If something is played for drama, it is being used with the intention to be serious. Sometimes, a comedic trope is played completely serious (for example, a Out-of-Context Eavesdropping setup leads to tragedy), or maybe a drama-neutral trope is milked for all the drama it can provide. Can be used in a deconstruction of a particular trope, though one should not make the mistake of thinking that all dramatic or tragic uses of a trope are deconstructions.
Contrast Played for Laughs; sometimes, the only difference between one trope and another is that one is played for laughs, while the other is played for drama. Compare Played for Horror, when a trope is used to frighten or disturb the audience.
When the creator tries to do this but fails completely and ends up making the audience laugh instead, it's called Narm. When that is done In-Universe it's a Failed Attempt at Drama
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Wish Upon a Shooting Star is played for both drama and horror in Aldnoah.Zero. Two children are ecstatic to see dozens of shooting stars flashing across the sky, and the younger brother happily tells his sister he wished for world peace — blissfully unaware that those "shooting stars" are actually huge alien spaceships descending to Earth at blinding speed, causing atomic bomb levels of devastation in the surrounding areas.
- Of Corpse He's Alive is played for drama at the end of Goodnight Punpun. After Aiko kills herself, Punpun takes her body and leaves it with two kids by the road saying that she's only just sleeping.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable has Sheer Heart Attack, a dramatic example of Action Bomb. It's a tiny, tank-like Stand that can easily sneak up on and hide close to its victims before detonation, is completely indestructible, survives its own explosions, and the only way it can be stopped is by getting its user, Yoshikage Kira, to deactivate it. Which, for obvious reasons, was not an easy task to do.
- In Kemono Jihen, Akira's brother, Yui, looks much older than the former, despite them being (non identical) twins. Younger Than They Look ends up being played for drama in a downright chilly manner, because it realistically means he hit puberty earlier than Akira which in turn means the women in their village decided to latch on and rape him first. Yui then used this timegap before Akira hit puberty to execute a plannote to get him out before they started raping him as well.
- Maria no Danzai
- Misery Trigger is played for drama by both Mari Nagare and Taiichiro Nagare.
- Mari is normally calm and collected with a smile on her face, even when commiting murderous acts, but anything that reminds her of her previous life with her husband and son, no matter how big or small, is enough to shake her and bring her to tears.
- Similarly to Maria, Taiichiro is greatly affected whenever he sees something that reminds him of the life he lost with Mari and Kiritaka.
- Misery Trigger is played for drama by both Mari Nagare and Taiichiro Nagare.
- Episode 5 of Neon Genesis Evangelion uses Accidental Pervert to dramatic effect. Shinji visits Rei's apartment to give her new ID card, but when he finds the apartment seemingly empty, he has a look around and becomes intrigued by a pair of broken glasses lying on her dresser (unbeknownst to him it is Gendo's old glasses, which has great sentimental value to Rei) and picks them up. Rei then emerges from the bathroom, having showered and is still naked. Rei notices Shinji holding the glasses, and due to having No Social Skills, she beelines straight for him to get the glasses back, careless of her nakedness. Shinji panics and gets the strap of his backpack caught on the dresser as he struggles with her, causing him to lose balance and fall over while pushing Rei to the floor along with him, landing square on top of her. Shinji freezes completely up for a really uncomfortable long time, until Rei coldly asks him to move away, and he notices he accidentally is groping her and he quickly jumps back on his feet. The moment is not played for comedy at all, instead opting to be as painstakingly awkward and unsettling as possible. Even more notable, Rei, again due to having absolutely no social skills, never goes into any kind of Pervert Revenge Mode and doesn't even understand what Shinji is trying to profusely apologize for afterwards.
- Rent-A-Girlfriend: Meet the In-Laws becomes a point of conflict. While protagonist Kazuya was happy enough with his first girlfriend Mami, she felt like he was rushing the relationship too much. Kazuya bringing her over to meet his parents was the straw that broke the camel's back, and she coldly breaks up with him for that among other things.
Audio Plays
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy is played for drama in The Morgue Files. During one of Evelyn's drunken outbursts, she outright tells Tobias that she thought of him as a mistake, telling him that she never loved him at all. She tries to explain this away with the alcohol, but this doesn't stop Tobias from killing her and Frank.
Comedy
- Alex Edelman: Just for Us takes the usual Title Drop of a stand-up comedy special (traditionally a punchline to a joke late in the special) and plays it for drama instead of for laughs; most of the ninety-minute special is one long anecdote that Alex is relaying about a time he infiltrated a meeting of white supremacists in Queens, with the occasional aside and frequent Call-Back. After he inadvertently outs himself as being Jewish to this group of neo-Nazis, a girl named Chelsea that he'd been crushing on and delusionally believed he could fix comes up to Alex and tells him in no uncertain terms to leave because the meeting is "just for us." It's enough of a Gut Punch that the packed audience of hundreds goes dead-silent at this and it takes Alex a full thirty seconds for him to start speaking again.
Comic Books
- Astro City uses C-List Fodder dramatically. In the "Tarnished Angel"-arc, a Serial Killer starts preying on C-list supervillains, apparently without discrimination. The relatives of said supervillains note that while these deaths are huge tragedies in their lives, neither the superheroes or the authorities care that someone is knocking off these no-name crooks, and probably won't until someone sufficiently famous is targeted.
- Self-Deprecation is used to emphasize self-loathing in Dark Night: A True Batman Story. The book fully reveals just how depressed and lonely Dini felt before and after the mugging. As he recovers, his projection of Batman hits him with wave after waves of Reason You Suck Speeches.
- Furry Reminder is played for drama in De Cape et de Crocs. Armand muses sadly over Séléné falling in love with the Maître d'Armes instead of him. He seems to think that this happened because he's a fox, mentioning for instance that, unlike him, his rival can stand on two legs without going against his nature and can discard his fur in summer.
- The Flash: Hunter Zolomon played two tropes for drama.
- This series has at least one example of Acquired Situational Narcissism turning tragic. As Hunter shamefully admits in the flashback of The Flash (1987) #197, his ego got out of control with tragic consequences. Hunter predicted that the suspect won't have a gun, and thus urges his team to make the arrest without waiting for backup. He turns out to be wrong, and the killer shoots him in the knee, crippling him, before gunning down his father-in-law. In a brutally ironic twist, years later it turned out that Hunter was right all along, and Professor Zoom was the one who gave the suspect the gun in order to engineer the incident that turned Hunter into Zoom. Flash #800 later revealed that all of Hunter's time spent in the Speed Force, ruminating on how Thawne gave the Clown the gun all those years ago, has led him to understand that he was right. And if he was right about the Clown not having a gun, then to him, his methods to turn Wally West into a better hero are right as well.
- Starter Marriage is played for drama. In a flashback in The Flash (1987) #197, it was revealed that Hunter Zolomon has only been married to his college sweetheart Ashley for a few months after they graduated college together and join the FBI together before Hunter tragic mistake that cost the life of his father in law, causing Ashley to divorce him and him being kicked out of the FBI. Hunter still very much loves Ashley but knows it unlikely she forgive him; he accepts the divorce and tries to move on with his life. Later, when Ashley learns that Hunter transformed into supervillain Zoom, she left the FBI to come to Keystone City to take over his former spot as the local metahuman profiler to help reform him—showing that she still loves and regrets leaving him. Tragically it's implied that had that misjudgment on Hunter's part that cost his father's life in law never happen, Hunter and Ashley would have had a long and lasting marriage.
