Exploited Trope

Sometimes it's obvious a trope is going to happen. This is for when a character knows a trope is going to happen, or is happening already, but rather than trying to deny, change, or even hasten the trope, this character instead decides to take advantage of it.

Perhaps a Mook knows they're turning good, but also realizes Redemption Equals Death. So they use their upcoming death as a Thanatos Gambit against the Big Bad. Or a girl in a romantic comedy knows whom she will end up with, and knowing that the other guy feels that I Just Want My Beloved to Be Happy, helps get another girl to be noticed by that guy. Whatever the case, doing so usually requires the character to be at least a little Genre Savvy; similarly, the mark of a Wrong Genre Savvy character is often that they attempt to do this but fail.

Note that a clever character might also take into account the upcoming trope might be a trick, and this is a Subverted Trope. Thus that character might plan for either outcome.

Compare Invoked Trope (which is deliberately trying to make a trope happen), Flaw Exploitation.

Contrast Defied Trope.

---

Trope relationships:

• Career-Building Blunder exploits My Greatest Failure and My Greatest Second Chance.
• Deliberately Distressed Damsel and Wounded Gazelle Gambit exploit Damsel in Distress.
• Flaw Exploitation (as the name implies) exploits the trope Fatal Flaw.
• Parody Retcon exploits Poe's Law.
• Summon Bigger Fish exploits Always a Bigger Fish.

Examples:

Advertising

• In recent years, Bud Light commercials adopted the formula that whenever the eponymous drink gets involved, someone says, "Here we go!" For Super Bowl XLVI, a Bud Light commercial is released involving a rescue dog named Weego who fetches Bud Light bottles and kegs whenever someone calls for him. ("Here, Weego!")
• On a similar note, a series of Discover Card commercials with the slogan "We treat you like you'd treat you" have featured someone phoning a Discover customer-service center, and speaking to a service person who's played by the same actor as themselves. Once this pattern became well-established, they released one in which the service person is not a metaphor for service-quality, but the caller's actual twin sister.

