Jessica and Roger Rabbit from who framed Roger rabbit

Verosika and Wally from Helluva Boss

Cadance and Shining Armor from MLP, specifically tgat one famous meme

When it comes to level of dumbness in a character, I'm not talking like the Too Stupid to Live trope. More akin to The Ditz or Cloudcuckoolander, where they won't press the red button because they're too distracted by the blinking lights on the console. There can be well written airheads that don't dip into absurdity.

1. Zoey (K-Pop Demon Hunters): Zoey has shades of this, as she initally thought the Saja Boys were magicians and was naive enough to believe Dr. Han's scam. But, she is also responsible for writing the group's songs and can come up with at least 57 solutions upon hearing Rumi's vocal issue. She's also emotionally intelligent enough to be in-tune with her friends' true feelings.
2. Lindsay (Total Drama): Lindsay has a big heart and pure intentions, but other contestants are frequently annoyed by her lack of smarts, however she also has gone beyond expectations to solve problems in a Columbo-style manner.
3. Rowley Jefferson (Diary of a Wimpy Kid): Rowley is not very bright and often does silly things that end up getting Greg and himself in trouble, but he has is very caring and always wishes the best for everyone despite his parents' over-protectiveness preventing him from experiencing new things.
4. Kronk (Emperor's New Groove): Kronk is oblivious, devoid of common sense, and not very intelligent but he is also a genuinely kind person, and enjoys helping those around him. Despite not being as smart as Yzma, he does point out many flaws in her plan and is better at remembering her plans than her.

Bonus points if it’s an video game RPG BBEG

Nyx and Apathy Syndrome - Persona 3

Reclusa and Glohm - Mario and Luigi: Brothership

Gnarls (my singing monsters)

Tree Rex (Skylanders)

Pieces of media where collaborations with other properties are cannon to the base lore instead of what ifs

Payday 2- all the licensed crossovers such as Hotline miami, hard-core Henry, scarface and John Wick are all cannon members of the payday gang in universe

Dead by daylight- all the licensed collabs such as Halloween, nightmare on elm street, friday the 13th, resident evil, fnaf and others are cannon in the entities realm where the game takes place

1. Sekhmet reclaims her power from drolta who was once a priestess in the former's temple while making it very clear that she does appreciate drolta's attempts to bring her back. (Castlevania nocturne)

2. Blue fangs. A night creature who specifically calls out the bishop for his role in bringing down Dracula's wrath. The priest claims his work was in God's name but blue fangs retorts that "your life's work makes him puke" (Netflix Castlevania)

1. The Self Referential Six (Rick and Morty): excluding and Imprisoning Rhett from the group for supposedly being very dangerous.

2. Uno, Dos and Cuatro (Ferdinand): they don't want to talk about Tres.

Rashid’s twisters (Street Fighter)

Cinderace’s Pyro Ball (Pokemon)

Goku’s feet kamehameha (Dragon Ball)

1. Smiling Friends

2. TAWOG

3. Mind Game - Masaaki Yuasa

*[EDIT: **New Protagonist / Another Character / New Generation / etc. Wishing I could edit the title because I realized that protagonist was a bit too restrictive. But basically any moment story where the ending is a mirror or callback to how it began]

1) Lion King:

The story begins with the announcement of Simba's birth to the Pridelands, then ends with the announcement of his daughter, Kiara's birth.

2) Naruto:

Naruto is first introduced as a delinquent troublemaker in his village, pulling pranks like defacing the faces of the past Hokage in order to get attention. Now that he's Hokage, his son Boruto pulls the same pranks to get his father's attention.

3) Kung Fu Hustle:

The main character Sing was tricked by a vagrant into buying a Kung Fu instructional pamphlet for the "Buddhist Palm Technique" as a kid, which results in him being bullied. He turns out to be a kung-fu genius capable of this technique and finds his happy ending.

At the end of the story, the same vagrant is seen tricking another kid into buying the same pamphlet but when he shows no interest, offers him his choice of several other techniques. (still waiting on that sequel, Stephen Chow)

4) Star Wars:

Luke Skywalker is introduced as a young man living with his aunt and uncle on Tatooine, looking into the dual sunset with aspirations of a life beyond their moisture farm.

Several sequels, prequels and spin-offs later, Rey Skywalker (ugh) finishes her journey of self discovery by looking out at the same sunset after putting Luke's lightsaber to rest at his family's moisture farm.

