1. Harry Potter. The Wizarding world keeps magic secret from the Muggle world, meaning that they do absolutely nothing to help Muggles even though they could easily cure countless ailments among other things. As Hagrid puts it, if Muggles knew about magic "Blimey, Harry, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone". So wizards aren't "afraid" of Muggles (nor should they be given the power difference), they're just selfish.
2. Black Panther. An infamous comic established that Wakanda has the cure to cancer, but refuse to share it with the outside world because reasons, after all we deserve it since cigarettes exist. Since then, comics and other media have been a lot more criticial of Wakanda's old isolationism and Wakanda has opened up and shared it's technology and advances with the world, but the whole cure to cancer thing has been swept under the rug and might as well be non-canon.

What I mean by that is, characters have access to some rather impressive technology/magic and simply do not use it because for plot reasons.

Harry Potter - In the first book, McGonagall is revealed to be able to turn into a cat. Later, four more characters are revealed that can also turn into animals. And yet, not a single student during Harry's time decided that it was worth it to do the same.
On top of that, Harry barely learns any spells during his time at school, nor does he seem to take in anything from his classes. The only times he does learn something is when it is the solution to a problem he has faced before.

Fallout 4 - Father, the leader of the Institute, is dying from cancer. In a realistic setting, it would be understandable that he is going to die. However, this is the universe of Fallout. In NV, a simple robot can cure a guy from a brain tumor. In 4, the Institute somehow stopped the aging of another guy. The Institute is also able to replicate perfect human beings from scratch. The only reason why Father should be dying is, he simply does not want to use the technology that is present.

Protagonists who are a power fantasy, in that they are always (or nearly always) smarter than those that disagree with them. Whether they are a good or bad guy, their detractors are often quickly and embarrassingly put in their place with a over-written monolog that is meant to come off as cool.

Paddy (sas: rogue heroes) Based on a real person, the character is elevated to a god-teir superhero. Part of the military, yet he can mouth off to authority as he pleases and break rules, something militaries famously love.

Tommy Noris (landman) this one is just oil industry propaganda. Tommy's purpose is to ramble misinformation about green energy as women half his age bat their eyes at him for being so manly.

When a crossover basically does the exact opposite of what the source material clearly lays out because the creators clearly just don’t care about the source material at all.

Emil - Dead by Daylight

The one that inspired this post. Emil as a character is the most hopeful, optimistic, and kind character in the entire NieR series, maybe in all of Yoko Taro’s games (maybe aside from Yonah). His goal is to help as many people as he possibly can and even when he goes through immense suffering he always comes out the other side ready to keep on helping people.

Then Dead by Daylight adds him as a killer skin, because “he looks creepy.” You know, the aspect of the character that’s his biggest struggle, that causes him to be scared of how people will judge him, and that makes him hate himself. That’s what we’ll base our entire concept on. Genius idea.

Iron Giant - Ready Player One

Technically you could argue that it’s not an example because it’s just a part of the game and Wade is the one misunderstanding the source material. To that I raise you that this is actually an in universe example of the trope, with the game including the Iron Giant as a crossover where you can use him as a weapon, thereby misunderstanding the source material.

Also it’s probably the filmmakers completely misunderstanding the source material/not caring as well.

Luck & Logic: This karaage is either tough as heck to eat or she does not know how to eat at all

Ro-Kyu-Bu: Two girls exhibit a severe lack in motor skills whilst rallying the basketball back to each other

I don’t know if it has a name, but these were the first two that came to mind.

Alien Resurrection: Weyland-Yutani, the big bad conglomerate with seemingly infinite reach and power, is bought out by the retail store Walmart.

Loki: You know those Infinity Stones which hold the power to reshape the universe, the stones which drove Infinity War and Endgame’s plots? Yeah those are useless actually.

House Elves (Harry Potter): An entire race of sapient magical beings who have been enslaved by wizardkind for centuries, with a lot of them suffering horrific abuse at the hands of their masters, yet the books only treat this as bad when the House Elf in question has an "evil" master, like Lucius Malfoy. When Hermione, who was raised by humans, is horrified about this and starts a movement to advocate for the rights of House Elves, she's treated as misguided and an annoying Soapbox Sadie. Because oh my gooood Hermione, just let it go, they clearly like being enslaved and being magically compelled to do whatever they're told or they're forced to violently punish themselves. Except they clearly don't, Dobby and Kreacher hated their masters, but let's ignore that.

Hades' Souls (Lore Olympus): Yep, you've read that right. This man, who is among the richest and most powerful gods in the setting, is bragging about using slave labor to his love interest. Hades could easily pay the souls a living wage, he's a billionaire and one of his powers is to create diamonds from thin air. But that would mean being a bit less rich. So obviously it's better to brainwash the shades into performing labor. The story barely adresses just how messed up that is. At most it's played for a joke. We're still supposed to view Hades as a good man and king with just a few quirks.

Naofumi and Raphtalia (Rising of the Shield Hero): Naofumi buys Raphtalia when she's still a child and at several points uses the magical slave crest on her to cause her pain so she'll obey him. But it's okay you guys, Naofumi's not like other slave owners! When he's not using a shock collar on her he's actually really nice to Raphtalia! She doesn't even want to be free anymore because she fell in love with him and it's not grooming, definitely not grooming./s

EDIT: Holy shit, the amount of people in the comments defending actual literal slavery is disturbing. A comment I made that said "slavery is objectively wrong" already got two downvotes. What do I even say to that?