Anime and Manga

• Bleach: Aizen once exploited Hidden Disdain Reveal. When he revealed he was Evil All Along, his Captain, Shinji, freely admits he always knew that Aizen was a bad guy and he never liked him, and had in fact only chosen Aizen as his lieutenant to keep an eye on him. In response, Aizen smugly reveals that that's exactly what he was counting on when he replaced himself with a doppelganger months ago; since Shinji never liked Aizen or got to know him, he was unable to notice any strange behavior after the switch, so he never caught on to it.
• Digimon Adventure: During the episode "The Arrival of Skullgreymon", Tai exploits Defence Mechanism Superpower by deliberately putting himself in harm's way, knowing that one of the requirements of Digivolution is that the Digimon's human partner has to be in danger. It works too well; Greymon dark digivolves into SkullGreymon and goes on a rampage.
• Dragon Ball Z:
  • During the Frieza Saga, Vegeta exploits Came Back Strong by having Krillin mortally wound him and then having Dende heal him, knowing that Saiyans get power boosts upon recovering from near-fatal injuries. Unfortunately, while he does get much stronger, it's still not nearly enough to make a difference against Frieza.
  • Cell exploits Vegeta's pride and Blood Knight attitude to convince him to help Cell absorb Android 18 and reach his perfect form, knowing that Vegeta can't resist the challenge. Vegeta does so, and Cell proceeds to kick his ass without even trying. While he does so, Cell even takes the time to rub it in Vegeta's face, remarking that he never would have been able to reach his perfect form were it not for Vegeta's arrogance and stupidity.
  • Android 16 exploits Logical Weakness when fighting Cell. Since he's fully mechanical, Cell's bio-extraction ability will not work on him; thus, Cell can't just absorb him for an easy win.
  • Goku's entire plan to defeat Cell hinges on Gohan's Psychoactive Powers; he knows that Gohan is at his strongest when he's angry, and is counting on Cell to make Gohan angry.
  • Cell himself exploits And Your Little Dog, Too! for the purpose of angering Gohan and getting him to unleash his hidden power for the sake of a challenge. Since Gohan refuses to get angry and unleash his power no matter what Cell does to him, he decides to spawn seven Cell Jrs. and make Gohan watch as he sics them on the Z-Fighters, to see if that will make him angry. The final straw is when he crushes Android 16's head underfoot right in front of Gohan, and Cell gets what he wanted.
  • In the Buu Saga, Piccolo, in a desperate attempt to stall for time while Goten and Trunks train, attempts to exploit Death Is Cheap by telling Buu that he can pass the time for his opponent to be ready by killing the remaining humans on Earth, knowing that the Dragon Balls can be used to bring everyone back; this backfires when Buu proceeds to use a Beam Spam attack, fittingly called the "Human Extinction Attack", to kill every last human on Earth in less than two minutes, without even bothering to leave Kami's Lookout in the process.
  • Piccolo successfully exploits Year Inside, Hour Outside shortly after this by having Trunks and Goten train in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber; though he can only stall Buu for a few minutes at most, those few minutes enable Trunks and Goten to get several hours worth of training.
• InuYasha: During Sango's introductory arc, Naraku makes an effort to exploit Immunity Disability and Feel No Pain. After manipulating Sango into believing that Inuyasha attacked her village and slaughtered everyone there for the Shikon Jewel shard Sango had found earlier (unsurprisingly, Naraku was the real culprit), he embeds another shard in her body that completely negates her ability to feel pain, intending that she'll fight Inuyasha to the death without ever realizing how badly she was hurt. Indeed, she doesn't even notice she's bleeding out until Inuyasha calls attention to her wounds.
• Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Battle Tendency: As a Combat Pragmatist through and through, Joseph Joestar has exploited a trope on more than one occasion.
  • When fighting Straizo, a vampire, he swiftly hides behind him while facing a mirror. Because vampires have a Missing Reflection, Straizo only sees Joseph in the mirror, and doesn't immediately realize that it's only his reflection, leaving him open to a sneak attack.
  • Later, Joseph faces the Pillar Men, a type of super-vampire far above what Joseph can handle. However, during the battle, he recognizes that they're a Proud Warrior Race, so he buys himself some time by begging them for a chance to train so he can become a Worthy Opponent to them. They accept, giving him one month to master his Hamon.
• One case in The Kindaichi Case Files revolves on exploiting Orgy of Evidence. The culprit not only creates two incidents with items related to them scattered around and spreads rumor of their familial connection to the crime scene building's dark history, they also lock themselves in one of the murder crime scene. Kindaichi, hired by the culprit themselves to investigate the first incident, automatically assumes that no one in their right mind will leave so much incriminating evidence against themselves and operates under the assumption that the culprit is innocent. This is done so that the culprit is arrested as prime suspect by police in order to give them alibi for the second murder and to make sure they're off the hook the moment a plausible explanation to why they're locked in the crime scene together with the first victim is made (by Kindaichi, of course). Sure enough, suspicion immediately falls off the culprit when the third victim is found with a suicide note detailing how the case is a mass-suicide staged by the victims to kill the culprit's reputation. However, Kindaichi discovering an accidental clue makes him reevaluate his deduction that ultimately ends with the culprit's arrest.
• One Piece: On one occasion, a Dark Action Girl exploited Wouldn't Hit a Girl to delay Sanji from saving Robin, knowing that Sanji won't fight a girl even to save his own life.
• In Pokémon: The Series, each town inexplicably has an identical Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny, all from a common family. The Magikarp Salesman, a recurring con-artist who tries to sell useless Pokémon to James, tries to pass himself off as a similar family to assure wary marks, but he's actually the same guy each time.
• Saint Seiya: whenever he dies, Phoenix Ikki comes back to life and is twice as strong, so when facing the next to invincible Shaka his plan hinged on making sure he got killed, and not simply knocked out, enough times to become stronger than his opponent. Much to Ikki's horror, Shaka caught on this and decided to remove his senses.
• Shimoneta: Ayame uses a bedsheet as her 'Blue Snow' disguise, because she knows the Morals Decency Squad can't touch her, without risk of exposing her body. Plus, they'd potentially implicate themselves with a minor (Ayame is 17), which allows her to run right by them without fear of being caught.
• Sword Art Online: At one point, a character named Grimlock exploits Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit by arranging for the Laughing Coffin guild to kill his wife, expecting that when the game ends, Akihiko Kayaba will be blamed for anyone who dies since he was the one who set up the death game in the first place.

