Trope Talk: Character Development Coma

"The average character is unlikely to talk like they're trying to get a good grade in therapy" gotta be one of my favorite quotes

I hate that feeling when I stand up too fast and start having vague and ambiguous visions of my future that prompt me to reconsider my life for a few seconds.

"Oh my gosh are you okay?" - "I fly now" Gotta say I love the built-in jokes on the slides, they always get an unexpected laugh out of me

I love that almost any trope talk can circle to Avatar. What a great series.

I don't think I've ever heard someone refer to Anakin slaughtering the younglings as "morally questionable".

“Call me Nat Geo because I’ve got a ton of gorgeous issues” is an amazing line and I am 100% stealing it

As a narcoleptic, this video was one inside joke with myself after another 😂 I will now be referring to cataplexy as a 'character development coma' and take daily power-up naps. (Also, it's an awesome trope talk.)

Practically, getting physically knocked out and sent into a character development coma is the storytelling equivalent of percussive maintenance

Someone literally fighting their own metaphorical character traits is my favorite

Ah, fiction, where "coma" always ends in waking up, fresh as a daisy.

I love when Plot happens in Aurora and like two months later a trope talk comes out conveniently coinciding with that Plot

Lovecraft used to use fainting spells just to avoid having to write an end which would explain how his first person narrator survived long enough to tell the story.

I wonder how much development I'm missing because I don't remember my dreams.

As soon as you mentioned dreams giving exposition, I immediately thought of Percy Jackson. Every dream he has is either symbolic or just straight up showing what is happening with the enemies. I swear, never once has this pour kid ever dreamt of going to school naked, or magically transforming the gods into gummy worms or something.

Describing Anakin slaughtering children as "morally questionable" is the biggest understatement I've heard in a very long time.

And once again we see Red's ongoing quest to implement footage from The Owl House into every single trope talk.

When I read “Character Development Coma” I think of a character dropping all their character development up to that point like most of the characters at the end of game of thrones.

My absolute favorite is when the character feels like they managed to solve all of their internal conflict through a dream but reality isn't agreeing with that and it becomes a problem

Star Wars, at least in the Clone Wars, often has functional character development comas that take place while the character is still awake but on a strange, Force powered planet. Take the Mortis Saga or Yoda's Arc for examples. In these arcs, the characters are isolated and the planets are so strong in the Force that strange, illogical, and impossible things happen almost like it's a dream. These locations are isolated too, so only the character experiences them and when they return, it almost feels like a dream even though the things actually happened. I think it was a very cool way to do a character development coma without actually putting the character to sleep. Lucas didn't delve much into character imaginations and dreams, he focused much more strongly on the objective and real (in his world). Even the nLucas explored dreams, those dreams less imagination and more often future events that were going to happen. So he constructed these worlds where the Force made impossible but real things happen to develop his character but these locations were so isolated that they didn't impact the rest of reality but they did impact the character who experienced them. That's how Lucas used Dogabah as well, it's a remote world where strange things happen to Luke and he communicates with Force ghosts to develop him. It's a functional character development coma but it actually takes place in the reality of the movie.

You've been waiting for Red to talk about the "Character Development Coma" trope for quite some time. Yes, yes, I know. You'd like to know how long...I'm afraid it's been...nine years.