, two miniature versions of himself, an Angel and a Devil, sit on each shoulder and try to pull him in different directions. The Devil will invariably be on the left (the conflicted character's left, or "sinister") shoulder.
Example: HPMOR: Harry debates with distinct personnalities

Name: Gossip Evolution
Definition: Whenever tales are spread mouth to mouth, particularly among Gossipy Hens, every speaker adds something of their own, going as far as changing a bar brawl into raging war between four largest nations of whichever world the story is placed into.
Example: HPMOR: Rumors in Hogwarts have a tendency to mutate. Some have few witnesses to the original event (e.g., Harry using the ghost of Slytherin to stop Padma from spreading rumors about Hermione, or what, exactly, happened in Hermione's Wizengamot trial) and some have many witnesses (e.g., Harry returning from dementation). Harry allows the rumors to spread and starts some of his own because uncertainty makes it more likely that the truth will remain hidden.
Example2: "He'd staggered in, covered in blood and mud, carrying a crossbow and, d'you know, when they went back to look there were seven dead men. By the time that sort of story had gone ten miles he'd be carrying an axe as well, and make that thirty dead men and a dog."
— The Fifth Elephant

Name: HensGossip
Definition: A group of (usually) women whose sole purpose in life seems to be gossiping about other people, since that's all they do whenever they are on screen, and you never hear any mention of what they might be doing when off-screen.
Example: HPMOR: The girls of Slytherin, especially Millicent Bulstrode. Hell, almost all the schoolgirls.
Intuition: used for exposition, since they know the business of everybody in town

Name: Gravity Master
Definition: The ability to control gravity as a superpower
Example: HPMOR: feather Falling potion works much like the similarly named Dungeons & Dragons spell.

Name: The grovel
Definition: One character has hurt or betrayed another, usually their love interest. they are now in a Second-Act Breakup. Now it tries hard to have them back
Example: HPMOR: Harry's lack of experience dealing with friends combined with following the advice of Quirrell leads to multiple instances of him groveling to Hermione.

Name: The Guards Must Be Crazy
Definition: Guard for evil overloard do things which are not correct for their role, and act against their boss' interest
Counterexample: HPMOR: Averted. Even for a small thing like patronuses acting strangely, Azkaban's guards send patrols to be safe. Another sign of Amelia Bones's wisdom.
[I]t was probably nothing, but procedure was procedure.

Name: Guest Fighter
Definition: a character that doesn't belong in the setting who just shows up in a Video Game
Typ: Unexpected Characters

Name: Gambit Pileup
Definition: two or more people with completely separate agendas each hatching complicated plans. The storyline is thrown into chaos and even the most savvy fans can't predict how it will all end. Be prepared to make a flow diagram to keep up with everyone's scheme.
Example: HPMOR: The War of Three Armies. One of the few cases where "thirty" is an understatement. The author actually apologizes for the pileup in the author's notes, but explains that:
I think I just had to get it out of my system by writing, at least once in my life, something more complicated than Death Note.
Example3: HPMOR: In the main plot, Harry, Draco, Dumbledore, and Quirrell all trying to be The Chessmaster, with varying degrees of success.
Snape commenting, "If I have learned anything in my tenure as Head of Slytherin, I have learned what ridiculous messes arise when there is more than one plotter and more than one plan."

Name: Gaining the Will to Kill
Definition: Using willingness to kill to show one's determination
Example: HPMOR: Harry crosses this line during a battle with a mountain troll, when a close friend is mortally wounded. Later, he coolly plans the murder of Lucius Malfoy in case Lucius refuses his offer to form an alliance, as he will otherwise remain an enemy.

Name: Happily Adopted
Definition: Adoption were everything goes right
Example: HPMOR

Name: Happiness in Slavery
Definition: Beloved Servant: Bob is appreciated and rewarded by Alice and stays loyal because of this. However he still either cannot leave or cannot imagine leaving. Can overlap with Property of Love and/or Undying Loyalty.
Definition2: Cringing Bootlick: Bob is treated like dirt by Alice, but is still loyal, due to a debt of gratitude, masochism, hope for reciprocation on Alice's part (e.g. The Igor, The Renfield, Love Martyr, Mad Love, Sycophantic Servant), suffers from Stockholm Syndrome, or simply doesn't know any better.
Example: HP: House elves
Conjdef: Bob is in servitude to Alice, but doesn't want freedom, and is not brainwashed. There are four types of this:
Definition3: Cultural Values Dissonance: Bob belongs to a species whose Hat is Happiness in Slavery, they both belong to a culture with a Fantastic Caste System, or they need to have a Master for some reason. Bob may also be Born into Slavery and unable to imagine any other life.
Definition4: Slavery Is the Lesser Evil: Bob finds slavery better than any condition he can find in freedom, either easily or at all.

Name: Heel Realization
Definition: Realizing you became the bad guy, and not wanting to
Example: HP: When Harry frees Bellatrix Black.
And in chapter 82 in the heat of the argument he pushes Dumbledore to the edge of one. In Chapter 93 McGonagall decides her focus on rules and responsibility has left students unwilling to take necessary risks and destroyed Gryffindor's heroic spirit, for which she publicly recants. In Chapter 94 Neville has realised he should have helped Harry save Hermione rather than insist they follow orders and stay where it was safe, and blames himself for her death.
Example2: "Err, Hans... Have you looked at our caps recently? They've got skulls on them, Hans. Skulls. I mean, what's worse than a skull? Hans... are we the baddies?"
— That Mitchell and Webb Look. Two SS Officers come to a terrible epiphany...

Name: Hellhole Prison
Definition: A prison which does everything to break its prisonner.
Example: HP: Azkaban

Name: Heroic Resolve
Definition: A Heros is defeated, and finally realize something allow him to do a final attack
Example: HPMOR: Harry, in Azkaban, when he realizes that giving up would doom Quirrell.
Typ: Heroic Spirit

Name: Hesitation Equals Dishonesty
Definition: In a story, an hesitation is a sign of the speaker lying
Example: HPMOR: Harry and Draco both use this as a litmus test. Harry realizes in a later chapter that he's gotten so used to tests like this that he's forgotten how to lie to normal people.
Example2: "Would Sonic the Hedgehog please report to the security office? Repeat, Sonic the Hedgehog please report to the security office. We've found your — er... your keys! That's it, we've found your keys. No need to be ready for a trap, since we only wish to return your keys!"
— Doctor Eggman in Sonic Colors

Name: Historical In-Joke
Definition: changes the meaning of the event, or
Definition2: shows what really caused it, as opposed to what everyone thinks really happened.
Example: HPMOR: Red and green are associated with Christmas because a Gryffindor and a Slytherin were married during the Yule season in the distant past and became a symbol of brotherhood.
Conjdef: when a show references a historical event, and provides additional information about the event, relating it to the show. This either

Name: Hitler Ate Sugar
Definition: Assuming that doing anything that Hitler did is evil
Example: HPMOR: Harry falls into this fallacy briefly in chapter 35, but even after he's called on it his point still stands (the topic was actual fascism).
Example2: "You know, I shouldn't have to explain this, but sharing one attribute with Nazis doesn't make you one!"
— Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Typ: sub-type of Genetic Fallacy, So Was X and Anti-Advice, and the Association Fallacy.
Example3: Bob: I want to commit genocide.
Alice: The Nazis committed genocide.
Bob: Really? What was I thinking? I can't believe I was going to do something the Nazis did.

Name: Hobbes Was Right
Definition: The only forces capable of controlling this setting are tyrants, dictators and authoritarian groups. Any attempt at democracy is a doomed enterprise, formulated by Wide-Eyed Idealists working under the belief that there is a grain of selflessness in any person.
Example: HPMOR: Professor Quirrell's viewpoint, which he hopes to bring Harry to.
Etymology: Thomas Hobbes, who wrote in the 17th-century book Leviathan that strong, centralized government is necessary to protect mankind from its own base nature and self-serving desires

Name: Homeschooled Kids
Example: HPMOR before Hogwarts

Name: Hopeless Boss Fight
Definition: The storyline requires the defeat of the main characters in order to make a point or explain a key event, regardless of whether or not the player would allow their party to fall in battle. The Fight must been shown
Example: HPMOR: The Hogwarts battle in Chapter 67 (Harry and Neville in armor) is a non-video game example of this.

Name: Teacher/Student Romance
Example: HPMOR: Rianne Felthorne is hopelessly infatuated with Snape, and when he demands her presence in his dungeons she immediately assumes he's propositioning her. For a threesome with Hermione Granger, no less!!
Name2: Hot For Teacher

Name: Horrifying the Horror
Definition: when someone — or something — is frightening enough to scare things that would usually be a subject of terror themselves.
Example: HPMOR: Dementors are effraied of Harry
Example2: "Generally speaking, when scary things get scared? Not good."
— Xander Harris, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Name: Hufflepuff House
Definition: an organizational equivalent to the Mauve Shirt or Redshirt Army. They help round out the setting without actually impacting much on it, filling out the empty seats in The Alliance HQ and making things look diverse
Example: HPMOR: Griffondor has no quality
Typ: Cryptic Background Reference.
Etymology: In HP: Nothing occurs in this house

Name: Human Sacrifice
Definition: The act of killing a human of your tribe in a ritualistic manner, often as an offering to a deity, demon or some other supernatural entity.
Counterexample: Killing a captured ennemy

Name: Human Subspecies
Definition: Those modified through genetic or technological engineering. This tends to be the most common.
Definition2: Those as a result of regular evolution (or at least as far as the author understands it) - the genetic descendants of Homo sapiens.
Example: HPMOR: he suspects goblin, and other intelligent races, are
Conjdef: humans that are literally Aliens, Human Subspecies
Definition3: Those related to us via a common evolutionary ancestor.

Name: Homo superior
Definition: Human subspecies offshoot of today's human

Name: Humans Are Bastards
Definition: When human are assumed to be naturally egoistical. World works only by cooperation for selfish interest.
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell believes this. Harry thinks that although many may be so, people also have the potential to be good, and that some (like Hermione) are able to act on it.

Name: Humans Are Morons
Definition: when compared with other civilizations in works of Speculative Fiction (or even lesser animals, on occasion), humans are nowhere near as technologically advanced, incapable of understanding such civilizations as being any different from the most generic Sci-Fi stories, very gullible, insanely superstitious, constantly have more astounding lapses in judgment than a more sensible being could possibly tolerate, far more primitive than realized (possibly even more savage or violent than realized), and completely oblivious to all of this.
Example: HPMOR: A theme of the fic is that most humans do not bother to think deeply enough.
Typ: Humans Are Flawed,

Name: Humans Are Special
Definition: Humans are better than any other alien civilisation
Example: HPMOR: Harry's belief, allowing him to destroy dementor
Example2: "Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man."
— Sophocles, Antigone

Name: Planet of Hats
Definition: Having an important characteristic representing every living character on a planet

Name: Hurl It into the Sun
Definition: Sending something to the sun to be sure to destroy it
Example: HPMOR: Harry asks if this would destroy a dementor. Quirrell, not content with giving a simple response, deliberately misinterprets the question:
"It seems unlikely, Mr. Potter," Professor Quirrell said dryly. "The Sun is very large, after all; I doubt the Dementor would have much effect on it. But it is not a test I would like to try, Mr. Potter, just in case."

Name: Everyone Is Satan in Hell
Definition: Excluded Middle Ground
Definition2: Quote Mine
Example: HPMOR:
Conjdef: Some Moral Guardians are so paranoid that they'll attack the most ridiculous things, or will attack them in the most ridiculous ways possible. Using mostly those methods:
Definition3: Devil Of The Gaps
Definition4: Make Stuff Up

Name: Excluded Middle Ground
Definition: Everything is related either for good or for bad
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsSatanInHell
Example: Alice wears a shirt with a picture of X on it. X is used as a symbol of Y by Z. Therefore, the X on Alice's shirt symbolizes Y.
Example2: Bob's middle name is Hikaru. "Hikaru" means "to light." "Lucifer" means "light-bringer." Therefore, "Hikaru" refers to Lucifer and Bob is Satan.

Name: Quote mine
Definition: take something nasty that a villain said or did out of context, then insinuate that the source material actually encourages that type of thing.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsSatanInHell
Example: paranoid fundamentalists citing Voldemort's actions and words as "values" the book supposedly endorses.

Name: Devil of the gaps
Definition: if a source of what appears to be magical power is not explicitly explained or understood, then the power must come from Satan, and therefore the story is part of the Satanic agenda.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsSatanInHell

Name: I Know Your True Name
Definition: A true name perfectly describes something's essential nature; knowing a true name gives one power over the owner of the name. In some portrayals, using a person's true name forces them to obey your commands. In others, a true name gives you a connection to the name's owner that allows you to work magic on them from a distance. Sometimes, a person's true name is needed if you want to work any magic on them at all.
Example: Neville pretends to summon Harry "by the power of [his] true name."
Example2: Death note power require it

Name: I let you win
Definition: You triomph over a strong ennemy. Just to learn that it was their interest to lose, and you didn't really win the fight
Counterexample: HPMOR: Downplayed; strictly speaking Moody didn't let Harry hit him when he issued his challenge. But as Harry points out later, he wasn't really trying to stop him — all he did was sit back, wait for Harry to begin his next attempt, and then shut him down. The point of the exercise being less to compare their relative strengths, and more to get Harry to break out of the role of a "duelist" and genuinely do whatever it would take to land that one hit.

Name: I Need a Freaking Drink
Definition: Someone recites this phrase, or a variant thereof; usually omitting the "freaking" or replacing it with something else, or
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneIsSatanInHell
Definition2: Someone reaches for the nearest alcoholic beverage, or if he is currently holding one, will down the rest of it in the blink of an eye.
Example: "In victory, you deserve champagne; in defeat, you need it."
— Napoleon Bonaparte
Conjdef: Such a bad day that you need a drink
Definition3: Someone discards the alcoholic beverage to grab one of greater volume and/or potency. Alternatively, they may pour a glass, pause, and then drink straight from the bottle.
Example2: HPMOR: McGonagall needs one desperately after shopping with Harry.

Name: I Owe You My Life
Definition: A saves B life.
B think they owe a lot to A.
Example: HPMOR: Life debts in the wizarding world appear to be Serious Business, as the Wizengamot (at least sometimes) makes official rulings about them.
Example2: Jar jar bikns.

Name: I Shall Taunt You
Definition: Infuriating the target so that he quits thinking straight, picks up the Idiot Ball, and charges headlong into a trap.
Definition2: A Secret Test of Character to see if the target can keep his cool under pressure. After all, If You Taunt Him, You Will Be Just Like Him.
Example: HPMOR: Draco thinks Harry is trying to break up Draco's alliance with Hermione by teasing him about it mercilessly.
Conjdef: A character deliberately insults and goads another as a calculated ploy. Possible motivations include:
Definition3: Prodding a dispirited ally to make him quit sulking and get back into action.
Example2: "If your enemy is of a choleric temper, seek to anger him."
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Definition4: Driving someone who is already behaving irrationally to go too far and thereby realize that he needs to stop and calm down.

Name: I Was Never Here
Definition: Erasing every trace that something occured.
Example: HPMOR: Harry says this to Professor Sprout when setting up the Game, and it's implied in several other conversations.

Name: I Will Only Slow You Down
Definition: You have a group of protagonists, one of whom has been injured or disabled. Either that person is literally slowing the group down, or Someone Has to Die. Naturally, the "damaged" party member volunteers to sacrifice themselves and/or be left behind: after all, being permanently injured is a Fate Worse than Death and well... They'll just slow them down.
Example: HPMOR: Hermione tells Draco to let go of her hand and let her fall so he can defeat Harry, rather than try to hold on and make them both lose.

Name: I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder
Definition: A stock phrase that is almost always worded as: I'm an X not a Y. With X being their profession, and Y being whoever would be better able to do the job that they are having difficulty with.
Example: HPMOR:"I'm a hat, not a god."

Name: I'm a Humanitarian
Definition: Someone who discover they have been eating human
Example: HPMOR:Once Harry realizes that parselmouths are capable of speaking to snakes he starts to worry if this means snakes, and potentially any other thing he eats, my be sentient. While Harry hungrily wonders about the moral implications, his Hufflepuff perspective (see Good Angel, Bad Angel above) suggests he fix the problem by eating his fellow students. After all, there is no debating whether they are sentient.
Example2: "The number of incidents of the use of human flesh in cooking decreased this month to 56."
— NKVD (Police) Archive for the Leningrad District, June 1942

Name: Ice-Cream Koan
Definition: Something that looks like a Koan (a Chinese Buddhist riddle meant to encourage contemplation), walks like a koan, quacks like a koan, but lacks… substance. It sounds meaningful at first, but after you think a moment, instead of getting some rush of insight, you realize that it is nothing more than nonsense, or just a joke dressed up in profundity's hand-me-downs. Like ice cream itself, it looks good and tastes good, but is ultimately just empty calories.
Example: HPMOR:"When Dumbledore desperately asks him for some wisdom, Harry resorts to spouting fake profundity – and then is rather appalled at how easily Dumbledore buys it.
Example2: "Any sufficiently advanced riddle is indistinguishable from gibberish."
— Erfworld
Etymology: If you have ice cream, I will give it to you. If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you. It is an Ice Cream Koan.

Name: Icy Blue Eyes
Definition: Piercing, pale blue eyes, and sometimes gray eyes, that seem to look right through you. As a reflection of character, this variety of blue eyes indicates the coolness (as in Rule of Cool) or even coldness (as in cold and calculating) of the person who has them. Tends to overlap with Elemental Eye Colours if the character is An Ice Person.
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore and Quirrell

Name: Idiot ball
Definition: A moment where a character's stupidity fuels an episode, or a small plot line.
Example: HPMOR: Referenced among Mad-Eye Moody's list of precautions as "Bahl's Stupefaction", a highly addictive drug which hands you an Idiot Ball as a side effect.
Example2: Obi-Wan: [trapped in ray shields] Wait a minute. How did this happen? We're smarter than this.
Anakin: Apparently not.
— Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Name: Ignored Enamored Underling
Definition: When the The Hero or the Big Bad has an underling, potentially The Dragon, an adjutant/secretary or a Paid Harem, it's often the case that she (though flipped genders — or even the same gender — aren't unheard of) goes beyond being loyal and both idolizes and loves him
Example: HPMOR: Bellatrix to Voldemort.

Name: Imagine Spot
Definition: A brief cut to a Fantasy Sequence and back, usually no more than a few seconds long, and commonly bookended by a Fade to White.
Example: HPMOR: Hermione gets distracted by one in Chapter 122. It's implied to be based off of the actual Harry Potter books.
Example2: Alice yells at Bob, "What am I, your maid?!". Cut to Alice cleaning the house in a French Maid Outfit. Cut to Bob's face — he's clearly just imagined the role, and Alice has just slapped him to snap him out of his imagination trance.