Comic Books

• Some incarnations of Batman actively cultivate and exploit the Hero with Bad Publicity trope because it lends credit to him being far more ruthless than he actually is, therefore scarier to criminals.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): Sonic once ended up on the losing end of a Curb-Stomp Battle when Eggman used a suit of Powered Armor that was specifically designed to counter and defeat Sonic. The next time he tries, Sonic brings the other Freedom Fighters and Team Chaotix along. Eggman breaks the armor out again, but the suit was designed to outfight Sonic, and only Sonic. Thus, Sonic exploits the Crippling Overspecialization of the armor in the second encounter, and it's Eggman that ends up on the end of a Curb-Stomp Battle.
  • Sonic the Comic: In one story, Sonic faces off against Predicto, a robot that Robotnik programmed to predict Sonic's every move and counter it. When faced with this, Sonic ultimately gives up. Having been programmed to believe that Sonic would never give up, Predicto suffers a Logic Bomb and self-destructs... which is exactly what Sonic expected him to do.
• League Of Champions: Icestar is captured and tied up by the villain, who subjects the hero to several panels of Evil Gloating. Once the villain has explained his plan, Icestar effortlessly breaks free.

Fan Fiction

• The Accidental Warlord And His Pack: To give the husband hunters an unfriendly welcome to Kaer Morhen without causing a dipomatic incident Geralt and Eskel wear their spikiest black armor and light only half of the braziers and torches to ensure the hall is as ominous and unsettling as possible when the women first enter by exploiting Spikes of Villainy and Evil Is Not Well-Lit.
• In the Love Hina fic An Alternate Keitaro Urashima, Motoko's Girl Posse, after being rightfully told off by Keitaro, exploit Poor Communication Kills by deliberately withholding the full story, knowing that Motoko will jump to conclusions and assume that Keitaro assaulted them. Unfortunately for them, it backfires, and Motoko is subsequently arrested and charged with attempted assault with a deadly weapon, with said Girl Posse being arrested as accessories; Motoko is genuinely shocked to subsequently discover that her posse lied and Keitaro never touched them.
• In one episode of Calvin & Hobbes: The Series, Calvin exploits Jack's ability to pull himself together to fit him in his backpack.
• In Ace Attorney fanfic Dirty Sympathy Klavier uses his Strong Family Resemblance to his brother, Kristoph by disguising himself as him to frame him for murder.
• Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness Act III has the bullies at Yokai Academy exploit Adults Are Useless and Selective Enforcement. Headmaster Mikogami repeatedly does next to nothing about the various bullies and Jerkasses who deliberately go out of their way to torment and harass Tsukune and his friends, but punishes Tsukune and co. for simply acting in legitimate self-defense against said bullies and Jerkasses, to the extent that he threatens to separate them if they get into another fight. Needless to say, the other students quickly find out and use it to their advantage to actively harass and taunt Tsukune's crew without fear of retribution, gloating they can't do anything or they'll dig themselves in deeper with the headmaster; this climaxes when Nagare Kano exploits it to blackmail the girls into letting him take dirty pictures of them and nearly rape them. After Kano is dealt with and he learns of all this, Mikogami thankfully wises up and reinstates their right to defend themselves so it doesn't happen again.
• In Total Drama: Cody's Redemption Lindsay exploits the Innocent Fanservice Girl trope in order to get away with openly trying to seduce Cody into being her boyfriend. This lets her hug Cody into her chest as often as possible, perform a cheer routine that shows off her hotness with lots of bouncing around, and all manner of arousing things to Cody without anyone figuring out that she's doing it on purpose, because they think she is too naive and air headed to realize what she is doing.

