Basic Trope: Someone who either has no fear or DOES feel fear, but manages to ignore it completely. It often makes said person reckless and impulsive, due to lack of a sense of caution.
- Straight: Bob is one of the most courageous people In the world, routinely risking his life in dangerous situations despite being well aware of the danger. However, this also makes him absolutely reckless and impulsive, which makes people regularly question his sanity.
- Exaggerated: Bob is just a random dude who gets attacked by a giant monster. Bob runs up to the monster and punches it, despite having plenty of opportunities to run away and having no reason to stay there. That's because Bob physically can't feel fear for some reason, therefore he doesn't see the danger. It does nothing. Bob punches it again, then gives it the middle finger. Again, it does nothing. The monster eats him. (Emphasis on the "fool" part in fearless fool.)
- Downplayed: Bob is reckless and impulsive, but he DOES feel fear. He just shows it quite rarely. Also, despite his impulsiveness and his bad habit of throwing himself into danger on a regular basis, he's not an idiot. If he sees something that's too much even for him, he'll retreat...but he'll come back later when he has what he needs to defeat the thing.
- Justified:
- The reason why Bob is fearless is because he has a mental illness that prevents him from feeling fear.
- A wizard or a witch made Bob's fear disappear completely by casting a spell on him or by making him drink a magic potion.
- In Bob's particular line of work (Police officer, Soldier, Firefighter, Superhero, etc.), being able to overcome great fear is a requirement. However, Bob takes it to extremity, which sometimes gets him in trouble with his superiors due to his recklessness, but gets the job done nonetheless.
- Bob could have handled the threat without a problem... if he was still twenty years old.
- The "fool" part is an extremely important part of the equation - Bob is so damn stupid that his mind is like a wind-up toy or a runaway train: he does not cares about anything other than keeping on going until he crashes.
- Inverted:
- Bob is a Cowardly Lion who never picks up any bravery points until a loved one is in danger.
- Bob is a Dirty Coward who picks on those weaker than him, but turns yellow when someone stronger than him shows up.
- Bob is very wise but he is also absolutely fearless. He doesn't take any unnecessary risks but if the best option is something horrifying or suicidal he will do so without hesitation.
- Bob is Too Dumb to Fool and will react with fear to a situation that more clever characters (erroneously, as it turns out - and quite often fatally) assume they can deal with.
- Subverted:
- Bob is faking it. He's not really fearless after all. He just wants to impress his friends by making them think he is.
- At first, Bob seems to be fearless... then it turns out that he's scared of ONE thing. A ridiculous thing.
- Double Subverted:
- But then. Bob somehow manages to overcome his fear of the thing, which makes him completely impossible to scare.
- Parodied: Bob has no sense of self-preservation, which makes him completely unable to understand logic and reason. To sum it up in a few wo-Alright, time's up, let's do this. LEEEROOOOOOY JENKIIINS!
- Zig Zagged: In many situations Bob has no fear, such as when he's cutting down armies of Mooks. However, there are times when he is terrified such as when battling Emperor Evulz.
- Averted: Bob has reasonable amounts of fear.
- Enforced: We need to show how badass Bob can be. Let's make him do stuff that no person with even a tiny bit of sanity would dare to do out of fear!
- Lampshaded: "Holy Crap, can Bob even feel fear at all?"
- Invoked: Bob's mind controlled and the part of him that can be afraid is turned off, resulting in this.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz realizes that Bob is not afraid of anything, so he sets a trap for him knowing he'll walk into it. Bob falls into this trap and is killed by overwhelming forces deployed against him.
- Defied:
- Fear (or wisdom) will be implanted in Bob as required by The Powers That Be.
- Bob is utterly fearless (and maybe somewhat stupid) but he still approaches any situations with caution because he is not a suicidal idiot.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: ???
- Reconstructed: ???
Back to Fearless Fool