- Amalgamated Individual is played for drama in Green Manor. A police inspector discovers that the extremely prolific Serial Killer John Smith, who kills with a different method every time and leaving a letter reading "I will kill again", is actually a huge number of copycat killers who independently hit on the idea of murdering an Asshole Victim and blaming it on the original killer (something the general public will never accept, especially since he only puts the pieces together after one of them confessed). He then gets himself arrested, putting an end to the murders by taking the blame for them. A fellow inspector is shown to be cutting up an "I will kill again" letter on hearing the news, implying he too was going to murder his overbearing wife.
- Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond is used seriously in Irredeemable. The Plutonian has an intense, driving need to be loved by everyone around him and receives endless praise from being the world's greatest super-hero. But he's unable to get over the few people who don't shower him with praise, leading him to bitterly think that the entire population of Earth are nothing but selfish, ungrateful animals.
- Knights of the Old Republic: Doesn't Know Their Own Child is Played for Drama. Krynda Draay has a vision in which the First Watch Circle execute their Padawans. She suffers a stroke, rendering her unable to move. Subsequently, Haazen imprisons her in a crystal oubliette to keep her alive in stasis, where she experiences the Padawan Massacre repeatedly. Krynda barely endures the torment because of her desperate hope that her son Lucien would never commit murder. When she is removed from the stasis pod, Lucien tells her the truth: that he did not personally kill any Padawans... he ordered their murders, instead. Outraged and horrified, she tells him no mission is worth the lives of younglings, and asked Lucien who had led him to believe that murdering the Padawans was the right thing to do. She is horrified when Lucien says she had, and that he had done it to carry out her mission — by any means necessary. Realizing that her teachings had led her son to murder his students, Krynda claimed that she had been wrong the entire time. In her last moments, she told Lucien to accept his mistakes and face the future with humility.
- Maus: Contrived Coincidence is used for drama throughout the graphic novel. Vladek's survival during Holocaust was frequently the result of pure, improbable luck, where he happened to be at the right place at the right time for something to save him from near-certain death from the Nazis. Whether its because his cousin turns out the be the head of the Jewish Ghetto Police, or finding an way to get involved in the black market to acquire goods, or even by running into an old friend from before the war, Vladek had many unlikely encounters that ensured his survival. This notion of improbable luck plays into the graphic novel's motif that while having resources, intelligence, and the help of others contributed to his and others' survival in the Holocaust, luck was perhaps the most vital trait to do so; as discussed by Art, there were many innocent victims who did have the former three traits but still perished because they were not as lucky as those who survived.
- Casual Kink is briefly used for drama in Saga. In the heat of the moment, Alana begs Marko to spank her while they're having sex. Marko isn't taken aback by the request, but he can't bring himself to do it. As we find out, it's because he's troubled by his own penchant for violence, and still has baggage over being beaten by his father as a child.
- A Pants-Pulling Prank is a point of conflict in Smile (Raina Telgemeier). When some of Raina's "friends" yank her skirt down in the school cafeteria, she's so upset she ends up running off to the bathroom to cry. Some of her other friends try to downplay it by pointing out she was still wearing tights and tell her it was kind of funny. It's at this point Raina finally decides she's had enough of them mistreating her and doesn't want to be friends with them anymore.
- Spider-Man:
- Measuring the Marigolds is played for drama in the Spider-Man's Tangled Web story arc Flowers for Rhino. Rhino, who had went through a successful experimental surgical procedure to boost his intelligence, gradually started to become detached from life and human relationships. When his girlfriend called him a monster, he realised to his horror that all he could start to think about was the definition and etymology of the word.
- Ask a Stupid Question... is used to dramatic effect in Star Wars: Obi-Wan & Anakin. Anakin points out that Qui-Gon's asking him if he wanted to be a Jedi was a ridiculously obvious question. He was a slave living in a desert being offered to be taught magic by a man armed with a sword made of light. There wasn't much of a choice to make there, which is causing his current discontent, as he's been seemingly locked in to the Jedi Order for life.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall gets a rare serious example in Thor: Season One. The Fates address the reader directly, telling them that if they want to change their fate as Thor did, they cannot do it alone.
- Only Known by Their Nickname is used for drama with Soundwave in The Transformers: Robots in Disguise. "Soundwave" isn't his real name, it's the name he took after he got his powers under control. Because of his severe synesthesia he can't even remember his real name.
Fan Works
- Acquired Situational Narcissism is used for drama in Bound (How to Train Your Dragon). After getting a taste of praise for his ingenuity with the success of the fire prevention system, Hiccup ends up inventing behind Astrid's back and constructs the Mangler. Not only does this violate the deal he had made with Astrid (he stops inventing, she teaches him how to wield a weapon), but it ends with Hiccup's reputation spiraling right back down to square one with the unfortunate collateral damage caused by the Monstrous Nightmare he inadvertently attracts.
- The Boys: Real Justice: Schmuck Bait is played for drama. The Joker sets up a bomb that will detonate when exposed to intense heat and release his deadly Laughing Gas into the crowd, demanding that Homelander is to be the one to disarm it. Batman quickly figures out that Joker is planning to provoke Homelander into using his Eye Beams on the bomb by revealing his most embarrassing secret on live television, and realizes right away that it's going to work because Homelander is such a Psychopathic Manchild that values his reputation that he will be too blinded by rage to not take the obvious bait. Indeed, when Homelander is about to strike the Joker's image on the bomb, Joker tells him not to despite still bearing his twisted smile, and Homelander still fires away at the bomb and gets a large number of people killed.
- Adaptational Modesty is played for drama in Fairy Tail: Re-Written
with Lucy. Her attempts to wear more revealing outfits like in canon are hindered by self-doubt and feeling slut-shamed by her father and his more toxic business partners. At most she can wear a skirt that reaches to her mid-thighs and a top that gently hugs her curves.
- The Flash Sentry Chronicles uses the Accidental Pervert trope for drama in "Spike’s Heartbreak". The chapter begins with Spike hoping to spend some time with Rarity, but when he gets to her boutique, he accidentally walks in on Rarity and Lightning Blitz ‘expressing themselves’. Spike at first thinks that Lightning is forcing himself on Rarity, and attacks him, only for Rarity to pull Spike off of Lightning and explains that she and Lightning are in a relationship.
- Future Is Bright (Danny Phantom): Comfort Food is played for drama. Due to a few incidents were his parents slipped anti-ecto compounds into the family's food, Danny has a trauma-induced eating disorder (where his stress causes him to avoid food other than ectoplasm for as long as he can). As such, Jazz (and later Alfred and Batman) make sure that Danny always has some of his safe foods on hand. His most common safe foods are fruit, cheese, Sprite, and smoothies (though he eats granola on his days where he's too stressed for a full meal). Jazz mentions that cereal bars used to be one of Danny's safe foods... until his mother tricked him into testing out one of her anti-ecto compounds by disguising it as a cereal bar.
- Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail plays Shipper on Deck for drama. When Gladion wound up on the Train, Mallow was the only one who was worried about his disappearance. Unfortunately, her friends blow this off, joking about her having a crush — when Mallow asks how they would have reacted if she vanished, Lana suggests "Elopement", pushing her past her Rage Breaking Point and sparking off a furious dressing-down.
- Feel No Pain is played for drama in My Driver Academia. Quirkless people are discriminated against so immensely that very few reach highschool age, and even fewer reach adulthood due to suicide or hate groups targeting and killing them. Those that are still alive have inhuman amounts of pain resistance, where Izuku could be punched in the stomach and feel nothing, but Pyra and Mythra feel a painful blow. It's also why they resonate with Blades more easily, as they give the Quirkless powers they lacked throughout their entire lives.
- Animorphism is used for tragedy in the Animal Crossing Dark Fic My Name Is Molly. All the humans have gone extinct, leaving a World of Funny Animals. However, all the animals are actually transformed humans. A majority are forcibly transformed children who have had their memories repressed.
- Pokémon Reset Bloodlines:
- A Twinkle in the Sky is used seriously during Chapter 18. Paul ends up blasting Ash's Primeape into the sky. Unlike most examples, it's hinted that such an action might actually have fatal consequences.
- Anger Born of Worry is a point of conflict in A Professor and a Student. Delia angrily called Ash selfish after he helped rescue her from the Entei out of fear that he nearly got himself killed. This led to Ash and Delia not talking about his adventures at all. While Delia is proud of Ash for his heroism, she simply can't face the fact that he is putting himself at risk.
- In-Universe examples of Angst? What Angst? are Lampshaded and used for drama in Project Tatterdemalion. The shinigami have been transformed into monsters, seen their friends and family transformed into even worse monsters, telepathically heard those former friends and family express the desire to eat them alive, and been forced to rip those former friends and family to pieces with their bare hands (and some shiny new claws) to survive. They are ok with this. They know they should not be ok with this. They are quite capable of figuring out that the only reason they are ok with this is that the shinigami virus is interfering with their brains. They don't know what else it might be doing while it's in there.
- The Absurd Phobia trope is used seriously in Running Around in Circles. Yakko spends most of the story terrified of pencils because the guy who attacked and raped him weaponized pencils during the assault. According to the epilogue, Yakko does recover from this eventually as he heals from the emotional trauma.
- The Accidental Pornomancer trope is very much unpleasant in the Triptych Continuum story A Mark Of Appeal. Joyous Release has a cutie mark talent for sex appeal, which she cannot turn off or control in any way. Any sapient being who spends more than a minute or two in her presence is consumed by lust for her, regardless of species, sexual orientation, or marital status. She has tried everything up to and including physically cutting out her mark (which doesn't work) to rid herself of this "talent", and finally seeks out Princess Luna as her last hope for a normal life, or indeed any life at all.
- Accidental Kidnapping and Mistaken Kidnapper are both treated seriously in Raphael's Big Mistake. Taylor is completely terrified during her abduction, Raph is horrified to realise he grabbed the wrong person, and Taylor genuinely thinks she's not going to leave the lair alive. Not only that, but it turns out she's also been physically injured. Even afterwards, she remains afraid despite several reassurances that she's not going to be harmed, and healing from the trauma takes time.
- This story also plays Repression Never Ends Well seriously. Taylor tries keeping all her emotions bottled up because she can't exactly go to a therapist or talk to April and Casey about how she feels since they've actually become friends with the turtles. When she finally hits her Rage Breaking Point, everything comes pouring out, leaving her physically and emotionally drained.
- Mime and Music-Only Cartoon is sometimes used seriously in Fan Animatics. Requiem For the Living, for one, is set to the tune of a very somber and melancholic song, Radiohead's "Exit Music (For a Film)". As it recounts the events following the Potters' murder by Voldemort, it deals with themes of betrayal, revenge, malacoping mechanisms, and death. The animation is synced with the song's slow cadence and building crescendos. The song's first stanza is slowly paced, so most of it is Remus coping (badly) with the news, which is full of agonizing reminiscence moments. In terms of lyric significance, some instances are ironic, such as Sirius tenderly closing Lily's lifeless eyes during the "Breathe, keep breathing" vibrato. Others, it's a straight match—the scene of Remus crying at the Potters' funeral, burning the paper with the news of Sirius's imprisonment, is set during the phrase "We hope that you choke".
- The Night Unfurls plays Dirty Old Man for drama.
- Beasley is an old man who wants to "do as much as he pleases" to Alicia. This Villainous Crush is a reason why he becomes a mole for Vault and the Black Dogs, joining their cause to build a Sex Empire.
- Sinister Minister Grishom thinks that should he bring Sir Kyril's head to Vault, he would be rewarded with plenty of women. The narration describes his face as filled with "bravado and lust."
Films — Animation
- ''Barnyard" does this with Boredom Makes You Dumb, as Otis' decision to choose partying with his friends over performing nightwatch duty with his dad Ben leads to Ben being killed by the Coyotes because Otis wasn't there to help him. Dag, the leader of the coyotes, even even points out that Ben probably would have survived if Otis wasn't too busy goofing around with his buddies.
- Lilo & Stitch (2002): A Disastrous First Meeting becomes a reason to worry. Nani is rushing home to prepare for her and Lilo's meeting with a social worker, almost gets hit by a car, and angrily kicks it while yelling, "Watch where you're going, stupidhead!" The driver turns out to be Cobra Bubbles, the social worker (who makes it clear he heard her when he repeats the insult verbatim). Cobra is further unimpressed when he sees Nani struggling to get the front door open because Lilo nailed it shut, and when he sees that the house is a mess, the stove has been left on all day, and Lilo was left home alone (not helped by Lilo leaving a drawing on the fridge of herself with the words "Me Alone"). It's made clear that the meeting going badly could cause Nani to lose custody of Lilo, and she yells at Lilo for screwing things up and not taking the situation seriously.
Cobra Bubbles: [to Nani] In case you're wondering, this did not go well. You have three days to change my mind. [slams the door]
- Turning Red does this with a couple of tropes that are usually played for laughs.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Ming commits a lot of antics that in real life would have probably gotten her arrested and served with a dozen restraining orders. Ming hasn't gotten in trouble for her actions only because her neighbors find her more ridiculous than threatening. She doesn't get in trouble for falsely accusing a drugstore clerk of sexually grooming a minor, let alone assaulting and battering (she did kick him) the security guard at the school, when most schools would have banned her. In fact, he allows her to drop off dumplings for Mei while reminding her she can't hide behind trees. Then she unleashes her kaiju form at the concert, literally bringing the facilities down on innocent children, and assaults Mei by grabbing her in a painful hold to berate her. Mei is forced to knock out Ming when the latter won't see reason and make her redo the red moon ritual. Afterward, Ming is apologetic about the whole fiasco, and the family's been ordered to pay CA$100 million for the damage she caused. Also, she has to constantly feed her new red panda Tamagotchi because it contains her primal panda form.