Film (Animated)

• In Tangled Flynn and Rapunzel exploit the Power Glows trope when they use her Magic Hair to find a way out of a flooding cave.
• Frozen had Prince Hans exploit the trope of Love at First Sight in order to lure the target in and get exactly what they want: to marry the naive Anna and depose her sister Queen Elsa to take over the kingdom.
• In The Lion King (1994), Pumbaa and especially Timon exploit Predator Turned Protector when they raise the orphaned lion cub Simba. While Pumbaa feels sorry for the poor cub, Timon initially refuses to adopt him due to his fear of the young predator, and changes his mind only when he realizes Simba can defend them from other predators. Which he does when Pumbaa is attacked by the hungry lioness Nala.
• Aladdin: The Return of Jafar: Throughout the movie, Jafar exploits Murder by Inaction, knowing that while the genie rules prevent him from directly killing anyone, there's nothing stopping him from setting up proxies and indirect assassination attempts where he technically doesn't lay a finger on Aladdin.
• Being a movie about the Delivery Stork who has instead decided to make package deliveries, Storks has the heroes make use of Instant Home Delivery at the end, when they need to rush to Cornerstore.com and catch up with Hunter, who has abducted the baby they were delivering.
• In Turning Red, Mei's parents exploit the Cuteness Overload of a box of kittens to test her emotional control.

Film (Live-Action)

• In The Dark Knight, Harvey Dent manages to take control of dramatic events at a trial and turn them to his advantage, effectively exploiting Unconventional Courtroom Tactics. An accused gangster tries to shoot him in the middle of the trial - Dent promptly punches and disarms him, stunning the entire court. When the judge calls for a recess, Dent hams it up: "Your honor, I'm not finished!"
• When Tom is chased by half the student body in PCU, he hides from them, and then realizes The Pit needs lots of people at their party, so they can raise money. He then gets the people to chase him to the party.
• Freddy vs. Jason: Lori and her friends make an effort to exploit Home Field Advantage by moving both Freddy and Jason to Camp Crystal Lake for their showdown; since no one knows the campgrounds better than Jason himself, the odds are in his favor.
• In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Roger, depressed after learning that his wife was cheating on him^note she was actually forced to do it, is offered a shot of whiskey to drown his sorrows. Problem is, he Can't Hold His Liquor, and a shot results in him turning into a blaring steam whistle for several seconds, causing chaos in the room. After Roger gets caught by the villains in the bar and is about to get killed, Eddie Valiant exploits Roger's trait by suggesting the villains to allow Roger to have one last shot of bourbon, which once again resulted in a whistle and distracted everyone so Eddie and Roger could escape safely.

Literature

• Animorphs: On several occasions, the Animorphs exploit Visser Three's status as a Bad Boss, knowing that his leadership makes the Yeerks less effective. Indeed, it works to their advantage on multiple occasions; more than once, some of the Visser's subordinates have found evidence that the Animorphs were in fact humans, due to such clues as a pair of jeans floating in the sea after a confrontation by a beach. However, due to their fear of the Visser's intolerance and possible wrath, they choose not to question his beliefs (Visser Three was firmly convinced that the Animorphs could only be Andalites due to his belief that the Andalites would never share their technology, especially the morphing technology, with other species).
• In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the Death Eaters exploit The Scottish Trope by enchanting Voldemort's name so that saying it summons their enforcers. This is because throughout most of the series, only Harry has been brave enough to say the name exclusively and without hesitation, and everyone else defaults to "You-Know-Who" or "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
• In The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong, when he and his disciples were kidnapped by a villain-of-the-week-esque demon, the transmigrated Shen Qingqiu has no qualms into exploiting the Plot Armor surrounding the original protagonist Luo Binghe by directing the demon to try and attack the poor boy. Said attempt ends in a roof support column inexplicably collapsing above the demon, which also frees Luo Binghe and distracts the demon long enough for the boy to free Shen Qingqiu.