Van Pelt (Jumanji) - This man-hunting murderer makes it clear that he could easily slay anyone who stands in his way, but the rules of the game forbid him from fatally wounding anyone but the specific player who summoned him.

Killers (Dead By Daylight) - Pawns in the Entity's twisted bloodsport are (usually) forbidden from outright killing their targets. Only after correctly performing enough ritual sacrifices are they permitted to satisfy their own bloodlust.

The Counter of the Mountertain (Squidbillies) - A flesh-eating monster that stalks the Appalachian wilderness in search of vulnerable prey. His obsessive compulsion forces him to extend and retract his claws exactly 36 times before he can attack, which commonly grants his would-be victim ample time to escape.

The Voice (Aqua Teen Hunger Force) - This unseen power (Satan himself?) wants nothing more than to warp you into a pocket dimension where his axe-wielding minion, Dennis, waits to chop you into pieces. He can't do this on a whim, though - consuming the entirety of the Broodwich is a prerequisite to him claiming your soul. Picking off even a single sun-dried tomato will prevent his powers from taking full effect over you.

Examples: Bugs Bunny ("Eh, what's up, doc?"), Bender ("Bite my shiny metal ass").

1. Hal Jordan and Sinestro, close friends who never actually stopped being friends, despite what Sinestro did to Hal's life over the years, they remain friends in the end.

2. Joker and Akechi, many of us know this one, a phantom thief vs the detective prince, one of those rivalries that tend to be friendly, and yet very self destructive for both.

3. Batman and Joker, whenever joker dies in batman media, batman feels depressed as if he lost a friend, despite the fact that the one bane of his existence is gone, he feels depressed about it.

4. Light Yagami and L, a friendship that ends tragically, maybe if they met sooner, they'd be close friends for the rest of their lives, and light wouldnt have picked up that note book.

This trope is common in death game medias, and it has always fascinated me. This is when the protagonist of a story about a deadly game goes back in the games again, either voluntarily or not, and they have to do it all over again.

Image 1: Squid Game season 2

Image 2: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Image 3: Alice In Borderland season 3

Image 4: Danganronpa 3 (the anime)

Godzilla

• Godzilla from the very beginning was a personification of nuclear warfare and the destruction, effects, and tragedies it brings. He was stricken by an atomic bomb and was mutated by its radiation, causing him to become a kaiju and destroy the city with his atomic power.

MANY characters (Psychonauts)

• Many mental characters in Psychonauts are representations of the various aspects of the characters minds, with some of them causing the mental problems that plague them. The one you see here is Jasper Rolls who's the personification of Gloria Von Gouton's inner critic.
• Emotional Baggage is represented by sentient luggage bags crying for someone to give them a matching tag to sort them out.
• Censors and Heavy Censors are personifications of the human mind's defenses. They appear as men in business suits with stamps that seek out and destroy thoughts that don't belong to keep the mind healthy.
• Personal Demons are personifications of pent up stress and rage. They appear as imp-like demons with bombs for heads that self-destruct.
• Nightmares are personifications of fears and trauma. They appear as amorphous horned creatures that drag you into a nightmare realm and attack you.
• Doubts are personifications of inner conflicts. They appear as frowning blob monsters that leave puddles that slow you down should you walk into them.
• Regrets are personifications of being weighed down by grief. They appear as flying bug creatures that carry a large weight around and drop it on you.
• Bad Ideas are personifications of negative impulses. They appear as bunny-like monsters covered in red light bulbs that literally blow up in your face.
• Panic Attacks are personifications of the overwhelming stress and overstimulation that they bring. They appear as fast moving strobing monsters that must be slowed down to defeat.
• Judges are personifications of both personal judgement and the fear of judgement from others. They are personifications of literal judges that attempt to crush you with a mallet or throw a book at you.
• Enablers are personifications of rationalizations of negative impulses and ideas. They appear as imp cheerleaders that protects other enemies from harm.
• Lastly Bad Moods are personifications of negative emotions. They appear as angry storm clouds that has a source that must be destroyed in order to defeat them.

