Basic Trope: A character hates making small talk.
- Straight: Damien gets very annoyed when Gwen tries to make small talk with him.
- Exaggerated: Gwen tries to say hi to Damien. Damien systematically erases all possible traces, both living and non-living, of Gwen's entire bloodline before offing her personally and in the most brutal and painful way possible.
- Downplayed: Small talk is a minor annoyance in Damien's book. He'll participate in it, but it isn't his hobby, and he'll drag the conversation into some more relevant topic at the first opportunity.
- Justified:
- Damien has more important things to focus on than Gwen's attempts at small talk.
- Whenever Gwen makes small talk, she will not stop. Eventually, Damien got tired of it.
- Gwen is The Bore and her small talk literally goes nowhere. Damien is just the dude who speaks up first (and/or loudest) about it.
- Gwen's idea of "small talk" is to unleash enough snark to sink a continent, and she's a bad comedian on top of it.
- Damien grew up in a culture where small talk was considered frivolous or even dishonest.
- Damien has No Social Skills, so he doesn't like to engage in a conversation if he doesn't have to.
- Inverted:
- Damien is a Motor Mouth who loves small talk a bit... too... much.
- Damien hates deep philosophical conversations... or any conversation more serious than chitchat.
- Subverted: Damien seems to be the type that would hate making small talk, but when Gwen tries to make small talk with him, he doesn't seem to mind.
- Double Subverted: ...For a few minutes. After that, he gets snappish.
- Parodied: Gwen starts making small talk, and Damien flies into a murderous rage.
- Zig Zagged: Damien gets irritated by Gwen's small talking, but eventually relents and talks with her, just until he quickly gets tired of talking and Gwen continues to ramble just until she brings up an interest Damien likes. Now it's Gwen who annoyed with Damien's talking.
- Averted:
- Damien doesn't mind making small talk at all.
- No one ever tries to make small talk with Damien.
- Enforced: "Having Damien small talk with other characters would really waste time..." "Yeah! Let's make him hate doing that so we can dedicate more time to fighting scenes with the Big Bad."
- Lampshaded: "You know, Damien could really have more friends if he actually allowed people to make small talk with him."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: When nothing important's going on, Damien makes small talk whenever he can so he doesn't start to hate it.
- Discussed: "I'm not here for pointless social pleasantries! I'm here for information on how to stop Dr. McEvil!"
- Conversed: "Why do characters in shows always reject small talk? It's really impolite!"
- Implied:
- When Gwen tries to make small talk with Damien, he just grunts and looks down at his feet, disinterested.
- Gwen, the team's designated Motor Mouth, switches to a matter-of-fact monosyllabic talking fashion whenever she's around Damien.
- Deconstructed: Damien's dislike of small talk proves to be a major breach of etiquette in Gwen's society, causing her to leave his side and keeping him from stopping the Big Bad.
- Reconstructed: Damien's focus on the goal and refusal to be distracted by things such as small talk become key in stopping the Big Bad's plans.
- Played For Laughs: Damien and Richard make small talk about how much they hate small talk. Gwen is only too happy to point this out.
- Played For Drama: Damien annoyance with Gwen's small talk stems from the insecurity of his social skills and his belief that he doesn't have anything worth talking about.
- Played For Horror: Damien rips Gwen's head off and nails it to a wall with a sign that says "this is what I do to people who annoy me". People very notably shit their pants if they notice Damien was within earshot while they were making small talk amongst themselves.
No, I don't want to talk about the weather! I just want to know how I can get back to Hates Small Talk!