Name: Immortality Immorality
Definition: Immortality is achieved through ethically dubious forms of Applied Phlebotinum.
Definition2: Immortality is bad in and of itself, even if attained without using evil means. Perhaps it's "meddling in God's domain", which tends not to end well for the meddler. From a secular viewpoint, perhaps immortality is bad for society even if it's great for individuals. Some works suggest that immortality in itself is damaging to valuing other people's lives: if most people's lifespans seem to pass in the blink of an eye for you, why care if they end slightly earlier?
Example: HPMOR: According to Dumbledore, simply fearing death, let alone trying to avoid it, is enough to warp one's soul.
Conjdef: Immortality, at least for normal humans, is often seen as just plain wrong. Especially if they used to be mortals who actively wants to be immortal. The rationale goes:
Definition3: And, perhaps most obviously, immortality exempts one forever from the possibility of going to Hell. If there's absolutely no way you can ever get a truly cosmic punishment, why should you restrain yourself from doing whatever the hell you want, right up to rape and outright murder?note Even for atheists or in the settings where afterlife may not exist, being immortal would still likely make them free to do immoral things because of the simple fact that death is no longer a threat to you.

Name: Immortality Seeker
Definition: When a character quests for eternal life. Sometimes it's given to them, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it's given to them and they regret the consequences, but their desire and actions towards immortality are what count towards this trope.
Example: HPMOR: Harry wants everyone to be immortal.

Name: Improbable Age
Definition: A character whose age seems inappropriate with their occupation or position given the amount of experience they would need, whether or not said age is actually important within the storyline.
Example: HPMOR: Due to certain events, Harry is almost seventy years old.

Name: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Definition: This is a purely good character. He is completely and utterly incorruptible. The natural bane of The Corrupter, and immune to The Corruption.
Example: HPMOR:Hermione has an aura to this effect after she is resurrected, due to being made part-unicorn. She's a little embarrassed about it, although she quickly sees several upsides to having "Sparkling Unicorn Princess powers", as she puts it. Harry finds it rather distracting and briefly wonders if he can pay anyone to invent an anti-purity potion.
Example2: "You just couldn't let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren't you? You won't kill me, out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness... and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun! I think you and I are destined to do this forever."
— The Joker, about Batman, The Dark Knight

Name: Incredibly Lame Pun
Definition: a form of word play where a word with more than one meaning is exploited to make a joke based on this double meaning.
Example: HPMOR:After Draco has dropped Hermione off the roof of Hogwarts (It Makes Sense in Context — there was no real danger due to the aforementioned Feather Falling potion), it is speculated that his goal is to drop all the muggleborns. That's right: he's the Heir of "Slipperin" and the next "Drop Lord".
Which was far too good a line for anyone to keep to themselves, so by nightfall it was all over Hogwarts, and the next morning it was the Quibbler's headline.
When Harry is trying to decide whether it is moral or not to eat meat, his inner Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor try to help:
His inner Slytherin's mental voice was grim. You too will someday embrace the doctrine... that the end justifies the meats. This was followed by some mental snickering.
Chapter 67, about the rules of how Hogwarts changes its geometry:
Even after eight centuries, Hogwarts was still a little shy about changing in front of people.
Name2: a play on words

Name: Insufferable Genius
Definition: An Aesop about humility: he's very talented, he knows he's very talented, and he doesn't mind telling you repeatedly what a talented person he is.
Example: HPMOR: Harry, and most of Ravenclaw
Extra: At first glance, Adam the Insufferable Genius appears to be exactly the type who's doomed to learn But the difference between him and your standard-issue loudmouth is that he really IS that good, and when you need someone with his skills to save the day, he always comes through. So you have to concede that at least a little of his arrogance is justified — not enough to make you forget that he's got the social skills of a buzzsaw, but enough that you can tolerate his ego if that's what it takes to keep him around.

Name: Insult Backfire
Definition: A verbal equivalent of Attack Backfire, this is for when Alice comments on a trait of Bob's in a way that's intended to sound negative — but instead of being insulted, Bob acts flattered.
Example: HPMOR: Hermione's cheeks were going even redder. "You're really evil, did anyone ever tell you that?"
"Miss Granger," Professor Quirrell said gravely, "it can be dangerous to give people compliments like that when they have not been truly earned. The recipient might feel bashful and undeserving and want to do something worthy of your praise...."
Example2: Jaime: Smart boy. [off Robb's look]. What? Don't like being called a boy? Insulted?
King Robb: You insult yourself, Kingslayer. You've been defeated by a boy. You're held captive by a boy. Perhaps you'll be killed by a boy.
— Game of Thrones, "The North Remembers"

Name: Intelligence Equals Isolation
Definition: This trope is about characters or people, mostly but not necessarily in college, who are very smart and suffer for it, being unable to relate to the mundane worries and shallow personalities of their comrades, as well as being bored out of their skulls by the mandatory classes.
Example: HPMOR: Harry spells this out to McGonagall as the reason for his odd behavior.

Name: Intrinsic Vow
Definition: A vow of a person so strong that a person will respect it, even if some thing is supposed to have taken control of the person
Example: "Harry's hand halted.
He had a distant sense he was behaving uncharacteristically of himself, somehow. Like there was something he'd forgotten, something important, but he was having trouble remembering what it was, exactly."
— Narration, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Example2: Unbreakable vow

Name: Invisible to Normals
Definition: Some surnatural things no one remark
Example2: HPMOR: Harry's trunk is weird enough that his very unmagical dad has trouble looking directly at it.
Example3: HP: Phœnix's order headquarter

Name: Ironic Echo
Definition: If Bob's original line was meant maliciously, Alice's Ironic Echo will be twice as cruel, as she throws the attack back in his face.
Definition2: If Bob was trying to convince Alice of a way of thinking, Alice will quote it to signify that she now agrees with the idea. This sometimes happens after Bob himself has abandoned the idea (or has shown he never believed in it in the first place).
Example: Quirrell's comment, "You have just found out that the real world does not always work like your worst nightmares," echoes Harry's justification to himself for pranking Neville.
Conjdef: Bob makes a comment in the presence of Alice. Much later on, Alice makes the same comment in a different situation, often giving it an unexpected meaning in the new context.
Definition3: Bob's line was meant to be something positive or inspirational, but when Alice parrots it back the subtext makes it seem much darker and/or cynical than Bob meant it to be. The inverse is also common.
Example2: Harry turns Dumbledore's "This is not a request. This is your punishment" back on him.
Definition4: A once-cheery line gets repeated after all the good and hope that it once represented has disappeared. For example, Bob might say that he and Alice will always be friends. After Bob's Start of Darkness has turned him against her, Alice may reminisce on the past, using Bob's initial words. This one is particularly common in musicals, where an entire song can be ironically repeated. (See Dark Reprise.)
Definition5: this will also crop up with lines that were first made idly, innocently, and perhaps not even directed at Alice; in those cases the echo will simply be unexpected, and can be used for humor, shock value, or anything in between.
Example3: Dumbledore notes on separate occasions that "Common sense is often mistaken for Legilimency," and that "Legilimency is sometimes mistaken for common sense."
Example4: Early on, when Harry is being shown around Diagon Alley by Professor McGonagall, she repeatedly answers his direct questions on how the things he sees can possibly happen with simply, "Magic." Later on, after Harry has pulled off something seemingly impossbile and McGonagall asks how he did it, his reply is, "Magic," to which she immediately responds, "That is no sort of answer!" Harry, realizing this trope had just come into play, only smiles at her.

Name: Irony
Definition: The intended meaning is an inversion of the plain meaning. Pretty simple, really, but somehow a difficult concept for some to grasp.
Example2: Harry asks to join the Death Eaters:
Harry: You are about to invite me to join a secret organization full of interesting people like yourself, one of whose goals is to reform or overthrow the government of magical Britain, and yes, I'm in.
Example3: When Harry tells Hermione about his method of examining all sides of a problem, represented as inner voices with different names and personalities discussing with each other inside his mind, she briefly considers trying this approach before her Common Sense warns her it might be a dangerous thing to try.
Counterexample: It is not a lie. It is not a joke. It is not a coincidence. It is not a tragedy. It is not merely anything unexpected. It is not the same as sarcasm. It is not something Alanis Morissette understands.
Example4: Harry's insistent reasoning on why to buy a medical kit. The irony being that it fails at life-saving, but is crucial in the defeat of Voldemort.

Name: Socratic irony
Definition: the use of constant questioning in order to reveal the truth of any position. You know how kids like to ask "Why?" no matter the answer? This is the more sophisticated version. You keep feigning ignorance of the topic, in order to force the other person to explain it further.
Typ: a debating tool
Etymology: First employed by Socrates

Name: Verbal irony
Definition: Basically, you state something in a manner that has literal connotation, but expresses something different in the context of the situation. This may be done for any number of reasons, but typically the intent is either humor or emphasis.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Irony

Name: Dramatic irony
Definition: letting the audience in on something of which one or more characters is unaware.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Irony
Example: Sleeping beauty(disney): the prince wants to marry a commoner, and we know she is not

Name: Situational irony
Definition: when the outcome of some situation or action is the exact opposite of the expected or intended outcome.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Irony
Example: Safety feature turns to be dangerous
Name2: Expectational Irony

Name: Tragic irony
Definition: The character's words or even actions are not ironic to them (or perhaps anyone in the story), but the audience is fully aware that their actions will bring about a tragic or deadly result, all while they ostensibly fight against such a result.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Irony

Name: Cosmic irony
Definition: situational irony, whose degree is the whole universe
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Irony
Example: most Self-Fulfilling Prophecies are caused by the very act of trying to prevent them.

Name: Historical irony
Definition: Any irony (except from Socratic irony) through hindsight
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Irony
Example: Take the Oracle at Delphi's prophecy to Croesus that if the king went to war, he would "destroy a great empire."

Name: Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique
Definition: A hero which torture a suspect to obtain informations
Example: HPMOR: Harry suspects that Quirrell gained a certain piece of information through the use of "lead-pipe Legilimency"... which is itself a "Hold Your Hippogriffs" version of "rubber-hose cryptanalysis" — that is, whipping somebody until they tell you the password.
Etymology: "You are going to tell me what I want to know; it's just a matter of how much you want it to hurt."

Name: Jerkass
Definition: a character who is so completely obnoxious that it is unbelievable anyone would willingly interact with them
Example: HPMOR: Harry can get a little bit... abrasive with people who do not meet his personal standards. Example: telling a friend's parents at their first meeting that history will only remember them as her parents. Or when, immediately following that, he says that the only reason history will remember their profession existed is because they had that profession and were her parents.

Name: Jumped at the Call
Definition: Heroes excited that adventure comes calling
Example: The Sorting Hat tells Harry: "You're just guessing, or to put it more exactly, wishing that you have some ready-made heroic role that is your personal property." And Harry certainly acts the part later:
Harry should have been more frightened, more reluctant, but instead he felt only that it was time and past time to start becoming the people he had read about in his books; to begin his journey toward what he had always known he was meant to be, a hero.
Counterexample: Deconstructed when Harry makes a series of less than optimal decisions in quick succession while rescuing Bellatrix Black (whom he saw as a Damsel in Distress) from Azkaban. He recognizes that this is a flaw in his own psychology and it remains to be seen how badly this will come back and bite him in the end.
Counterexample2: Subverted in Chapter 85 when Harry decides to wait to get stronger before going to Azkaban because there are many people he wants to save and going now could result in his death—and in making that decision, misses out on ever having his own phoenix.

Name: Is This a Joke?
Definition: Many a strange thing is happening in Normaltown, USA and the Weirdness Censor isn't working at 100% efficiency today, so someone will suggest that the events are "Some kind of joke," despite how overly elaborate and complicated measures would have to be taken in order to produce such phenomenon for the sake of a laugh. They're hoping it's a Candid Camera Prank.
Example: HPMOR: Harry finds himself in an absurd situation:
Mere eyes could not have seen the invisible others: the eleven-year-old Boy-Who-Lived, and the living skeleton that was Bellatrix Black, and the Polyjuiced Defense Professor of Hogwarts, all traveling together through Azkaban. If that was the beginning of a joke, Harry didn't know the punchline.
Example2: A rabbi, a pirate and a horse walk into a bar and the bartender says "What is this, some kind of joke?"

Name: It May Help You on Your Quest
Definition: A character is handed (or idly picks up, or discovers in his possession) a seemingly useless item of junk. This can happen fairly early in the story — in The Hero's Journey, it's one of the first steps.
The item in question later becomes important to resolving some major or minor obstacle moving the characters forward. Or the character thinks it will, anyway. Or the character, if handed it, cherishes it as a gift. (Or the character is a pack rat.)
Example: HPMOR:Dumbledore, with great ceremony, gives Harry... his father's rock. It's just a big rock which is not special at all. The fact that it actually does come in useful, and the circumstances where it does, are seen as so suspicious in-universe that it completely changes the state of political alliances by bringing the Malfoys in under Harry's personal banner. Later it turns out that there was a prophesy and Dumbledore didn't actually know about the specific threat it stopped, only that it would be vital later.
Example2: Jack: Is the... jar of dirt going to help?
Tia Dalma: If you don't want it, give it back.
Jack: [tentatively] No...
Tia Dalma: Then it helps.
— Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Typ: A certain form of Chekhov's Gun.

Name: It's All About Me
Definition: When a character believe they are the center of everything
Example: HPMOR:This is Hermione's motivation for becoming General Sunshine, mainly because she resents that Harry gets to be the centre of attention all the time — more specifically, she resents that her own accomplishments are only spoken of in terms of "Harry's rival".

Name: It's Quiet... Too Quiet
Definition: When heroes believe a place is abnormally quiet, and that it means something bad is hiding
Example: HPMOR:
Counterexample: HPMOR: Spoofed in Chapter 13, when Harry wakes up thinking his dorm room is suspiciously quiet and then remembers there's a Silencing Charm on the bed.

Name: I Always Wanted to Say That
Definition: A character says a cliche line (or famous quote from a movie) in some appropriate situation and sends up the lameness of it by noting he was wanting an opportunity to say it.
Example: HPMOR: I Always Wanted to Say That: In the first army battle Dean Thomas, who's been waiting his whole life to say it, gets the chance to say, "Red 5 standing by." In the lake battle Harry, who's always wanted to say it and has looked for an opportunity that really felt right, gets the chance to say, "Why are you upside down?"
Typ: meta-Stock Phrase

Name: I Can Still Fight!
Definition: An injured character refuses to stay in bed, despite medical advice. And though he says it's Only a Flesh Wound, we know better. Sometimes the injured party might go to great lengths to hide his injuries from the other characters, knowing that he will get taken off the field. Other times, the character is mortally wounded and fights on regardless.
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell has to order Harry to rest after the events of the infamous Chapter 19. Hannah Abbott literally says this during Quirrell's battle in Chapter 78.

Name: I Gave My Word
Definition: Any dialog to indicate your deep offense that someone says that you could do something that you promised not to, or refrain from something you promised to do — or actually tries to do something you had promised would not happen. (You are, after all, "a man of your word.") Bonus points if no one would realize you had broken it
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell seems surprised when Harry tells him he would never break a promise.

Name: I Have This Friend...
Definition: To ask question about an embarassing problem, you pretend a friend have this problem
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell seems surprised when Harry tells him he would never break a promise.
Example2: Denise: Dad, I have a friend that wants to talk to you about something important.
Cliff: Is this person related to me?
— The Cosby Show

Name: I Just Want to Be Normal
Definition: A character states that it does not want the power and responsibility he obtained
Example: Frodo Baggins: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf the Grey: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.
— The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Name: I Just Want to Be Special
Definition: a character who is completely ordinary and unexceptional. And they desperately wish that they weren't.

Name: I Know You Know I Know
Definition: Here are the levels of deception, with examples: Level 0: absolute honesty, no deception.
Level 1: X plays level 1 (hereafter abbreviated X(n)). X(1) has information that Y(0) does not, and utilizes this in a deception.
Level 2: Y(2) knows that X(1) is playing a deception. Y(2) reacts accordingly.
Level 3: X(3) knows that Y(2) is well aware of the deception, and thus plans for the outcome of the first deception being revealed.
Level 4: Y(4) is aware of the above play, and knows that the logical reaction to finding out the deception will play right into X(3)'s hands. Thus, Y(4) plays around X(3).
Level 5: X(5)'s entire deception is a deception, maybe meant only to engage Y(4).
And so on, and so on.
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell teaches Harry to pull off more subtle kinds of deception, leading to situations like this:
So either Severus was in fact modeling Harry as a one-level player, which made Severus himself two-level, and Harry's three-level move had been successful; or Severus was a four-level player and wanted Harry to think the deception had been successful.
Harry remarks in a later chapter that getting used to this kind of multi-level game the way Slytherins play it makes it quite hard to lie to normal people, since the precise phrasing involved comes off as suspicious in itself.

Name: Draco in Leather Pants
Definition: When a fandom takes a controversial or downright villainous character and downplays his/her flaws, often turning him/her into an object of desire and/or a victim in the process.
Counterexample: the Harry Potter fandom, for the mostly sympathetic Fan Fic portrayals of Draco Malfoy, who, in Canon, is a petty, smug, elitist Spoiled Brat.

Name: Kangaroo Court
Definition: a sham legal proceeding or trial, one that denies due process and fairness in the name of expediency
Example: HP and HPMOR: the trial of Harry/Hermione
Example2: "The case against Clevinger was open and shut. The only thing missing was something to charge him with."
— Catch-22

Name: Killed Off for Real
Definition: A death which, in the genre of the story, is expected to be reversed. But somehow, the story tell us that, this time, it won't occur
Example: HPMOR: Aberforth Dumbledore was taken hostage and killed when his brother refused to negotiate during the last wizarding war. At the climax we discover that Firenze really did die, Quirrelmort killed him and then made him an inferius so Harry wouldn't be suspicious of his intentions. By the end of the story Quirrell is dead and so are 37 Death Eaters, including Lucius Malfoy and Nott's, Crabbe's, and Goyle's fathers, and many more.
Counterexample: HPMOR: Narcissa Malfoy

Name: Killed Mid-Sentence
Definition: Killing an important character while they are speaking
Example2: Kreely Slaver: I'll DIE before I'll—
THOOOM!
Ennesby: "...finish my sentence," I think he was saying.
— Schlock Mercenary, 2004-07-19

Name: Kingmaker Scenario
Definition: The king-chooser who must declare another player the winner of the game without gaining anything for himself. Example: A rule that says "Award one point to the player to your right or your left" when both are one point away from winning. As this makes the game come down to "Who do I like more?", it's usually considered bad form in game design.
Definition2: The king-maker who may declare another player the winner of the game without gaining anything for himself. Example: A player who has no chance of winning can throw all his military might against another player so they are both weakened and can be scooped up by a third player, just to make the game end faster. While the problem is nearly impossible to avoid, the usual motivation behind it can be circumvented by not making players feel they have no chance at winning before the game is over.
Example: In the lake battle, Blaise Zabini, who has fought for all three sides over the course of the battle, is the last man standing at the end with the scores so close he can choose the winner. He forces a three-way draw.
Conjdef: two sides in a conflict are evenly matched and the third one is unable to overpower the other two. The third power then becomes the "King Maker": while it cannot win itself, it can ally itself with one of the other two, breaking the stalemate and bringing victory to its chosen side ("crowning them king")
Definition3: The king-breaker who may make it impossible or at least harder for another player to win without being in a position to profit from it. Example: A rule that says "Take one point from the player to your right or your left" when you're still trailing far behind them and the unhindered one will likely win. This is the least of the kingmaking sins and very hard to avoid because doing so also kills many completely fine game mechanics.
Example2: "In a room sit three great men: a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. 'Do it,' says the king, 'for I am your lawful ruler.' 'Do it,' says the priest, 'for I command you in the names of the gods.' 'Do it,' says the rich man, 'and all this gold shall be yours.' So tell me — who lives and who dies?"
— Varys, A Song of Ice and Fire
Etymology: Richard Neville a.k.a. Warwick the Kingmaker, who, while not suitable for the British throne himself (owing to a lack of Royal Blood), installed and deposed two sovereigns in short succession during the Wars of the Roses.

