That Poor Plant/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: The effect something has on living beings is demonstrated by its effect on a plant.

  • Straight: Mad Scientist Doctor Phylophobe demonstrates his new supertoxin by dropping a small amount on the leaf of a nearby pot plant, causing it to shrivel up and die on the spot.
    • Dr. Hazel Roseflower demonstrates her health-boosting nanobots by introducing them to a blotchy, pest-eaten plant, which instantly begins repairing its damage and visibly growing larger, as dead caterpillars drop to the soil around it.
  • Exaggerated: Phylophobe drips his toxin on a blade of grass in an arboretum - a black wave spreads across the ground as every plant in a 100-yard radius dies off.
  • Downplayed: Nothing happens, at first. Then the Doctor produces One I Prepared Earlier, which is blackened and wilted.
  • Justified: The scientist is developing an Agent Orange-esque fast-acting herbicide. Killing plants is precisely what it's designed to do.
  • Inverted: "Is the herbicide ready, doctor? We must drive out the Tree-Top Town-dwellers!" "It seems to be vorking beyond my vildest predictions! It efen effects animal life - observe ze effect on zis hamster..."
  • Subverted: The toxin does nothing, and the scientist angrily declares his return to the drawing board.
  • Double Subverted: ...Then a fly lands on the plant, and dissolves.
  • Parodied: The Board of Evil Financiers crowd around the plant on the desk with bated breath as the scientist drips a purple liquid on its leaves. He looks up, puzzled. "Oh, zis? No, zis is just to get rid of ze aphids. I asked you here to see my Death Ray..."
  • Zig Zagged: ???
  • Averted: Phylophobe starts to go into the gory details of his extensive Animal Testing experiments, but his boss queasily announces that he'll take his word for its efficacy.
  • Enforced: We need a visual demonstration of the effects, but we're not going to show Animal Testing on a Saturday morning cartoon...
  • Lampshaded: "What do I care what it does to a frickin' rosebush? Does it work on people?"
  • Invoked: ???
  • Exploited: ???
  • Defied: ???
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???

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