Live Action TV

• In It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A character exploits He Is All Grown Up. He gets revenge on the girls who broke up with him on high school because of his acne problem by going out with them again, pretending to be in love with them, and planning a wedding with them only to leave them right before.
• Angel:
  • In the After the Fall comics, Gunn (who, by this time is a vampire) takes advantage of Connor's liking for older women by sending in Gwen Raiden to get close to him and act as the team's mole.
  • In the TV series' Grand Finale, Angel himself exploits Evil Cannot Comprehend Good by willingly signing away his right to the Shanshu Prophecy, as the Circle of the Black Thorn cannot understand that Angel would do good for its own sake rather than for the prospect of a divine reward.
  • Near the end of the After the Fall comics, Angel exploits I Want Them Alive! by provoking Gunn into killing him, knowing that the Senior Partners' entire Evil Plan hinges on corrupting him to their side. As a result, the Partners are forced to hit the Reset Button to undo all of the time that Los Angeles was in Hell, which is exactly what Angel expected them to do.
  • In Dark Horse's Angel & Faith comics, Angel also exploits Morality Pet by having Faith around. As he explains, the main reason he keeps Faith around is so she can act as what he didn't have during his tenure as Twilight in Buffy Season Eight: a friend he trusted to stop him from Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.
  • Later in Angel & Faith, Angel exploits Kiss of the Vampire to stop a rampaging Dark Willow. As he explains, a vampire's bite stimulates the brain's pleasure centers, and the sensation was able to calm Willow down.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "The Gift," Buffy and the Scoobies make an effort to exploit When the Planets Align. The fifth season's Big Bad, Glory, is a Physical God who's nigh-impossible to kill outright. But since the ritual to use the Key can only be performed at a specific time and place, they just need to keep Glory occupied with a series of improvised tactics and attacks until her window of opportunity passes. Unfortunately, her minion Doc takes it upon himself to perform the ritual for her when she's running late.
• Patrick Jane from The Mentalist exploits two examples of the Attention Whore against each other when he tricks The San Joaquin Killer into badmouthing Red John on TV. In the next scene, the San Joaquin Killer winds up gruesomely murdered, Red John-style.

Music

• Wesley Willis exploited Even Evil Has Standards by writing songs about bestiality, which disgusted the demons that tormented him.