Name: Language of Truth
Definition: a particular language or form of communication in which lies are inherently impossible or inexpressible.
Example: HPMOR: Parseltong
Example2: Beatrice: From now on, everything I speak in red is the truth. There is no need to doubt or question it.
Battler: And I should believe you when you say that? ^note It's later proved that, indeed, you cannot make a false statement in red.
— The introduction of the Red Truth in Umineko: When They Cry.

Name: Rage Against the Author

Name: Laser-Guided Amnesia
Definition: With surgical precision, amnesia strips you of all information pertaining to personal identity, leaving just about everything else intact.
Definition2: In a series with Plausible Deniability, amnesia typically also erases all knowledge of the Masquerade.
Example: Memory charms are exactly this, when cast competently; thinking over the kind of mischief that could be done using them makes Harry wonder why the spell isn't considered an Unforgivable Curse.
Conjdef: Amnesia has several basic attributes in TV land:
Definition3: With very few exceptions, amnesia is always entirely retrograde: memory loss extends backward from the moment of injury.
Definition4: If a tool of the group the protagonists belong to, the likelihood of abuse of this power is almost never addressed.
Definition5: The amnesia inducer works like a toggle switch (especially in the case of blunt force to the cranium).

Name: Late-Arrival Spoiler
Definition: when a particular revelation in a current work is spoiled by official sources and merchandise
Example: For the many readers who never got into the original Harry Potter books. Quirrell is whom? He did what to the Pioneer plaque?

Name: Leaning on the Fourth Wall
Definition: Character mentionning that it look likes a story. Not obtaining any conclusion from it
Example: HPMOR: [Ch. 91] Harry: Because I've wandered into a bloody stupid fantasy novel!
[Ch. 94] Under standard literary convention... the enemy wasn't supposed to look over what you'd done...
Example3: "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I would condemn it as improbable fiction."
— Fabian, Twelfth Night

Name: Like an Old Married Couple
Definition: Two characters who seem very comfortable with each other to the point that it seems like they have been married for a long time, though obviously it doesn't apply to couples who actually have been together for a long time. Usually it is done through constant arguments with each other, as only people who are so closely bonded can have such open communication between them (whether they will admit it or not). Someone is apt to comment that they behave just like a married couple.
Example: HPMOR: Harry and Hermione, according to Harry's dad.
Example3: Penny: It's kind of nice. Look at us, I'm reading, you're reading. We're like an old married couple.
Sheldon: If we were an old married couple, the wife would serve iced tea and snickerdoodles.
Penny: I don't have iced tea and snickerdoodles.
Sheldon: A good wife would go to the store.
Penny: I want a divorce.
Sheldon: Good, on the way to the lawyers pick up some tea and cookies.
— The Big Bang Theory

Name: Like Brother and Sister
Definition: Sometimes, two characters of the opposite sex are very close—so close that you might expect them to be dating. Except they're not. They admit that they matter a great deal to each other, that they would die for each other, that they can't imagine life without each other. They aren't just any pair of friends. They're as close as family.
Example: HPMOR: Harry and Hermione. Harry even compares them to Ender and Valentine.
Name2: Storge

Name: Little Professor Dialog(ue)
Definition: Kids that speak by throwing around big words that you'd usually find in scientific journals or old English texts. This is either an indicator of the kid being a Child Prodigy or trying to simply sound like one.
Example: HPMOR:Harry talks this way. Lampshaded frequently—most of the cast (including Harry, himself) become aware that there is something very, very wrong with him. It's justified with the reveal that he has an adult Tom Riddle's brain patterns imprinted on his mind. Draco starts to talk like this after spending so much time with Harry.

Name: Living Forever Is Awesome
Definition: Beeing imortal, and loving it.
Example: HPMOR:Harry and the author's main idea

Name: Loophole Abuse
Definition: Applying the letter of a rule, instead of its spirit
Example: HPMOR: At Hogwarts, invisibility cloaks aren't against the rules. Harry supposes they're rare enough that no one ever got around to putting them on the list.
Example3: Q: Explain Newton's First Law of Motion in your own words.
Calvin: [writing] Yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz. [aside] I love loopholes.
— Calvin and Hobbes

Name: Loser Son of Loser Dad
Definition: People except very bad thing from you, because your parents are the same
Example: HPMOR: Lesath Lestrange is bullied for being the bastard son of Bellatrix Black and Rabastan Lestrange.

Name: Love potion
Example: HPMOR: Discussed by Professor Quirrell in regards to witches using them to enchant and rape muggle men (some wizards also do the same thing to muggle women). It also alludes to how Voldemort was conceived, something few know about.
Example2: King Harold: You can't force someone to fall in love!
Fairy Godmother: I beg to differ. I do it all the time!
— Shrek 2

Name: Lowest Common Denominator
Definition: making stories that most people can relate to, stories that all human beings can understand in relation to their own lives. If we think of media as communication between the creator and the audience, the most successful communication would be the one that is understood by the most people.
Definition2: if we assume that a significant percentage of Viewers Are Morons, it can mean a work that is made to appeal only to the Great Unwashed. Instead of more "worthy" audiences, it is marketed to Joe Sixpack and all his family out there in Flyover Country, taking out everything that anyone more educated might appreciate, reducing it to its most shallow parts.
Example: HPMOR: In-universe. Harry suspects the Sorting Hat is being forced to fill up Slytherin with these people because its Death Eater reputation leads to anyone with a brain pleading with the hat not to be put into Slytherin.
Conjdef: Appealing to as many people at once as possible. It means, either
Example2: "It's not our job to appeal to the lowest common denominator, Doug - it's our job to raise it."
—President Jed Bartlet, The West Wing

Name: The Maiden Name Debate
Definition: A debate about whether one should change their name after mariage

Name: The Maiden Name Debate
Definition: A debate about whether one should change their name after mariage
Example: HPMOR: Ch. 75 has this between Harry and Hermione.

Name: Magic A Is Magic A
Definition: Making magic as consistent as possible
Example: HPMOR: As with the books, magic has consistent, if unknown, limitations. However, Harry wants to take it a step further (see Sufficiently Analyzed Magic below).
Example2: "We don't ask that you stay within the bounds of physics, but at least follow the rules you freaking made up."
— Cracked, 8 Classic Movies That Got Away With Gaping Plot Holes

Name: The Magic Goes Away
Example: HPMOR: This is what Harry and Draco suspect might be happening. It turns out to have been a mostly decoy theory that Harry didn't have much faith in, but included to keep Draco interested in theories other than the pureblood dilution one.
Example2: "Maybe magic was once a mighty force in the world, but not anymore."
— Maester Luwin, Game of Thrones

Name: Magitek
Definition: Where our usual technology is replaced by magical properties doing exactly the same thing
Example: HPMOR: The broomstick mated to a solid-fuel rocket booster that Harry uses to break Bellatrix out of Azkaban definitely counts.
Example2: "Your ancestors called it magic... and you call it science. Well, I come from a place where they're one and the same thing."
— Thor Odinson, Thor

Name: Mathematician's Answer
Definition: A true but useless answer to a question
Example: HPMOR: "Can I ask you never to repeat what I’m about to say?" said Harry.
"Absolutely," said Professor Quirrell. "Consider me asked."
Bellatrix: My Lord, where are we?
Harry: [posing as Voldemort] We are on a broomstick.
Example2: Monty: Dad, is there a word to describe answers that are completely correct but entirely useless under the circumstances?
Prof. Jones: Yes, yes there is.
— Irregular Webcomic!

Name: Maybe Ever After
Definition: An ending which hints at or implies a successful conclusion to a romance arc
Example: HPMOR: Harry and Hermione's ultimate romantic fate is left ambiguous, with both of them thinking making binding agreements at age 12 is ridiculous, regardless of what they think they feel for each other right that minute. At the least, Hermione makes a magical vow to always be Harry's friend, regardless of whatever else happens.

Name: Meaningful Name
Definition: A name that has a direct, barely-hidden meaning to it.
Example: HPMOR: "I'm quite certain," said Hermione. "Why, my name practically spells out 'heroine' except for the extra 'm', I never noticed that until today."

Name: Mêlée à Trois
Definition: This is any fight where there are at least three sides involved (i.e. against each other), with no prearranged alliances.
Example: HPMOR: The army competition

Name: Memory Gambit
Definition: A scheme involving allowing your own memories to be erased or altered in order to fool others or yourself, with a trigger set up to restore them.

Name: Mentor Occupational Hazard
Definition: Being mentor of a heros is dangerous, more than being the hero, since you don't have the plot armor, instead it would be your last mentoring action.
Counterexample: HPMOR: Lampshaded: Dumbledore warns Harry that if he accepts Quirrell as a mentor, he'll surely end up losing him in some tragic fashion. (He becomes slightly more resigned to the idea when he remembers that Harry's going to lose him anyway.)

Name: Metaphorgotten
Definition: A metaphor so long that one does not remember what it stand for.
Example: HPMOR: On one occasion, Hermione feels so embarassed that she thinks steam should be coming out of her ears, and in turn should be melting them off along with her flesh.

Name: Mexican Standoff
Definition: A stalemate where everyone has a weapon pointed at someone else. All the threats are equally balanced to ensure a Mutual Disadvantage; no one is walking away from this standoff with what they came for.
Example: HPMOR: In chapter 17 during broomstick flight class, Goyle stealing Neville's dropped remembrall and hopping on a broomstick leads to the Hufflepuffs pointing wands at Goyle, Slytherins pointing wands at Hufflepuffs, and Gryffindors pointing wands at Slytherins. The Ravenclaws take out their wands, too; it's not stated whom they're pointing at, but it's presumably Slytherin.

Name: A Million Is a Statistic
Definition: The amount of sympathy that death, cruelty, or suffering is expected to evoke from the audience is often inversely proportional to the magnitude of its effects. Far more important is the degree to which the audience knows the character(s) affected.

Name: The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body
Definition: Maybe it's just the animal instincts associated with your new form, a change in hormones or the complete rewiring of your neural circuitry, but for some reason the process of shapeshifting tends to also transform the very way you perceive and think about the world around you.
Example: HPMOR: After being in animagus form, it takes a while to become interested in human food again.
Etymology: — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Name: Missing Mom
Definition: The mother of a character or characters is missing or absent.
Example: HPMOR: Narcissa Malfoy, for rather unpleasant reasons. Also, Hermione's maternal grandmother was a witch who may have been killed by Grindelwald.

Name: Missed the Call
Definition: Call to adventure was given, but was not considered by its natural receiver
Example: HPMOR: Invoked by Tracey Davis, who fears she was "supposed" to have kissed Harry.

Name: Mr. Seahorse
Definition: A cisgender male character gets pregnant in a world where this is not supposed to happen
Example: HPMOR: Draco, according to the Quibbler.
Name2: MPreg

Name: Mister X and Myster Y
Definition: A couple of gentlemen, whose last names are X and Y, exchange polite banter, in which they frequently call each other "Mister X" and "Mister Y."
Example: HPMOR: Draco's bodyguards are Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle.

Name: Mood Ring Eyes
Definition: Having eye color changing with one's mood
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore's eyes reflect his emotional state.

Name: Morality chain
Definition: a character who is the reason another character is Good.
Example: HPMOR: Hermione Granger is this for Harry. He gets scary when she dies, as not only was he holding back almost entirely just because she thought he should, but he also seems willing do whatever it takes in order to get her back.

Name: Moral Myopia
Definition: A trope whereby some in-universe group moral standard is portrayed as being hypocritical because the morality of actions depends entirely upon the identity of the actor(s).
Example: HPMOR: Everyone according to Quirrell

Name: Most Writers Are Adults
Definition: Having children character acting as if they were adult in a fiction
Example: HPMOR: Harry
Example2: "Because never in my entire childhood did I feel like a child. I felt like a person all along—the same person that I am today. ....The nasty side of myself wanted to answer that guidance counselor by saying, the only reason you don't think gifted children talk this way is because they know better than to talk this way in front of you".
—Orson Scott Card, defending his use of this trope in the introduction to Ender's Game

Name: Mouthful of Pi
Definition: A quick way to show that a character is a genius is to have him recite pi to an absurd number of places. With its endless parade of decimal digits,
Example: HPMOR: More true of Hermione than Harry.
Harry knew pi out to 3.141592 because accuracy to one part in a million was enough for most practical purposes. Hermione knew one hundred digits of pi because that was how many digits had been printed in the back of her math textbook.
Example2: "I could go to Vegas. Learn to play Black Jack. Memorize four hundred fifty two consecutive digits of pi, a few hundred measly cards are easy."
— Fred, Angel

Name: Muggles Do It Better
Definition: A superpower reveal itself to be not so impressing compared to what technology can do
Example: HPMOR: science should be imported in the magical world

Name: Mundane Utility
Definition: Using superpower in everyday's life
Example: HP(MOR): Time turner used for class schedule

Name: Mysterious Past
Definition: A character has a mysterious past which is hinted at but never fully revealed.
Example: HP(MOR): Quirrell, as Morrell, as Voldemort
Intuition: Allow to reveal anytime arbitrary skills

Name: Mythology Gag
Definition: A reference to some facet of a show's mythology or past production history (which is not actually considered Canon in the context of the show) is made
Example: HPMOR: references a lot of things which occurred in HP

Name: Names to Run Away from Really Fast
Definition: when the villain's name hints towards some sort of disaster in history, mythological monster, or just means something bad
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: The four founders fought a battle against a dark wizard named Lord Foul.
Typ: Meaningful Name, Obviously Evil and sometimes Awesome McCool Name.

Name: Narrative Profanity Filter
Definition: the character replace his word, and then states he actually used another word
Context: tvtrope
Definition2: the narrator state that the character cursed
Conjdef: Avoiding to write the character's profanity. Usually either
Example2: HPMOR: Chapter 22:
Then Harry Potter spat something that was probably an extremely bad word if you'd been raised by Muggles.
Rianne Felthorne gets a small one in chapter 71:
She nodded, frightened and with a strange hope dawning in her heart (well, not exactly her heart).
Example3: Ralphie Parker: Oh... f-u-u-u-d-g-e...
Adult Ralphie: [voiceover] Only I didn't say fudge. I said the word. The big one. The queen mother of dirty words. The "F-dash-dash-dash" word.
Counterexample: HPMOR: Averted in chapter 102, where "too young to have sexual thoughts" is used instead of "innocent".

Name: News Travels Fast
Definition: When the hero accomplishes a task or a goal (or in the other direction, does something embarrassing or messes up badly), everyone he encounters will have known about it already and will praise/chastise the hero for what he did.
Context: tvtrope
Example: "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows."
— Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
Example2: HPMOR: In chapter 46, for example, the Hogwarts grapevine is shown to be remarkably efficient. It helps that some people have Time Turners (see Mundane Utility above).

Name: Never Live It Down
Definition: One anecdote of a small part of a story is, for some reason, picked up by fan, and suddenly, they think it's a characteristic of this character
Context: tvtrope
Example2: HPMOR:"I was seven years old! How long are you going to keep on bringing that up?"
"I know," said [Harry's] mother sympathetically, "you bite one maths teacher and they never let you forget it, do they?"

Name: Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!
Definition: Hero, having triumphed over its ennemy, figure out it unleash a stronger ennemy, a worse thing
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: In chapter 89 killing Hermione was initially part of Quirrell's plan to toughen up Harry, but it goes just a little too right. Which leads to...

Name: Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!
Definition: By accident, the villain help the heroes
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: Quirrel save Hermione
Example2: "Let us remember that a traitor may betray himself, and do good that he does not intend."
— Gandalf the White (discussing Gollum), The Lord of the Rings

Name: Noodle accident
Definition: something from the past that is sometimes referred to but never explained, with the implication that it's just too ludicrous for words—or perhaps too offensive for depiction—and the reality that any explanation would fall short of audience expectations.
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: In chapter 89 killing Hermione was initially part of Quirrell's plan to toughen up Harry, but it goes just a little too right. Which leads to...
Example2: HPMOR: The "Incident at the Potions Shop".
The "Incident with the Science Fair Project".
Etymology: The Noodle Incident is a mysterious incident often alluded to in Calvin and Hobbes. It is mentioned several times in the course of the strip, however the reader is never told exactly what the incident was.

Name: No One Gets Left Behind
Definition: A character want to sacrifice themself, the other refuse
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: chapt 41, find the explanation

Name: Ontological Inertia
Definition: the tendency stuff has to continue being stuff. Things, in general, keep existing even when we're not looking at them.
Context: tvtrope

Name: No Ontological Inertia
Definition: When, destroying the creator of bad things also destroy the consequence of this bad thing, erasing past bad things
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: most of magic

Name: No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup
Definition: Some important thing exists alone. There is no previous version, no copy, and if it is destroyed, no other will ever be made
Context: tvtrope
Example: "Probably the last man who knew how it worked had been tortured to death years before. Or as soon as it was installed. Killing the creator was a traditional method of patent protection."
— Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
Example2: HPMOR: The interdict of Merlin
Notation2: Reset button

Name: Note to self
Definition: Finding a note, allegedly written by oneself, telling that I forgot something important
Context: tvtrope
Example2: HPMOR: Harry bites his lip hard whenever he thinks someone might be about to wipe his memory, so that a minute later when his lip hurts inexplicably, he'll know that he's been made to forget something, even if he doesn't know what. See also "Recognition Code 927, I am a potato" and various uses of the Time Turner.

