Basic Trope: A person or society becomes dependent on heroes and heroism in lieu of other measures to solve problems.
- Straight: The primrose citizens of Victoria City rely mainly on the rough-and-tumble Gentlemen Gregarious for protection from crime and natural disasters.
- Exaggerated: The Gentlemen Gregarious are the city's de facto police force, firefighters, paramedics, justices, and pizza deliverers.
- Downplayed: While the Gentlemen are often called upon to resolve bar brawls and stuck kittens, the Victoria City police do most of the heavy lifting regarding high-level crimes.
- Justified: Victoria City has seen better days, and its police are less than effective. The Gentlemen, being "men of the people", are more trusted.
- Inverted: The Gentlemen are just a social club whose efforts mainly consist of aiding the police in their investigations.
- Subverted: Victoria City is so far gone that heroism is a sucker's game. The Gentlemen are in actuality a glorified street gang at best.
- Double Subverted: But after the Gentlemen stop their first small crime thanks to their own actions, they give people a ray of hope that they'll become true heroes.
- Parodied: The citizens of Victoria City outright ignore encroaching threats, confident that the Gentlemen or some other do-gooder will step in at the last minute.
- Zig-Zagged: The Gentlemen serve as a temporary security force for Victoria City whenever its police aren't up to snuff for the task at hand, handing power back to the city only after the crisis has passed.
- Averted: Heroism is rare in Victoria City, or nonexistent.
- Enforced: Fans have started complaining that Victoria City's government doesn't seem to do anything, so the creators make it canonically lazy and ineffective.
- Lampshaded: Citizens of Victoria City often walk around asking "Can't someone do something?" about the city's problems.
- Invoked:
- Mayor King's flagrant corruption has caused the city's situation to decay to the point where it needs a heroic force like the Gentlemen to restore order.
- The Gentlemen have a secret "gentlemen's agreement" with the local criminal outfits to ensure their services will always be in demand.
- Exploited: The city's gangs use the Gentlemen's presence as an excuse to take the kid gloves off.
- Defied: Despite chafing at the current situation, the citizens of Victoria City rebuke any attempts at heroism, mainly because it "simply isn't proper".
- Discussed: The Gentlemen open dialogues with the city government to try and take the load off their members.
- Conversed: Concerned citizens begin to hold rallies for a more effective and well-trained police force in lieu of the Gentlemen.
- Implied: The people of Victoria City aren't very proactive when it comes to danger, nor, indeed, their own problems.
- Deconstructed: At the end of the day, the Gentlemen's heroics are dangerous, unregulated and ineffective, employed as an attention-grabbing stopgap by the city's leaders in lieu of genuine reform. The City's situation fails to improve, though the spectacle delights the masses.
- Reconstructed: Even the most inept heroism inspires hope, and an ad hoc system of vigilantes is preferable to a tyrannical civil government. With time, the Gentlemen become more professional and produce lasting peace in Victoria City.
Go back to the main page here and wait for your saviors to arrive.