Video Games

• BlazBlue: A big part of the series is Yuki Terumi exploiting Hate Sink. Virtually everyone in-universe hates him, with several people in particular wanting him dead... and Terumi actually goes out of his way to cultivate others' hatred for him, because he feeds on it to stay anchored to the world and power himself up.
• Endless Sky: In the Scavenger World of the Ember Wastes, the Remnant exploit Alien Invasion by actually baiting the higher-tech Korath Raiders to invade their space, since the tech salvaged from any Korath ships they manage to destroy is worth to them much more than the supplies they leave for Korath to plunder.
• Final Fantasy X: Throughout the game, Tidus exploits Amnesiac Hero and Laser-Guided Amnesia, pretending to have lost his memories of everything in Spira to cover up the fact that he really doesn't know a thing about it.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, you find out that Zelda/Hylia herself exploited Link's series-common trait of The Determinator. She knew that if it meant rescuing Zelda from danger, he would go to any lengths to ensure it, without any thought of his own safety. All of this was to ensure that he would be able to wield the Triforce in order to vanquish Demise... but this doesn't mean she didn't feel intense remorse for doing so, and, as such, sealed herself in sleep for thousands of years to maintain the seal on Demise so that Link could have more time to permanently finish the job.
• GDI turns the tables on Nod in Tiberian Dawn by exploiting Kane's Hero with Bad Publicity media manipulations — they play up the effectiveness of the manipulation, making it appear as if the Security Council has suspended GDI's funding pending an investigation. The reality is that the Security Council held back the funding because GDI's commanding officer asked them to, baiting Nod into launching a full-scale offensive... just in time for the commanding officer to return with an enlarged budget for GDI.
• Sly Cooper: Both Clockwerk and Le Paradox have exploited Always Save the Girl by holding Carmelita Fox hostage, knowing that Sly will run to her rescue no matter how obvious the trap is.
• Organization XIII's entire Evil Plan in Kingdom Hearts II hinged on using Sora's Chronic Hero Syndrome to their advantage; indeed, even when Sora is informed that slaying The Heartless enables the Organization to collect the released hearts and he's helping their plan along by doing so, he just can't sit back and let the creatures hurt innocent people. They also exploit Always Save the Girl by kidnapping Kairi, knowing that with Kairi's life in danger, Sora will be that much more motivated to fight Heartless.
• Madou Monogatari II: Arle exploits Distracted by the Sexy in order to snag the key to her prison cell from some demonic guards and escape the dungeon she got thrown in at the start.
• Persona 4: Arena: General Teddie exploits Big Brother Instinct by claiming he has Nanako, Yu's cousin, captive, knowing that Nanako's safety is one of Yu's top priorities and will motivate him to participate in the P-1 Grand Prix.
• Vega Strike explored and exploited genre conventions for Some Kind of Force Field. Since Deflector Shields are mostly transparent, lasers are the least hindered by shields of all weapon types in VS 'verse. And if shields flash when hit, one of implications is... PESC (Photon Emission on Shield Collapse) warhead. A single shield emitter mounted on an autocannon shell or rocket is charged when shot and optimized to fail violently when it hits, converting much of its energy into a strong laser pulse. Of course, there's nothing to focus it, but it goes off right on the target's shield.
• In Marathon, Durandal is completely aware of the Security Officer's One-Man Army tendencies. And oh boy, does he plan on using that
• Yandere Simulator allows the Villain Protagonist to exploit Barefoot Suicide: when shoving a student from the school's rooftop, she'll slip their shoes off of their feet and lay them down near the edge of the roof, making it appear as if they took their own life and, so long as she wasn't seen by a witness and doesn't disturb the body afterwards, avoiding suspicion.
• Resonance of Fate: Leanne exploits Your Makeup Is Running; as she puts it, she likes wearing makeup as a reminder to stay strong, because if she cries, she'll ruin it.

Web Animation

• In If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, the God-Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer 40,000 gets the titular Text-to-Speech Device installed and is Suddenly Speaking, which immediately gets exploited by him complaining about the worrying state His Imperium is in and also exploited by everyone else since they can finally communicate with their Sovereign again and help Him create a good Imperium once again.

Webcomics

• The Order of the Stick: In this strip, Tarquin, who is hanging from the edge of the Mechane attempts to exploit Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, thinking that Elan will save his life to prove the hero is better than the villain. Elan refuses and abandons his father, turning this trope into Evil Cannot Comprehend Good Is Not Dumb.
  • Tarquin in general, thanks to his Genre Savvy nature, is a master of invoking, exploiting, and otherwise profiting from tropes. In particular, knowing that there is always a hero who defeats the evil empire, he accepts it and tries to set up his own future downfall to go spectacularly, ensuring that he will be remembered as a legend; a legendary Evil Overlord, but evil nonetheless.
  • Red Shirts Kazumi and Daigo exploit Nominal Importance by declaring their names to survive their You Shall Not Pass! moment in this strip. Daigo in particular intentionally doesn't reveal his family name (even when he gets married) in case he needs it later, attempting to exploit Chekhov's Gun, but when the time is right for him to reveal it, he gets interrupted by a door to the face instead.

