Basic Trope: Injuries and other misfortunes which befall one character are ignored or made light of by the others for comic effect.
- Straight: Dan trips Bob, causing him to break his leg. Dan says nothing more about the incident except to berate Bob for holding them back as he struggles with his crutches and oversized cast.
- Exaggerated: Dan trips Bob, causing him to fall into a pit of alligators and become horribly mangled. Dan fails to notice Bob's absence for five minutes, and becomes aware he is gone only when Bob does not answer one of his questions.
- Downplayed: Bob trips by accident, scraping his hands and knees. Dan calls him a klutz.
- Justified:
- Dan and Bob are actually mortal enemies, involved in a fight to the death. Dan's just vicious enough to use such a dirty tactic as tripping, and then laughing at Bob's fall.
- Bob is actually an Asshole Victim, so this is what he deserves.
- Inverted: Dan trips Bob, who lands on his nose, causing it to bleed. While Dan panics, hardly keeping himself from crying and trying to call the hospital in horror, Bob stands up, sighs, and grabs a tissue.
- Subverted: Dan goes to trip Bob, but Bob spots it, and prevents it from happening.
- Double Subverted: ...Which then leads to Dan falling over himself. Cue everyone around laughing.
- Parodied: Dan's pranks regularly cripple or even outright kill Bob, but thanks to Negative Continuity, Bob is always back and in good health by the start of the next episode.
- Zig Zagged: Dan very nearly trips Bob, but then at the very last second Bob catches his balances, and rights himself, shoving Dan, who nearly falls. Dan then grabs Bob for balance, and both of them start to wobble. They both stop each other from going over, and thank their lucky stars, before Claire pushes them both over...
- Averted: Dan reacts to Bob's injuries with appropriate care and concern.
- Enforced: It's a comedy show, and a realistic reaction to horrific injury would be inappropriate.
- Lampshaded:
- "Did you have a nice trip?"
- "Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Cry, and the world laughs at you."
- Invoked: Dan abuses Bob because cruelty is funny.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz realizes from his behavior that Dan is a sociopath, and recruits him as a minion.
- Defied: Dan considers harming Bob for fun, realizes what an outraged lecture he'll get from Alice afterward, and doesn't do it.
- Discussed: "Bob's... well, a strange guy. He's the kind who would trip you, step on your back with soccer cleats, and then laugh about it." "Hehehe..."
- Conversed: "You know, if anyone actually did this in real life, they might end up in a police interrogation room, charged with passive-aggressive abuse and borderline assault."
- Deconstructed:
- The fall is hilarious at first, but then Bob doesn't get up. Dan is then racked with guilt over his prank while Bob spends several days in a coma, followed by months of recovery and physiotherapy. Infinitely more angst points for Dan if the prank led to Bob's untimely death.
- Alternative: Dan is a diagnosed Sociopath and is savvy enough to do actions when it's comically appropriate. Soon Bob and others find this out and seek to have him institutionalized and put into a place most appropriate for such people.
- Dan invokes several comedic sociopathy tropes that both run counter to the setting's established tone and avert Toon Physics. The results are horrifying and the failed comedy only makes it sicker.
- Reconstructed:
- However, Bob's treatment — or even death and last ordeal — is damn hilarious!
- Dan's guilt trip and Bob's coma dreams are both a respective Mind Fuck.
- It's still hilarious, giving the audience a brief release of tension before something even worse happens.
- Plot Foundation: Dan is the story's Hate Sink and he's supposed to be detestable but just funny enough that his presence in the work is tolerable (so as not to turn into The Scrappy). He's meant to be perceived as cruel and evil.
Back to Comedic Sociopathy.
Psych.