Emotions and various locations and objects (Inside Out)

• Obviously there are the emotions being actual people with personalities that match the emotion, but there's a lot of other things like the Train of Thought being an actual train chugging through the mind, a brainstorm being represented by a storm cloud with light bulbs raining down, and sarcasm being portrayed as a literal chasm that turns anything that's said on side into a sarcastic remark when reaching the other side.

The Departments and Sorrows (Have a Nice Death)

• The many departments represent the many ways to die. Industrial Pollution is a grimy dump, Addictions is an asylum filled with pills and drugs, Modern Warfare is a battleground covered in weaponry, Natural Disasters is a wasteland that's caught in a thunderstorm and a wildfire, and Inevitable Time is a technological land filled with clocks.
• The Sorrows, the game's bosses, represent the departments they own as well. Mr. Gordon Grimes is a pile of sludge, Major Warren Pliskhan is a war general, Catherine Imamura is a woman made of water, and Time is an old man.

Sonic and Dr. Eggman (Sonic the Hedgehog)

• Sonic and Dr. Eggman are allegories of nature vs over-industrialization and freedom vs control. Sonic is an animal who values animals and wants everyone to live how they want while Dr. Eggman is a human scientist who wants to build technology over everything and enslave everyone.

While seen as stoic, quiet, and reserved, these are characters who are portrayed as eating very often throughout their appearances in their respective series.

Chisa (Wuthering Waves) - The city where she's from was struck by a cataclysmic event, essentially trapping the citizens in a time loop. Because the people there no longer feel hunger, Chisa eats a lot to not feel "numb" like them.

Oguri Cap (Uma Musume) - Eats a lot as a reference to the real-life Oguri Cap racehorse she was based on, who also possessed a voracious appetite.

Akame (Akame Ga Kill) - Can't remember if there was a lore reason for it since it's been a long time since I watched it... but yeah, she just eats a lot xD

CHAOS - Castlevania Franchise

It was introduced chronologically in the penultimate entry of the series. Chaos was explained as the source of Dracula's power, a sort of Lovecraftian entity that is just quite literally pitch black.

This type of trope can get divisive or hated immediately, but why I think Chaos works is that it doesnt take much agency from Dracula himself and still plays with the themes of the game.

Dracula's Castle is often a symbol for humanity's darkness and the reason why it always appears both during times of unrest (both World Wars) or when humans just want to fuck around and find out. Chaos is fueled by the negative emotions of humans, and Chaos powers Dracula and his castle. Dracula then becomes an agent of Chaos. It can also explain as to how even after Symphony of the Night that he returns evil every time.

What's cool about this is that Chaos lives in the Chaotic Realm, where amalgamations of the Castle live, which directly calls back to Alucard saying that the castle is a creation of Chaos back in SotN.

So when you go back to previous games and encounter Dracula in his second form where the background changes, you can relate the black hole in the Background as Chaos. These visual choices are of course not intentional to be Chaos, but after its entry, we can assume.

Unfortunately, the entity, just like it, does not give a lot of information or was never fleshed out cause the franchise died for almost 2 decades before Belmont's Curse so we only have theories. One theory relates Chaos way back to Dracula's first attack against humanity in 15th century during the events of Dracula's Curse. If the Japanese manual was properly translated, it's revealed that Dracula made deals with entities more powerful than him in order to acquire more power. The series is not unfamiliar with retcons (Alucard was human, but Dracula sold his soul to one of these entities and he became a vampire, but literally no one knows this backstory now and only remember him as the retconned Dhampir in SotN), and the theory states that Chaos is either one of the entities or the only entity. What also holds this theory weight is how Igarashi (main guy in SotN and future Igavanias) have stated that his favorite Classicvania is Dracula's Curse, which is reflected with how he tells the 1999 Demon War as a sort of modern parallel of the events in that game.

1. Walkers (The Walking Dead) : While technically viral in the tv series, if any character dies with their brain intact, they become walkers, bitten or not. When a recently corpse turns into a walker with no bite, it's theorized EVERYONE'S already a carrier.
2. Zombies (Dead Island 2) : The Autophage (zombiefication) is something built into the human DNA. It was just triggered several generations earlier than expected by SOMETHING ELSE.
3. The Undead Curse (Dark Souls) : To immortalize his Age of Fire and Gods. Gwyn screwed with the cosmic order of the world, Fire, and Dark (which are tangible and cosmic elements in the setting). One of its byproducts was the Undead Curse, a point in time where everyone possessing a shard of the Dark Soul (all of humanity) turn Undead, the flow of time gets fucky, and Dark starts overflowing and mutating everything else.

