r/TopCharacterTropes • u/DiveSideways • Aug 30 '26

Lore [Rare Trope] A story element that popularized a concept is actually the polar opposite of that concept

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Some franchises start off a bit specialized and evolve into something else later. Some stories get warped by pop culture and burdened with misconceptions. Some stories just don't make sense, or send the wrong message on accident.

Not these!

No, these examples are very clear (and not retconned) and yet pop culture has done a complete 180-degree turn on understanding them.

  1. Romeo and Juliet routinely gets alluded to as though it's a classic love story. In fact it is an intensely melodramatic tragedy all the way through, everyone is shallow and exploitative and desperate--and they die for it. Even the opening of the play self-indulgently advertises how dire the whole situation is.

  2. The One Ring from The Lord of The Rings isn't exactly meant to be a cursed item that corrupts the greedy or weak-minded. Geeky discourse loves to offer up examples of characters "strong enough" or "pure enough" to resist it, but The One Ring turns that trope on its head. The One Ring is an amplifier for power but lesser beings can't make full use of it. Being strong and noble and pure makes you more corruptible, you can bear a heavier load of its dark essence.

  3. Keyzer Soze from The Usual Suspects is one of the most famous examples of a villain who fooled everyone and got away with his plotting scot-free. However, the whole huge convoluted mess of a scheme was intended to kill off the last living enemy capable of ID'ing him. Not only did Soze accidentally leave a new witness alive who then cooperated with the police and their sketch artist, he also got himself closely inspected by a whole police station (who now know his true identity.) Yes, it was a good twist and yes, Soze escaped police custody, but his efforts to tie off one loose end resulted in high-quality images of his real face for the FBI Most Wanted list. In most ways this was truly an epic failure for him.

13.5k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

333

u/dnjprod Aug 30 '26 edited Aug 30 '26

The summer the first Suicide Squad movie came out was awful with people using them as relationship goals. Fucking craziness

90

u/saintash Aug 30 '26 edited Aug 31 '26

In a sense i kind kinda get villain couple goals. The "no how awful i am your ride die. Im there seeing and supporting it"

The problem is joker and harly have an explicit abusive relationship.

There are villan couples that work. Some like clare and frank underwood have and equal say in the relationship. And just as equally power hungry and cruel people

36

u/dnjprod Aug 30 '26

Mickey and Mallory from Natural Born Killers are a good example of what you're talking about. They are equals, they care about each other, they protect each other, they love each other. Harley is a victim. Joker is an abusive, manipulative killer.

For Pete's sake, in one comic he chained her to the wall in a room with a bunch of dead bodies dressed exactly like her to make her think she's nobody special and is just as much of a throwaway as all the others.

Couple goals, right?

13

u/Telefundo Aug 30 '26

he chained her to the wall in a room with a bunch of dead bodies dressed exactly like her to make her think she's nobody special

But really, haven't we all had the urge to do this at some point in a relationship?

6

u/aartka Aug 31 '26

Whoever never dressed a couple corpses in his girlfriend's clothes in order to humble her, throw me the first stone !

5

u/dnjprod Aug 31 '26

What's a little light felony between lovers, amirite?

5

u/Telefundo Aug 31 '26

"Ya know, if you REALLY loved me, you wouldn't be so upset..."

4

u/dnjprod Aug 31 '26

"Why are you crying? Are you trying to make me feel bad? You're such an abusive person."

3

u/OtherHovercraft9227 Aug 31 '26

The Monarch and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch are couple goals. They have the highs and lows but a love that surpasses all that

2

u/GabbytheQueen Sep 02 '26

If you want to pick from harley's own relationships I y and her are kids couples goals than joker and harley

15

u/caitlindrawings Aug 31 '26

Harley and Ivy are good villain couple goals, who actually support eachother, joker is abusive as fuck, always has been even in the original animated series that first introduced Harley he was abusive to her.

3

u/private_inspector Aug 31 '26

They broke up recently in the comics 😭

2

u/Raguleader Sep 01 '26

The Harley Quinn standalone series from 2015 or so was pretty fun because the entire premise is that Harley had been dumped by the Joker and realized that she needed to be able to stand on her own. So she moves to Coney Island, buys a run-down apartment building, and hilarity ensues.

At one point a few volumes in, Harley has to break into Arkham Asylum to rescue her boyfriend (a guy she met in NYC). She runs into the Joker, who tries to sweet-talk her, and she beats the smile off of his face before escaping.