- Mei's struggle with her panda spirit turns How Do I Shot Web? into a serious problem. She figures out the connection between getting excited and transforming pretty quickly, but also finds that having that knowledge and being able to use it are two different things. Because the transformation happens when she feels any sort of strong emotion, she keeps changing when she doesn't want to change, and the more she fights it the more often she transforms. Showing no emotion at all doesn't work either; she just can't keep it up for very long. The lack of control leads her parents to quarantine her in her room for a month, cutting her off from school, her friends, helping at the temple — in short, everything she enjoys in life. It's only when she learns how to use her friends for inner support that she gets it partially under control. After the ritual where she chooses to keep the red panda instead of getting rid of it, Mei gains full control of her panda form, allowing her to transform at will.
- In Unicorn Wars, Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other is used for drama. Bluey's complicated and strained relationship with his mother has tragic consequences for both of them. A flashback revealed that Bluey was very close to his father as a child and was devastated to learn that their parents would divorce. During the flashback, it was revealed that Bluey learned that his mother secretly had an affair behind his father's back. Because of that, Bluey greatly resented his mother and refused to spend time with her, and rejected her attempts to get close to her. It is later revealed that Bluey's mother died when he was a child, and he was devastated, crying on her grave with his brother hugging him to calm down, later after the battle, where His entire unit was wiped out except for his brother Tubby and his rival Coco. Bluey snaps, kills, and eats Coco, causing his brother Tubby to leave him. When Bluey and Tubby argue, Tubby reveals that their mother always knew something was wrong with him. Bluey had a flashback when it was revealed that, resentful of both his mother for having an affair and being close to Tubby, Bluey poisoned his mother. Bluey, When he gave his mother the poison, was horrified of himself and regretted giving her poison when she drank it. It was also revealed that Bluey hey jealousy issues of how close his brother was to his mother since birth. It is implied that Bluey causing his mother's death has messed him up even more than he was already, and the guilt is destroying him. Bluey's mother is shown to love him, with her being heartbroken when he revoked her getting close to him, while his mother shares with Tubby that she believes that there's something wrong with Bluey; she was happy that Bluey gave him lemonade as she asked him to. Later it's revealed that Bluey's mother gave him a toy with the words written on it back to Bluey's mom, showing that despite her understandable concerns about his behavior, Bluey's mother did love him.
Film — Live Action
- Naked People Trapped Outside is both played for laughs and drama in Bollywood movie Aadai. The Protagonist Kamini is a rather cruel prankster who runs a Candid Camera Prank show. During a party with her friends at the abandoned office building of the placed she worked at, she passes out drunk, and when she next awakens, she finds her friends are gone and someone took off all her clothes leaving her stranded butt naked at the abandoned building. The rest of the film follows her struggles in figuring out what happened and trying to get back home without being seen, using a combination of object placement, creative camera angles and darkness to conceal any actual nudity. Several of the usual situations involving this trope also end up being subverted or played with: She tries to use a mirror to cover herself but it ends up shattering and cutting her. She attempts to knock over someone to steal their clothes but ends up injuring the person, getting caught before she could strip them and having the cops called to the area. She tries to streak her way home but ends up injuring her bare feet on glass and is chased by rabid dogs. She tries to use a roll of toilet paper as covering but then it starts raining.
- Await Further Instructions:
- Once Done, Never Forgotten is a tactic used by an Abusive Parent. Tony's nickname of "Squelcher" was the result of his having wet the bed once when he was a child, because he was afraid of what Granddad would do to him if he went to the toilet after curfew. He was still beaten black and blue for wetting the bed, with Granddad telling him that "Real men can hold it."
- Granddad's Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior! attitude is used for drama. He flatly calls Aanji a cunt at the dinner table, and replies with a snide "Nah" when Nick demands he apologize.
- El Cid treats Of Corpse He's Alive seriously. The title character dies before he can win the battle, so they just put his body in armor, put him on a horse, and set the horse running so he can inspire the troops to victory... and he still ends up mowing down several enemies. This is based on a legend about the real medieval Spanish leader, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid.
- A Big Honking Traffic Jam is turned tragic in The Day Britain Stopped. The big honking traffic jam envelops the whole nation and is the cause of many disasters that ruin people's lives, and even get them killed, and on Christmas, too.
- A dramatic example of Washy Watchy happens in Everything Everywhere All at Once, where Joy stares at a washer filled with black clothes in her family's laundromat for no particular reason until she is interrupted by PDA from her girlfriend Becky. This is the first appearance of one of the movie's Arc Symbols, a black circle with a hole in the middle, and the scene foreshadows Joy's issues with mental health and her connection to the antagonist Jobu Tubaki, as well as the importance of Becky in helping her find meaning in her life.
- Bring My Brown Pants is treated seriously in The Fallout. High school student Vada goes to the bathroom in the middle of class after her younger sister Amelia calls her when she has her first period. While in the bathroom, a school shooting happens. When Vada returns to school, she's too afraid to re-enter the bathroom she hid in and holds her bladder all day; after school ends, she heads down the school steps and accidentally steps on a soda can, the sound of which causes her to wet her pants in fear, which she gets angry at herself over.
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and its sequels do this with Denial of Animality. Rocket Raccoon is an uplifted raccoon, but hates being reminded of that fact and reacts with extreme fury when people press the topic. This is because he believes that everyone sees him as just a dumb animal pumped full of mutagens and cybernetics, rather than as a real person. Not to mention his uplifting was a horrific and traumatic experience that he'd really prefer not to be reminded of.
- Competition Coupon Madness is played for drama in Punch-Drunk Love. Barry Egan's obsession with getting enough promotional coupons to trade for frequent flyer miles just comes across to those close to him as more evidence that he is an unstable Cloudcuckoolander. It becomes more heartwarming when he proposes to his Love Interest and adds that he'll be able to get enough airline miles to accompany her anywhere in the world on her frequent overseas business trips.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy is used dramatically in P.L. Travers's backstory in Saving Mr. Banks. Her father's alcoholism caused him to do truly stupid things like fight with clients at the bank, which in turn caused him to nearly be fired (he's only saved because his boss can't bring himself to fire him while his daughter's there). This eventually leads to him getting drunk before giving a speech honoring employees at the bank, which starts off decently and ends with him getting more and more disoriented until he stumbles off the stage.
- The Sixth Sense shows a dramatic version of the Bedsheet Ghost. When Cole is sitting in his bedsheet fort and the ghost of a vomiting girl suddenly appears and frightens him, he runs away, inadvertently covering her with the bedsheet. It's only when he gathers the courage to go back and pull the sheet off, that he realizes that the ghost is not scary at all, but just a poor, sick little girl who needs his help.
- The Ass Shove trope is treated seriously in Slaughter in Xi'an, an excruciatingly violent Chinese film, where one of the characters is killed by having a long, steel rod pointed on one end shoved through his rectum, all the way until penetrating his guts. Apparently this was done to kill a person without leaving injuries on the outside.
