Close Knit Community/Playing With

Basic Trope: A community where everyone looks out for everyone.
 * Straight:
 * Dot and her friends play around town; the time they broke in the quarry, canterkous old Mr. Smith yelled at them and then called all their parents, who punished them for ignoring the dangers, and when Dot fell and scraped herself bad, Miss Jones brought her onto the porch and bound up the cuts, and when they exhausted themselves exploring too far, Mrs. Black drove them back to their neighbor.
 * Mortimer is tired about how everyone always knows what he's up to, and tuts over his misadventures, and goes to the big city, where he nearly gets killed by crime, and no one cares, and returns home sadder but wiser.
 * Jack, Walking the Earth, finds a peril menacing the peasant village. They rally about wise old Esmeralda, who sets up prepartions and has them give Jack all the help he needs. Jack discovers that he likes staying there, and does.
 * Exaggerated: Everyone is willing to die when someone's dog is threatened.
 * Downplayed: At one point in the story, Sally's neighbor takes a package for her.
 * Justified:
 * Helping one's neighbors is a cultural norm.
 * Or alternately, it's a Sugar Bowl.
 * Inverted: Ariadne's neighbors never help her; when she goes on a journey, random travelers do.
 * Subverted: The professions of concern are only a chance to work up some spiteful gossip, which isn't even truthful.
 * Double Subverted: But that's because it wasn't a real problem; when real trouble arises, they rally about.
 * Parodied: ???
 * Zig Zagged: ???
 * Averted: The neighbors aren't given a chance to intervene in the plot, for any reason.
 * Enforced: ???
 * Lampshaded: "You were really foolish to pick on Jack, Mister Bad. You should have known we would all stick together to help him."
 * Invoked: ???
 * Exploited: The Big Bad kidnaps a child from the village, knowing that no villager will endanger the child.
 * Defied: ???
 * Discussed: ???
 * Conversed: ???

Back to Close Knit Community