Basic Trope: A character hates someone for little to no reason.
- Straight: Alice hates Bob and doesn't know why.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice has dedicated her entire life to antagonize Bob in many ways, but she doesn't know why.
- Alice hates just about everyone she comes in contact with for no reason.
- Alice knows she has no reason to hate Bob, and this fact only makes her hate him even more.
- Alice hates not only Bob, but anyone named “Bob”, because they remind her of the guy named Bob that she hates.
- Downplayed: While she doesn't exactly hate him, Alice behaves coldly around Bob for no reason.
- Justified: Being that she's a Jerkass, Alice likes hating people and doesn't need a reason.
- Inverted: Alice has no idea why she likes Bob.
- Subverted: Alice reveals that the reason she hates Bob is because he bullied her in school.
- Double Subverted: It turns out that Bob hasn't done such a thing, and Alice was only saying that because he hates him.
- Parodied: Alice wears a shirt that says "I hate you, and I don't know why."
- Zig Zagged: At first it seems Alice's hatred of Bob is irrational, but then we find out Bob broke her favorite doll in kindergarten, except Alice thought Jim broke it. Later we find out Alice has anger management issues, except all of the people she hates are for explainable reasons... except for Bob.
- Averted: Alice has a reason to hate Bob (i.e., Bob murdered her family, bullied her when they were kids, etc.)
- Enforced: "How can we make Alice the ultimate Jerkass? Let's have her hate Bob for no reason."
- Lampshaded: "It appears someone is being irrationally bitchy."
- Invoked: Charlie wants to wait Alice as irrational, so he rigs her bedroom with hidden speakers and pipes in a subsonic hypnotic suggestion designed to target Alice, telling her to hate Bob.
- Exploited: Charlie knows Alice both holds grudges and forms them at the drop of a hat over gut feelings. He figures if he can trick Bob into mildly annoying Alice (or just disguise himself as Bob and do it himself) he can make them enemies.
- Defied: "I don't give a damn if you try to kill me anyway, and I'm long since stopping giving a flying fuck about trying to become friends with you — you're not leaving this damn room unless you tell me exactly why you hate me! Aside from being stuck in this damn room, that doesn't counts!" "And if I don't know why I hate you?" "Then we're going to stay here until you figure it out!!!"
- Discussed:Charlie: Why does Alice hate Bob?
Danny: I don't know and neither does she. All we know is she hates him." - Conversed: "It's kind of lazy writing that Alice hate Bob for no reason". "Not really, just think of how many people hate broccoli for no real reason."
- Implied: Alice and Bob are centuries old vampires. Bob notes they've been enemies for so long he can't even remember a time when they weren't, and asks Alice why she's spent so many years out for his blood. Alice's face twitches in momentary confusion, but doesn't answer and only attacks. If she ever had a reason to hate Bob, the fog of ages has stolen it from her.
- Deconstructed: Alice is asked the Armor-Piercing Question of why she hates Bob, and realizing she can't even convincingly lie as to why, and begins to doubt her own sanity and worthiness as a friend to her allies. If she can dedicate so much of her life towards hating someone without a reason, is she even safe for them to be around?
- Reconstructed: Alice eventually realizes she has a keen "gut instinct", and even though no one else (maybe even Bob) sees it, he's bad news and she's right not to trust him. This eventually bears out when he reveals he's The Mole.
- Played For Laughs: Alice's friends keep a running tally of everything and everyone she's sworn revenge on for vaguely defined reasons, and it's eventually shown not to fit on the Jumbotron of a football stadium.
- Played For Drama: In a truly tragic series of events, Alice's obsession of revenging herself on Bob over nothing not only alienates her friends and families, it creates an actual Cycle of Revenge as Charlie vows to avenge Bob.
- Played For Horror:
- Alice's hatred of Bob quickly devolves into her performing actions like killing Bob's wife, children and dog, purely because she wants to make Bob suffer for the crime of existing and making her hate anybody.
- The fact that she has no reason to hate Bob at all becomes a Berserk Button. One that is pushed constantly, and always with lethal consequences, whenever anybody goes "Huh? Really?"
- Being in Bob's shoes, having someone who hates you beyond any comprehension, and who has no reason whatsoever to wish you harm but does so anyway, is pretty damn scary.
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