One way to really set the oppressive atmosphere of a setting is by having our characters get randomly questioned or interrogated by a soldier/cop out of nowhere, often for very minor reasons

1. "Pick up that can." (Half-Life 2)

When Gordon first arrives to City 17, a Combine Civil Protection officer he's passing by suddenly drops a soda can in front of him and orders him to pick it up. If you comply here and throw the can in the bin he'll amusedly let you pass, but if you don't then he'll proceed to whip out his stunstick and attack you on the spot

1. "I'm just a tourist." (Andor)

In the episode "Announcement" of Season 1, a random shoretrooper on Niamos questions and threatens Cassian (using the fake alias "Keef Girgo") for nervously looking around too much while they're conducting a crackdown. The trooper asks if he's "a part of it" to which Cassian repeatedly protests that he isn't and that he's just a perfectly normal tourist; he's then violently arrested by him anyway and sentenced to hard labor in Narkina 5 without a fair trial

1. "Now, you. Show me your identification papers, please." (Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus)

A Nazi commandant randomly sits down at Papa Joe's Diner, orders a strawberry milkshake for himself and then very casually asks Blazkowicz to show his ID papers to him. Here you can show him your fake IDs (where you use the alias "John Smith") which seems to fool the commandant for a bit before he looks at a wanted poster on the wall and immediately recognizes your true identity, frantically pulling out his pistol before being shot by the diner's owner

Torture is often shown as an effective way of interrogation, with writers forgetting one key detail: People lie. AAMOF, it's likely that they will lie and give you untrue information to not be tortured

The Last of Us - Joel has an interrogation map where he'd make two different people point to something on a map. If they both pointed the same thing it meant the info was true. Very often this wasn't the case

Mass Effect 2 - Garrus points out that torture is not effective because victims will lie to make the torture stop

The examples are:

The Wicker Man: In the end, the protagonist begs for his life while being burned alive inside the titular object

Ibitsu: This manga is about an unknown supernatural entity that chooses people to force them to become its “older siblings,” obviously isolating them from their loved ones and killing anyone who gets in the way. When the protagonist is about to be killed by it, he gets down on his knees and begs for mercy.

Users whose weapons or powers are not the “standard” ones for their personality type. It’s not that the characters hate them as such, but that their powers or weapons are not what one would expect from their archetype.

- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: There’s a theory that Master Splinter gave each turtle a specific weapon so that it would balance out their personality, just as the image shows.

- Bertolt Hoover – Attack on Titan: Bertolt was chosen to inherit the Colossal Titan because, according to his instructor Magath, he was the calmest and most composed of all the Warriors, and the Colossal Titan is a “god of war.”

- Seto Kousuke – Kagerou Project: His power allows him to read minds and maintain telepathic communication with his friends, but he rarely uses it because he is someone who values privacy and sincere connections.

- Sloth – Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood: He is the homunculus named after the sin of Sloth, and as such he is very lazy and only wants to rest; nevertheless, his characteristic ability is superhuman speed.

I think it's just so goofy and silly every time.

-Akita being interviewed in Ninjago

-An Aspheera's Snake minion being inerviewed

-A dog from an old video about dog being interviewed

King of the Hill: Bobby, now a young adult and successful owner of a restaurant, feels his father's frustrations with his friends in dealing with his own irresponsible childhood friend and roommate Joseph who can't even be relied on to pay their electric bill.

The Forgotten Island: Much of the conflict stems from the frustrations between friends Raissa, who intends to leave The Philippines to attend Caltek in the USA, and Jo, who has no plans for the future and struggles to hold onto a part-time job.

1. Jim Carrey pulling the tablecloth off then improvising knocking everything off- this was written into the script (How The Grinch Stole Christmas)

2. Many people to this day believe that Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef, left the show because he was offended by the show's portrayal of Scientology, of which Hayes was a member. This is not true. It's true that a statement was released in Hayes' name claiming that he wanted to leave the show because of it's "religious intolerance". However this statement was actually written by members of Hayes' inner circle, all of whom were devout scientologists, while he was recovering from a stroke and not in a suitable position to make such decisions. Hayes never issued any statements on his own claiming that he was unhappy with the show and his surviving family believes that he was essentially forced to quit the show by the church (South Park)

1. Aqua from Konosuba:

Despite being a literal goddess, she's stupid, arrogant, selfish, dumb, and stupid - almost always causing more problems for her party than she solves. She also puts the world she is responsible for in danger by losing track of the powerful cheat items that she gave to people she reincarnated into said world.

1. Mega-mega from I've Been Killing Slimes For 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level:

Mega-mega is a goddess responsible for resurrecting people into other worlds. She has a fondness for young women and is demoted from her position as a goddess once it's found out that she has been reincarnating everyone as an immortal beautiful young woman.

1. Panty & Stocking from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt:

Panty & Stocking are a pair of angels who were banished from heaven due to their respective lust and gluttony. On Earth, it is their role to destroy ghosts in order to earn their way back into heaven. They do this but they also make absolutely no effort to stop the behaviours that got them kicked out of heaven in the first place.

