Basic Trope: Characters engage in arguments that are meant to look polite and civil on the surface.
- Straight: Princess Mary is having diplomatic discussions with a rival kingdom, and both sides are doing this begrudgingly, so the talks start with veiled insults.
- Exaggerated: Almost every sentence is a flowery statement where the words could be a compliment, but are so backhanded it's clear what is meant.
- Downplayed: The two sides say a couple blunt, rude statements, but shrug and move on with the talks.
- Justified: Mary actually wants to make peace, and she's mastered this type of insult because the other kingdom actually sees this trope as a sign of good education and breeding.
- Inverted: Shouting and cussing at each other is considered more diplomatic than being polite.
- Subverted: Mary starts off with a veiled insult, but then spits in the ambassador's face.
- Double Subverted: It turns out she had a cold and didn't know it. The ambassador civilly implies she's an idiot for not looking after her health.
- Parodied: All the insults are said in pig latin.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: The talks go with few insults, and those are just said openly, with the other side given a fair chance to respond.
- Enforced: This is an educational show, and the writers want accurate portrayals of diplomacy talks, even the unsavory parts.
- Lampshaded: "Jesus, Alice sure is an expert at making 'Merry Christmas' sound like 'go find a ditch to crawl in and die, bitch', doesn't she?"
- Invoked: Mary is hypnotized so that her tendency to be blunt doesn't ruin the talks.
- Exploited: Mary has a bingo card of the typical veiled insults that happen in these talks.
- Defied:
- The ambassador says he's tired of this facade of politeness.
- The first word to come out of the mouth of one of the "fighters" is "motherfucker" and both sides make a point to refuse to tone down their language afterwards.
- "Before we begin this conversation, I want to make clear that if you insult me at any point, in any way, shape or form, and I can assure you that I will figure out you are insulting me although I cannot guarantee I will be quick to do so, I will rip your fucking jaw off. I have plenty of practice performing this operation, and I can declare from personal experience that it appears to be an incredibly painful way to die. Now... shall we start?"
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: One of the characters says "hello" to the other and this other reacts like he had been told the greatest insult in the local language.
- Deconstructed: After a very long time of people using every kind of sarcastic shift in tone and pointing out of every possibel detail as a lead-in to an insult, people develop quite the thin skin. As a result, stories exist of people having been slaughtered for the simple fact that they didn't knew how they sounded.
- Reconstructed: Against a foe that will tear you apart if you get too blatant with your insults, all you can do is be stealthy.
- Played For Laughs: Alice and Mary are Overly Polite Pals but their conversation is so full of stealth insults that it's hard to tell if they are actually this or overly-polite Vitriolic Best Buds. For further parody points, at least half of the time the "insults" aren't, they are just too wordy for the other girl to understand.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice and Mary would really like to tear each other apart, but they are in the middle of a nice ballroom with lots of neutrals and a Threatening Mediator, so they have too much to lose if they are the first to raise the fist. Hence, the insult-slinging.
- Alice and Mary fling polite-sounding insults at each other, until Alice manages to "win" by slipping in one about Mary's mother dying. Mary breaks in tears and runs off and everybody else, once they finally decode what Alice said, make clear that she has permanently crossed a line in their eyes.
- Played for Horror:
- Alice and Mary utilize this kind of language as part of their Faux Affably Evil behavior.
- Alice and Mary fling polite-sounding insults at each other, until Alice manages to "win" by slipping in one about Mary's mother dying. Mary's mind instantly shatters.
- Alice and Mary try this kind of conversation with Cecilia. Cecilia's response is to stab them to death with the first sharp object she can get her hands on.
Back to Passive-Aggressive Kombat.
