Basic Trope: Initial investigation leads to something deeper.
- Straight: Bob, a detective, investigates the theft of a laundry basket. It ultimately leads him to discover a murder.
- Exaggerated: Bob investigates an instance of littering. It leads to discovering cases of misconduct and corruption of local police and the prosecutor's office. And it finally reveals a massive Government Conspiracy.
- Downplayed:
- Bob investigates the theft of a laundry basket. It leads him to discover more thefts.
- Bob investigates the theft of a laundry basket, leading them to find evidence that convicts the long time suspect of murder.
- Justified: The laundry basket thief committed murder, out of pure pettiness. In general, the person doing a minor crime decided to do major plots just For the Evulz.
- Inverted: Bob is investigating Evulz' scheme to Take Over the World and discovers that one week ago Evulz decided to steal a laundry basket. The plot makes perfectly clear that this is only a random example of Evulz being a dick.
- Subverted: Bob investigates the theft of a laundry basket, thinking no one would steal something so odd without a deeper reason...but it turns out that Alice just wanted the (really nice) clothes and couldn't afford them.
- Double Subverted: But while talking to Alice, Bob notes an impressive sculpture given to her by her boyfriend Dracone, who shouldn't be able to afford it. This leads Bob to take down the area's leading crime ring.
- Zig-Zagged: The theft of a laundry basket leads Bob on a wild goose chase of escalating assaults, which seem to culminate in an anticlimactic drug-bust. Bob then discovers something important at the drug den that implicates the gang he'd just taken down in a large trafficking network.
- Parodied: Bob investigates the theft of a laundry basket. It leads to him uncovering a massive, centuries-old criminal organization that wields limitless connections and government influence to steal laundry baskets across the globe.
- Averted: No minor crimes are committed, or they don't lead to any dramatic reveals.
- Enforced: The author has already come up with a number of comedic moments revolving around the theft of the laundry basket and wants some way to attach them to the dramatic plot.
- Lampshaded:Bob: No crime I ever heard of stood completely on its own.
- Invoked: Bob already suspects one of the persons involved of being involved in something bigger, so as soon as he sees a minor opening in the laundry basket theft he comes down as hard as he can to get some footing for the bigger investigations.
- Exploited: A squad of thieves stage the public theft of a laundry basket in the hopes of catching the attention of on-duty Officer Bob; deliberately leaving a paper-trail of escalating crimes for him to follow. With Bob distracted by the choreographed encounters, he's unable to stop them from kidnapping his friend Alice, the owner of the bank they're actually trying to rob.
- Defied: Evulz takes thorough precautions to clean up all evidence, create all the necessary alibis, and practice his poker face. When Bob confronts him over the theft of a laundry basket, this is the only crime Bob can pin on him, and even then it's only a misdemeanor.
- Discussed: "Don't brush off a small-time crime, rookie. The smallest of crimes at the right time might just unlock an entire closet full o' skeletons."
- Conversed: "So, you're thinking for this film we kick things off with the theft of a basket and just sort of...have things unravel into a bigger crime-wave from there?"
- Implied: Bob goes out to investigate the theft of the laundry basket and races back in several hours later, muttering about how he has to get ahold of the district attorney.
- Played For Laughs:
- The theft of a laundry basket leads Bob down a rabbit-hole of conspiracies involving colorful, highly-exaggerated Card-Carrying Villains whose schemes get progressively wackier and out-there as he goes; culminating in the reveal of an overly-elaborate world-conquering scheme by Evulz.
- Bob over-reacts to the minor theft of a laundry basket and becomes convinced that criminals he catches during the rest of that day are part of an elaborate conspiracy, getting into escalating hijinks with various characters. In reality, he simply arrived to work drunk and has been pestering random folks all day.
- Played For Drama:
- Detective Bob sees a mugger steal a woman's laundry basket and catches him. The basket contained a ludicrous amount of money. The "thief" was the messenger for a group of Bounty Hunters, who start targeting Bob's loved ones in retaliation for his interference, setting up a conflict.
- Detective Bob begins the film in the midst of a mental breakdown. Seeing someone steal a laundry basket sets him off and he begins stalking the thief mercilessly, deluding himself into thinking there's a grand scheme at-play. The poor thief is desperate to keep away from what he sees as an obsessed psychopath, eventually getting into a shoot-out with him that neither make it out of.
- Detective Bob witness someone stealing a laundry basket and discovers something on-scene that implicates the thief in a bigger conspiracy related to a case he failed to solve ten years ago. To avoid a repeat of the previous tragedy, Bob goes Cowboy Cop and starts targeting the gang members. However, it's revealed that Bob was having a mental breakdown the entire time: He hasn't been fighting thieves and thugs at all but instead other officers, who've been trying to stop him since the first incident. Bob gives himself up at the cost of forever scarring the community he swore to protect.
- Detective Bob witnesses the theft of a laundry basket and tails the thief to his destination instead of confronting him, whereupon he discovers that the basket was a container for a new type of illicit narcotic that's been circulating across the city. Bob soon finds out that the narcotics have been engineered to turn people rabid. The city sirens abruptly go off outside, beginning a Zombie Apocalypse.
- Deconstructed: Detective Bob witness someone stealing a laundry basket and gives chase, which ends in a shootout with the thief and his buddies. Bob soon learns that the theft was an exchange of goods; the first phase of a more elaborate plan. Bob is in over his head and barely able to make a dent in the gang's plans. However, he didn't have to: The gang he's opposing is rife with in-fighting due to the weight of their elaborate city takeover plan and Bob's interference just sets off the powder keg. The gang implodes and devolves into an Enemy Civil War that does the heroes' job for them, leaving local law enforcement to mop up the leftovers.
- Reconstructed: And of course, when one of the local law enforcement officers (or possibly even Bob) try mopping up the leftovers, they discover a much bigger, more global plot. Oh no, Here We Go Again!
Sure, it's only a link back to Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot, but what about all those other links on the main page?
