Basic Trope: Dismissing something as just one's imagination, no big deal, etc.
- Straight: Alice and Bob hear a noise one night, and Bob just writes it off as the house settling, and they go back to sleep. In the morning, they find out they've been robbed.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob gets up to go get a midnight snack, actually sees the burglars, and pays no attention to them.
- Self-professed Phantom Thief Charlie sneaks into a museum With Catlike Tread, accidentally knocking over a marble bust and its pedestal, scaring a guard dog, who then smashes apart a Priceless Ming Vase, tears up a silk tapestry, and destroys the conspicuous cubic zirconia atop the ill-protected glass and marble panopticon in the middle of the central hall. Alice and Bob dismiss it as nothing.
- Downplayed: A wild animal is making all the noises.
- Justified:
- Old houses really are quite noisy sometimes.
- Every other time Bob has gotten up to investigate, it was just the house settling. Why should this time be any different?
- It's a nice neighbourhood with a low crime rate. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
- Inverted: Alice and Bob hear a noise. Bob thinks it's a burglar, grabs his gun, and goes to investigate... only to determine that it was just the house settling.
- Subverted: The noise they heard really was just the house settling.
- Double Subverted: But then the burglar sneaks in.
- Parodied: Bob sees a burglar carrying things out of the house and dismisses it as the house settling.
- Zig Zagged: Sometimes Alice and Bob get worked up about things that go bump in the night, other times they don't.
- Averted: Alice and Bob know what noises are normal and what aren't.
- Enforced: "How are we going to introduce the burglars?" "Let's have the homeowners write off the noise they make as the house settling."
- Lampshaded: "It's Probably Nothing. Go back to sleep, honey."
- Invoked: The burglars deliberately make small noises, which get written off as the house settling.
- Exploited: The burglar makes a lot of noise that could be written off as normal noises (house settling, wind, animal outside, etc.) so that he can get into the house more easily.
- Defied: Alice and Bob get out of bed, grab weapons, and head downstairs to investigate.
- Discussed: "Could that Bob get any dumber? He didn't even check!"
- Conversed: "I bet Alice and Bob will end up robbed, like those people in that movie I saw."
- Implied: Bob and Alice wake up to find their house ransacked. When questioned by Alice if he knew anything, his response is "Just the house settling."
- Deconstructed: After hearing the noise, taking no action, and getting robbed, Bob gets mad at himself for not doing anything about it and suffers a Heroic BSoD.
- Reconstructed: After their stolen possessions are recovered, Alice rigs the house with booby traps, ensuring that even if Bob doesn't react to the noises, any future burglars won't get far in stealing anything.
- Played For Laughs: The noises are happening because the burglars are wearing squeaking shoes.
- Played For Drama: Bob and Alice don't react to the sounds drawing closer and closer to their bedroom.
- Played For Horror: Because of their knee-jerk dismissals, Alice and Bob have no time to react when the murderer reaches their bedroom.
Wait, was that the main page I just heard? (Beat) ...Nah, couldn't be.
