Basic Trope: A character goes through a lot of trouble just to have their efforts rendered moot in the end.
- Straight: Bob goes on a long, grueling journey to find the Sword of Troperia, only to find out that it isn't where he thought it was.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob goes on a five-year journey around the globe to find the sword... only to discover it didn't exist in the first place.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog
- Downplayed: Bob does find the sword, but it's not as powerful as advertised in the legends.
- Justified:
- Bob is a gullible hero wannabe who goes on an epic quest to escape his mundane life. He didn't bother to verify the truth about the legendary sword story before setting off.
- The fact that Troperia started as a fairytale is long forgotten.
- Inverted: Bob goes on a random adventure with no reason or goal, but somehow it ends up being worthwhile.
- Subverted: Bob actually finds the sword after a while. It turns out it was at another location.
- Double Subverted: It's immediately stolen by Alice, or broken.
- Parodied: The "Sword" of Troperia turns out to be a glorified butterknife.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob fights Alice to death and reclaims the legendary sword, only to find out that it's a just a decorative blade with no special powers.
- Averted: Bob finds the sword.
- Enforced: The creators are a bunch of trolls.
- Lampshaded: "All that effort...just to find nothing?"
- Invoked: Evulz finds the Sword of Troperia first and keeps it secret to drive Bob to despair.
- Exploited: Evulz convinces Bob that Being Good Sucks because it is pointless and he should join him to actually accomplish something.
- Defied: Knowing his efforts will be rendered moot, Bob refuses to search for the sword.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Bob goes on a quest to find the Sword of Troperia. He comes back empty-handed and quite angry.
- Deconstructed: Bob becomes depressed that his quest was pointless.
- Reconstructed: Bob decides the skills he learned and the friends he made on his quest mean the quest was worth it after all.
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