r/TopCharacterTropes • u/BagOfSmallerBags • 1d ago
Characters [Loved Trope] The one random episode that doesn't follow the main characters
Heated Rivalry Episode 3 "Hunter": The show stops following Hollander and Rozanov's love story to follow another hockey player, Scott Hunter, and his romance with a smoothie store employee.
The Last of Us S1E3 "Long Long Time": Joel and Ellie need a car. So to explain why there's a car waiting around for them to use, they show us an incredibly heartbreaking love story lasting 20 years between two men Joel knows. They have a car.
Doctor Who S3E10 "Blink": With no explanation given, this episode begins with a character we've never met, one Sally Sparrow, poking around an abandoned building. Our lead character, The Doctor, is glimpsed seemingly randomly on TVs. What is going on? Did that statue just move!?
MythicQuest S1E5 "A Dark Quiet Death": Rather than continuing to follow our lead characters as they develop an MMORPG, we flash back many years to witness the history of a couple who start a videogame company, and how over the years the pressure to drive sales causes them to give up on their artistic integrity.
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u/BloodRedRage_ 1d ago
A lot of serially published works (Dickens, Dumas, Hugo, etc.) have this because the authors used lengthy digressions to sell more type. The main example that comes to mind is in The Count of Monte Cristo, where Dumas will go for several chapters setting up a single side character like Luigi Vampa, the morse code operator, or the boy who fell in love with Villefort's daughter.