Name: Not That There's Anything Wrong with That
Definition: Stating that something is gay/not gay, and then saying gay its ok
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: "Snape and Dumbledore!?" Then Harry heard the words that had just come out of his mouth, and hastily added, "Not that there's anything wrong with that -"

Name: No True Scotsman
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: In-universe. Harry tries to convince the Sorting Hat that he's not like the other potential dark lords the hat has met:
Etymology: The Trope Namer and prime example of this sort of behavior is a hypothetical scenario (first told by British philosopher Antony Flew in his 1975 book Thinking About Thinking) in which a Scotsman reads about a horrible crime in the newspaper that takes place in the English town of Brighton and smugly thinks to himself, "No Scotsman would ever do such a thing." Something much worse happens in nearby Aberdeen and is reported on the next day. Rather than admit that he's wrong, he instead thinks, "No true Scotsman would ever do such a thing." In this case, he is retroactively changing his standards of what a Scotsman is from "someone who lives in Scotland" to "someone who meets my standard of acceptable Scottish behavior."
A similar way of illustrating the point:
Angus: No Scotsman puts sugar in his porridge!
Bonnie: But my uncle Scotty MacScotscot does just that!
Angus: Weel, then he's no' a true Scotsman.

Name: Not So Different
Definition: Two characters or outfits who seem radically different turn out to have more in common than they would like to believe, and this doesn't go unnoticed in the story.
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore knows that he was not so different from Grindelwald and believes (correctly) that Harry is not so different from Voldemort, though he's not sure how since he was never able to understand Voldemort anyway.
Example2: HPMOR: Quirrell believes that the path of being a hero and of being a dark wizard are essentially similar and followed by similar people. He'd know.

Name: Obfuscating insanity
Definition: Appearing insane so people don't fear your inteliggence
Context: tvtrope
Example2: HPMOR:dumbledore

Name: Obviously Evil
Definition: A character which appear very clearly to be evil, and is indeed
Context: tvtrope
Example2: HPMOR: Quirrell et Snape

Name: Follow Offscreen Moment of Awesome
Definition: Instead of showing an impressive scene, character spoke about it afterward
Context: tvtrope
Example: "And so our heroes defeat the muffin in an exciting battle, which we can't show you because it would be much too expensive for a cheap show like this."
— Narrator, Dave the Barbarian
Example2: HPMOR: The Weasley twins fake for the benefit of Rita Skeeter a prophecy, a betrothal contract, a Gringotts seal, and a session of the Wizengamot for a grand total of 40 galleons. How they do it isn't explained until 50+ chapters later.

Name: Oh, Crap !
Definition: The moment at which a character realizes that something really, REALLY bad is about to happen. Either that, or it already has, and they are in big trouble because of it.
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: Harry often ends up inducing this in himself and others.

Name: Old Master
Definition: a formidable fighter, at least 60, who can take on several younger opponents at a time, clean the floor with all of them, and barely get winded
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell recounts how he learned from one in chapter 19.

Name: Omniscient Morality License
Definition: A character with an Omniscient Morality License is usually one of the Powers That Be or very close to it. They can do anything to the hero and still be considered one of the good guys because they know it will turn out okay, regardless of the seeming randomness of chance and choices made.
Context: tvtrope
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore apologizes in advance for this.

Name: One-Paragraph Chapter
Definition: used to separate parts of the plot
Context: tvtrope
Definition2: used to give a feeling of in-and-out consciousness (See: Misery),
Conjdef: A chapter done in a single paragraph. Often either
Definition3: used by inexperienced writers who fail to deliver a better-fleshed out story and only have one plot point occur.

Name: One Steve Limit
Definition: A pretty rigid rule that no two characters in a work of fiction (novel, movie, play, TV series, comic book, etc.) should share the same first name, or even similar-sounding names.
Context: tvtrope
Example: "His name is Lebowski? That's your name, Dude."
Example2: In chapter 69, Michael Hopkins says, "there aren't any other Mikes in all of Hufflepuff this year, would you believe it?"
Counterexample2: Jack Nicholson movie The Two Jakes
Counterexample3: Fiction from reallity or cross-over

Name: Only Sane Man
Definition: When there is a group of characters who are all just totally weird, either in general or in a particular scenario, this trope refers to the only one who, well, isn't.
Context: tvtrope
Example: "I began to get a feeling... of being the only sane man in a nut house. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is no one you can contact."
— William S. Burroughs
Example2: HPMOR: Harry think this of him and Quirrell. And finally dumbledore

Name: Only Smart People May Pass
Definition: any barrier that requires the heroes to solve some kind of puzzle, Riddle or test of skill in order to pass
Counterexample: Harry guesses that the challenge of finding Platform Nine and Three-Quarters might be meant as an I.Q. test

Name: Out of Character Is Serious Business.
Definition: when a character momentarily breaks away from their normal habits to make a point about the seriousness of the situation
Example: HPMOR: When Dumbledore asks Harry what Quirrell could be plotting that requires him to bring a dementor into the castle, Harry argues that this is completely in-character for him, and naturally, in-character is business as usual. But he realizes that something is wrong anyway, because even coming out of his own mouth it's a Suspiciously Specific Denial.

Name: Open Secret
Definition: when a particular piece of information is officially declared to be secret… but it is widely known by everyone anyway. even though everyone is fully aware everyone else knows about the secret, it will still be treated like a secret; no one will ever openly admit to knowing it, and it is a common understanding that it should remain unspoken.
Example2: Everyone in Ravenclaw House claims to have "heard" that Dumbledore is a secret mastermind whose apparent insanity is just a cover.
"Brilliant!" Harry whispered. "If everyone knows, no one will suspect it's a secret!"

Name: Opposing Combat Philosophies
Definition: When you've got two or more groups with two or more ways of winning the battle
Example: Draco is top of his army. Harry want chaos.
Example2: Zoe: Always remember little one, the first rule of battle is to never let the enemy know where you are.
[Mal blasts in, shooting and yelling]
Mal: Woo-hoo! I'm right here! I'm right here! You want some of this? Yeah, you do! Come on! Come on!
Zoe: Of course, there are other schools of thought.
— Firefly

Name: Orwellian Retcon
Definition: Changing original work in order to change the story
Etymology: Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia."
— Nineteen Eighty-Four

Name: Outside-Context Problem
Definition: a curve ball that no one saw coming or could see coming.
Example: When the dementor's effect causes Harry to fall deeply into his "Dark Side", his default reaction to anything is killing. It just solves everything! Except getting kissed by a girl; that's so far beyond anything the Empty Shell can grasp, that only the real Harry has any appropriate reaction on tap — though it's not quite the expected standard one:
Harry: I told you, no kissing!

Name: Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions
Definition: Show a civilisation is advanced because it threw away religion or other thing commonly admitted by a part of our society
Example: "Christianity will doubtless still survive in the earth ten centuries hence — stuffed and in a museum."
— Mark Twain, Notebook

Name: Overshadowed by Awesome
Definition: Where in a show or game that features ludicrously powerful people, a certain character or group of characters are overshadowed by their superior fellows and end up looking like plain crap, even though they are still very competent in comparison to your average Innocent Bystander.
Example2: "Okay, look, the city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots, and I have a bow and arrow."
— Hawkeye, Avengers: Age of Ultron
Example3: HPMOR: Hermione, due to Harry

Name: Papa wolf
Definition: A nice dad become really dangerous as soon as kids are threatened
Example2: HPMOR: Lucius Malfoy. He even makes sure his son has a back-up godfather, in case something happens to his godfather.

Name: Parody Episode
Definition: a show, usually a comedy, abandons its usual format and spends most of the episode as a parody of another thing
Example: HPMOR:Omake
Typ: Something Completely Different.

Name: Parrot Pet Position
Definition: A Loyal Animal Companion who rides on its human companion's shoulder.
Example: HPMOR: Fawkes

Name: The Password Is Always "Swordfish"
Definition: People in fiction makes meaningful password instead of secure one
Example: HPMOR:"Sword fish melon friend"

Name: Peaceful in Death
Definition: A dead character has a peaceful expression. Sometimes noble and dignified as well.
Example: HPMOR:During the underwater battle, Harry notes that Hermione looks rather peaceful after he shot her.

Name: Peggy Sue
Definition: gives a character, usually at the end of a story or series, the chance to go back and relive her/his life with the knowledge he gained from living through his story the first time.
Example: Fix Fic
Etymology: 1986 film Peggy Sue Got Married starring Kathleen Turner and Nicolas Cage, in which Turner's character is able to relive her high school days.
Counterexample: HPMOR: Mocked in chapter 29:
... they dragged poor Bill Weasley off to St. Mungo's and it turned out to be a pretty standard schizophrenic break... Guy was convinced he was ninety-seven years old and had died and gone back in time.

Name: The Perfect Crime
Definition: perfect crime plot, a Diabolical Mastermind seeks to do the crime and not the time, covering his tracks in the most intricate and thorough of ways
Example: HPMOR: Almost pulled off in chapter 53
Example2: "There is no one in the world who can be somewhere and leave without a trace. Any man who could isn't human."
— Inspector Lunge, Monster

Name: Photographic Memory
Definition: ability to recall images, sounds or objects in memory with near perfect accuracy and in abundant volume.
Example: HPMOR: Although Hermione doesn't have true photographic memory, she can remember exactly anything she has read five times. This is arguably better, since she actually learns it instead of having to mentally read it to get what she wants. She wishes it were photographic, though.
Name2: eidetic memory
Example2: "Photographic is a misnomer. I have an eidetic memory, as I've told you many times. Most recently last year during lunch on the afternoon of May seventh. You had turkey and complained it was dry."
— Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory

Name: Pie in the Face
Definition: tossing a pie into another person's face.
Example: HPMOR: A Slytherin bully gets two pies in the face, wielded by an invisible hand.

Name: Playing Possum
Definition: Someone playing dead, to attack unsuspecting adversary
Example: HPMOR: Sunshine Regiment's tactic for the first battle.
Property: War crime

Name: Police Code for Everything
Definition: No matter how obscure, improbable, or downright weird an event is, the Crazy-Prepared department has a code number for it.
Example: HPMOR: The Crazy-Prepared Amelia Bones has set up codes for situations up to and including "Guard requires relief because prisoner is attempting psychological warfare and is succeeding".

Name: Portmanteau
Definition: a new word formed by joining two others and combining their meanings;
Example: HPMOR: Draco's Dragon Army + Hermione's Sunshine Regiment = "Dramione's Sungon Argiment." A witch who wanted to be known as "the Walking Catastrophe" and also as "The Apostle of Darkness" accidentally introduced herself as "The Apostrophe of Darkness" during her reveal to the world.
Example2: "It's called a complisult. Part compliment, part insult.
He invented them. I coined the term.
See what I just did there? That was an explanabrag."
— Britta, Community, "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking"
Example3: "smog" is a blend of "smoke" and "fog"; "motel" is a portmanteau word made by combining "motor" and "hotel".

Name: Pop-Cultured Badass
Definition: Someone who rocks out to the latest hits on their iPod and discusses their interpretation of recent movies.
Example: HPMOR: Harry has read a lot of literature and routinely quotes from fantasy and sci-fi. Dumbledore follows suit, and even others with no interest in muggle literature (like Malfoy or Quirrell) continually reference the author's preferred books and anime.
Example2: "While other people were out living their lives, I wasted mine watching TV, because deep down, I knew it might one day help me save the world. Plus, I would have lost my Workman's Comp if I had gone outside."
— Fry, Futurama, "When Aliens Attack"

Name: Power at a Price
Definition: Drama derives vigor from the quandary of how power, seemingly free of any strings, has inherent costs.
Example: HPMOR: The rituals used by Quirrell in the final chapter to give the just-resurrected Hermione the regeneration and healing powers of a troll and a unicorn normally has the drawback of lasting only a few hours and occasionally killing the beneficiary when it wears off. The Philosopher's Stone conveniently negates that problem.

Name: The Power of Hate
Definition: Hate gives you power and fuel to move you. What you do with hate depends on who you are.
Example: HP(MOR): As in canon, the power behind the Avada Kadavra curse. You have to really want your target dead.
Example2: "Hate is as good as any to keep a man going. Better than most."
— Sandor Clegane, Game of Thrones

Name: The Power of Friendship
Definition: The villain or Ineffectual Loner mocks the idea of relying on others, insisting that friends make you weak and only fear brings servitude. Then he discovers to his extreme shock and dismay that the hero's friends really do stand up for him, and this really does enable the hero to kick the crap out of the bad guy.
Example: HPMOR: Harry's plan to redeem Draco involves overcoming his prejudices using logic and manipulating Draco into situations where he will see the ridiculousness of his preconceptions, but the friendship thing actually seems to be pretty effective (and the part that seems to impress — and frighten — Lucius the most). Simultaneously, Fred and George are trying to redeem Harry the same way, although they're not sure what side he's actually on.

Name: The Power of Love
Definition: A power coming from loving things, humanity
Example: HPMOR: the true Patronus Charm is powered by the love of life and humanity. That explains why it can kill off dementors and resurrect Hermione with help of the Philosopher's Stone.
Example2: "Love is a very powerful force. Even more so when it is focused into a coherent beam of destruction."
— Black Mage, 8-Bit Theater

Name: Prophecy Twist
Definition: The fact that a prophecy is true, but not in the expected way
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore is concerned that he will be the Dark Lord that Harry must rise up against and defeat, because there is a prophecy that Harry would need to "raise his hand against his mentor", and a second prophecy that Harry would be Dumbledore's downfall. The obvious twist, of course, being that Voldemort is Harry's mentor, not Dumbledore. The less-obvious twist is that Harry is in fact Dumbledore's downfall, but only because Voldemort forces Dumbledore to sacrifice himself to save Harry.
Example2: "And be these juggling fiends no more believed,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope."
— Macbeth, finally cottoning on, Act V scene viii

Name: Proud to Be a Geek
Definition: A character geek/nerd/otaku, and proud about it
Example: HPMOR: Harry sprinkles science-fiction and fantasy references liberally. None of his muggleborn peers seem embarrassed to admit they understand them as well, in particular lightsabers and "Red Five, standing by."

Name: A quote mine/quote mining
Definition: Taking an extract from a sentence to make it means something completly differente
Example: HPMOR: An unintentional one. When Harry visits he parents' grave and sees the motto "the last enemy to be conquered is death" on it he doesn't realize it's a Bible quote and takes it absolutely literally and out of context (it's actually about the resurrection of the faithful after the second coming of Christ). Lupin tries to explain that this isn't what it means, but doesn't seem to know the origin either.
Example2: The Movie "had the potential to be a great work of art in different hands, but the lead actor is a drug addict and the director was Uwe Boll." In the commercial, however, we hear that Bob has called the movie "[...] a great work of art[.]"
Typ: Blatant Lies and Weasel Words

Name: Rage Against the Mentor
Definition: Mentor, being a mentor, finally did something really bad for the sake of being mentor, and hero is enraging
Example: Harry: Do you—do you think I want to—do you think I give a—I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU'VE GOT TO SAY! I don't want to hear anything you've got to say!
Dumbledore: You will. Because you are not nearly as angry with me as you ought to be. If you are to attack me, as I know you are close to doing, I would like to have thoroughly earned it.
— Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Name: Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil
Definition: Rape considered as the worst possible crime
Example: "In the criminal justice system, sexually-based offenses are considered especially heinous."
— Opening Narration, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Example2: Mentionned in HPMOR, not clear

Name: Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic
Definition: The fact that people in fiction does not speak like real people
Example: Lampshaded regarding Harry's large vocabulary and precise diction.
It was also at this point that Hermione realised the other thing - well, one of the things - which was odd about [Harry]. Apparently people who were in books actually sounded like a book when they talked. This was quite the surprising discovery.
Typ: Acceptable Break from Reality;

Name: an "Orange Box" in television and movies
Definition: When exposed to an exaggeration or fabrication about certain real-life occurrences or facts, some people will perceive the fictional account as being more true than any factual account.
Example: HPMOR: Harry's inner Ravenclaw wonders "if a real healer would seem more fake than an actor told to play one?"
Name2: Reality Is Unrealistic
Etymology: the "black box" of airplanes which are actually orange to make them easier to spot.

Name: The Coconut Effect
Definition: any sound effect, special effect, or design feature that is unrealistic, but still has to be included because viewers have been so conditioned to expect it that its absence would be even more jarring.
Etymology: coconut shells to recreate the sound of horse hooves in theater, and later radio, film and television

Name: Reasonable Authority Figure
Definition: Someone with power actually listening to the hero's advice
Example: HPMOR: Professor McGonagall is often the most open-minded adult to considering Harry's point of view and least dismissive of him for being a child. She also gradually becomes something of a surrogate mother-figure to Harry.

Name: "The Reason You Suck" Speech
Definition: One character delivers a speech to another character on all the reasons why that other character sucks or is a horrible person.
Example: HPMOR: Harry's Sorting consists of the Sorting Hat directing one of these at him, stating that just because Harry can rationalize his actions towards other people, doesn't actually make it right.

Name: Reckless Gun Usage
Definition: when somebody unfamiliar with firearms does something reckless with guns that endangers others
Example: HPMOR: Harry points a wand at someone accidentally-on-purpose when asked to hand it over.

Name: Recursive Fanfiction
Definition: A fanfiction having its own fanfiction
Example: HPMOR:

Name: Reference Overdosed
Definition: Any work where the Homages and Shout-Outs are too numerous to count.
Example: HPMOR: Plenty of shout-outs in the pre-chapter disclaimers... and a few more subtle ones in the story as well.
Example3: Who framed Roger Rabbit

Name: Reformed Rakes
Definition: what happens when the heroine of a romance story wants to eat her cake and matrimonially have it too — because, of course, former bad boys make the best husbands.
Example: HPMOR: After seeing him demented, people believe Harry has been hiding his urge to kill pointless people (i.e., everyone). Hermione brings him back, and so all the Ravenclaw girls expect her to be the one who saves him.

Name: Required Secondary Powers
Definition: Fact that, having a superpower alone is usually useless as it would kill you without other power to protect you from the first.
Example: HPMOR: In order to survive things like falling on their head when dueling, flying, levitating, playing quidditch, etc., wizards and witches are said to be more durable than muggles.
Example3: "That's the problem with any individual superpower: without the whole suite it just sucks. The Flash would liquefy from sheer Gs, and without super agility and strength Spider-Man's just a guy with sticky ropes."
— Soren, The Best Super Power (Is Not What You Think) | After Hours ^ note

Name: Rescue Arc
Definition: One of the hero's close friends, usually a main character themselves, has been kidnapped by some powerful force, so the hero gathers the rest of his True Companions and heads off to get them back, beating the crap out of anyone who tries to stop them.
Example: HPMOR: One for Bellatrix Black and, when the plan goes wrong, Professor Quirrell; two for Hermione. However, Harry is too much of a lone wolf to gather True Companions for these quests, though he does accept help from teachers.

Name: Reset Button
Definition: any means by which previously occurring drastic events are made partially or wholly irrelevant by the end of the story.
Example: HPMOR: Snape takes a huge number of points from Harry; Quirrell finds an excuse to give them right back. Notable in that Harry isn't happy with this; he feels he really did screw up in Snape's class and shouldn't be allowed to just dodge the consequences. Quirrell does it again in Chapter 75, this time for Hermione, and in front of Snape no less.