Dark Souls 2 reveals that the Age of Fire WILL be replaced by an Age of Dark, only for the process to have been repeated and will repeat ad nauseum.

Dark Souls 3 reveals what happens when even this cycle reaches its end, after it burns the whole world.

Basically when a protagonist is written to be a Mary-sue who can do no wrong. While every supporting character has better depth and writing. Yet they all basically INSIST that the main characters life is more important than all of theirs combined.

Blacklist

Elizabeth keen is a very run of the mill protagonist. Very often in the story all the supporting characters have their little moments of “wow I would DIE so Elizabeth can figure out who her mom was, she’s THE BEST”.
Meanwhile the writers barely give her more than a surface level of character depth most of the time.

Mission impossible franchise

Ethan hunt is literally written to never have an embarrassing moment and never make any sort of serious mistakes. And if he does it’s corrected seconds later or written to not really be his fault.

ALL of the side characters have their moments to say how awesome Ethan is and how they’d literally die if it meant he got a happy ending etc.

One of the characters that takes over the IMF as the new director literally says “he is the manifestation of destiny”.

This whole franchise is just a big ego stroke for tom cruise and his obvious self insert character.

Bryce Walker - 13 Reasons Why

Negan Smith - Walking Dead

Vageta - Dragon Ball

Hiro Shishigami - Inuyashiki

John wick- red circle club

Street fighter 2026- basically all the charecters have a smackdown at a bumping night club.

Blade- the blood rave.

A lot of the time i find that Tsundere's (or attempts at them) are far, far too mean or act this way for no real reason beyond fitting the archetype. Nagatoro is a good example of what im talking about, and in other cases a character is wrongly labeled a tsundere (Asuka from evangelion).

Toph Beifong: Avatar the Last Airbender

Toph is, by a country mile, the meanest member of her team. She's stubborn, sarcastic, and in classic tsundere style, can never really spit out her feelings. Despite her constant rude behavior and her inferiority complex, she is consistently loyal and honorable. Notably, unlike the rest of the Gaang, she has the least personal stake in actually ending the war. Aang, Katara, Sokka and Zuko all have familial ties binding them to the conflict, while Toph's motivation is largely the selfish (in a good way) desire to self actualize and prove herself more than her disability.

Her more difficult behavior is all coming from a place of needing to be taken seriously, and distancing herself from the image of being a vulnerable little doll her parents have of her. she's been coddled her entire life despite her being (at the time) tied for the greatest earthbender in the world. Her most defining moment of moral fiber, at least in my opinion, is during an event in which she and Appa--the groups flying bison and Aang's beloved pet, remain aboveground so that Toph can keep an underground library from collapsing on the group.

During this time, poachers attack the pair with the intent of kidnapping Appa. Toph responds by trying her absolute heart out to fight them off with TWO handicaps. First, shes spending an immense amount of effort protecting the library, and second, she's standing on sand, thus disrupting her Tremorsense abilities and rendering her even more blind than usual. Protecting both is clearly impossible, but she still digs her heels in and fights until it becomes clear that in order to save Appa she'd have to drop the library. She has to let him go, and spends a large chunk of the following episodes trying to atone for something that wasnt even her fault to begin with.

Toph is a fairly static character, but even she gets growth revolving around her learning to both rely on others and view her own internal strength in a heroic light... still picks on Sokka because she likes him though.

As a final tidbit, when describing one of her kid's fathers in the sequel series, Toph only offers him praise--specifically for his kindness, and the other male characters she crushes on she does so largely because they're kind as well. Despite her struggles to act on it herself, she values kindness (so long as its not condescending) incredibly highly.

Natsuki: Doki Doki Literature Club

Natsuki is first introduced as a stereotypical tsundere. She cant spit out anything nice without getting embarrassed, calls people mean names she clearly doesnt mean, and is all around kind of rude to the unnamed player character. Similar to toph, a lot of this comes from a place of being seen as childish and patronized. Her more simplistic style of poetry (i personally think shes the best poet in the group but i digress) and perceivably childish love of manga have left her very insecure. On a much darker note, her father is abusive and regularly starves her, resulting in her being underweight and (its implied) having a delayed puberty as well, so she looks even younger than she is.

