Basic Trope: Our concept of 'love' mystifies an alien or robot individual.
- Straight: Bob goes on and on about his infatuation with Alice, an expression of 'love', a ephemeral, insignificant desire which Xythax cannot grasp.
- Exaggerated: Xythax's head explodes at the mere mention of thanking the barista, let alone caring about anyone, even one's self.
- Downplayed: Xythax certainly understands ''platonic love", but loving another person for reasons beyond fraternity and kinship is foreign to them.
- Justified:
- Xythax is a robot whom, without their Morality Chip, cannot feel or fathom human emotions like 'love'.
- Xythax and their species is The Spock to an extreme, having forsaken all emotion (especially love) for cold, hard logic, because it was a decideratum.
- The universe has broken Xythax by taking away everyone they have ever loved and ever will love, and they decided that they were better off rejecting the idea all together, to the point where they have forgotten what love is altogether.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good
- Inverted: Bob cannot understand what Xythax is yabbering on about 'skrubburfossles'.
- Subverted:
- Xythax was feigning ignorance so that they can glean information first-hand regarding human courtship behaviors.
- Or, Xythax knows what love is perfectly well, it's just that they only truly understand the value of self-obsessive love.
- When questioned about their familiarity with the emotion, Xythax responds:"I know what love is, yet I don't understand it no more than I understand idiocy, and anyone who does is probably a moron."
- Xythax was asking about the word, not the concept. There's a limit to what TV can teach you about English.
- "Don't hurt me, no more!" seems that Xythax was just singing along to Haddaway.
- Double Subverted: Turns out Xythax had completely misconstrued the ramifications of love, and that the real deal is a lot different then their own conceptions.
- Parodied:
- Zig-Zagged: Xythax says they do not understand love. But this just a lie, and they were only feigning stupidity. But then they had completely misunderstood the concept of love. But this doesn't apply to others of their kind, but then most of their kind fails to understand love, only for it to turn out that they do understand love and they thought than human love was called 'happiness' and that 'love' was the incomprehensible attachment between a mother and her Eldritch Abomination child.
- Averted: Xythax understands love perfectly well.
- Enforced: Well, their has to be interpersonal drama, yes?
- Lampshaded: "Ah, yes, and if I'm not mistaken This Is the Part Where... Bob lectures beautiful green-skinned alien space babes how to feel love."
- Invoked: Xythax has been brainwashed or, should they be a robot, had their Morality Chip removed, to erase any connections between them and their loved ones so that they have no qualms in attacking and/or otherwise betraying them.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Xythax devotes a significant portion of their time to studying human social customs to dispel any possibility of asking what love is all about.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Can you explain to me what this thing you call 'love' is?