Name: Retired Monster
Definition: Someone whose past is full of evil and atrocity and he's okay with it.
Example: HPMOR: Basically, Quirellmort

Name: Retirony
Definition: Anybody in a dangerous job who's only a few days away from retirement or flying one last mission before going home to marry their childhood sweetheart is absolutely doomed to death
Example: Financial planner: You haven't set aside anything for the future.
Wiggum: Well, you know how it is with cops. I'll get shot three days before retirement. In the business, we call it "retirony."
Planner: Well, what if you don't get shot?
Wiggum: What a terrible thing to say! Now look, you made my wife cry!
— The Simpsons
Intuition: a way to make the audience feel sorry for a character's death without having to actually give him more than ten minutes of screen time.
Etymology: portmanteau of retirement and Irony
Counterexample: HPMOR: Azkaban's fight

Name: Retroactive Precognition
Definition: A character goes back to the past. From the other character's point of view, they seem to say, do and know things that imply a frighteningly accurate knowledge of the future. Of course, they do not need special powers to be able to do this — they only need to remember, because they have already lived though it before.
Example: HPMOR: Millicent Bulstrode uses a Time-Turner to spread gossip and knowledge of some upcoming S.P.H.E.W. fights.
Example2: "I already went further ahead in time to see what else happens. I've backtracked everything to this one event, that's why we're here today to prevent this incident from ever happening!"
— Doctor Emmett Brown, Back to the Future Part II

Name: Retroactive Preparation
Definition: a twist on the You Already Changed the Past plot where the existence of a Stable Time Loop works to the advantage of the character's goals rather than thwarting them.
Example: HPMOR: From the moment he gets the Time-Turner, Harry can't resist exploiting this trick, which is why Professor McGonagall puts a lock on it shortly afterwards. Also, although it's against all the rules to use it for general purposes, McGonagall does tell Harry that this is a better way to get out of a locked room than traveling back in time to before it was locked.

Name: The Reveal
Definition: A character is revealed as another character's father, a god, or secret suitor or arch nemesis in disguise
Definition2: the audience is given new information which had been withheld to create suspense.

Name: The Reveal
Definition: Alice is told to do/not to do something by Bob and then she does the opposite simply because it is the opposite of what she was told to do/not do. This is what she was expected to do in the first place. Bob used Reverse Psychology to trick her.
Example2: Homer's Brain: Don't you get it!? You gotta use reverse psychology!
Homer: Well, that sounds too complicated.
Homer's Brain: Okay, don't use reverse psychology.
Homer: [angry] All right, I will!
— The Simpsons, "Saturdays of Thunder"
Example3: Dumbledore tries this on Harry:
Dumbledore: You are not to attempt the forbidden door on the third-floor corridor. There's no possible way you could get through all the traps, and I wouldn't want to hear that you'd been hurt trying. Why, I doubt that you could so much as open the first door, since it's locked and you don't know the spell Alohomora.
Later turns out to have been the most efficient way imaginable to keep Harry away from the corridor. He also succeeds in using it on Hermione in "Self Actualization". Where at first it seemed as if things would have gone the same way whether or not he had meddled, because of it Hermione gets a small group of fellow witches who also want to be heroes. (That part wasn't actually part of Dumbledore's plan.)

Name: The Reveal
Definition: Alice is told to do/not to do something by Bob and then she does the opposite simply because it is the opposite of what she was told to do/not do. This is what she was expected to do in the first place. Bob used Reverse Psychology to trick her.

Name: Right for the Wrong Reasons
Definition: Someone makes a conclusion based on what they perceive are facts. Their conclusion is correct but the assumed facts themselves are wrong.
Example: HPMOR:The Quibbler is essentially Right for the Wrong Reasons: The Magazine in this continuity. "Harry Potter Secretly Betrothed To Luna Lovegood"? Well, he is seemingly resolved to marry her if that's what it takes to protect her from Draco. "Sirius Black is really Peter Pettigrew"? Pettigrew is a secret Metamorphmagus, and Black Confunded him into taking his form and being the Fall Guy — so the "Black" in Azkaban is, indeed, Pettigrew.
Example2: "[D]idn't Aristarchus and the Pythagoreans propose heliocentrism in ancient times? If only they had prevailed, we might have had Real Science millennia sooner. What was their evidence?
Well, you see, Fire is nobler than earth and the center is a nobler position. So fire has to be in the center. QED.
There are many names for this sort of thinking, but 'scientific' is not one of them."
— Michael F. Flynn, The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown
Example3: Quirrell lampshades this when the students' second guess at who's the most dangerous student in class is Harry, then explains why they're wrong. Quirrell guesses what memory Harry relived before the dementor, but that's not why he can now see thestrals.

Name: Romanticism Versus Enlightenment
Definition: Opposing the viewpoint of «progress/technology/science» and of «natural/love/...»
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore's conversations with Harry often seem to invoke this conflict. Essentially, the whole premise of the story is putting an Enlightenment hero in Rowling's Romanticist 'Harry Potter''.

Name: Roofhopping
Definition: Rapid transit through an urban or suburban area by means of extraordinary leaps from housetop to housetop.
Example: HPMOR:An army battle briefly takes the commanders to the roofs of Hogwarts in chapter 41.
Example2: Start of Matrix

Name: Rousing Speech
Definition: everything looks hopelessly lost.
And this is when the hero will step forward and make a pithy speech
Example: HPMOR:Parodied in Chapter 30, in which Harry gives a particularly silly one.

Name: Rules Lawyer
Definition: one guy who not only memorized the rulebook cover-to-cover but also isn't afraid to speak out whenever anyone — including the Game Master — tries to bend or ignore one, especially if calling them out works to his own advantage.
Example: HPMOR: This trope is why the first few Three Armies battles don't have an explicit win condition—it'd be way too easy for Harry to game the rules somehow. Later on, the school administration requests that Quirrell add a win condition, and of course, Harry games the rules.

Name: Running Gag
Definition: A joke whose humor derives from repetition, ideally becoming funnier each time it is repeated.
Example: HPMOR: In the early story the Dark Mark is a running reference to Voldemort being a complete idiot. It turns out that unlike the canon version, this Voldemort is way smarter than that.

Name: Sadistic choice
Definition: a character is presented with a choice, any outcome of which causes something bad to happen
Example: HPMOR: Chapter 12 mentions offhand that Harry sees ordering in a restaurant as one of these. "Find out about only one of the mysteries on this list, ha ha ha!"
Example2: "Spider-Man! This is why only fools are heroes — because you never know when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice. Let die the woman you love... or suffer the little children! Make your choice, Spider-Man, and see how a hero is rewarded! We are who we choose to be...now choose!"
— Green Goblin, Spider-Man

Name: Said Bookism
Definition: Avoiding the word «said» in dialogue, and using uselessly more precise adjective instead
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SaidBookism
Example: "Are you lost, Daddy?" I asked tenderly.
"Shut up," he explained.
Intuition: When a verb replacing «say» should indeed be used, it becomes less important because it has been use plenty of time before

Name: Sarcastic Confession
Definition: Saying the truth in a sarcastic voice to ensure the person does not think the truth is really the truth
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Sarcastic Confession
Example2: "I only tell the truth when it makes it sound like I'm lying."
— April Ludgate, Parks and Recreation
Example3: HPMOR: Quirrell in chapter 79, when he reacts to being accused of keeping "the real Quirrell" captive for polyjuice ingredients, may or may not be telling the truth.
Counterexample: Cassandra Truth

Name: Satellite Character
Definition: A character whose motivations and overall personality essentially revolve around their interaction with another, possibly more interesting, character with whom they really should be on an equal standing. Without this interaction, they would otherwise be pretty bland.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Satellite Character
Example: HPMOR: ermione eventually sees that's she's becoming this in-universe, and struggles against it.
If you got too close to the Boy-Who-Lived, you became part of his story. You didn't get your own.

Name: Scaled Up
Definition: Having a character, usually vilain turn into a snake/dragon
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Scaled Up
Example2: Voldemort

Name: Scare 'em Straight
Definition: Show kid the whole worst possible consequence of bad action they could take
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScareEmStraight
Example: Having corpse of criminal exposed to public
Example2: McGonagall's introductory class is a gruesome lecture about the perils of transfiguration and what to never, ever do.

Name: Making something forbidden irresistible
Definition: Show kid the whole worst possible consequence of bad action they could take
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SchmuckBait
Example: HPMOR: The third-floor corridor.
Was Dumbledore's forbidden corridor meant to lure people so stupid that they didn't notice the security was worse than what Draco Malfoy could put on it?

Name: Science Destroys Magic
Definition: Trope where the reason magic disappear is because of science and technology
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScienceDestroysMagic
Example: HPMOR: Theory raised by Draco and Harry

Name: Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!
Definition: A character is able to Screw the Rules, simply because their friends or family are very influential, powerful, or wealthy people
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections
Example: HPMOR: Almost all of Draco's life

Name: Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!
Definition: Someone saying that they won't respect the law for greater good
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight
Example: HPMOR: Harry has no qualms at all about breaking the law if he thinks it would serve the greater good. Of course, he's planning on eventually overthrowing the government enforcing those laws, anyway.

Name: Screw This, I'm Outta Here!
Definition: Having a member of a team which decide things went to far and that they should leave the team
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScrewThisImOuttaHere
Example: HPMOR: Voldemort gathers his Death Eaters and demands to know why they didn't keep up the fight without him. He punishes lame excuse after lame excuse, but the one he accepts and forgives is a simple, "I saw which way the wind was blowing and legged it."

Name: Secret Identity
Definition: Having a character whose identity is secret
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SecretIdentity
Example: HPMOR: Sirius Black is really Peter Pettigrew, according to the Quibbler. As usual, they turn out to be Right for the Wrong Reasons.

Name: Secret Path
Definition: Using a path which is known from almost nobody
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SecretPath
Example: HP(MOR): All of Hogwarts
Example2: "We will take you on safe paths, through the mist. Come Hobbits come! We move quickly. I found it, I did. A way through the marshes. Orcs don't use it. Orcs don't know it. They go round for miles and miles."
— Gollum, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Name: See Water
Definition: Characters can see as well in water (without glass) than in reality
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeeWater
Example: HP: Underwater fight

Name: Selective Obliviousness
Definition: When a character refuses to comprehend a particular fact.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SelectiveObliviousness
Example: HP(MOR): Dumbledore and McGonagall will not hear any "niggling complaints" against Quirrell... at least not until he's seen the students through their end-of-year exams.
Example3: "It's not denial. I'm just very selective about the reality I accept."
— Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes

Name: Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Definition: Whenever anyone tries to avert a prophecy, for good or ill, the end result of their actions is to bring the prophecy about. The harder they struggle to prevent it, the more inescapable their destiny becomes.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SelfFulfillingProphecy
Example: HPMOR: Part of the reason Slytherin House has gone downhill: once your house develops a reputation for being full of bigots, only bigots and people who don't mind bigotry are willing to be sorted there if they have any other options.
Example2: Œdip

Name: Self-Made Orphan
Definition: when a character murders their own parents
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SelfMadeOrphan
Example: HPMOR: This aspect of Voldemort's backstory is hinted to have been carried over from canon on a couple of occasions. This is true both of his true identity as Tom Riddle…
"I resolved my parental issues to my own satisfaction."
as well as one of his former assumed identities, David Monroe

Name: Self-Plagiarism
Definition: Sometimes, a work becomes a surprise success and various imitators are made in its wake, usually by different creators. But on a few occasions, the same creators (or at least, the parent company) will make something that appears to be a transparent ripoff of their own success.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Self-Plagiarism
Example: HPMOR: The story repackages some of the content of Eliezer's essays and blog posts in a more light-hearted format. (Links to said essays/blog posts can be found in the "LessWrong" author profile.)

Name: Sequence Breaking
Definition: Solving a problem in a way not expected by the creaton of the rules
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SequenceBreaking
Example: HPMOR: The way Rational!Harry handles things prevents a lot of canonical trip-ups.

Name: Sex Slave
Definition: a character who has been Made a Slave for the sexual desires of others
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SexSlave
Example: HPMOR: Voldemort seems to have made Bellatrix into one for the Lestrange brothers.

Name: Shaped Like Itself
Definition: Having something whose name/information is only that it is like itself. Nothing more precise
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShapedLikeItself
Example: HP(MOR): Forbidden forest
Example3: Calling a sofa sofa-colored, for instance, implies that its color is generic and unremarkable.

Name: She Is Not My Girlfriend
Definition: Insisting so much that it's strange about the fact that someone is not their girlfriend
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/She Is Not My Girlfriend
Example: HP(MOR): Hermione and Harry

Name: Shipper on Deck
Definition: A character in a story actively ships two other characters in the story, trying to make them realize their true feelings while they're both still claiming that She Is Not My Girlfriend.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Shipper on Deck
Example: HP(MOR): Daphne Greengrass ships Harry×Hermione.

Name: Shout-Out
Definition: something (a name, line of dialogue, or prop) in a show that refers to fans or family members of the cast or crew, or to another source of inspiration.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Shout-Out
Example: HPMOR: Tragedy of Light. Hermionne not in Ravenclaw...
Name2: allusions

Name: Shown Their Work
Definition: when the creators tweak their stories to show the viewer/reader what they have learned
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Shown Their Work
Example: HPMOR: Basically everything

Name: Sibling Yin-Yang
Definition: the occurrence of siblings that are polar opposites
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Sibling Yin-Yang
Example: HPMOR: Padma Patil tries a little too hard to be different than her twin.

Name: Skewed Priorities
Definition: Curious phenomenon where there's only one true descendant of some legendary hero/villain or chosen one.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Skewed Priorities
Example: HPMOR: Almost all of the wizarding world, which is canon, but also Harry at times:
Harry: What could possibly be more important than plants turning out to be sentient?
Example3: "We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled."
— Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Name: Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism
Definition: A way to describe the point of view of a fiction about the state of the world
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism
Example: HPMOR: The story features characters with extremely different views on life. Professor Quirrell is probably the most cynical. Hermione and Dumbledore are idealistic. Harry falls somewhere in between and seems on his way to becoming a Knight In Sour Armor. As a whole, the fanfic is more cynical than the original books, but still manages to be rather idealistic.
Example2: "The pessimist sees a dark tunnel;
The optimist sees a light at the end of the tunnel;
The realist sees two lights at the end of the tunnel,
and the engineer can see three idiots standing on the rails."
— German joke

Name: Sliding Scale of Unavoidable vs. Unforgivable
Definition: A dilemna between doing something fich must be done and something that can't be accepted
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Sliding Scale of Unavoidable vs. Unforgivable
Example: HPMOR: Dumbledore has accepted that I Did What I Had to Do. Harry is still trying to figure out where to draw the Moral Event Horizon.
Name2: Sliding Scale Of I Did What I Had to Do Versus Moral Event Horizon
Example2: "Always forbidden, on occasion mandatory."
— Songs of Earth and Power, Greg Bear

Name: Slouch of Villainy
Definition: Having a bad posture, in order to show you don't behave in proper ways
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Slouch of Villainy
Counterexample: HPMOR: Averted. All the evil characters have carefully maintained images. Most Slytherins aim for a noble, dignified composure that would crush their enemies if necessary, with minions as part of that costume. When Quirrell goes into zombie mode, he doesn't do it to look cool, and most people write it off as something to do with the curse on the Defense position.

Name: Small Name, Big Ego
Definition: A character with a comically over-inflated image of himself.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SmallNameBigEgo
Example: HPMOR: During the first 34 chapters it is implied that Lucius is one of the best masterminds of magical Britain, an excellent manipulator and a "beautiful killing machine." Then, Professor Quirrell shoots it to hell in one sentence in front of hundreds, stating that Lucius was incompetent enough to let the Death Eaters implode at the brink of victory and had to return with his tail between his legs.
Example2: Rhomann Dey: Peter Jason Quill. He's also known as "Star-Lord."
Garthan Saal: Who calls him that?
Rhomann Dey: Himself, mostly.
— Guardians of the Galaxy

Name: Smug Super
Definition: a super hero or villain who knows they've won the Super Power Lottery and won't hesitate to remind others, especially if they're beneath him on the Super Weight scale
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Smug Super
Example: HPMOR: Harry has the attitude down pat.
Hermione: I'm getting tired of hearing people talk about the Boy-Who-Lived like you're — like you're some kind of god or something.
Harry: Same here, I must say. It's sad how people keep underestimating me.

Name: Snowball Lie
Definition: A lie or deception that takes on a life of its own, spiraling out of the control of the ones who started it and often mutating in the process.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Snowball Lie
Example: HPMOR: Discussed in Chapter 65, appropriately titled "Contagious Lies". Of particular note is that Harry thinks this is the primary reason having a phoenix is not considered a sign of being Good — it benefits those without phoenixes to discredit them, so those people say whatever it takes to keep people from believing a phoenix's decision is made with sound reasoning.

Name: Spin-off
Definition: when part of a successful show, usually characters, but sometimes a general concept (first you have the Law, then you have the Order), are taken and given a second show of their own.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Spinoff

Name: Spit Take
Definition: A Reaction Shot to an unexpected event that involves spraying food or, more commonly, drink from a character's mouth.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpitTake
Example: HPMOR:Comed-tea

Name: Split Personality
Definition: Two (or more) personalities may be sharing memory or not sharing memory or have access to each other's memory as external to their own in symmetric or asymmetric fashion, they can switch at will or involuntarily and be in clear war or some form of pact.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Split Personality
Example: HPMOR:Harry's dark side
Example2: "There's just one problem... you're talking to the wrong Harvey."
— Big Bad Harv (Harvey Dent), Batman: The Animated Series
Example3: Left and right brain

Name: Split Personality merge
Definition: When a character with split-personalities merge them
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SplitPersonalityMerge
Example: HPMOR:Harry's dark side to fight dementor
Example2: Jekyll and Hyde, BFFs?

Name: Spot of Tea
Definition: Each time an english character is presented, they drink tea
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpotofTea
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell likes expensive tea. Harry doesn't see the difference and wonders if it is a means of messing with people who feel they should appreciate it. During the Taboo Tradeoffs battle Amelia Bones summons a cup of tea out of nowhere so she can sip from it before giving her snarky commentary on events.
Example2: "That's Britain for you. Tea solves everything. You're a bit cold? Tea. Your boyfriend has just left you? Tea. You've just been told you've got cancer? Tea. Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt? TEA DAMMIT!"
— LiveJournal user jslayeruk

Name: Springtime for Hitler
Definition: A character's attempt to deliberately fail at some task (usually to fuel some other, hidden goal) backfires when the intended failure proves impossible, or becomes an unwanted success instead; in other words, they failed at failing.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Springtime for Hitler
Example: HPMOR: Voldemort wasn't able to fail to lead to Monroe's victory
Example2: "I was so careful. I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?"

Name: Stable Time Loop
Definition: A story with time travel in which past event can not change
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Stable Time Loop
Example: HPMOR: That's how time works

Name: Star Killing
Definition: Destroying a star, usually exploding or collapsing it
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Star Killing
Example: HPMOR: Harry is prophesied to destroy the stars themselves, but not the people. When he hears this he points out that if he accomplishes his goal of developing Magitek, then to a culture with access to it the current stars are a giant pile of resources that some idiot set on fire.

