Basic Trope: A character finds an everyday object amazing.
- Straight: Alice sees a pencil and says, "WOW, a STICK you can WRITE with!"
- Exaggerated: Alice sees a pencil and starts worshiping it. Not only that, she starts having a crush on the pencil, planning to marry it.
- Downplayed: Alice says, "Fascinating" when she sees the pencil.
- Justified:
- Alice is a Fish out of Temporal Water.
- Alice is an alien.
- Alice is The Ditz.
- Alice is from another universe where pencils were never invented.
- Alice, being a toddler, has never encountered it before.
- Inverted:
- Alice sees a Teleporting Station and walks past it as if she sees teleporters every day.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks
- Subverted:
- Alice sees the pencil and says, "Wow," but it turns out she is talking about something else.
- Alice sees the pencil and says, "Wow, I haven't seen a mint Jefferson Graphite since they went belly-up in 1931!".
- Alice's amazement at the pencil denotes the work as a pre-1820's (that is prior to mass production) period piece.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice sees the pencil and says, "Wow," but it turns out she was talking about something else equally mundane.
- Alice said this on 01/01/1932.
- Parodied: Alice is incredulous that Bob lives in a house. They live next door to each other in very similar houses.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice says, "Wow," when she sees the pencil, but it turns out she was talking about something else equally mundane, but that particular thing was special, maybe.
- Averted: Alice isn't amazed by commonplace objects.
- Enforced: The writers want to show how an alien would react and throw in some comedy.
- Lampshaded:
- "It's just a pencil, y'know!"
- "Hey, Carol, Why is Alice so amazed with that pencil?" "I dunno, Bob. It's like she's never seen one before."
- Invoked: Alice is a cave lady and travels into the present day.
- Exploited: The Big Bad distracts Alice (the one person who poses a meaningful threat to his plans) with mundane objects so he can Take Over the World.
- Defied:
- Alice suppresses her excitement when she sees a pencil for the first time.
- Alice is about to gasp in awe when she sees a pencil, but Bob explains to her how basic it is, stopping her.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "Ha, ha, she's so excited by that pencil. I've Seen It a Million Times in films ... but it's still so funny!"
- Implied: Alice is seen looking amazed at a pencil.
- Played for Laughs: Alice worships pencils like they are God and treats erasers like Satan.
- Played for Drama:
- Alice tries to destroy the pencil as she thinks it's Satan's work, and Bob needs it to write something extra important.
- Alice's ongoing amazement at ordinary things is a constant reminder of just how horribly deprived of an upbringing she's had.
Wow, the link back to Mundane Object Amazement is amazing! Use it to go back to the main page!
