Basic Trope: A shoehorned romantic subplot that has no relevance to the main plot.
- Straight: Bob and Alice are involved in a romantic subplot, which is almost completely separated from the main plot about fighting alien robots to save the galaxy.
- Exaggerated:
- The romance between Bob and Alice ends up becoming a main focus of the story. As it still has little to no effect on the fighting-alien-robots plot, said main plot frequently comes to a screeching halt as a good chunk of screen-time is devoted to the romance.
- Bob and Alice's romance seems to come out of nowhere, with little to no build-up.
- Downplayed: Bob and Alice flirt a bit and have Ship Tease together, but the plot never really focuses on them having a relationship.
- Justified: Bob and Alice have great chemistry, spend a lot of time together fighting alien robots and loads of fans ship it, so it makes logical sense for them to get together.
- Inverted: Bob and Alice's romance is the main plot, with the gratuitous and mostly meaningless alien-robot war as the background story/setting.
- Subverted:
- It looks as though there will be a romance between Alice and Bob, but then nothing comes of it.
- Alice and Bob's romance becomes very important to the plot eventually, due to Alice risking the mission to rescue Bob when he's captured.
- Double Subverted: Alice and Bob's romantic subplot is quickly abandoned, but then along comes Bob and Charlie.
- Parodied: The scenes keep cutting between dramatic battle sequences and Bob and Alice being Sickeningly Sweethearts.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- Bob and Alice don't have a romance.
- Alice and Bob's romance is central, or at least relevant to, the main plot.
- Enforced: The executives want to appeal to a certain demographic and romance is popular right now, so they urge the writers to introduce the Bob-and-Alice romantic plot to draw in more viewers.
- Lampshaded: "Bob, how can you think about romance when the galaxy is in danger?" "It is? I hadn't noticed."
- Invoked: “Hey, Bob, while you’re saving the galaxy, why don’t you try pursuing Alice? You might have a shot!” “Hey, that’s a great idea!”
- Exploited: Alice and Bob use The Power of Love to defeat the alien robots.
- Defied: Alice, Bob, or both, state that there will be no romance between them whatsoever before any romance happens.
- Discussed: "Why on earth would we have Bob and Alice fall in love? What does that have to do with fighting alien robots?"
- Conversed: ???
- Played For Drama: Alice and Bob get too distracted falling in love with each other, allowing the alien robots to invade.
Back to Token Romance