Name: Aluminum Christmas Trees
Definition: An element that exists or existed in Real Life but is assumed to be fictional by audiences, often because it seems too unlikely, bizarre, or kitschy to be real.
Example: A smiley face on Mars?
Etymology: Those trees used to be huge success in the 60s. Nowaday, people believe their mention is pure comedy

Name: The Red Stapler
Definition: The situation where a work of fiction creates or affects — whether positively or negatively — Real Life demand for a certain product, good, or service.
Example: "The revolution will be merchandised!"
Etymology: red Swingline stapler prominently featured in Office Space. It didn't existed, the show created demand and then it was sold.

Name: Defictionalization
Definition: the transformation of a product or object from a movie, book or other fictional source into a real item in the real world.
Example: Fictional Brand + Real Demand = Real Life Woo-Hoo!
Intuition: Almost always done as a merchandising tie-in that helps promote the source, and provides an additional revenue stream to boot.

Name: The Starscream
Definition: Someone trying to replace the big bad guy
Example: HPMOR: Draco, to Harry, in a Russian Nesting Doll of planning.

Name: Start of Darkness
Definition: Showing a reason explaining why someone becaume a vilain
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell answers Dumbledore's manipulation of Hermione by doing the same to Tracey Davis, and just might have turned her into Daphne Greengrass' Slytherin complement in Chapter 70.

Name: The Stations of the Canon
Definition: In a fanfiction, whatever change you make, having to go through mandatory passages
Example: Any HP fanfic : Stations of The Letter From Hogwarts, The Visit To Diagon Alley, The Trip To Hogwarts, The Sorting Hat, and, depending on how you play things, The Troll, all the way up to The Confrontation With Quirrell/Voldemort

Name: Stay in the kitchen
Definition: When a character insists that girls should be protected, not involved in the fight. Especially if the girl is at least as competent as him.
Example: HPMOR: The founding members of S.P.H.E.W. take offense that women are being dissuaded or prevented either by Dumbledore or by gender roles within the wizarding world from becoming heroines, seeing as heroes and dark lords are overwhelmingly male. Dumbledore sets the record straight that he neither encourages nor discourages any student, male or female, from answering the call.

Name: Stealth Hi/Bye
Definition: When a character either suddenly appears or disappears close to someone when they weren't looking to start or end a conversation.
Example: HPMOR: Harry does this to the Gryffindor bullies in chapter 27.

Name: Stealth pun
Definition: The writers put in a joke (almost always a pun), but never make or put in a Punch Line or explicit statement, hiding it in the set up of the joke.
Example: HPMOR: After Harry destroys a dementor, Professor Quirrell, asked what they should say to the Ministry, says: "Tell them I ate it." Since the dementors represent death, he says that he is a Death Eater.

Name: Straw Character
Definition: a caricature of a person, a character the author has set up in order to ridicule a particular viewpoint.
Example: Members of the Springfield Republican Party include Dracula, Mr. Burns, a water-cooler, and an unfunny clown.
Name2: Strawman Political
Etymology: Straw man fallacy
Counterexample: Quirrell's view in HPMOR

Name: Sufficiently Analyzed Magic
Definition: Using science method to analyze magic
Example: HPMOR: Harry first goal.
Etymology: "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."
— A riff on Clarke's Third Law, often mistakenly attributed to Larry Niven

Name: Summoning ritual
Example: HPMOR: Harry has Tracey do a mock version of this in chapter 74, which goes a bit too right. Shouldn't he know better from the Abracadabra stunt?

Name: Super-Powered Evil Side
Definition: When a hero has to become evil to win a fight which would otherwise be lost
Example: HPMOR: Harry suspects he has one; however, it turns out to be just evil (or, at least, dark), but not even remotely superpowered. It is, however, more skilled than him at certain kinds of problem solving, and he repeatedly invokes it to give him the courage to go through with a plan that involves doing something distasteful (like blackmail).

Name: Surrounded by Idiots
Definition: A world in which it's hard to find compentent help
Example: HPMOR: This almost goes without saying. Special mention goes to Amelia Bones, who is not only afflicted with this trope, but is fully aware of it. As a result, she personally oversees her subordinates as a preventive measure.
Example2: "Henchmen. Evil, obedient, bright — pick any two."
— Dr. No, Irregular Webcomic! #1502

Name: Sympathy for the Devil
Definition: This occurs when the hero realizes that a villain he is fighting is either not so bad, after all, has relatable (if still wrong) reasons for doing what he has done, or at least he just sees a vulnerable side in him which makes him empathise to an extent.
Example: HPMOR: Harry find himself not blaming Draco for his racist and elitist attitude, given that he's not particularly exceptional in his beliefs given the closed society he was raised in.

Name: Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors
Definition: Having various classes of characters, with the N-th character beating the N+1-th character, up until the last character that beats the first one.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TacticalRockPaperScissors
Example: Shields beat most spells, dedicated shield breakers beat shields, other attack spells do actual damage once shields are down and so trump shield breakers. That's how it works among most wizards, anyway; the Killing Curse is unblockable and must be dodged, plus the best fighting wizards can drop shields in an eyeblink and thus tend not to bother with shields of their own. Harry is able to exploit this quirk a few times with a special reorienting stunner Flitwick created, which would be useless against most enemies but is devastating against an unshielded opponent who thinks he's dodged it.
Example2: Water beats fire beats plant beats water
Applied to: HPMOR
Applied to2: Pokemon

Name: Suspiciously Specific Denial
Definition: be technically true because only one of the information is false
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuspiciouslySpecificDenial
Definition2: be false, and give away everything for comical purpose
Example: When Harry is trying to convince Dumbledore that his adoptive parents are abusive, he specifically tells him they don't let him read lots of books. Besides the fact that this wouldn't be regarded as abusive, perhaps except to Harry's subconscious mind, earlier chapters make it clear that they encourage his love of reading and even let him read pretty advanced books, making it this trope.
Conjdef: it can either
DefType: Denying something by giving an unusual number of information.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Take a third option
Definition: Two options are proposed to the heroes. The heroies choose instead something entirely different, unpredictable and unrelated.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption
Example: Subverted. In his first Battle Magic class, Harry is commanded by Professor Quirrell to either hex a student (bad), or lose House Points (bad). He hexes himself—and Quirrell deducts points anyways, for being clever instead of learning the intended lesson.
Example3: Faced with the dilemma of two contradicting directives, one giving general instructions to provide information to the crew, and one giving specific instructions not to inform the crew about a certain aspect of the mission, HAL finds a way to solve the issue. The problem is, that solution is to Kill Them All.
Applied to: HPMOR
Applied to3: 2001: A Space Odyssey:

Name: Take my hand
Definition: a character is about to fall off a cliff, into a Lava Pit, or out of a speeding car and another one tries to catch their hand. First, it's not granted that their hands will reach at all. Second, even if they do grasp hands the audience is kept wondering for several seconds if the rescuer will be able to pull the falling character up or if their hand will slip
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeAThirdOption
Example: Draco let Hermione slip after trying to rescue here
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Take that
Definition: A shout-out/homage followed by a mean and supposed fun remark
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeThat
Example: A lot of mockery regarding canon. E.g. the fact that Book 4 horcruxes is two way
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Take that, Audience!
Definition: Aiming a jab at the audience, usually for being such losers that they'll waste their time watching/reading/playing this nonsense, such moral degenerates that they'll enjoy sleazy pandering to their base impulses, and/or so dumb they'll pay good money for it.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeThat
Example: I didn't like Hermione in that way. Why does everyone keep thinking it has to be about that? It's disrespectful to her, to think someone could only like her in that way.
Example2: Only a gibbering dullard with a skull full of flaming monkey vomit would think [that Harry is just an ordinary eleven-year-old].
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Discussed Trope
Definition: When a character is genre savy and state that, if they were in the genra of the actual story, something would have a meaning it actually have
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DiscussedTrope
Example: Albus Dumbledore: You see, Harry, after you've been through a few adventures you tend to catch the hang of these things. You start to see the pattern, hear the rhythm of the world. You begin to harbour suspicions before the moment of revelation.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Teacher pet
Definition: A character that is on the teacher side and answer correctly instead of being on student side
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TeachersPet
Example: Harry to Quirrell, although nobody seems to actually hate him for it, though Hermione is afraid Quirrell will lead Harry astray.
Example2: HP
Applied to: HPMOR
Applied to2: Hermione most of the time, Draco to Snape

Name: Tell Me About My Father
Definition: A character didn't know a parent and ask somebody who knew the parent to tell the character about them
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TellMeAboutMyFather
Example: Harry asks Lupin about his birth parents the very first time he meets him.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Tempting fate
Definition: When a character says something that dares the universe into making things miserable for them, and the universe takes them up on the challenge
Page: Harry asks Lupin about his birth parents the very first time he meets him.
Context: Page?
Example: When Draco says, "I don't want any more surprises today."
Applied to: HPMOR
Counterexample: after Dumbledore declares himself to be invincible:
"He can get away with it," Isabel whispered back to her, "he's Dumbledore, not even Fate takes him seriously anymore."

Name: That Makes Me Feel Angry
Definition: When a character state what is emotion is instead of showing it.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThatMakesMeFeelAngry
Example: Harry is able to get away with this when Dumbledore is expecting him to be angry and doesn't seem likely to question it:
"Yes, I'm very angry!" said Harry. "Grrr!"
Harry's Internal Critic promptly awarded him the All-Time Award for the Worst Acting in the History of Ever.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: The End of the World as We Know It
Definition: what will happen if the heroes don't stop the Evil Plan from doing its nasty work
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt
Example: It was prophesied numerous times that Harry will be the one to end the world. However, no prophecy ever spoke of Harry actually killing anybody while ending the world. Dumbledore did whatever he could to make it so that the world's people manage to survive its end.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Then let me be evil
Definition: A character is framed so often as evil that they snap and actually become evil
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThenLetMeBeEvil
Example: Voldemort tells Dumbledore that his begging Dumbledore to introduce him to Nicholas Flamel so that Voldemort may learn to make the Philosopher's Stone was his last attempt to be good. When Dumbledore rejected him and told him fearing death was evil, Voldemort figured he might as well be evil because he certainly wouldn't stop wanting immortality.
Example2: Atlas Shrugged is, in a way, about a group of very rich people — business owners, tycoons, etc., who got so tired of being called greedy and selfish by people in society who were mooching off them that they basically just "Hang it. You want to call us greedy and selfish? Fine, then we'll go off on our own where you can't find us and be exactly that and you can just see how you do without us. Goodbye."
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: There are two kinds of people in the world
Definition: Tautology: X or non X
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThereAreTwoKindsOfPeopleInTheWorld
Definition2: False Dichotomy
Example: Hufflepuff or Slytherin, according to Lucius.
According to Moody, there are three kinds of dark wizards in the world: the kind with one name, the kind with two names, and the kind that change names like ordinary people change clothes.
Conjdef: either
Definition3: Unitary grouping: all categories are really the same
Definition4: Meta-joke: a joke about this trope
DefType: A joke based on a dichotomy

Name: There is no kill like overkill
Definition: to ensure a real death, and no treatise
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill
Definition2: because the killer like violence
Example: Voldemort's plan to kill Harry.
This is the order in which the next acts shall be done. First Harry Potter shall be stunned, then his limbs severed and the wounds cauterized. Mr. Friendly and Mr. Honor will examine him for any trace of unusual magics. One of you shall shoot the boy many times with my Muggle weapon, and then as many of you as can shall strike him with the Killing Curse. Only then will Mr. Grim crush his skull and brains with the mundane substance of a tombstone. I shall verify his corpse, then his corpse shall be burned with Fiendfyre, then we will exorcise the surrounding area in case he has left a ghost. I myself will guard this place until six hours have passed, for I do not fully trust the wards I have set against Time's looping; and four of you shall search the surroundings for signs of anything noteworthy.
Conjdef: either
Definition3: to express how much hate they feel
Example3: Joan of Arc was cremated thrice to ensure no remain could be used to start a cult
DefType: When a character keeps "killing" another character which is already assumed dead
Example4: the M.D. Device, known as the Little Doctor, causes one atom to explode, then spreads to every other atom around it, causing it to explode. Ender uses this to destroy a planet and two entire fleets.
More specifically, it's a field effect of limited range where the atoms within the field detonate and expand the field slightly. It doesn't work on photons though, so any planet-based chain reaction will cease after a short expansion into space, rather than running wild and destroying the entire galaxy.
The Congress's reaction to finding out about the Descolada virus is to send an entire fleet on a 30-year journey to blow up the entire planet, especially since the target is a planet with minimal industry and a population of farmers in the hundreds and the fact that a single ship with the Little Doctor is enough.
Applied to4: Ender's Game

Name: They Called Me Mad!
Definition: When a scientist is considered to be totally wrong until facts prove them right
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyCalledMeMad
Extra: One of the official mottos of the Chaos Legion is revealed in chapter 70 to be "We'll show them! We'll show them all!
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Think nothing of it
Definition: When a hero is thanked and answer that it is not something that is worth be mentionned
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThinkNothingOfIt
Example: Harry references this trope when asking not to be rewarded for reporting the extra spell on the Sorting Hat.
Example2: Faramir has such a moment after Sam compliments him for rejecting the Ring.
‘Yes sir, and showed your quality: the very highest.’ Faramir smiled. ‘A pert servant, Master Samwise. But nay: the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. Yet there was naught in this to praise. I had no lure or desire to do other than I have done.’
Applied to: HPMOR
Applied to2: LOTR

Name: Thinks Like a Romance Novel
Definition: when a character's logic and train of thought run on Romance Novel conventions.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThinksLikeARomanceNovel
Example: A lot of the Hogwarts girls are very guilty of this. Even Hermione is a bit guilty at the beginning, though she gets over it.
Example2: You don't want to be in love...you want to be in love in a movie."
— Becky, Sleepless in Seattle
Applied to: HPMOR
Example4: Madame Bovary's title character is another classic example. She loved a sentimental novel even before going to a convent in her early teens, and while at the convent, romance novels were passed around by the girls, and she believes love can only exist in the grandiose, sentimental way. She ruins her marriage (and life) for this.

Name: This is gonna suck
Definition: situations when the character realizes they’re screwed, but groans instead of gasping. Inevitably followed by the lucky character just lowering their head and bulling through the punishment (or bending over and taking it, if they're really screwed)
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisIsGonnaSuck
Example: Invoked word-for-word during Harry's occlumency lesson in chapter 27.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: This Means War!
Definition: A declaration that someone has broken the last straw, crossed the Moral Event Horizon , hit the Berserk Button or otherwise gone too far. The people making this declaration will now commit themselves to unleashing every ounce of asskicking they have at you until they get their way, and will not allow anything to stop them.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisMeansWar
Example: In chapter 15, Harry says the Bugs Bunny line to Hermione after she does better than he does during class.
Etymology: Told by Groucho Marx and Bugs Bunny
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: This Is Reality
Definition: One character tells another; this is reality, this is not a movie, or any variation thereof, most often the stock phrase "This isn't a/an X, you know"; in order to get them to divorce themselves from an unrealistic notion — only, little do they know, their whole world indeed isn't reality!
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThisIsReality
Example: In chapter 94, Harry notes to himself that in real life, the enemy would think of himself as the main character, not as the villain.
Example2: BoJack: Look, I played a dad for nine years on TV, so I think I know a little bit more about parenting than you two jokers. The kids on Horsin' Around didn't need boundaries. All they needed was some good old-fashioned love.
Todd: BoJack, this is not a TV show, okay? This is real life!
Lemur: (enters the room on fire) AAAAAH! LEMUR ON FIRE! LEMUR ON FIRE! (crashes through the wall, making an Impact Silhouette)
Intuition: a message to the viewers that "Hey, this show/movie is more grounded in reality than average.
Applied to: HPMOR
Applied to2: BoJack Horseman

Name: Those two bad guys
Definition: Evil Duo
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThoseTwoBadGuys
Definition2: Big Bad Duumvirate
Conjdef: Either
Definition3: Dual Boos
Definition4: Bumbling Henchmen Duo

Name: Evil Duo
Definition: A pair with a Big Bad and a Dragon (subordinate)
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilDuo
Example: Croup & Vandemar

Name: Big Bad Duumvirate
Definition: Two Big Bads, possibly more, working in intentional collusion with each other
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBadDuumvirate

Name: The Dragon
Definition: the main villain's closest confidant (or something akin to it), frequently acts as his Foil, and may be seen working as the front-liner of the evil forces to personally carry out his master's orders as one of his most dangerous and competent subordinates.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDragon
Example: Iago
Example2: "My apprentice, Darth Vader, will find and crush your pitiful little band of Rebel friends."
Example3: Good cop/Bad cop
Applied to: Aladdin (Disney)
Applied to3: The LEGO Movie
Applied to2: Star Wars

Name: Big Bad
Definition: The cause of all bad happenings in a story
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigBad
Example: Everything that has transpired in this trope has done so according to my design.
Example2: Voldemort
Example3: Sauron (and previously Morgoth/Melkor)
Applied to3: LOTR
Applied to2: HP

Name: Dual boss
Definition: a pair (or group) of bosses that you must fight at the same time
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DualBoss

Name: Bumbling Henchmen Duo
Definition: a pair of baddies on the trail of the protagonists. They typically work for the Big Bad or some other antagonist as their Bumbling Sidekicks, serving to add a dose of comic-relief while still committing acts of evil...if they're capable of it.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BumblingHenchmenDuo
Example: Crabb & Goyles
Applied to: HP(mor)

Name: Three-Point Landing
Definition: After performing a particularly cool move, or dropping from a great height, the character lands on the ground, feet wide apart and supporting their weight with one hand on the floor while the other hand is outstretched away from their body, usually pointed diagonally upwards. Extra coolness points are added if the hand on the floor is a fist that actually causes damage to the ground you land on.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThreePointLanding
Example: Neville Longbottom does a dramatic drop from a broomstick into the middle of the Taboo Tradeoffs battle. It's such a Dynamic Entry that all the other fighters momentarily pause, stunned.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Tickle Torture
Definition: Using tickling as a metaphor to torture in a child-appropriate show
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TickleTorture

Name: Time for Plan B
Definition: A Stock Phrase, generally said in the middle of an action scene when things are going wrong and another action should be chosen
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeForPlanB
Example: Quirrell: In your future career, Mr. Zabini, I do not suggest trying any plots that complicated. They have a tendency to fail .
Blaise: Um, I said that to the Headmaster, actually, and he said that was why it was important to have more than one plot going at a time .
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Title Drop
Definition: when a character is heard using the title in dialogue, the audience sits up and takes notice, because the scriptwriter has just planted a neon sign that flashesTHIS CONVERSATION IS IMPORTANT.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TimeForPlanB
Example: Multiple times sprinkled across the story, first in Chapter 24.
Applied to: HPMOR
Counterexample: If a series is named after a central character, setting, group, etc., it usually does not count as a Title Drop

