Basic Trope: Blackmail using letters exchanged by two lovers having an affair.
- Straight: Charlie finds a love letter Alice wrote to Bob. Alice is married to Dan.
- Exaggerated: Charlie finds a whole stack of love letters Alice wrote to Bob over the span of three years, that document the rise of their relationship.
- Downplayed: Charlie finds a letter that talks about Alice and Bob meeting up when she's in his town. Its a bit USTy and it sounds like they might be meeting up to have a tryst, but it's not incriminatingly risqué.
- Justified: Alice and Bob have a Long-Distance Relationship.
- Inverted: Charlie finds a letter in which Alice dumps Bob.
- Subverted:
- Charlie presents a love letter from Alice to Bob, and he calls it evidence that she's cheating on her husband Dan. But it's later proved that the letter is fake, and Charlie wrote it himself.
- Charlie finds a letter and initially believes it means Alice is cheating on her husband Dan with Bob. But then he notices the letter has a date on it, and it's from before Alice and Dan met. Bob is just an ex.
- Double Subverted:
- ...but the foraged letter is an accurate replica of a real letter that got burned.
- ...but then Charlie finds a date that was covered up by the original date.
- Parodied:Oh, by beloved Bob, I love you as much as I love writing down every detail of our affair so that it can be used as proof...
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: There are no love letters at all.
- Enforced: The execs believe that the Soap Opera Trope Street has to go through the Relationship Revolving Door at least once a month to stay 'fresh', this is the method the writers chose for this month.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: Charlie knows Alice is having an affair, but he has no evidence. He mentions to Alice about how love letters are so romantic and it's a shame no one writes them anymore these days, hoping to give her ideas.
- Exploited: ????
- Defied: Alice and Bob are having a affair and are writing letters to each other. But to prevent anyone find them, after reading each letter they promptly Destroy the Evidence.
- Discussed:Charlie: Is there any concrete evidence of their affair? Like, I dunno, love letters or something?
- Conversed:Charlie: How dumb can these characters get, leaving concrete proof of their illicit affairs lying around like that?
- Implied:
- Charlie and Diana are ransacking Bob's room, looking for the MacGuffin. Bob finds a letter, reads it, raises his eyebrows and asks Diana who Alice is. Then he tosses the letter aside and keeps looking for the MacGuffin.
- Alice keeps her letters anonymous, and types them so her handwriting will not be recognized. Nonetheless Charlie notices similar phrases in the letters as the love letters she wrote to her husband Dan.
- Played For Drama: Dan tearfully reads Alice's letters to Bob, wishing her declaration of love were directed towards him.
Back to Affair Letters