2

u/caitlindrawings Sep 02 '26

Ha! I think i would be terrified if Harley was my landlord lol

2

u/Raguleader Sep 02 '26

The whole building is basically a home for outcasts and rejects. It's kind of sweet in a "the landlady built a scatapult on the roof to fling animal poop across the city instead of taking it to the dumpster" kind of way.

1

u/dnjprod Sep 02 '26

Yeah, especially if she shows up with one of her pets to collect your rent when it's late

https://giphy.com/gifs/fXtXtI5K9gb6ST82ek

3

u/Esquire_NZ Aug 31 '26 edited Sep 03 '26

There are villan couples that work

That'd probably make for a good post of it's own.

3

u/jorgespinosa Aug 31 '26

The problem is joker and harly have an explicit abusive relationship

To be fair, is unfortunately common that people end up romanticizing abusive relationships, like 50 shades of Grey or a lot of dark romance books

1

u/saintash Aug 31 '26

Yeah, but dark romance specifically has a line that it will not cross. There's a difference between little danger and real danger.

Not that i'm defending fifty shades of gray at all. But even the lady who wrote fifty shades his explicitly gone on record multiple times. She didn't intend for the book to be an abusive relationship. She is just a bad writer.

What she intended to write was a rich dude spoils me on the condition I do kinky stuff, but through the power of love I show him we don't need to do kinky sex.

2

u/RedcoatTrooper Aug 31 '26

In Suicide Squad in the modern day they don't, Joker seems to love her unconditionally.

2

u/saintash Aug 31 '26

That's the thing about joker sometimes he acts like he really cares about her. It's a tool to keep her on the hook.

2

u/RedcoatTrooper Aug 31 '26

I agree and that's certainly the case with BTAS the origin of their relationship it's just not with Suicide Squad from what we see.

1

u/ihavewaytoomanyminis Aug 31 '26

The problem is that the people that have the most stable relationship in the Batfamily is Alfred and Ace, the Bathound.

Bruce and whoever he's dating; Nightwing and superheroine name here; Tim and whoever he's dating; Damien; Jason; Cassandra; Duke; Luke; Kate; Stephanie; Helena, yeah none of these people are poster boys/girls for committed relationships.

1

u/Evilfrog100 Aug 31 '26

Tim has been with Bernard for a while now, and it doesn't seem like they're getting split any time soon (though I kinda wish they would either split or the writers would give Bernard a persoanlity).

1

u/saintash Sep 02 '26

I mean not for nothing. A lot of non hero partners don't have a personality. Regardless of gender.

They either exist to do the drama of why do they keep ditching me. Or to be eventually killed.

1

u/Evilfrog100 Sep 02 '26

Fair, I just feel strongly about this one in particular because Tim is my favorite Robin (partially because of the bi representation). Honestly, I really want to like Bernard, I would prefer if a writer did something with him instead of just splitting them up, but that would still be better than what's happening now.

2

u/saintash Sep 03 '26

Tim is totally my robin two, it's just, they keep giving that poor boy. The short end of the stick.

Although I do think they we're cowards and also didn't make kon el bi too. They're cowards who are afraid to imply. That kon being a clone of superman and lex. Means one of them would have to be bi

4

u/bythenumbers10 Aug 30 '26

Yes, literally.

3

u/Saucermote Aug 30 '26

If you aren't coming in with an armored flying gunship, do you really love her?

4

u/Mist_Rising Aug 31 '26

Ironically that version of joker is probably the best in terms of Harley relationship. Most versions of Joker are somewhere between abusive to horribly abusive and will turn Harley in for lulz.

1

u/Raguleader Sep 01 '26

What's funny is that even in the DCEU Harley and Joker's relationship barely survives the end of the first Suicide Squad film and she's single at the start of her next film.

3

u/dr_modean Aug 31 '26

My cousin was married to an absolute d-bag husband. They dressed as Harley and Joker one Halloween and all I kept thinking was, “Yeah, that’s about right.”

She divorced him some years ago and the family breathed a sigh of relief.

1

u/dnjprod Aug 31 '26

When they unintentionally show the truth and don't know it

🤣🤣

2

u/chosenofkane Sep 01 '26

It also didn't help that pretty much all the fucking songs from that movie glorified Joker and Harley's relationship.