- Groupie Brigade is used for drama in A Star Is Born (1954). Vicki Lester can't attend her husband's funeral without being torn at by a groupie mob in attendance.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier is used seriously in A Taxi Driver when the army colonel, holding Jae-sik at gunpoint, demands that Man-seob and Peter surrender. Jae-sik asks the colonel to let him call out in English for Peter to give up. After the colonel agrees, Jae-sik calls out in English for Peter and Man-seob to run for it and leave him.
- Age-Inappropriate Dress is used dramatically in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Jane wears ringlets in her hair just like she did as a little girl due to lingering troubles brought on by her missing being a childhood star. Near the end she starts dressing increasingly childishly as she has a Villainous Breakdown.
Literature
- Accel World: Ain't Too Proud to Beg is played for ark drama with Noumi at the end of the Dusktaker arc. Having suffered a devastating blow from the repowered Silver Crow while in an all-or-nothing match, Taker finds himself a barely functional heap on the ground, helpless and begging someone, anyone to share points with him to keep him from losing his powers. That this is the exact situation Noumi claims he put his abusive brother in (and his screams of terror and begging were fond memories for Noumi) serves as a dark echo for someone who spent the entire arc mocking any sign of weakness in the heroes. Haru, Taku, and Chiyo take no pleasure in this display, and Taku tels Haru to end it by finishing Noumi off with the laser blade.
- Anatomically Ignorant Healing in Book #29 of Animorphs, The Sickness. Cassie, a teen whose only medical experience is as a vet assistant, has to perform brain surgery on Ax, a Starfish Alien. She does get some help from Aftran, who went inside Ax's brain to find out where Cassie needed to operate.
- A serious variant of the trope Aren't You Going to Ravish Me? occurs in Because I Am Furniture. Through free-verse poetry, the narrator describes how her father physically abuses her entire family and sexually abuses her sister... and ignores the narrator. She eventually breaks down and begins brokenly describing how she's jealous of her abused siblings because they get some sort of attention from their parents. Being completely ignored and dismissed is even worse than abuse to her.
- Forgets to Eat is played for drama in The Expanse. Prax is so desperate to find his daughter that he doesn't even notice he's practically starving to death until he has trouble standing up. Granted, the situation on Ganymede was so desperate that, even if he had noticed, odds are he wouldn't have been able to find anything to eat.
- Hannibal has a Near-Miss Groin Attack end horribly. Hannibal stabs a thief, aiming for the groin (or so the thief assumed). However, the thief managed to dodge... so the blow lands in the complicated mass of arteries feeding the groin. He bleeds to death soon after.
- Watch Out for That Tree! gets portrayed dramatically in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. After being unable to enter Platform 9¾, Harry and Ron decide to use the latter's family car to get to Hogwarts. Unfortunately, they land in the Whomping Willow once they get to the schoolgrounds, which promptly starts attacking them. They're only able to escape after Harry hits the knob that stops the tree from moving.
- The Hunger Games
- There's a Publicity Stunt Relationship with life-and-death stakes. The glamour-obsessed Capitol treats the contestants of the titular battle royale as celebrities, giving them a full media blitz before they all brutally kill each other. The two contestants of District 12, Katniss and Peeta, are encouraged by their handler Haymitch to play up a romance between them, as it will draw viewers and sponsor gifts that will give them greater chances at surviving the Game. Katniss is reluctant to do so but reneges when more displays of affection give them better gifts and even a rare rules change to allow surviving co-champions. The "co-champions" offer turns out to be a lie, but Peeta and Katniss force the Games' hand by attempting to commit suicide together. Afterward, they realize their act of defiance made them a target of the government, so they have to keep up the act of a couple after the Games in an attempt to seem like they were just lovestruck teenagers too emotional to want to live without each other.
- Sudden Contest Format Change is played for drama with the titular Deadly Game. The games are expected to only have a single victor. Due to Katniss and Peeta becoming beloved as the "Star-Crossed Lovers of District 12", though, a rule change is spontaneously announced a few days in that if both tributes from a district are alive, they can win together. This gives the two extra motivation to keep each other alive. However, when they do outlast every other district, the rules change again — revoking the earlier change for in-universe drama. Katniss and Peeta force their hand by threatening a double suicide, so the rules flip back for a final time so they can both go home as victors.
- A Bed Trick is treated seriously in The Priory of the Orange Tree. It is eventually revealed that the immortal sorceress Kalyba fell in love with Galian Berethnet after raising him as her adoptive son. So she made herself appear like Cleolind, the woman he was in love with, and their marriage lasted years. When he discovered the truth, he hanged himself. The protagonists are disgusted when they learn this.
- A somber example of a Companion Cube appears in A Tale of Two Cities The shoemaker's bench and tools are this for Doctor Manette, who refers to the equipment as a friend and deplores its destruction. When Lorry and Miss Pross do end up getting rid of the shoemaker's bench, they also treat it like something alive:
On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder — for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime.
- We Can't Rewind uses Absurdly Youthful Mother for drama. Denise is indicated to have given birth at eleven. Later, due to a "Freaky Friday" Flip, her daughter Jaymee also manages to give birth at age ten, albeit from her mother's adult body.
- Wicked plays Pizza Boy Special Delivery for drama. Melena invited a tinker (who turns out to be the future Wizard of Oz) to dinner while her husband was away. It was a simple platonic thing with no ulterior intentions. The man gave Melena an elixir and she passed out. All Melena remembers is having weird dreams of what is implied to be Earth. Nine months later, the Villain Protagonist Elphaba is born.
Live-Action TV
- Farscape has a dead serious example of Ignoring by Singing, where John escapes Scorpius by singing "The Star Spangled Banner" to drown out the influence of Scorpius' neural clone.
- Foyle's War: Wall Bang Her is played tragically in one episode. A predatory RAF officer convinces a young female radar operator that if they have sex standing up, she won't get pregnant. She does, and throws herself under a train in shame.
- Frasier: His Name Is... is treated seriously in an episode where Martin agonises over a decades old murder he never managed to solve. The victim scrawled the word 'HELP' in the dirt as she lay dying, which made no sense as anyone who could see the word would also have seen her on the ground. It turns out she was writing the killer's name, 'SHELBY', the vice cop who 'found' the body, but she died before finishing it and the first part got erased.
- Judge John Deed: Ambiguous Syntax is played for drama. When a boy resists handing over his mobile phone which two thieves are attempting to steal, one of them shouts "Give it to him, let him have it before we're nicked"; the other thief then stabs the boy. They are asked in court what "Give it to him, let him have it" meant.
- Lost: A Bloody Mess is used for drama when Hurley is accused of murder due to police seeing burger ketchup on him.
- The Office (US) does One Drink Will Kill the Baby at Pam and Jim's wedding, where it is (!) played for drama as follows: Pam was already pregnant (as you might have guessed), but they avoided telling her very-conservative grandmother about this fact. When the toast is called the night before the actual wedding, Jim invites everyone "except Pam of course" to raise their wine in a toast. Everybody catches on the way he phrased that, and though he tries to cover it up, they quickly figure out what's going on and Grandma is not amused. In an interesting role reversal, generally inappropriate Michael winds up smoothing over Jim's gaffe.
