Basic Trope: Hitting something to relieve negative emotions.
- Straight: Bob is feeling angry and frustrated in the vicinity of a lampstand. He smashes the lampstand against the wall.
- Exaggerated: Bob grabs a baseball bat and repeatedly bashes the lampstand.
- Downplayed: Bob gently pushes the lampstand over.
- Justified:
- The lampstand is a cause of Bob's frustrations.
- Bob has Super-Strength, and doesn't know any healthier coping mechanisms.
- Inverted:
- Bob hits himself with the lampstand. (Which is just as likely to work, honestly.)
- Bob hits the lampstand to make himself angry.
- Subverted: Bob angrily picks up the lampstand ... then gently places it back down.
- Double Subverted: After placing the lampstand down gently, Bob kicks over through a doorway.
- Parodied:
- Bob keeps trying to do this even after he finds that he doesn't feel any better after doing it.
- Bob marks household objects "To Be Smashed" and "Not to Be Smashed."
- King Bob has a servant whose entire job description involves handing him lamp stands to smash when he is angry.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob finds that smashing lampstands just doesn't have the same effect anymore, so he takes up smashing mailboxes.
- Averted: Bob isn't feeling stressed, the lampstand is in no need of smashing.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: Bob: "It feels good to hit this thing."
- Invoked: Bob comes home looking angry and Alice gives him a lampstand to vent his anger on, believing that letting him let out his steam in this manner is better than having him suppress his anger and blow up in a much worse manner later on.
- Exploited: Bob's neighbor Charlie is a sculptor / artist who makes millions by using the remains of Bob's broken lampstands to make unique masterpieces.
- Defied: Bob puts away his lampstands and other furniture away whenever he feels himself getting riled up. This actually helps him calm down as he's too tired to get angry by the time he's done.
- Discussed: "Bob really seems to like smashing lampstands."
- Conversed: Bob: "Smashing lampstands always seems to perk me up."
- Implied: Alice arrives at Bob's apartment. Bob welcomes her in cheerfully. There is a smashed lampstand in the corner.
- Deconstructed: Bob is having financial trouble due to the cost of buying new lampstands to smash, and has to constantly ask his family to bail him out. However, he ends up accidentally revealing the cause of his financial struggles to his family one day, and they refuse to help him out."Bob, we're not going to keep bailing you out if the cause of your problems is your inability to effectively manage your anger."
- Reconstructed: Bob takes anger management classes so that he'll stop wrecking his stuff.
- Bob invests in a nigh indestructible lampstand that can handle the punishment.
- Bob buys a punching bag.
- Played for Laughs: Bob has an entire closet filled with lampstands, and goes ham on them whenever he gets angry.
- Played for Drama: Bob breaks his hand from smashing too many lampstands.
- Played for Horror: Bob starts taking out his frustrations on organisms and doesn't care that he's hurting and, in some cases, killing them.
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