Name: To Be Lawful or Good
Definition: For whatever reason, this character has encountered a situation where doing the right thing involves breaking a law, personal code, or a binding rule that makes the character The Fettered. The character must then decide to either break the law and move towards Chaotic/Neutral Good, or put the law of the land first and become more Lawful Neutral.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ToBeLawfulOrGood
Example: Harry repeatedly presses McGonagall on whether she will simply act the responsible authority figure even if it's ineffective or do whatever it takes to do good even if it's risky or unconventional. She leans towards the former.
Name2: conflict between deontologist (lawful) and consequentialist (good)
Example3: Hermione of Harry Potter starts off as a well-meaning but very lawful student, always mindful of the rules and scornful of Harry and Ron's breaking of them. (In the case of the midnight duel, quite rightly.) However, circumstances eventually force her to loosen up on the Lawful side as it becomes clear that quietly following the rules is not always going to help matters.
Etymology: Lawful and Good are on two axis in the classical Dungeon and Dragon chart
Applied to: HPMOR
Example4: Javert's death in Les Misérable
Applied to3: HP

Name: Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth
Definition: the monster doesn't want to eat the lovable hero. It seems that something about them, be it their whiny, unlikable personality, their lack of any skills for the villain to absorb, or even their really bad taste in deodorant or shampoo is enough that a monster simply does not want to eat them
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooSpicyForYogSothoth
Example: McGonagall conjectures that Harry "triumphed over the Dark Lord by being more awful than he was, and survived the Killing Curse by being more terrible than Death." A later chapter jokingly implies that Yog Sothoth may have been sacrificed to summon Harry.
Example2: Featuring the Denatonium Benzoate Suit, to repel all would-be Samus Eaters.
Extra: A monster could also just plain be unwilling to dignify an unworthy subject with the honor of being killed. One particularly creepy variant is that the Eldritch Abomination or similar evil devours, grabs, attacks, or just confronts the character... and is immediately terrified and runs, sometimes screaming, back to whence they came. This is usually played for laughs, but sometimes it implies that this character, or perhaps humanity as a whole, is in fact worse than any Cthulhu-esque abominations or reality-warping homicidal lunatics could ever be. This can also include an Emotion Eater being overloaded by the emotions of its victim, such as a monster who eats rage being overloaded by the hero's Unstoppable Rage.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Totalitarian Utilitarian
Definition: A villain who adheres to the philosophy that The Needs of the Many outweigh the needs of the few.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TotalitarianUtilitarian
Example: Harry as a "dark lord" would assuredly fall under this.
Example2: The ruling party are trying to make sure that the party members are the happiest people in the world - by making their own lives hell but making everyone else's lives far worse
Intuition: often a Strawman Political
Example3: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/evil-ethics
Applied to: HPMOR
Counterexample: In Atlas Shrugged, the bad guys portray themselves as wanting the good of the people, but are just lying and they know it
Applied to2: 1984

Name: To the pain
Definition: Describing what torture will be done to a character while keeping them alive
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ToThePain
Example: In 1984, the villain describes to Winston in excruciating detail what the rats will do to his face. This one is noteworthy since the whole point is to completely break the victim by exposing them to their worst fear, rather than actually harming them. The threat is made credible by the great deal of Cold-Blooded Torture inflicted on Winston earlier, and because "worst fear" is Not Hyperbole; Winston is absolutely terrified of rats.
Example2: "'To the pain' means that the first thing you lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrists, next your nose... The next thing you lose will be your left eye, followed by your right. [...] Your ears you keep, and I'll tell you why: so that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish; every babe that weeps at your approach; every woman who cries out, 'Dear God! What is that thing?' will echo in your perfect ears. That is what 'to the pain' means; it means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery, forever."
— Westley, The Princess Bride
Intuition: Allow to tell things that could not be described or shown in the actual art. Also allow to frighten the receiver
Example3: Michonne is about to get medieval on someone's ass. And just like Zed, he totally deserves it.

Name: Tranquil Fury
Definition: A character is so bad it move to a state of ice-cold hate and become extremely efficient at what they had to resolve to do
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranquilFury
Example: Harry's "dark side" is very controlled and cold, even if it doesn't think too much about consequences.
Example3: Ender is always like this when he's angry. No matter how much fury is within him, outside he is deathly calm and collected. Ender does this on purpose, as he learned very early the difference between "hot" and "cold" anger.
"He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him.”
Applied to: HPMOR
Applied to3: Ender

Name: Trauma Conga Line
Definition: Ensuring that everything that can go wrong will go wrong in order for the audience to sympathize with the character
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranquilFury
Example: Things have been getting worse and worse for Harry. He retains his optimism after his harrowing visit to Azkaban but it's quickly followed by losing Draco and almost losing Hermione in the trial, losing his chance to ever have a phoenix immediately afterwards, and then, worst of all, seeing Hermione die in front of his eyes.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: The Tyson zone
Definition: Some celebrities allow their reputation to become so bizarre that any story about them is believable.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheTysonZone
Example: Harry aim for it in HPMOR
Etymology: boxer Mike Tyson

Name: Twin switch
Definition: A set of twins or identical acquaintances trades places or pretends to be each other.
Page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwinSwitch

Name: Turn Out Like His Father
Definition: A character has charge of a child (usually her son) and is desperate to keep this child from imitating another relative (usually his father). This is a fear of history's repeating itself for his fate, which may be turning evil and usually ends with being dead.
Example: Harry is effraied to turn out as a Bully like James

Name: Turncoat
Definition: a hero who turns bad,
Definition2: a bad guy who suddenly decides to help the good guys
Example: Traitor in Quirrell Army
Definition3: but usually it's just anyone who thinks that the switch will benefit them personally.
DefType: the guy who switches sides at some point to help out the other side

Name: Tuckerization
Definition: Fandom term for using a real person's name in a story as a form of in-joke or Shout-Out
Example: Eliezer offers small cameos as a thank-you to all Fan Art artists of his fic.
Etymology: science fiction writer Wilson Tucker, well known for doing this.

Name: Try and Follow
Definition: First Rule of being followed: do what your pursuer is unwilling to do.
Example: Harry going on the roof in HPMOR
Example2: Start of Matrix, Trinity jump building, human policeman don't follow

Name: True love's kiss
Definition: Finding your true love will cure 99.9% of magical maladies and curses, restores memories and washes your windows, or your money back!
Example: Disney sleeping beauty
Example2: Lyra and Will save the multiverse from falling apart with their First Kiss.
Counterexample: Hermione kissing Harry successfully snaps him out of his Empty Shell state (see above), but the reason it works is because he is surprised – and a little grossed out – by it, and not because of any romantic love between him (an eleven-year-old boy) and Hermione (a twelve-year-old girl). None of this, not even Harry's loud objection, stops the rest of the student body from shipping them after that.
Applied to2: His Dark Materials

Name: Trickster mentor
Definition: a Trickster whose actions, while seemingly pointless, selfish, antagonistic, or just plain random, contain a valuable lesson
Example2: HPMOR's Dumbledore
Intuition: If you're the hero in a series with a Trickster Mentor, life will probably be twice as hard — and twice as rewarding.

Name: Tricked out time
Definition: One can say they've "faked" a Stable Time Loop, thus avoiding Temporal Paradox.
Example: Harry Potter sending a patronus to protect himself
Example2: Invoked repeatedly in The Science of Discworld books, especially the third book in which the UU wizards and the Auditors of Reality have a mini-Time War over The Origin of Species that will decide Roundworld-humanity's fate.

Name: Treacherous advisor
Definition: trusted expert is secretly one of the bad guys
Example: HPMOR: Quirrell
Example2: In El Goonish Shive, the seer that serves as Susan's guide during the "Parable" storyline turns out to be the evil seer that Grace was warned about.

Name: Überwald
Definition: An eastern European place, with very dark forest, old castle.
Example: It is hinted that places like this exist in the magical world. Mad-Eye Moody, in pursuit of the Eye of Vance, hunted down one dark lord who ruled a small fiefdom. That left a power vacuum until another dark lord moved in a couple weeks later.
Example2: Dracula
Etymology: Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. It is also an antiquated German name for Transylvania, see the Roundworld folder below.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: The Unchosen One
Definition: the hero or heroine who stands up to do what's right not because of a prophecy, but because they feel the need or desire to stop the Big Bad (sometimes doing so in spite of a prophecy)
Example: Facing the prospect of going down in history as Harry's sidekick, Hermione sets out to make herself a hero.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Undisclosed Funds
Definition: Large sums of money tend not to be specified on TV. They are written down on pieces of paper, whispered in people's ears, etc.
Example: Harry asks Draco for a loan described only as "almost all the spending money Father had given Draco to last out the whole year". Probably not more than 40 galleons in any case.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Unnecessarily Large Interior
Definition: A tendency of Speculative Fiction pictures and art direction to have interiors much larger than would be needed in reality.
Example: The generals' offices seem this way to Draco and Harry, with Draco unable to think of any reason for their size other than to show off the generals' status, and Harry not even thinking of that. It doesn't occur to either of them that they might be meant to use that space to meet with their advisors, because it doesn't occur to them that they might want to have advisors. Hermione, understanding their psychology, has her officers' chairs removed for her meeting with Draco.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Unreliable Expositor
Definition: An exposition by an unreliable figure.
Example: The narration mentions that the history of the magical world with Atlantis and Merlin that Harry learns is a different version of events than one would hear elsewhere in magical Europe, and that in magical Asia they tell completely different stories altogether. It then cheerfully continues that this doesn't mean it's wrong.
Example2: Agnes Nutter, who predicts the future, turns out to be wrong. She acted as an expositor for generations of witches. It's implied that this was intentional; "There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path," and all that. The ending reveals that although her book ends with the supposed end of the world, there's a whole second volume of what happens after. (Complicated by that predicting the future for her was "like seeing through a straw", so she didn't get the full picture on things.)
Intuition: Frequently invokes Metaphorically True, or in-character research failure.
Applied to: HPMOR
Applied to2: Good omens

Name: Unsound Effect
Definition: Using the form of an onomatopee, but writting a full fledged description of the action causing the sound instead
Example: "Honestly, I expected my body to be hitting the ground with a thud about now."
There was a distinct body-hitting-the-ground-with-a-thuddish sort of sound.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Unspoken Plan Guarantee
Definition: The chances of The Plan succeeding are inversely proportional to how much of the plan the audience knows about beforehand.
Example: In the first wargame (ch. 30), we see Draco and Harry explaining their strategies to their armies, whereas we know nothing about what Hermione has planned.
in the Taboo Tradeoffs battle in a virtual arms-race of this trope. Hermione's immediately revealed brute force strategy is defeated by Harry's gambit which only emerges gradually over the course of the battle.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Unsportsmanlike Gloating
Definition: When a winner in a game of fight gloat about it and humiliates the loser even more
Example: Hermione does this to Harry despite feeling that it's very naughty of her.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Unwitting Pawn
Definition: the kind of person that the Magnificent Bastard and Batman Gambit depend on. Not only does they fail to stop the bad guy, but he actually furthers the villain's plan in the process.
Example: Quirrell likes to bounce "hypothetical" ideas off of him, and Harry volunteers information to him that he doesn't understand the significance of, like how to recognize one of the Deathly Hallows.
Example2: In Star Wars prelogy, everyone by Paplpatine
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Up, Up and Away!
Definition: The classic Flying pose: stretched out, with one or both arms forward of/above the head.
Example: Multiple hover charms cast on a single person allow that person to simulate flight or low gravity. Neville uses it for his Chaotic Leap in the first battle. Hermione uses it as Super-Hermione during the battle inside Hogwarts.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Vast Bureaucracy
Definition: When a protagonist has to deal with a complex bureaucracy
Example: By Quirrell's estimate a little more than half of the adult Wizarding population works for the Ministry in some capacity. This is only a very slight exaggeration from the books (although there it's because Rowling didn't think through the math instead of a plot point).
Example2: "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."
— Oscar Wilde
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Verbal Backspace
Definition: Comedy trope: Alice says something. Then Bob says something or something happens that makes it clear that what she just said doesn't make sense. Alice quickly revises her statement and repeats it.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Villain Has a Point
Definition: a villain who has an understandable/justifiable reason for being what they are, or has understandable/justifiable motives, or makes accurate assessments of the world or the hero(es)
Example: For a specific example, at the end of the story, Voldemort has placed Harry under an Unbreakable Vow not to destroy the world, or take any undue risk of destroying the world. Mere hours later, Harry tries to repeal the Statute of Secrecy — only after he is stopped by the vow does it occur to him that this could lead to, for example, someone trying to Transfigure a kilogram of up quarks For Science!, which is completely permitted by the laws of Transfiguration, but is such a violation of physics that he has absolutely no idea what would happen. Harry has absolutely no desire to destroy the world, and Voldemort was still right to fear the possibility.
Example2: Aladdin: During his Villain Song, Jafar criticizes Aladdin for impersonating a prince in order to get close to Jasmine instead of simply being the person he is. Genie himself told Aladdin the same thing earlier in the movie, but in a nicer way.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Walking Wasteland
Definition: wherever you go, people and things tend to wither and die.
Example: Quirrell displays a touch of this while Christmas shopping.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Head Desk
Definition: when a character expresses their overwhelming frustration by banging their head (often repeatedly) against something nearby.
Example: Harry gets an impression of the Sorting Hat wordlessly banging its head against a wall during his sorting; how, he's not sure. Afterwards, the hat informs Dumbledore that it is never to be placed on Harry's head ever again - the fourteenth student in the history of the school to get that dubious honor.
Later on, McGonagall bangs her head against a wall.
Harry bangs his head against a wall in frustration after his first hour of magical research.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: We All Live in America
Definition: when writing a story set in another country, the writer basically takes their own country and substitutes in some foreign (or 'foreign') names, and might refer to a famous local festival or two if you're lucky
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Weirdness Magnet
Definition: the character is always standing at the corner of Strange Street and Bizarre Boulevard, in the town of Uncanny Valley. They run into situations or creatures that most people don't even believe in, much less have to deal with on a regular basis. Through no fault of their own, they constantly suffer through the effects of the paranormal and supernatural.
Definition2: Alternatively, the character may not think of the weirdness about them as particularly strange; after all, this sort of thing happens to them all the time. However, if something starts getting surreal on the show, chances are, they're at the center of it.
Example: Tracey seems to think Harry Potter literally is a magnet to weirdness, to the point where she suggests stunning him, tying him up and dragging him around with them to attract Adventure.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Wham Episode
Definition: The point in a series where the story takes a sudden dramatic turn.
Example: In chapter 89, Hermione dies, to the surprise and shock of many readers and all (or, perhaps, almost all) the characters.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Wham Line
Definition: a line of dialogue that radically alters a scene.
Example: when Quirrell tells Harry that there is an innocent person in Azkaban, Harry correctly deduces that it is "a person named Black." Quirrell is surprised and tells Harry he is correct, then asks, "How did you know I meant Bellatrix?"
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: What Measure Is a Non-Human?
Definition: questionning the value of other species compared to humans
Example: Harry is surprised to learn he can talk to snakes and asks if that means they're sentient. "Snakes are sentient!?"
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: What the Hell, Hero?
Definition: When characters In-Universe call out one of the heroes for doing something clearly unheroic, if not outright heinous.
Example: the Sorting Hat's is probably the most memorable, borrowing Harry's own intelligence and using it to refute the boy's own plans and arguments.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: When All You Have is a Hammer…
Definition: A character has a limited offensive repertoire, but the writer wants to make them look clever anyway, so they face them off against something which requires a little bit of strategy. Unfortunately, this strategy ends up being "just do what you always do, but slightly better."
Example: In any case, the standard counter-Charm for a boggart is, of course, Fiendfyre."
Etymology: "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."
— Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science (1966), the Trope Namer
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: White-and-Grey Morality
Definition: a setting with White and Grey Morality features no truly evil characters, but ranges through a spectrum of squeaky-clean heroes, slightly more sarcastic heroes, borderline heroes, Well Intentioned Extremists, and the occasional Anti-Villain at worst.
Example: It began like this . All characters do what they think is right. Unfortunately, everyone has their own concept of "right or wrong"
Example2: Finding Nemo: Marlin may be an Overprotective Dad, but he means well for his son, the titular Nemo. Dory herself is a Ditz, but she comes off as a Nice Girl. Dr. Sherman took Nemo because he mistakenly believed he would not be able to survive on his own with a deformed fin, and Darla is a "fish-killer" because she is a child who doesn't know any better. The other antagonists of the film are simply mindless predators.
Typ: Shades of Conflict
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?
Definition: A name that is so surprising it causes other to wonder who called their child this way
Example: The reason Petunia didn't marry Vernon Dursley in this version of the story is that she was appalled when he told her he was planning to name his firstborn Dudley.
Example2: "I've been giving thought to the idea of naming my child. It's a great responsibility, you know, choosing a right name. If I call him 'Zeus'...but that would cause problems of high expectation. Maybe I call him 'Offal'. That would cause problems of low expectation. Maybe I call him 'FIRE!' That would cause panic whenever someone calls his name; I would like this."
— Tannhäuser, Bullet in the Face
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Who's Laughing Now?
Definition: A character who is the butt of every joke has enough and becomes the vilain everybody fear
Example: When the members of S.P.H.E.W. are discouraged from trying to be heroines.
Tracey Davis: We'll show him! We'll show them all!
Daphne Greengrass: Okay, now that was definitely Evil.
Padma Patil: No, that's one of the Chaos mottoes, though she didn't do the laugh.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Wicked Stepmother
Example: Cinderella
Example2: H Potter
Counterexample: HPMOR