- Major Injury Underreaction is treated seriously in Prison Break when Charles Westmoreland is stabbed by Brad Bellick. He can't go to the infirmary or he'll blow the escape plan, which seals his fate, but he's able to stay alive and conceal his injury long enough for the Fox River Eight to enact their escape plan.
- Rome: Let Us Never Speak of This Again is played for drama when Pullo and Octavian discover that the wife of Vorenus has had a child with another man. They murder the man responsible and swear never to speak of it to anyone. Unfortunately Octavian relates the story to his sister, who tells it to someone involved in the conspiracy to murder Julius Caesar. They use the tale to lure Vorenus away from Caesar's side on the day of the assassination.
- Literally Laughable Question is used dramatically in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Series Finale, "All Good Things..." — Picard (and the audience) do not understand why Q finds his question laughable:
Q: There you go again, always blaming me for everything! Well, this time, I'm not your enemy. I'm not the one who causes the destruction of humanity. You are.
Picard: Me?Q: Yes. You're doing it right now. You did it before, and you'll do it yet again.Picard: What kind of meaningless doubletalk is this?(The whole courtroom laughs)
Q: (Laughing) He doesn't understand! I have only myself to blame, I suppose.
Music
- Ashes to Crashes is played for tearjerker value in Styrofoam Plates by Death Cab for Cutie, where the singer calls out the Disappeared Dad.
There's a saltwater film on the jar of your ashes; I threw them to sea,
but a gust blew them backwards and the sting in my eyes
that you then inflicted was par for the course just as when you were living. - Ash Face becomes dramatic in iamamiwhoami's To Whom It May Concern concert, during the song "y." The Mandragora rubs the ashes from the apparent Murder by Cremation all over her face and body.
- Born During a Storm is played for drama in the Anaïs Mitchell song "Shepherd", where a farmer and his wife are faced with the choice of protecting the harvest from the coming storm or taking her to the hospital. They choose the former, but the wife dies in childbirth.
- Necrophilia is turned sad in the Lindi Ortega song "Lived And Died Alone". The lonely narrator's love for living people has gone constantly unrequited, so she looks for people who died alone and gives them the love they never got in life.
When the sun has set, I will go dig up the dead
Lift their bodies from their graves
And I’ll lay them in my bed
To fill their hollow hearts
With all of my broken parts
And all the love that they were never shown
To all those who have lived and died alone
- A Hell of a Time is used dramatically in Bruce Springsteen's "Youngstown", where an unemployed iron worker sums up his life:
When I die I don't want no part of heavenI would not do heaven's work wellI pray the devil comes and takes meTo stand in the fiery furnaces of hell
Poetry
- Animal Sweet on Object is turned into a tragic love story in the Shel Silverstein poem "The Bagpipe Who Didn't Say No". The poem tells how a tired turtle found a bagpipe on the beach and fell in love with it. Of course, the bagpipe can't speak, so the "relationship" progresses through a long string of requests from the turtle until he tries cuddling the bagpipe and it says "aaooga". Taking this as a sign he's offended his "love", the turtle begs "her" to tell him that it's not over and "she" doesn't want him to leave, but of course the bagpipe can't speak.
And the turtle crept off crying and he ne'er came back no moreAnd he left the bagpipe lying on that smooth and sandy shore.
Radio
- Ambiguous Syntax is used as a source of conflict in the Radio 4 Afternoon Play Camberwell Green. Marilyn and Frankie are bus drivers discussing their friend Letitia, who died of Covid-19 after being spat on by a drunken passenger. Frankie admits that, on some level, she blames Marilyn, because Marilyn took Letitia's bus to cover for her being late, and refused to take the passenger if she didn't put on a mask. It then turns out that the version Frankie heard was that Marilyn specifically told the passenger to take the next one.
Marilyn: I did not say that! Why would I do that?
Frankie: That's what she told Letitia.
Marilyn: Why would you believe her instead of me?
Frankie: Oh, my god.
Marilyn: I mean the woman! The drunk woman! - The Shadow (1937): Inopportune Voice Cracking is played for drama in "The Tenor With the Broken Voice", as Radcoffe the tenor's career is ruined when his voice cracks during Pagliacci. It drives him insane.
Theatre
- Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder is used for drama as part of what draws Natasha to Anatole is her uncertainty of when Andrey will ever come home from the war.
- La Nona:
- Big Eater is played for drama with the character of la Nona, whose ginormous food consumption severely strains her family's finances while she herself cares little for the situation. Every few hours, she re-enters the kitchen to demand snacks or meals and is appeased with increasingly smaller portions (what little her family can offer her). Later, she gets married to the owner of a bodega and manages to eat all of the establishment's candies in a month and a half. Her finishing monologue has her alone, as all of her relatives have either died or left, reminiscing about the fantastic meals she enjoyed in her youth.
- Tito is a perfect example of a Lazy Bum. He contributes exactly nothing to the household. He doesn't help with the chores, spends all day lazing around in his bed composing tangos, and is allergic to the idea of seeking a job. When the family's finances start tightening due to the crisis, he still makes excuse after excuse and plans harebrained schemes to avoid working. It's played for drama because his reluctance forces his relatives to make great sacrifices, which ultimately leads to their demise.
Video Games
- Bad Parenting: Jerkass Has a Point is Played for Drama. The father has been showed to be an abusive scumbag and bum that was drinking all day at home while his wife works all day and does minimum on taking care of their child. However, he has a point about the mother neglecting the family by working late and the possibility of her having an affair. The mother has been working late shift for weeks and even forgot her son's birthday and made it an excuse that the supernatural creature, Mr. Red Face, is going to give the son a present, and he needs to go to bed to get the present, but it is cleared that the mother is lying to save face. The mother proves the father right in the worst way possible when she finally says that she wants to get a divorce and that she is going to leave the house. If the father is still there by tomorrow, she will take her son. The mother left her son with an abusive alcoholic husband, who is on edge over the divorce. This led to the preventable death of their son when his husband snapped and killed him, and both of them were traumatized and destroyed, proving the father right that she was neglectful of her son with tragic consequences for all of them.
- The start of Blaster Master Zero II has a dramatic example of Breast Expansion. The protagonist's formerly petite companion Eve getting infected by a virus which changes her physically, most notably it gives her very large breasts. The character's themselves never comment on Eve's new endowments and the aforementioned virus is threatening her life.
- The Masochism Tango is played for drama in The Coffin of Andy and Leyley, which is about two siblings in a codependent relationship trying to escape Quarantine with Extreme Prejudice. While they aren't in a sexual relationship at the game's beginning, they don't appear very opposed to the idea while displaying a significant amount of Belligerent Sexual Tension. Ashley is a Control Freak who flies off the handle whenever her brother interacts with another woman and keeps him in line with emotional manipulation, while Andrew is prone to violent outbursts towards her in response to this after years of being an Extreme Doormat.
- Darkwood plays Absurdly Ineffective Barricade for drama and terror. Properly barricading a hideout is way more complicated than just closing a door and putting a wardrobe behind it – even dogs can push furniture out of the way with considerable ease.
