Basic Trope: A character seeks revenge against his former classmates in a high school reunion.
- Straight: Alex attends his high school reunion and publicly humiliates Brian and Claire as revenge for tormenting him in the past.
- Exaggerated:
- Alex attends his high school and makes every single classmate who treated him poorly suffer a Fate Worse than Death.
- Alex spends the twenty years between leaving high school and being invited to the reunion steadily building the resources he needs to get very violent revenge for what he suffered.
- Downplayed:
- Alex only targets the former Jerk Jock Brian who had bullied him in school.
- Alex rubs his successful life in the faces of his bullies, but otherwise leaves them alone.
- Justified:
- Alex believes that revenge is a dish Best Served Cold, and there's no better opportunity to meet with his tormentors than at a high school reunion.
- What they did to Alex for the sake of bullying him was horrible, and the scars (mental and physical) still remain. Forgiveness is just not an option.
- Inverted: ???
- Subverted: Alex was planning his revenge against the bullies, until they came and apologized for the way they treated him. Alex calls off the revenge...
- Double Subverted: ...he pulls off the revenge anyways, believing their apologies were false.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: Alex doesn't attend the high school reunion.
- Enforced: "I'm thinking of a sweet revenge story. I know. I'll have Alex come to his high school reunion and torture the tormentors."
- Lampshaded: "Alex sure didn't let bygones be bygones, did he?"
- Invoked: Alex, who did not have a great time in high school because he was low on the Popularity Food Chain and because Kids Are Cruel, receives an invitation in the mail to his high school reunion.
- Implied: The episode of Alice and Bob (our beloved CSI rip-off) begins with three police officers escorting Alex into the station. Alex is dressed in a suit that has a huge "Tropeville High Class of 1999" (in a series happening in The New '20s) button pinned to its lapel, and knuckles slathered with blood.
- Exploited: Evulz brainwashed Alex into never letting go of his rage explicitly for the sake of making him more evil, and after twenty years he decides that Alex deserves a little bone thrown at him for waiting so long.
- Defied:
- Alex, knowing he'll end up in prison, doesn't pull the revenge off and only decides to meet with his friends, though he refuses to speak to his tormentors regardless of whether they've changed or not.
- Alex decides it's not worth going to the reunion and spending an evening with his bullies (and those annoying women that got suckered into shilling for multi-level marketing schemes). (And if he is still friends with anyone in the class, he can always invite them over privately for drinks, movie night, pizza, game night, or whatever else.) So he just tosses his invitation in the trash. (Or the fireplace, if he's feeling particularly salty.) He spends the evening instead watching TV, with no bullies, no MLM shills, and no pants.
- The high school administration makes a point of calling a few favors with the FBI to do a thorough screening of every student they invite to the reunion and make damn sure that the chances of one of them trying to do something violent (or at least humiliating) in revenge for the stupid things that happened to them 20 years ago, if not brought down to an absolute zero, then at least will be severely lessened.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Alex gets shunned by his old friends for pulling off his revenge against his bullies and is sentenced to prison.
- Reconstructed: Alex may be in prison, but he doesn't care. He feels it's Worth It getting back at his tormentors.
- Played For Laughs: Alex pranks his bullies by pouring sour milk all over them. He laughs at every last one of them, but realizes that the others (including his friends) fell victim too. Everyone forms an angry mob and Alex makes a run for it.
- Played For Drama: Alex's bullies reunite with each other. When Alex attends the reunion, they greet him while pretending to act like as if there are no hard feelings, proving they haven't changed at all. But to their shock, Alex takes out a gun and brutally shoots the bullies.
- Played For Horror: Alex, who is wearing a creepy mask, kidnaps all of the classmates who treated him horribly and locks them inside a classroom. He ties each of them on a seat. Alex comes with a gas tank and pours it on the ground. While holding a lighter, Alex asks them if they remember what he did to them. The classmates were confused until Alex reveals himself. The classmates were shocked and beg Alex to let them all go while apologizing for their bad treatment of them in the past. Alex doesn't forgive them and with a sadistic grin on his face, he burns up the room with them on it.
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