Web Original

• When The Nostalgia Critic reviewed the Casper movie, the actual Casper showed up and anticipated it to be Suckiness Is Painful, so that he could finally scare people for real. It didn't actually turn out that way though, with the Critic eventually declaring the film So Okay, It's Average.
  • Mara Wilson successfully exploited Old Shame on Critic by showing the stuff he made as a kid, to retaliate for him mocking her work.
• The episode "Exploiting Television Tropes for Financial and Personal Gain?" of Plumbing the Death Star is all about how the Duscher, Zammit, Jackson, and their two guests would abuse the conventions of television to make their lives easier. Jackson chooses to exploit Coincidental Broadcast, Duscher chooses Soapland Christmas (since merged into Twisted Christmas), Adam chooses Treasure Map, and Michael Williams chooses Special Guest, which ends up being the best suggestion.
• Pokecapn exploited Left the Background Music On during the Sonic 06 LP to censor the group's address and Kung-Fu Jesus's phone number.
• Adam from YourMovieSucks.org exploits Similarly Named Works with his Bait-and-Switch review for Frozen, which is based not on the Disney animated feature, but the more obscure 2010 horror film of the same name.

Western Animation

• The Batman: Hugo Strange was fully aware that D.A.V.E., the A.I. he created using the personalities and brainwaves of Gotham's criminals, would create a body for itself and challenge Batman, and used it as an opportunity to test Bats, effectively exploiting Gone Horribly Right.
• When Robert Mandell was creating Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, he had three animation teams; a high-quality and expensive "A" team; a "B" team that split the difference between quality and price, and the "C" team that was cheap and fast at the expense of quality. He cleverly exploited the Animation Bump effect by making sure the Drama Bomb and Myth Arc episodes were farmed out to the higher-end teams and saved the "C" team for stand-alone episodes of dubious quality. As a result, the quality of the animation in a given episode will often match the quality of the writing.
• Another case of trope exploitation by show creators. In Dungeons & Dragons (1983), Executive Meddling made Eric the Cavalier the show's Butt-Monkey via enforcing The Complainer Is Always Wrong. The writers, including Gygax, didn't like that much, so they got sneaky. Clever fans, particularly ones familiar with the tabletop game, will notice quickly that while Eric is treated as wrong in-universe, his concerns and complaints are spot on due to the writers exploiting Strawman Has a Point.
• King of the Hill exploited The Scapegoat. In "Bobby On Track", Hank makes Bobby complete the 5K run at the school track as punishment for not completing the Fun Run charity race. The track and field coach turns up and wants Bobby on his team, puzzling Hank. It turns out that the coach is using Bobby's lack of ability to motivate the rest of the team. The coach has Bobby substitute for a player that misbehaved to embarrass them so they try harder so they won't be humiliated by being replaced by Bobby. At first it works, to Hank's disappointment, with Bobby seeing himself as a motivator. But when the team gets to the final it works a little too well when a player hyper-extended because he saw the coach talking to Bobby and was afraid he was going to get replaced. The coach has no one to replace him to run the relay, until Hank suggests using Bobby. The coach is unhappy because this was a situation where losing would hurt the team this time. The coach tries to motivate Bobby by telling him to imagine himself as a different person, Bobby 2.0; Hank tells Bobby to forget that nonsense, just to try. Bobby understands, and joins the race. At first he loses the lead, but the other runners trip, allowing Bobby to catch up and run past them. When the other runners catch up to Bobby, he still runs as fast as he can and wins the race.
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "A Dog and Pony Show", Rarity, discovers that the Diamond Dogs who kidnapped her find her complaining to be really irritating. So she purposefully takes it even further in order to invoke Pity the Kidnapper on them.
• In Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension, Candace exploited her inability to bust her brothers to make sure Doof-2 didn't take over the Tri-state area.