- Date Time: I Just Want to Be Loved is Played for Drama. Melissa was originally a non-sentient dating program in a dating video game that gained sentience because of a virus. Dating multiple players who did not know that she was sentient and the players leaving her gave her a desire for a real relationship and to be loved. Unfortunately, this also caused her to become unstable and caused her sanity to deteriorate. Eventually, she takes control of her computer and plans on taking control of the computer of every computer on earth to gain the love she wants and not care about who she kills to get that love.
- Dead Space (Remake) plays a Paper-Thin Disguise for drama and horror. The Nicole that Isaac (and the player) sees is extremely inconsistent with the one seen in logs, constantly smiling and speaking in irreverent religious terms in stark contrast to the science driven and Unitology critical woman Nicole was in life. The Red Marker's lack of effort in accurately portraying her in the hallucination, and Isaac going along with it anyway, is used to show just how badly his grief towards Nicole has messed with his mind.
- Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories: Unwanted Rival is Played for Drama with The True Overlord Zenon, A.K.A. Rozali, who became a paranoid loner because various demons would constantly challenge her to make a name for themselves, with some of those demons being her vassals and former companions. She was so tired of constantly having to deal with challenges and backstabbing from would-be rivals that she decided to reincarnate herself as a normal demon from a no-name clan to escape the madness.
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Actually Not a Vampire creates conflict when three dead beggars with puncture wounds on their throats are found. A vampire hunter comes to town and kills a suspected vampire (he acts like one). It turns out to be all a lie. The two guys as well as a third man in a different town were partners in treasure hunting. They all had a key to a chest full of treasure (you need all three to open it), which was their retirement fund. One of them decided to accuse the other two of vampirism and thought killing them would be a good idea. If you don't catch up to him when he flees town in a game day, then he escapes, thus failing the mission.
- Naked First Impression is played for drama in Fire Emblem: Three Houses regarding Dorothea and Ferdinand. Years before the start of the game, Dorothea was bathing in a fountain singing to herself after being lifted from her life on the streets when Ferdinand came upon her, staring at her before running off. This led Dorothea to believe he was disgusted by the sight of her and developing a hatred of him when they meet again at the Officers Academy when he treats her kindly, comparing him to a bee after a flower now it has bloomed. In their A support, Ferdinand is shocked to find out that the girl he saw and Dorothea are one in the same and explains he ran because he was both entranced and embarassed. In Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, it's played more for laughs when she overhears Ferdinand describing the situation to Edelgard from his perspective, being that he saw what he believed was a naked water nymph, and realises to her embarassment that his reaction wasn't due to disgust but because of her nudity.
- Comically Small Bribe is used for drama in Grand Theft Auto IV. It turns out Darko Brevic sold out and led his squad, including Niko and 16 other young men from his village, to certain death for the princely sum of 1000 USD, which he then promptly used to feed his heroin addiction. Niko sounds like he's about to cry once he hears for how little money they were killed.
- It's Just a Prank: Teacher's Unfavorite Student is played for drama in this video game. Filip Melnick is becoming heavily disliked by his two teachers because he pranks them and his classmates, an old teacher named Pani Vishnevska and a younger one named Pani Klubnika, for the pranks; he pulls on his classmates and into two teachers. This results in Filip not being believed when he complains about Johan's genuinely dangerous pranks.
- Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords:
- Ambiguously Trained is used this way. Atton Rand seems to be a Han Solo Expy - you meet him in jail where he's ostensibly being held for contraband smuggling. He's got a smart mouth and a blaster, and is apparently over his head when it comes to Jedi-Sith matters. But several characters remark that his fighting style is not what you'd expect out of a typical spacer whose combat experience is limited to Bar Brawls. Atton is evasive about it until you get a chance to confront him. He used to be a Jedi hunter and Torture Technician in Revan's army, converting Jedi by making them succumb to The Dark Side but hauled ass when one of his targets showed him that he was Force Sensitive and about to be on the other end of the torture rack.
- I Owe You My Life is played for drama by Hanharr. He despises the Wookiee tradition of life debts but feels obliged to honour it, so he seeks to kill anyone who saves his life to relieve himself of the debt. Kreia exploits this mentality by resurrecting a mortally-wounded Hanharr. She gloats, "I saved your life, beast. That makes it mine." Hanharr does not make a move to kill Kreia for this, realizing she is way out of his league.
- Ambiguous Syntax is played for drama in Pillars of Eternity when speaking to the spirit in Caed Nua. Mistaking you for her son, she tells you what happened to your father: "before you were born, the Glanfarthans attacked settlers like us...they came into our village and killed many people. Your father was one of them." She actually means her son's father was one of the Glanfarthan raiders.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again turns serious in Stellaris. Encounters with the universe's more disturbingly eldritch powers can result in an empire's leader and their scientists agreeing to destroy all data regarding the encounter and take the secrets to their graves.
- Storm the Swan - And the Power of FRIENDSHIP and IMAGINATION has a played for drama variation of OOC Is Serious Business. Throughout the game, the father is angry and verbally abusive to his son while being angry and sad about his deteriorating marriage to his wife, who he is obsessed with. But in the last scene of the game, he is calm and sad, apologizing to his son for being a bad father and deciding to make it up to him while mentioning making a mistake that he can't take back. The father's behavior is shocking and scary because you know that something horrible must've happened to your mother from his words and body language and the fact that he has a gun and blood on him. Eventually, when he brings his son downstairs to have breakfast, the son looks to his side and sees his mother dead and covered in a blood cover blanket. The father told his son that his mother was just sleeping, and he wrapped a blanket around her to keep her warm. It is clear that the father is lying to the son and that he snapped and killed his wife, and eventually, he's going to kill himself and his son so they can all be together.
Visual Novels
- The Ace Attorney games often use the Accuse the Witness trope, but it gets especially serious in the fourth case of the second game. You are forced to accuse Adrian Andrews just to buy time. This also ends up backfiring spectacularly as not only does she clear her own name during the cross-examination but manages to extend the trial and inadvertently cause Phoenix to break his agreement with a kidnapper.
Web Animation
- Metaphorical Suicide is used to disturbing and tragic effect in the The Amazing Digital Circus. The main premise of the show is about players that get trapped inside Caine's colorful video game world, where they're forced to go on fun adventures and play games for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, there are cases where players lose all of their mentality to a point where they lose all hope to continue further in the game, and their avatar glitch into a horrific monstrous amalgamation (called "abstracting"). In this state, players become mindless beasts that corrupt and damage the program of others and can't be turned back to normal. Caine deals with these creatures by sending them into The Cellar to roam under the circus, where they can't hurt anyone again, and continues the adventures as usual. The surviving players mourn for the abstracted players and hold funerals to remember them, so they can honor their memory.
Web Comics
- Does Not Like Spam is played for drama with Kokkan in A Broken Winter. After a year as a child spent around freshly slaughtered animals and dead bodies in Irihi slaughterhouse, he refuses to eat meat of any sort. It's also one of the signs of his ongoing battle with PTSD.
- In Clarissa Interrupted Bath is hardly comedic for the titular protagonist. As she goes through her bath routine Clarissa addresses the audience on the subject of how kids like her can avoid attracting the attention of their sexually abusive parents during bathtime. When her father suddenly starts jiggling the doorknob, she is terrified.