The Boys Lamplighter is supposed to be seen as a tragic character, who killed Mallory's grandchildren by mistake, and between that and his dreams of becoming famous for his father, has become a depressed Death Seeker. However, some felt this failed to make sympathetic, because he is introduced helping test Compound V, even killing people who Stormfront is displeased with, and isn't shown doing anything to help people he himself claims need it. This isn't helped by the fact that when he and Hughie are in the Seven Tower, Lamplighter sets himself on fire activating the alarms and alerting the building with little regard to what might happen afterward. Worse, his personality after escaping and hiding with the Boys makes him seem like an asshole who forces Hughie to watch porn that makes him uncomfortable. These traits make it hard to see him as a tragic character for some viewers.

Victoria in the Season 4 finale tries to pull a "Not So Different" Remark on Hughie, calling him on Butcher chopping off Sameer's leg so he could make more of the supe-killing virus, never mind that she was the one who put him in that position in the first place. In any case it pales in comparison to the numerous people she murdered and deceived during her rise to power, as well as turning her own daughter into a monster, who then committed murder herself. Given that her attempted turn to good was brought about more because she realized she'd have no power if she got elected president, she comes across less as being motivated to protect Zoe and more trying to dodge consequences now that her Karma Houdini Warranty has run out. Her sudden death comes across as very karmic rather than the Villain's Dying Grace it was ended as.

Justice League Cadmus the writers of this show has stated that Project Cadmus, the anti-Justice League government think tank in the fourth season, were supposed to be sympathetic Anti Villains with a strong point about the dangers of unrestricted superhumans. In fact, the writers found Cadmus so sympathetic that they introduced a Conflict Killer in the form of Brainiac so he could be revealed as having been manipulating both sides to avoid having to paint either Cadmus or the League as in the wrong. Fans, on the other hand, overwhelmingly sided with the League, considering Cadmus's deeds included attempting to nuke an inhabited island simply to kill Superman and Doomsday, creating Doomsday to begin with, manufacturing an army of cloned Slave Mooks and sending them to massacre the League, including the completely innocent Watchtower staff, and teaming up with supervillains including Lex Luthor, all before the League had done much of anything to them. If anything, the audience viewed Cadmus causing all that shit just to get justification for what they do.

• Smash Bros. Ultimate - In Min Min's reveal trailer, Ryō Horikawa; Captain Falcon's VA reprises his role only to record himself slurping noodles, that's pretty much it. 20+ years of no new recorded lines, just to make eating noodles noises for a trailer.

• Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Videogame - Sparrow's actor; Johnny Depp was brought back to "voice" his character, means just recording mumbling and grunting for the game.

Hermione and Ron (Harry Potter) - J. K. Rowling has expressed that she regrets making Hermione and Ron get together at the end of the series.

Ted’s death (Cujo) - Stephen King said that if he wasn’t as high as he was when writing Cujo, he would’ve let Ted (the kid of the protagonist) live. It’s one of the reasons why Stephen King prefers the movie adaptation.

Essentially, when the boss is given similar, or the exact same, abilities as the player.

Slide 1: The SA-X in Metroid Fusion

Now, Samus is well known for being an ustoppable badass. But at the start of Fusion, she nearly dies as a result of her X-Parasite infection, and had to have portions of her armor removed and sent to the BSL station for study. But the parasites within the armor actually start mimicking Samus and breach its containment, kickstarting a massive outbreak. A good portion of the horror with the SA-X is the fact that it's mimicking Samus at full strength, while Samus herself is in no condition to actually fight it. So, it's essentially showing you what Samus is like from the perspective of her enemies, especially since Samus has become part Metroid herself.

Slide 2: Ganondorf in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

I know Dark Link would probably be the more obvious answer here, but this is my opinion. Upon getting to Ganondorf, you realize that he fights quite similarly to Link himself. For one, he uses all 4 of the same weapon types (one handed swords, spears, giant 2 handed weapons, bows) as Link throughout the battle. He even does his own versions of the spin attack and sword beam. Likewise, throughout the Wild-era games, Link can do perfect dodges to slow down time and open the enemy for a flurry rush. And wouldn't you know, Ganondorf can also do a perfect dodge, even getting the same slowdown effect as he does so. Finally, throughout ToTK, Link can summon the ghostly apparitions of the other Sages to help him in battle. In the second phase of the fight, Phantom Ganon fills the same role for Ganondorf himself.

Slide 3: Shizuka and Apollo in Crosscode

Crosscode is a really charming game set inside an in-universe MMORPG. The main character Lea belong to the Spheromancer class. Throughout the game, you meet Apollo and Shizuka, who are also Spheromancers. And sure enough, when you battle them, they have access to all the abilities Lea herself does. You can even learn how to do some really high-effort comboes just by watching the two of them.

In X Men 3, Pyro said he would have killed Charles Xavier if Magneto had let him. Then Magneto comes back with his retort, showing how much he respected and missed Charles.

In Superman the Animated Series The Joker offers to kill Superman. Lex laughs, wondering how the Joker would kill Superman when he can't even handle a mere mortal in a Halloween costume. The Joker knows Batman is much more than that.