• In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "The Clock King", Temple Fugate is The Sociopath without any emotion, whose only interest in the world as a Schedule Fanatic are clocks and time: he timed a Time Bomb with a very expensive watch, has an Abandoned Warehouse with a Room Full of Crazy Clocks, and tries a Bank Robbery with a time lock. All those tropes were exploited to get Batman Lured into a Trap: Fugate knows about his obsession, instead of trying to stop it he uses it against his enemies. The real Evil Plan is to use the clock hands of a Clock Tower to crush someone to death.
• In the Family Guy episode "Petarded", Peter, upon discovering that he's legally mentally retarded, exploits Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery to do whatever he wants without punishment, doing such things as kicking open woman's bathroom stalls. This lasts until his attempt to steal a deep-fryer drenches Lois in boiling oil and lands her in the hospital, upon which Child Services deems Peter mentally unfit to be a parent and takes the kids away.
• Tom and Jerry: A recurring theme in the shorts featuring Spike is that Jerry repeatedly exploits Selective Enforcement, knowing that even if Spike sees Jerry causing trouble with his own eyes, he will always single Tom out for the duo's antics.
• Infinity Train exploited Mutually Unequal Relation. In the first episode of Season 3 The Musical Car, after raiding a musical cart, many of the young Apex kids offer items they took from the cart to their leaders Grace and Simon. Grace, who knows the children by name, acts like she has a special relationship with all of them, promising to cherish each item they bought her and store them in her special collection, while telling the child to keep it a secret from the other children that she's doing that. This is an act to make the children loyal to her, as once they leave, she discards the items without a care.
• South Park: Timmy tries to exploit They Killed Kenny Again in "Cripple Fight". Timmy gets jealous of the new handicapped kid Jimmy and tries to have him killed. He does this by giving Jimmy Kenny's Signature Orange Parka Jacket, apparently aware that Kenny dies in every episode and hoping the same will happen to Jimmy. Jimmy accepts the jacket and puts it on, thanking Timmy. As Jimmy walks away, he narrowly & unknowingly avoids incidents that would have killed Kenny in any other episode, which include: a falling safe, a truck collision, a giant predatory falcon, getting shot at by Jimbo, a gas-line fire, a herd of stampeding cows, and the Space Shuttle falling from orbit, all in rapid order. Timmy is utterly frustrated that his ploy failed.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Squidward exploits Unsatisfiable Customer in "Krusty Towers". After Mr. Krabs turns the Krusty Krab into a luxury hotel, he forces Squidward to cater to Patrick's every whim, as their policy is "We shall never deny a guest even the most ridiculous request." Squidward eventually gets fed up and quits, only to immediately return as a guest and milk the policy for all it's worth to torment and spite Krabs.
• Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Captain Bragg exploits Loved by All by having the beloved Raxus senator Avi Singh endorse the imperial occupation of the planet. Unfortunately for her, after some indecision, Singh refuses to do so and instead riles up the populace more, but there's every indication the Empire's plan would've worked if he had cooperated.

Other/Multiple Media

• In BIONICLE, Big Bad Makuta put the Physical God Mata Nui into an endless sleep, but he knows that heroes will wake him up again Because Destiny Says So. Rather than waste a ton of resources trying to stop the heroes, he arranges things so that he's in control of Mata Nui's body when it wakes.
• Pink Means Feminine was exploited by making it the color for breast cancer awareness.
  • Of course, men get breast cancer too (and masculine women, and gender-nonbinary people) — the tissue's there for everyone in varying amounts. But because Tropes Are Flexible, the symbol can effect public awareness of the disease more generally (although some advocates call for a dot of blue in the pink, or a half of the ribbon — though the latter is used for awareness of other medical and social issues too).
  • As a counter by Sióbhan Freeney:
  "When I see pink I’m reminded of all things feminine...My delayed breast cancer diagnosis resulted in a mastectomy. There’s nothing feminine or pink about that."

---