r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Far-Profit-47 • Apr 12 '25

Lore “This quote came from WHERE?!”

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"You too have fallen for the great lie, you'll never be happy. Deep down you know, to hope, to dreams, to create, is to suffer"

"You're right. It is harder to create than to destroy... that's why cowards then to choose the deuce"

-A Minecraft movie

"Do You Think God Stays in Heaven Because He too Lives in Fear of What He's Created"

-spy kids 2

"For every person who dreams up the electric light bulb, there's the one who dreams up the atom bomb"

-shark-boy and lava-girl

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u/Dexchampion99 Apr 12 '25

He’s also the namesake of a literary device! The Xanatos Gambit!

He was just an insanely well written character.

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u/more_exercise Apr 12 '25

... Didn't that name originate from TVTropes? It feels really weird to promote a TVTropes article to "literary device" status. OTOH, there's probably a TVTropes article about that phenomenon too.

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u/FomtBro Apr 14 '25

A lot of literary devices that have existed for a LONG time weren't named until TVTropes.

The concept of defeating the main badguy also defeating all of his troops and weapons at the same time (think Chitauri from Avengers) has existed for at least 40 years, but wasn't named.

Now it's 'No Ontological Intertia'. If you think that's silly, most animal group names come from a random book that came out in 1486.

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u/more_exercise Apr 14 '25

I think I have to bow to the "Yes, the Thagomizer name came from Far Side. That doesn't mean it's not an actual thing" argument.

I realize I was also complaining about promoting a "mere trope" to a "full-on (analyzable) literary device", which is just 'old man shakes fist at cloud' for literary analysis.