Name: Wild Card
Definition: Character so used to swinging between teams that they have no default "good" or "evil" Character Alignment or even a "home team.
Example: Blaise Zabini. Given the nature of the War of Three Armies, the fact that he manages to distinguish himself as this is truly impressive.
Example2: Aladdin:
Iago is about as reliable morality-wise as a chocolate teapot. He spends much of Aladdin: The Series stealing treasures from his 'friends', manipulating people's good natures, and abandoning fights that turn ugly. However he doesn't like his friends getting hurt, and has had some surprisingly brave moments. Jafar makes note of it in Aladdin: The Return of Jafar:
Jafar: Iago... you betrayed me and allied yourself with my enemies! Then you turned on them as soon at it was in your best interests. That's what I love about you. You're so perfectly... predictable. A villain through and through!
And his conscience moment...
Iago: Hey, I did my good deed! I don't owe you a thing! You hear me?! [beat] Not a thing...
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Will Not Tell a Lie
Definition: When a character makes a conscious decision to be honest they will not tell a lie, even if they could
Example: When Harry is asked to lie outright rather than use his usual techniques of misdirection and half-truth, he has to be told that the need is desperate before agreeing.
Dumbledore, as well, to the point that when the Weasley twins tell him the only way to activate the Marauder's Map is by saying "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he refuses to say it, but then makes the map work for him anyway.
Example2: - Discworld's Carrot Ironfoundersson.
'What's gotten into them?'
'Hard to say, sir,' said Carrot. Vimes shot him a glance. Carrot had been raised by dwarfs. He also, if he could possibly avoid it, never told a lie.
'That isn't the same as I don't know, is it?' he said.
The captain [Carrot] looked awkward.
— The Fifth Elephant
  - Carrot's good at this. Paraphrased: "If you do not let us in... well, I have my orders. And I won't like carrying them out. If it's any consolation, I'll be very ashamed later. But I will follow them." "I have armed guards!" "Believe me, that will only make it easier for me to obey." His orders? Walk away if they don't let them in willingly.
  - William de Worde, protagonist of The Truth, also Will Not Tell a Lie, but is good at using Exact Words to mislead people without actually lying to them. Like saying "I've just spoken to Commander Vimes, and I would like to see the room where the crime was committed," knowing that this would be taken to mean Commander Vimes gave him permission to do so.
Example3: Les Misérables: Sister Simplice is this trope to the extreme. Also, Inspector Javert.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?
Definition: Vilain can immediately kill and don't. Somebody ask why.
Example: After Quirrel reveals himself to be Voldemort, he holds Harry hostage and allows him to continue to live for an excessive amount of time, not even killing him when Harry attempts to betray him. This is partly because Voldemort needs him and his intelligence to thwart the Mirror of Erised, and partly because Voldemort wants to extract potentially world-sundering secrets from him. The likely genuine reason is that Voldermort really does not want to kill Harry, being the only person who can really understand him.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Willing Suspension of Disbelief
Definition: Any creative endeavor — certainly any written creative endeavor — is only successful to the extent that the audience offers this willing suspension as they read, listen, or watch. It's part of an unspoken contract: The writer provides the reader/viewer/player with a good story, and in return, they accept the reality of the story as presented, and accept that characters in the fictional universe act on their own accord.
Example: Draco recalls his father lecturing him about this concept after they saw a play.
Harry's willing suspension of disbelief regarding his present situation is broken when too many people show up in an unlikely place at an unlikely time, all at once.
Etymology: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poet and author, called drama "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith ..."
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Wise Beyond Their Years
Definition: Children who are more mature than their age implies, with a solid comprehension of abstract concepts, good foresight and an understanding of human nature beyond what most kids their age have.
Example: Harry, the eleven-year-old boy currently working on a reliable means of mass-producing carbon nanotubes, Draco, the twelve-year-old Evil Chancellor, and Hermione, the girl who beat both of them at magic paintball by the end of Chapter 30.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: With Friends Like These...
Example: - Draco realizes (a little too late) that having Harry for a friend is at least as dangerous as having him for an enemy:
If you were Harry's enemy, his plots might be hard to see through at first, they might even be stupid, but his reasoning would make sense once you understood it, you would comprehend that he was trying to hurt you.
The way Harry was acting toward Draco right now did not make sense.
Because if you were Harry's friend, then he tried to be friends with you in the alien, incomprehensible way he'd been raised by Muggles to do, even if it meant destroying your entire life.
Example2: This is Batman's friendship kick.
You don't want to see his enemy kick.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: A Wizard Did It
Definition: No need to describe this trope, it's just magic.
Applied to: HPMOR
Counterexample: HPMOR: Harry ask how things works when discovering magic

Name: Words Can Break My Bones
Definition: words that hold magic power unto themselves
Example2: If Dumbledore is to be believed, there do exist Words of Power and Madness that are dangerous to utter — it's just that no one these days knows what those words are.
"Happy happy boom boom swamp swamp swamp. Thank you."
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: The World Is Not Ready
Definition: This is the perennial excuse used by leaders of world-altering secret subcultures, and people with Secret Identities alike.
Example: Harry decides that he and other wizarding scientists — unlike muggle scientists — should keep their discoveries secret until they're sure humanity won't misuse them. Although, he suspects muggle scientists might have started doing this after what happened when politicians got access to nuclear weapons.
Example2: Morpheus in The Matrix explains that most people are not ready to be freed, as they've become dependent on the system. He goes on to explain that some are "so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."
Intuition: a fairly reliable way for writers to engage Willing Suspension of Disbelief and to ensure Plausible Deniability.
Example3: A major theme of Atlas Shrugged, though used unconventionally. First seen when a technology that allows electricity to be gathered from the atmosphere without any adverse side effects, pollution, or factories, lightweight and apparently easy to construct, is hidden by its inventor out of fear that the setting's collectivist governments would exploit that inventor and people like him. Later the same principle is applied to innovation and skilled labor in general, to greatly destructive effect.
Applied to: HPMOR
Example4: - Terra Ignota:
  - The adults of Bridger's bash' keep Bridger and the fact that he can work miracles very secret. Part of this is because Bridger is still a child, but they also want to map out his ability and develop his personality as much as possible before revealing him to the world. Not only is his ability exceptionally dangerous — there's nothing preventing Bridger from taking a vial that says "world-ending plague" and making it real —, but they know people won't believe it even if they see it with their own eyes.
  - The fact that Mycroft Canner is still alive and mostly at large (though under supervision) is also something everyone in the know is sworn to keep a secret, cosidering the terror everyone was experiencing all over the world during the two weeks of his murder rampage. Nobody quite knows what would happen should the public find out that Mycroft was not, in fact, executed on the spot. As story progress shows, the fears of the world's leaders are not unreasonable: Once Mycroft's situation becomes knows, riots break out in the streets worldwide and random Servicers are lynched by mobs because from afar they vaguely look like Mycroft Canner.
  - Another instance of this trope concerns the true reason why Mycroft and Saladin murdered the entire Mardi 'bash. The official version Mycroft keeps repeating is that he wanted to prove that evil for evil's sake exists because he believes the world is not ready to face the fact that the Mardi 'bash was collectively planning to start a world war. They had come to the conclusion that it's better to have one now instead of in the future where it may be that much more destructive. There is a lot of debate throughout the series about whether the world is ready for a worldwide war or not, especially considering that after a couple hundred years of worldwide peace nobody knows anything about how to deal with it.
  - Also debated throughout the series at length is wether the world is ready to know what Martin Guildbreaker has found out during his investigation into the theft of the Seven-Ten list, namely that a secret organization has been murdering people on behalf of the world's leaders under the pretense of the bigger picture of keeping the world at peace. What makes it worse is that they were using the Flying Car system used by almost everyone on the planet to do the deeds. While Martin acknowledges that the public has a right to know what has been going on, he also is acutely aware that the public is in no way, shape or form ready to calmly receive this information and understand it's implications. It is highly implied that he would've kept his discoveries a secret and dealt with it only among the higher echelons of power had the only person on the planet incapable of lying and deceiving the public not been listening in. The result, predictably, is a world war and public demand for dissolving the entire Hive system.

Name: World of Snark
Definition: A world in which every character is a Deadpan Snarker.
Example: Many of the student characters get this along with their intelligence upgrade, and many of the adults are similarly snarky. The whimsical magical world produces a large number of Only Sane Men and Women .
Example2: "A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal."
— Oscar Wilde
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Would Hurt a Child
Definition: A vilain that don't care about children and hurt them as anybody else
Example: One of Voldemort's Death Eaters asks if the recently resurrected and still unconscious Hermione Granger is there for their "entertainment."
Intuition: telltale of a Crapsack World or at least a Darker and Edgier series
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Wouldn't Hit a Girl
Definition: A general rule of not hitting girl, even if it's justified and she is stronger than male hitter
Example: The bullies are cast in a negative light through continual reminder that their opponents are first-year girls (though the first-year part is also important, putting this under Would Not Hurt A Child as well).
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Wrong Genre Savvy
Definition: When a character believes they are in a story of some particular genre and actually it's another genre
Example: - As of chapter 21, it's pretty clear that Dumbledore believes they are in an epic fantasy (unless that's just part of his obfuscating insanity), Harry is seeing it as science-fiction or a computer RPG, and Hermione apparently thinks it's a romantic comedy. Somebody is mistaken about the genre they're in, but it's not quite clear who at that point.
- Draco seems to be convinced that he is Light from Death Note, which is definitely wrong. His father takes some of the wind out of his sails in chapter 97.
Lucius: My son, truly, you have done well this day. However, this is not a play, we are not Aurors, and we do not put our trust in trials.
- It seems the girls of Slytherin House are enjoying a trashy romance novel, starring Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Draco Malfoy as the competing love interests.
- One of the Lovegoods thinks it's a more... "exotic" romance novel.
- The end of the story finally reveals who was right: Harry had the genre correct, but Hermione is The Hero. He's just The Mentor.
Example3: Say a stranger turns up on your doorstep; if he's a vampire , he can't hurt you unless you invite him in , but if he's an Angel Unaware or King Incognito , you might damn yourself by turning him away .
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Xanatos Gambit
Definition: "The key to strategy... is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory."
Example: - Described in Chapter 24 with Draco thinking about Harry's plans and those of stories he was told by his father. Not just a story - a story about a clever hero who always tricks a band of gargoyles into furthering his plans. Does that sound familiar to you?
- The basic premise of the Xanatos Gambit is described earlier, in Chapter 22, though the wording is slightly altered as a joke.
The key to strategy is not to choose a path to J. K. Rowling, but to choose so that all paths lead to a J. K. Rowling.
Example2: The Joker's entire existence is this at the expense of the Caped Crusader. If Batman doesn't come after him, Joker can do whatever he pleases with impunity: Joker wins. If Batman beats him and throws him into Arkham or does something else to incapacitate him, Joker just escapes, and he had gotten to have a playdate with Batsy again (and kill a bunch of people in the meantime): Joker wins. If Batman kills him, Joker has corrupted him: Joker wins.
Etymology: David Xanatos, one of the main antagonists in the series Gargoyles, who was a master of the technique and used it consistently to serve his own ends.
Applied to: HPMOR
Example4: In game, a sacrifice may help long term

Name: Xanatos Speed Chess
Definition: Some characters have an amazing gift not only for making The Plan but for revising it whenever new circumstances arise. Even a Gambit Pileup does not prevent this character working around it to success.
Example: During the Stanford Prison Experiment in particular, but predicted much earlier:
And it was also clear that Potter was brilliant, and a whole lot more than just slightly mad, and playing a vast game that Potter himself mostly didn't understand, improvised at top speed with the subtlety of a rampaging nundu.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: Yaoi Fangirl
Definition: A female otaku who enjoys anime and manga featuring handsome men engaged in homoerotic relationships
Conjdef: Apparently, most girls in the wizarding world.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: You All Meet in an Inn
Definition: The stereotypical opening to an adventure in tabletop RPGs: the protagonists are all gathered by prior intent or a "coincidence" of authorial fiat by the Game Master in an inn, bar room, or other common public meeting spot.
Example: Harry meets Hermione, Neville, and Ron on the Hogwarts Express/Platform 9 3/4. In particular, McGonagall tells Harry to be on the look out for Hermione on the train, and Harry wonders whether she is a PC or an NPC. ^note Harry also has his first real conversation with Draco on the platform. Justified because on the train will be the first time most Hogwarts students meet each other.
Example2: Elan: Next, we go to the tavern.
Roy: Why? I need adventurers, not a drink. Well, not JUST a drink.
Elan: That's where adventurers are hired, silly!
Roy: Why? It's not like they're looking for jobs on the wait staff.
Elan: I dunno, it's just tradition.
— The Order of the Stick: On the Origins of PCs
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: You and What Army?
Definition: The most common version: listener cues/points at the army, usually followed by "Me and this army."
Definition2: If the listener is feeling confident, they will simply say, "I AM the army/I don't need one.
Example: Harry says, "You and what other army?" to Hermione in chapter 67 when he and Neville confront her and the entire Sunshine Regiment while the rest of the Chaos Legion deal with the Dragon Army.
Conjdef: Somebody retorts to some threat, request, or demand with "Oh yeah? You and what army?" The phrase is supposed to be one of defiance, as if to say it will take an army to stop/defeat them. Usually comes in three flavors:
Definition3: In a rare situation, the listener turns back to where the army was, only to find that they have run off or turned against them.
Example2: "The trouble is, when you say to a general 'You and whose army?', he just has to point out of the window."
— Major Clarkston, Monstrous Regiment
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: You Are Not Ready
Definition: Commonly uttered phrase by powerful — often Sufficiently Advanced — beings when lesser lifeforms (like our heroes) ask for assistance or technical support . Oftentimes, the heroes get a hold of the information or gear for themselves, and the point is proven or refuted. (If the hero keeps insisting for an answer, they may get an Armor-Piercing Response , which may prove that they're indeed not ready.)
Definition2: this can be a line uttered by either The Mentor or the Big Bad. In the former case, he is telling our young hero not to be brash and preparation is very important (though the hero will rarely listen). In the latter case, it is used as a rather hammy taunt.
Example: Invoked on several occasions, most notably when Harry refuses to explain his Patronus 2.0.
- Harry doles out information about science to Draco very carefully, and uses this exact explanation. Draco is surprisingly okay with this, because his father taught him to take those words seriously. In fact, he becomes quite upset when Harry assumes Draco is rather more ready than he actually was.
- Harry wants to access his Gringotts vault in order to go Christmas shopping, diversify his assets, and buy items he thinks he might have a use for later. Dumbledore says that he isn't ready, and Harry is less than cooperative. See I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That above.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: You Do NOT Want to Know
Definition: Some secret about Character A is mentioned, either by the character himself, or by somebody else. When queried, someone replies "You don't want to know. Just trust me on this ." Or words to that effect.
Example: During the jailbreak scene: "You don't want to see who's behind me. Trust me, you don't." Because if the auror does see, he'll know too much.
Example2: - Calvin and Hobbes:
  - Calvin's mom after he runs inside naked and screaming at a hailstorm; "I'll bet there's an explanation for this, and I'll bet I don't want to hear it."
  - In another strip, Calvin tries to cook an eggs and orange juice breakfast for his mother while she's ill, but the eggs end up being crispy lumps stuck to the pan. When she asks about the orange juice, Calvin answers "Dad says not to tell you about that until you're better."
  - When Calvin asks if he can use gasoline to write flaming letters on the lawn so airplanes flying overhead can read it, his dad's second thought (after "No, you can't do that! Don't be ridiculous!") was that he didn't even want to know what Calvin was going to write.
Example3: Doctor Who :
- "Bad Wolf": This is how Jack Harkness responds when his captors demand to know how he managed to pull a concealed weapon on them despite being stripped naked.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: You Fool!
Definition: The word "fool". Try it out. When someone disappoints you or does something stupid, throw the word out. C'mon, give it some gusto. You fool!
Example: Specifically, Quirrell calls Harry "fool boy" twice in Chapter 58 when the plan goes pear-shaped.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: You Go, Girl!
Definition: A girl participates in an athletic competition to show that girls can be as good at it as the boys are. She then makes good by:
1. Outplaying/Outsmarting her male counterparts in an athletic competition
2. Joining another team, and winning a game for her team
Example: Hermione leads an army in Battle Magic, and the S.P.H.E.W. girls fight bullies to show they can keep up with Harry Potter. However, people still view Hermione as being Harry's rival rather than a protagonist in her own right.
Example2: "You know Amy, any time someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo. [everyone stares at Knuckles in silence] What? Just because I'm a meathead doesn't mean I'm not a feminist."
— Knuckles, Sonic Boom, "Eggman's Anti-Gravity Ray"
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: You Have Outlived Your Usefulness
Definition: Big bad callously disposing of anyone who is no longer useful to their plans, whether it be an associate of an evil organization who has just concluded their useful function within that organization, or an outsider who the villain has coerced or tricked into carrying out part of their plan who is killed once they have done what the villain has ordered.
Example: - After learning Slytherin's secrets from the basilisk, Voldemort didn't want to leave it around for anyone else to learn from. At least, that's what Quirrell assumes. But he's only pretending to guess. Either Quirrell is referring to his own actions or he is lying to dissuade Harry from attempting to find it.
- After thinking about the jailbreak, Madam Bones assumes this is what happened to the apparently ethical person who helped the escaped prisoner they're discussing get free.
Example2: - Aladdin: After Aladdin gives the Genie's lamp to a disguised Jafar, he reaches up for Jafar to help pull him out of the collapsing Cave of Wonders. Instead, Jafar grabs him by the wrist and, when Aladdin asks what he's doing, Jafar says, "Giving you your reward! Your eternal reward!" and pulls out a dagger to kill him. It backfires, though when Abu bites Jafar's arm to save Aladdin — while Aladdin falls back down into the cave, seemingly eliminating him as far as Jafar is concerned, it turns out that Abu has swiped the lamp, leaving Jafar with nothing.
Example3: arm animals are killed after they are no longer able to perform their intended function, perhaps to reduce costs on the industry to feed and shelter useless livestock.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: You Just Told Me
Definition: Ben has a secret. Stan, typically a rival or enemy , indicates, in some fashion, that he knows it - either by stating so directly or by implying it with his words or actions. Ben reacts in a way that confirms Stan's suspicions - sometimes, though not always, by outright asking "how did you know?", in which case the answer, of course, is this trope's name.
Example: - McGonagall uses this device on Hermione and then smilingly warns her not to fall for it again: "Miss Granger, you aren't supposed to admit anything just because I say I know."
- Discussed in Chapter 18, when Harry says that he should have tried this on Dumbledore, McGonagall, or Snape to try to get more details about Voldemort out of them. There's also a more subtle example earlier in the same chapter: Harry gives Dumbledore the excuse for keeping Snape around that Dumbledore then repeats back to him - that Hogwarts needs an evil Potions Master in order to be a proper magical school.
- In chapter 79, an Auror is interrogating a suspect. While looking through the suspect's records, he asks him casually about the places he's recorded to have travelled to, and the suspect answers normally. He then reveals that there wasn't a visa for one of the places he mentioned. "You're not Quirinus Quirrell. Who the HELL are you?"
Example2: "Accuse a guy of having bad locks and before you know it, he's telling you where his motion detectors are."
— Burn Notice, "Breaking and Entering"
Example3: - In Disney's Aladdin, Jasmine, suspecting "Prince Ali" to be Aladdin, idly mentions Aladdin's friend/pet Abu (whom "Ali" would not know about); Aladdin responds without thinking.
Applied to: HPMOR
Example4: Sherlock questions a woman by making deliberately incorrect guesses. The woman is eager to humiliate Sherlock and smugly corrects him each time, after which he thanks her for volunteering the information he was looking for.

Name: You Killed My Father
Definition: When one of the villains kills the parent (usually father) or even the entire family of one of the heroes, it'll be that hero who kills that villain in question, even if this isn't an explicit act of vengeance.
Example: Draco is determined that his mother's murderer will pay for her death.
- Neville wants revenge on Bellatrix Black for torturing his parents into insanity.
Applied to: HPMOR

Name: You Remind Me of X
Definition: When a character is told, potentially many time, he remind of someone who is not explicitly mentioned and is left to guess
Example: Harry reminds Snape of someone he once knew, although not the one Harry imagines he does.
Applied to: HPMOR