Basic Trope: A character physically drops something after a shocking development.
- Straight: Alice tells Bob that she's an alien, causing Bob to drop the stack of dishes he was carrying at the time.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice reveals that she's an alien to a kitchenful of people holding stacks of dishes. They all drop them at once.
- Alice reveals that she's an alien, causing Bob's detachable and/or floating hands to fall off while they're still holding his plates.
- Downplayed: Alice reveals to Bob that she's an alien, causing him to drop the glass he was drinking from onto the table.
- Justified: Bob is so shocked, that he momentarily forgets that he's holding something.
- Inverted: Bob grabs a hold of something after hearing shocking news.
- Subverted: Alice tells Bob that she's an alien. He begins to drop his stack of dishes, but catches them before they hit the ground.
- Double Subverted: Alice then tells Bob that she's gay. The dishes hit the floor.
- Parodied: Bob grabs a plate just for this purpose.
- Zig Zagged: Alice tells Bob, Charles, and Danny that she's an alien. Bob drops his plate, but Charles nearly drops his plate, but he catches it. Danny doesn't drop anything.
- Averted: Bob was never holding anything when he's told shocking news. Alternatively, he doesn't drop anything he's holding.
- Enforced:
- Bob drops a brand-marked laptop which does not break, so creators could show how durable the product is in real life.
- In a Merchandise-Driven franchise, Bob's figure has detachable hands, so in one of Bob's earlier appearances he drops his hands along with whatever they were holding in order to show the feature off.
- Lampshaded: "Oh, it looks like you've dropped your plate."
- Invoked: After Alice tells Bob that she's an alien, Bob picks up a stack of plates and drops them.
- Exploited: Alice intentionally tells Bob something shocking because she never really liked those particular dishes that Bob is carrying.
- Defied: Bob sets the dishes down on a table immediately upon hearing the news.
- Discussed: "I have something to tell you, Bob, but first, you might want to put those dishes down."
- Conversed: "I bet I know what's going to happen to those dishes in a moment."
- Implied: Only the audio can be heard for whatever reason, so we don't actually see Bob drop anything, but when Alice says she's an alien, there's a gasp and a crash.
Back to Dramatic Drop