Alongside her desire to be taken seriously, Natsuki heavily values authenticity and sincerity in how she and others present themselves... and the PC is lying about his intentions in joining the club--which Natsuki suspects. He's there to hang out with cute girls and possibly find a girlfriend, and any rudeness she shows to him beyond her baseline insecurity is completely justified.

Despite this, Natsuki is the most authentic member of the group, and is actually incredibly reasonable. As Monika (who is insane for plot reasons) gradually drives the other two girls, Sayori and Yuri increasingly insane by cranking up the dial on their worst traits (Sayori's clinical depression and Yuri's obsessiveness and inclination towards self harm), Natsuki remains relatively stable. She becomes far more cruel in her comments and insults, but even at the group's absolute worst, she desperately pleads with the PC--who she doesnt even trust--to do whatever he can to help Yuri, who at this point has been told Natsuki to off herself to her face. Even when Yuri is at her most hostile and Monika is acting like a psychopath, Natsuki is empathetic enough to know that this isnt who either of them are and that they need help--which displays a staggering amount of maturity from the character who initially seemed the least mature.

Si: Arknights Endfield

Si is effectively an immortal demigod... who happens to be only "well over a century" years old, making her the youngest of her kind by a longshot. the 13th of 12 (dont ask) VERY old siblings, Si is in a very weird place. She's described as a weird mix of a bratty teen and a cranky old lady, which makes a lot of sense in context.

See, Si is too told and too powerful to connect with most normal people, as anyone her mental age will grow out of it almost immediately, and she's already outlived many of her friends. She's also too young to truly relate and connect with other immortals, including her siblings who left her largely to her own devices, leaving her feeling incredibly lonely.

Her Tsundere tendencies come from feeling the need to present herself as a benevolent deific figure, while also having a very, VERY strong need for companionship that is going completely unmet. This combo means she often acts like she's stern and disappointed, demanding others be sufficiently courteous as befitting her station while instantly crumbling the nanosecond she actually upsets anyone she cares about... or suspects she did... or is anxious they might leave.

In terms of the player character, the Endmin, they are the one real connection she has. The Endmin often overexerts themselves, leading to them being in a medical coma for long periods of time, meaning the endmin is the closest in age and lived experience to her. theyre both deified figures who are seen as living legends, while still being people who put their connections with others as a primary motivator.

Well... the last said medical coma left Endmin with amnesia, so theyve completely forgotten Si. Whoops. She's obviously very hurt by this, even if she knows its not really our fault. She still voluntarily helps everyone that asks (and a lot of the time she beats them to the punch) and her little mini arc in 1.6 focuses on her taking the Endmin through a sort of spirit-quest (its complicated) to cure a spiritual wound they suffered. The entire time she is manipulative and dishonest, trying to get the Endmin to abandon their quest.

Her motivation for doing so is twofold. First, this quest poses a genuine threat to her friend's wellbeing (the equivalent of running a diagnostic on them nearly fucking kills the Endmin), but also because... well... we fucking asked her to. This entire quest was Pre-amnesia Endmins idea as both a test of your resolve, and as a chance for you to choose a different path if this wasnt what you wanted.

Si didnt want to put you through this, but does so anyways because both past and present you insist on it.

Even outside of the arc, all of her interactions have her being mildly rude or annoying at worst, and reading between the lines on basically... anything she says to you translates as "You're really important to me; i'm still important to you, right?"

When another character offers his assistance in your quest, she rudely brushes him off despite him approaching with perfect etiquette, writing him off as an "unnecessary nuisance" using even a single synapse will decipher that what she really means is "he's interrupting my time with you."

---

Si's honestly probably my favorite example of a Tsundere because i never once felt like she went too far or was being that way for no reason. She's an awful liar so no matter what she actually says, the player can always see through her like freshly cleaned glass. It keeps her in the territory the game wants her to be in (endearing). obviously everyone measures these things differently but i found her adorable

1. LSP- adventure time

2. Sir Pentious- hazbin hotel

3. Fry- futurama

Samantha (Ghosts): Can have conversations with the dead that only she can see and her living husband who can't see them.

Rand al'Thor (Wheel of Time): Would try to talk to Lews Therin in his head while dealing with people.

Vision (VisionQuest): Can have a conversation with his reincarnated son Thomas while also talking to the other A.I.s in his head