SCORPIO - Star Wars

Elesh Norn - Magic The Gathering

Wagon - Toqger

And i'm talking about robots that actually look like robots. Not "androids" with perfectly human looks.

1. Yin and Yang- lilo and stitch

2. Tui and la - avatar the last airbender

Good Will Hunting

Will gets a job as a janitor at MIT where he's doing menial work as part of his parole program while surrounded by the knowledge and people he allegedly holds in disdain. He's called out for this.

The Menu

In a deleted scene food reviewer Lillian Bloom tells the story of how she rediscovered Julian Slowik after he disappears at the top of his game and stays out of public eye for three years. She finds him working in a Korean taco truck in the bustling Portland food truck scene; a far cry from fine dining but still an exciting area in food. This leads to him being dragged back into the spotlight and starts the process to opening his next restaurant Hawthorn.

Edited for correction. Harvard to MIT

• Avengers Endgame
• My Hero Academia
• Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
• Jackie Chan Adventures
• Gravity Falls
• Justice League Unlimited
• Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
• Jujutsu Kaisen
• Spy Kids 3D
• Castlevania Nocturne
• Leroy and Stitch
• Harry Potter

I just love it when everyone shows up to fight the last battle.

Basically what it says. The extremely dumb decision that can only end in your death, game over, or make winning impossible is a valid option you can choose.

Mass Effect 2. Morinth is an Ardat-Yakshi, an Asari with a genetic condition that causes the Asari mind meld to burn out her partner’s nervous system and give her a euphoric feeling. If you choose her over her mother, Samara, she says that Shepard is special and can survive where everyone else has died. She’s lying and you die like everyone else if you sleep with her.

Nier: Automata. There are a lot of unique game overs in the game that usually involve dying during certain events. A few involve making truly idiotic decisions. Engaging your self destruct inside the pressurized space station blows it up. You can remove a component that is essentially your brain and instantly die. You can eat a fish that is said to be extremely delicious but destroys the insides of androids.

Lords of Aswick. One possible scenario in this choose your own adventure game is that you take in one of the king’s bastards as your squire. The king just had a legitimate heir and started killing his bastards to secure his heir’s claim. Later on, you have the option to declare in open court that your squire is the king’s bastard. The next scene is your execution with bastard having just been executed before you.

Essentially this is a trope dealing with a piece of fiction that may have a stock monster but they have decided to change some part of the lore, the abilities or the design to make it stand out from the rest, the monster may be in any genre but it has to be significantly unique in some way to the stock idea of it

Wolfwalkers:

The Wolfwalkers change a lot of things from what someone what may think of werewolves though does keep some parts, they can turn into a wolf form and transmit it by bite but their souls leave their bodies and manifest into wolves

House of Ashes:

The vampires feed on blood, can burn in sunlight or UV light, can be beaten with a stake in the heart and have a bat like appearance but are actually aliens in origin and they are more monsterous then human looking typical vampires

Wish Dragon:

The titular dragon, along, resides in a jade teapot, can take back wishes if he misinterprets them and can shapeshift into human form, can grant three wishes and has three limitation, can’t kill, can’t make people fall in love, and can’t time travel, so there’s some similarities to the stock idea but enough variety

Ben 10:

Ripjaws clearly has some mermaid inspiration like some other aliens in the classic series being inspired by other monsters but it becomes clear when he gets his tail in the water though he is unique with having an angler fish light and very prominent and sharp teeth when compared to the regular mermaid

I hope my picks make sense and I may get some things wrong which I apologise for

Final Destination Bloodlines: The events of the tower collapsing, and leading to Death pursuing the protagonists and countless others, is the fault of 'the penny kid'.

Elevator (2012): Madeline, the granddaughter of the building's owner, sets the plot in motion by playing with the elevator controls to torture the claustrophobic George.

1- tony yelling I get it in top of the mountain because he was having a good day after killing Chris and getting away with it he realized he can do whatever he wants in this world and was the same moment where he never had a panic attack

2-the flowers in Walter house the lily of the valley which are the same flowers that are used to poison Brock so he could frame Gus and make Jesse side with him

1) Wilm Hosenfeld: Real Life, depicted in The Pianist

After the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, Władysław Szpilman is trapped in the ruins, forced to hide out and scavenge for food. He is found by Hosenfeld, who takes pity on him and gives him food and clothing. He was later made Righteous among the Nations.

2) General Kuribayashi: Real Life, depicted in Letters from Iwo Jima

In contrast to the abuse and suicidality prevalent in the Imperial Japanese army, Kuribayashi treats his soldiers with respect. He clamps down on corporate punishments and executions, and allows tactical retreat to preserve the lives of his men.

3) Lieutenant Dunbar: Dances with the Wolves

In contrast to the bigotry and disdain expressed against the Sioux by other cavalry officers, Dunbar tries to seek peace with his neighbors and advocates preserving their culture. And so when another Cavalry unit arrives at his post, Dunbar refuses to help them chase the Sioux and eventually turns on his country.