Follow TV Tropes

Following

Playing With / Tragic Hero

Go To

Basic Trope: A character's Fatal Flaw leads to his inevitable downfall.

  • Straight: Bob is incredibly arrogant, and this eventually plays a role in his death.
  • Exaggerated: Bob's Fatal Flaw leads to him failing at nearly everything he ever tries.
  • Downplayed: Bob's Fatal Flaw leads to him to stub his toe on the coffee table.
  • Justified:
  • Inverted:
  • Subverted:
    • Bob's arrogance is all an act, and he truly is well aware of his flaws.
    • Bob learns to overcome his arrogance, and so manages to avoid his downfall.
  • Double Subverted:
    • ...but he becomes the mask and truly does develop arrogance that leads to his downfall.
    • Bob learns to overcome his arrogance, but he still falls anyway; as a result of a different flaw from his previous one.
  • Parodied: Bob dies a horrible and bloody death... Because he can't play Cribbage.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob's arrogance leads to his eventual destruction... except that he comes back without a scratch, despite remaining arrogant. Then, it looks like he's going to be defeated by his pride again, except he learns and deliberately works to make himself humbler, so that he... is still defeated. Except, at the last moment, it turns out that another of his flaws, stubbornness, makes him impossible to permanently kill, so he comes back again and saves the day. Then his stubbornness/immortality consigns him to a Fate Worse than Death.
  • Averted:
    • Bob isn't perfect, but he has no big major failings.
    • Bob has a flaw, but it doesn't cause his downfall.
  • Enforced: The author wants to write something like a Greek Tragedy, or wants to write any of several potential Aesops.
  • Lampshaded: "You know Bob, if you keep acting like this something bad is going to happen to you"
  • Invoked: Bob intentionally acts like a jerk.
  • Exploited: The Evil Overlord sets up the Council of Flattery, to convince Bob that he is the most powerful being on Earth, so that Bob will be defeated by his own flaws! Mwahahaha!!!
  • Defied: Bob's Trickster Mentor goes out of his way to regularly bully and humiliate Bob, and works double-time to make sure any of Bob's plans that can fail, do. Why? All to keep Bob's arrogance from causing Bob's eventual downfall.
  • Discussed: "My fatal flaw is hubris."
  • Conversed: "That man used to be our hero but now he has fallen into the darkness of his soul".
  • Deconstructed: Bob's downfall also affects those who depended on him, causing a chain reaction.
  • Reconstructed: Bob ultimately sacrifices himself to undo all of the damage he caused to others.

Back to Tragic Hero

Top