History Main / EnforcedTrope

* DawsonCasting can sometimes be necessary for legal reasons. A very common example is to avoid Union regulations and/or actual laws in regards to youth actors.

** ''Series/GameOfThrones'' takes this even further. In [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire the books]], Daenerys Targaryen is 13 when she is [[ArrangedMarriage married off]] to [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Khal Drogo]], and eventually becomes pregnant with his child--just as she turns 14. She was aged up significantly to avoid the MoralGuardians, but as the time of her birth is tied to [[GreatOffscreenWar Robert's Rebellion]], the rest of the cast had to be aged up as well.

* RiseAndFallGangsterArc: Hollywood films produced between 1934-54 were expressly forbidden by UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode from depicting [[KarmaHoudini criminals getting away with their crimes]], so any gangster film made in the period was legally obliged to show the VillainProtagonist getting his comeuppance by the end of the film.

** Under UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode, priests, ministers, and other religious authorities had to be portrayed respectfully without exception. Fittingly, one of the co-authors of the Code's actual text was a Jesuit Catholic priest--and while he acknowledged that not all "ministers of religion" were worthy of respect, mockery of any one of them would (supposedly) encourage sacrilegious attitudes.

** Sonic himself was DemotedToExtra in ''VideoGame/KnucklesChaotix'', while the titular character received ADayInTheLimelight, because Sega of Japan expected the UsefulNotes/Sega32x to be a flop (which it was), and wanted to minimize the damage the game would do to the franchise's brand image by reducing its namesake's role to [[spoiler:a cameo in the good ending's credit sequence]].

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': In the Atlas Arc, DramaticIrony between what the audience and characters know is deliberately enforced by the writers to set the groundwork for what happens in Volume 9. Both Blake and Yang's affection for each other and Ruby's deteriorating mental health are teased to the audience; at the same time, characters [[EveryoneCanSeeIt increasingly notice]] Blake and Yang's behaviour while becoming increasingly divorced from Ruby's. The characters therefore act as an AudienceSurrogate for Blake and Yang while knowing less than the audience about Ruby. [[spoiler:The audience is left unsurprised by both Blake and Yang's BigDamnKiss and Ruby's mental breakdown in Volume 9, but the characters lampshade how long they've waited for Bumblebee and how caught off-guard they are by the scale of Ruby's mental health crisis. This is an {{Enforced|Trope}} example because the writers confirmed using the characters as an AudienceSurrogate for the long awaited Blake/Yang romance while deliberately distracting them from being allowed to investigate Ruby too closely; the audience being far more aware of Ruby's state of mind than her companions contributes to Ruby's breakdown.]]

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': In the Atlas Arc, DramaticIrony between what the audience and characters know is deliberately enforced by the writers to set the groundwork for what happens in Volume 9. Both Blake and Yang's affection for each other and Ruby's deteriorating mental health are teasted to the audience; at the same time, characters [[EveryoneCanSeeIt increasingly notice]] Blake and Yang's behaviour while becoming increasingly divorced from Ruby's. The characters therefore act as an AudienceSurrogate for Blake and Yang while knowing less than the audience about Ruby. [[spoiler:The audience is left unsurprised by both Blake and Yang's BigDamnKiss and Ruby's mental breakdown in Volume 9, but the characters lampshade how long they've waited for Bumblebee and how caught off-guard they are by the scale of Ruby's mental health crisis. This is an {{Enforced|Trope}} example because the writers confirmed using the characters as an AudienceSurrogate for the long awaited Blake/Yang romance while deliberately distracting them from being allowed to investigate Ruby too closely; the audience being far more aware of Ruby's state of mind than her companions contributes to Ruby's breakdown.]]

* AcceptableBreaksFromReality

* GreatOffscreenWar: Depicting a full-scale war is ''incredibly'' expensive in visual media, so budgetary concerns often necessitate keeping things offscreen (save for one or two important battles), or just setting the story in the aftermath. Notable examples include the Great Time War in ''Series/DoctorWho'', the War of the Five Kings in ''Series/GameOfThrones'', the Roman Civil War in ''Series/{{Rome}}'', The War of
Wrath in ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'' and the Earth-Romulan War in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''.

* GreatOffscreenWar: Depicting a full-scale war is ''incredibly'' expensive in visual media, so budgetary concerns often necessitate keeping things offscreen (save for one or two important battles), or just setting the story in the aftermath. Notable examples include the Great Time War in ''Series/DoctorWho'', the War of the Five Kings in ''Series/GameOfThrones'', the Roman Civil War in ''Series/{{Rome}}'', and the Earth-Romulan War in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''.

Contrast SubvertedTrope, AvertedTrope, DefiedTrope.

[[AC:Comic Books]]

[[AC:Film - Animated]]

[[AC:Film - Live Action]]

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

[[AC:Theatre]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC:Western Animation]]

[[AC:Anime and Manga]]

[[AC:Live-Action TV]]

* ''Anime/PatlaborTheMovie'' uses a lot of BiblicalMotifs: the conflict revolves around a CityOnTheWater called the Babylon Project, centered on a structure called the Ark, the main villain Ei'ichi Hoba has a GodComplex and his name is a deliberate cipher of "Jehovah", and the script quotes several books of the Old Testament. All of this was inspired by writer Creator/MamoruOshii noticing that Noa Izumi's given name sounded like the biblical Noah from the Literature/BookOfGenesis.

->TROPE*

* TheWildcats: Most distinctive-sounding names for athletic teams are [[ScrewedByTheLawyers copyrighted]] by ''actual'' professional athletic teams, forcing fiction writers to use generic names that are in the public domain.

* NecessaryWeasel (Requirements of the genre. For instance, if you want to do a PoliceProcedural, you had better include the procedure.)

* WhiteMaleLead: Because the entertainment industry feels (rightly or wrongly) that white people won't relate to a minority.

* MerchandiseDriven: Any work that exists to promote or sell a product (such as a line of toys) will be constrained by product availability, turnover, popularity and gimmicks. {{Transformers}} is probably the most successful example.

* The first song of ''Theatre/JasperInDeadland'' mostly takes place in a {{Flashback}} showing key moments of Jasper and Agnes's friendship. During this scene, Jasper envisions several copies of Agnes talking to him. Initially this seems like exposition and a unique way to have multiple actresses singing while also having all the focus on Agnes, but the main reason is to [[spoiler:hide Agnes's identity so it can be a surprise later]] while also having her appear on-screen at the beginning.