Going to See the Elephant/Playing With

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    Basic Trope: A meaningless trip.

    • Played Straight: Alice and Bob and a bunch of their friends or relatives go on a cross-country road trip just to see a famous landmark or natural wonder.
    • Exaggerated: They arrive there and head home immediately afterwards.
    • Inverted: The trip actually has a purpose, such as a real quest, a business trip, a religious retreat, etc.
    • Justified: The group wants to see the landmark or natural wonder in question before it's destroyed.
    • Subverted: The Captain sends the Five-Man Band on a mission to Mount Everest.
    • Double Subverted: To take pictures, and maybe say hi to the Yeti for him.
    • Deconstructed: The trip is a complete waste of time and serves no purpose.
    • Reconstructed: The characters have lots of memorable experiences and become closer to one another on the trip.
    • Parodied: The purpose of the trip is to go see some cheesy tourist trap.
    • Lampshaded: "We went all this way, just to see some stupid statue?!"
    • Averted:
      • The trip serves some sort of purpose besides just crossing something off Bob's Bucket List.
      • The group does not go on any trip.
    • Enforced: "We need to give them something to do...how about a road trip?"
    • Invoked: Bob mentions that he wants to go see Far Side Island before it sinks.
    • Defied: Bob chooses a trip that's more meaningful.
    • Exploited: The Big Bad invented the destination in question specifically to lure the heroes there.
    • Discussed: ???
    • Conversed: ???
    • Played For Laughs:
      • The trip is mentioned as a Noodle Incident
      • All the road trip antics involved in getting there
    • Played For Drama: The Big Bad is there, destroying it.

    Back to Going to See the Elephant

    This article is issued from All The Tropes. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.