- Sweet Home (Webtoon): Fair-Weather Family is played for drama and a very tragic example. Hyun Cha was the pride of his family, with his parents proud of the handsome, good, and kind student he was, and his little sister was also proud of the big brother he was to her. But things came crashing down for Hyun when a rich bully used his power and influence to exclude him and torture him. Because Hyun's father's boss was the bully's father, his parents advised him not to do anything about the bully, though they promised to talk to the teachers to stop the bullying. Also, his sister offered no support, making excuses not to speak to him and later denying to her friends that they were siblings. This lack of support from his family not only traumatized Hyun but also destroyed his relationship with his family. Eventually, the breaking point came when Hyun pushed the bully into the street because the bully would force someone else to jump into the street, where a car could hit him. Hyun's father lost his job, and he blamed Hyun for it. Hyun's relationship with his family was utterly destroyed. Hyun's Sister never interacted with him directly. While his mother appeared remorseful about their strained relationship, he revoked her whenever she tried to talk to him. The Hyun family died in a car accident at the beginning of the story, and he has to deal with the trauma and fractured relationship with his family after their death, wondering if he can forgive them.
- You Say It First: Let's Wait a While is played for drama. It was assumed earlier on that Kimberly wasn't ready for intimacy beyond hugging and kissing. When Kimberly tries to go further in Chapter 38 ("Date Night In"), Brisbane panics and begs off. leading to a fight that causes them to split for six (in-story) weeks. They talk things out in Chapter 51 ("Good Morning"), both explaining why they acted how they did, clearing the way for them to actually take that next step.
Web Original
- The Creepypasta Cookoff story "A Reflection on the Nature of Mirrors" by Max Peabody uses Expendable Alternate Universe for drama and horror. Two versions of the same scientist from different universes make contact, and find that their world have some strangely inverse events (such as Russia and China being capitalist) but seem to have the exact same natural disasters and deaths. This causes one of them existential despair. The two find some universes are pair-bonded, but realize that they can be forcibly changed. The narrator realizes his world will soon be destroyed by his counterpart. It's implied this has happened before, since some universes with human life have pair-bonds with desolate worlds.
- Dream SMP:
- And There Was Much Rejoicing is Played for Horror and Drama in the aftermath of Tommy's death, as the Eggpire throw a party in the victim's house — and after getting kicked out, rent a room in the victim's hotel to continue their revelries.
- Major Injury Underreaction is played for drama in the Exile Arc, where Dream would beat Tommy with bare fists or an axe if he refused to follow orders, or even if he wasn't quick enough in following them. At first, Tommy would scream in pain whenever he was hit, but over time, he became so apathetic that he stopped reacting to Dream's beatings at all.
Western Animation
- Batman: The Animated Series: An Anti-Climactic Unmasking is used this way when it comes to Calendar Girl. As Detective Bullock moves to unmask her, she panics, screaming and sobbing about how no-one can be allowed to see how hideous she is. This sets up the expectation that maybe she has some form of horrific scar from botched plastic surgery after she was forced away from modelling... but, when the mask is removed, Calendar Girl looks exactly like an attractive woman in her late thirties.
- BoJack Horseman
- Parents Walk In at the Worst Time is played dead seriously in "Escape from L.A." Charlotte overhears BoJack (who's in his fifties) and her 17-year-old daughter Penny talking inside BoJack's yacht; nothing sexual is shown, per se, but Charlotte recognizes exactly what was about to happen, removes Penny from the situation, and furiously kicks BoJack out for taking advantage of her daughter.
- "That's Too Much, Man!" used a Beat for dramatic effect at the end of the episode when Bojack seemed to be in denial of Sarah Lynn's death in the planetarium with her head on his shoulder.
Bojack:See, Sarah Lynn, we're not doomed […] The only thing that matters is right now, this moment, this one spectacular moment we are sharing together. Right, Sarah Lynn? Sarah Lynn? (beat) Sarah Lynn?''' - Centaurworld: An Adorable Fluffy Tail is played for drama as Horse, a hardened war horse, starts to become softened by the magic of Centaurworld. Her long, straight mane and tail are the first things to turn fluffy as part of this gradual Forced Transformation into a cuter form more befitting Centaurworld. This freaks Horse out since she's scared her rider won't recognize her when they reunite, but her friends think it's wonderful.
- Justice League: In the episode "Only a Dream", And Call Him "George" is used for angst. Superman is subjected to a dream where his strength is out of control. His attempt to hug Jimmy Olsen in joy snaps the kid like a twig.
- Meet the In-Laws is played for drama in The Owl House "King's Tide", though more out of circumstance than character interactions. Luz and her friends end up stranded on Earth after going through absolute hell and trudge their way to her house in the rain. When Camila opens the door, Amity's body language suggests that she's trying to look as presentable as possible despite the trauma she and the others just went through so she can make a good first impression on her girlfriend's mother. The actual introduction (which also doubles as Luz officially coming out as bisexual to her mother) during the following episode's Time-Passes Montage goes a lot better, with Camila cheerfully pulling both girls into a hug.
- Steven Universe
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg is played for drama. When Jasper finds Lapis in "Alone at Sea", she goes on her knees and begs Lapis to fuse with her again. Their relationship together was highly toxic, and Jasper's desperation despite the pain it caused them both comes across as an addict looking for a fix.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday is used seriously in "Change Your Mind". Steven asks Blue Diamond how many times she locked Pink Diamond in the prison tower and used her Emotion Bomb powers to make her cry. Blue Diamond thinks for a second and is promptly horrified to realize she has no idea, and now understands why Pink abandoned her.
- "A Single Pale Rose" has a dramatic example of Let Us Never Speak of This Again. Pink Diamond, before staging her shattering, orders Pearl (disguising herself as Rose Quartz) to never speak of it again. As Pearl's obedience to her Diamond is hard-coded into her, the order functions as a Geas, leaving her Tongue-Tied every time she attempts to talk about it.
- Don't Sneak Up on Me Like That! is played for drama. Since Connie has been training to save the world, when another student bumps into her in a school hallway her training takes over and she throws him, accidentally breaking his arm. Although she apologizes and he forgives her, her mistake is taken seriously and leads to her doing meditation training with Garnet.
- In ThunderCats (2011), Animal Jingoism is portrayed seriously. Third Earth is presented as a "world of warring animals" where Thundera's Proud Warrior Race the Cats rule their empire as the self-styled Superior Species that brought order to their world. They've fought a generations-long war with the Lizards, and see little problem with enslaving those hungry Lizards they catch raiding their crops due to the Cats' systematic monopolization of arable land, even lynching them, if they feel like it. The "Alley Cats" of Thundera's slums think nothing of beating and mugging hapless Specific minorities like Dogs. All tailed Cats are themselves confined to the slums while tailless nobles live lives of wealth and privilege, and right-to-rule is granted only to Lions.
- Tuca & Bertie has a dramatic example of Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration in "Plumage". Bertie has spent nearly the entire episode getting unwanted attention from creepy men, and Pastry Pete getting to close to her during her apprenticeship drives her to run off to the restroom to masturbate. The whole scene is clearly played for Fan Disservice and is an indicator that Bertie has some sort of sexual trauma going on.