Basic Trope: A character expresses joy in a flat voice.
- Straight: Alice says "yay" in a monotone.
- Exaggerated: Alice does a happy speech all in a monotone.
- Downplayed: Alice does only a very slightly enthusiastic "yay!"
- Justified:
- Alice is autistic or has another condition that causes her to have a flat affect.
- Alice is being insincere.
- Alice is an alien who can only speak in a monotone.
- Alice is The Stoic
- Alice is only slightly happy.
- Alice is quoting Bob.
- Alice is acting, and is a bad actress.
- Alice is a robot trying to be happy.
- Alice is exhausted from the heat; that's as happy as she can be.
- Bob just said "And there was much rejoicing" and Alice is providing the follow-up line.
- Inverted:
- Alice expresses sadness in a monotone, or she expresses something mundane in a joyful voice.
- Tranquil Fury (Flat Anger).
- Subverted:
- Alice says "Yay.... YAY! WHOOPEE! HOORAY!"
- Alice says "Yay hruthi sprithol, Dergan." which means (approx.) "That will do, Dergan."
- Alice says "Yay, interjection: denotes joy."
- Double Subverted: and then goes back to a monotone "Sorry about that, um, yay?"
- Parodied: Alice is The Pollyanna, but with a Creepy Monotone.
- Zig Zagged: Alice is happy and flips between using a monotone and using a very happy voice.
- Averted: Everyone in the show expresses emotions normally, or nobody in the set has emotions.
- Enforced: The writers want to show The Stoic Alice be happy or else she'd seem unsympathetic, but they did not want her to be out of character.
- Lampshaded: "That didn't sound very enthusiastic."
- Invoked: Bob does something The Stoic Alice really likes.
- Exploited: Happiness Is Mandatory and someone who dislikes Alice makes her tendency to do this known, to make her look bad.
- Defied: Alice always makes sure to express herself sincerely and fully.
- Discussed: "It's so hard to tell if Alice is happy. She never sounds happy."
- Conversed: "Some characters just don't sound happy."
- Implied: Alice claps her hands slowly or smiles slightly.
- Played for Laughs: Alice is The Comically Serious.
Back to Flat Joy