EDIT 2: Apparently Stockholm Syndrome isn't actually a thing. I changed the wording on the third example, thanks for informing me.

Most common example I could think of was the old “I just want a BLACK COFFEE” shtick where the protagonist encounters a coffee shop that must obviously be completely run by snobs and morons while they themselves are a classic American hero who doesn’t know what a latte is.

(Louder milk) the main character Sam insults an (admittedly annoying) barista over her exaggerated valley girl accent.

(Bad thoughts) tom segura fantasizing about how coffee shops are actively trying to do their jobs incorrectly and he must be the benevolent voice of reason (rage)

(Roel models) apparently every coffee shop in the world would be dumbfounded over the concept of ordering a simple black coffee.

My leg from SpongeBob: at first it was hilarious that they had a hidden stock scream of someone yelling “my leg” as a running gag (no pun intended) however once people caught on more, they kept acknowledging it (having characters clearly say it, changing the line around etc.) the joke finally became unfunny when they did a whole episode about it.

The bush backing up from the Simpsons: a funny scene from an episode years ago, decades later people used it as a reaction image, funny! But then the show staff caught on and referenced it a bunch of times, then official merchandise of the scene happened, and eventually it became a full attraction at D23, no I don’t even smile when I see it.

Rose Cotter and Skye Riley are the main protagonists of the Smile duology. Both goes through tremendous traumatic experiences and hallucinations, in hopes of driving them crazy. Tries their best to escape the Smile demon. for all their troubles and attempts, are unsuccessfully and ends up being brutally killed anyway.

Drag Me to Hell has Christine Brown be cursed by some old raggedy hag. She tries to put the curse or defeat it. She thinks she got it beat, hoping that burying the button with the hag will stop it. The movie leads to believe she has successfully beat it, until a gut punch ensues and she is LITERALLY dragged down to hell in front of Justin Long

Hereditary (2018): Hereditary is about a family who gets cursed by the kids grandmother to serve this ancient god. The daughter dies, the father dies, the mother gets possessed and dies, then the son gets mentally broken and the ancient god successfully transfers his soul into the son.

1. Snape from Harry Potter

This is the Batman of this trope and probably talked to death, but retroactively, Snape from the Harry Potter series has been cast as a black man. As a POC, I could talk for hours about how lazy ‘representation’ this is, but this particular choice to recast the character puts several parts of the books in a much worse light: Snape is described as a smelly man with greasy hair, who gets walked out on by his abusive father, spends his whole life trying to buddy up to (white) pure-bloods who would never accept him for who he was, and gets bullied by a bunch of rich white kids who he resents. And then he becomes a wizard racist. Also doesn’t help that he spends the entire series resenting James Potter because he feels he should have been with his wife, who incidentally is also white.

A retcon managed to make all of these aspects of his character incredibly uncomfortable, especially because the whole story is often described as an allegory for racism. But seriously, if you were going to make a teacher black, why go for the smelly, greasy, evil one rather than literally any other character (Dumbledore, McGonnogal, etc.)?

2. Jo and Link in Grey’s Anatomy

So this is really my fault for watching Grey’s but whatever. Link and Jo are introduced very early on as best friends and nothing more, but later, the series retcons this and secretly, they were in love always!

Which sounds fine to start, but both characters have been in several committed relationships before this retcon, in which they repeatedly reassured their partners there was nothing between them (they were like brother and sister!). Link proposes to another character with four different rings because he wants her to have a choice, Jo gets married to a man who she previously reassured that Link wasn’t an issue. This relationship in particular was a fan favourite, so it’s a really odd thing to retroactively cheapen the whole thing (although the writers do worse to it retroactively but that’s not the point).

Even worse, Jo was previously in a physically and emotionally abusive marriage (not the one mentioned above). As she had no family, her husband repeatedly isolated her from Link, her only friend, on the basis that they were secretly in love and she was cheating on him. I don’t think the writers considered that by making Jo and Link always in love with each other, they were lending the abuser credence? Asking your wife to not talk to the man she is in love with anymore isn’t unreasonable, which is a really weird direction to take an abusive relationship in.

I guess this also bothers me because they could have just fallen in love. They could have just been friends who began to see each other a different way. The retcon worsens both characters and several plots

Toy Story Alien Hat: This innocuous looking hat based off of the aliens from toy story was later worn by Logan Paul, who infamously wore the hat as he walked into Japan's suicide forest and saw a dead body there while reacting silly.

Cover of Control: The character featured in the cover for the game Control was later used as the calamity mod dev Ozzatrons profile picture, who later turned out to be a pedophile and caused the whole mod to stop development.

The Fred Hitler scene-Velma

On one scene Fred tries to look like a harmless good kid in front of everyone on the way to a courtroom because he is accused of murder ,but both the rain and his gestures to try to stop people from taking pictures end up making him look like Adolf Hitler.

This being about the internet point of "everyone who disagree with me is literally Hitler".

Easy to get right? Well apparently the writers thought a character outright saying "he looks like Hitler! And not just because we compare everyone to Hitler today" was needed.

Doc shelly's strenghts and weaknesses-Jumanji Next level

In the sequel of jumanji the main characters get sucked into the game again, and after surviving an ostrich stampede they check their strengths and weaknesses.

With doctor Shelly's being endurance (like in the previous film) and 3 new ones: Heat , sun , and Sand.

If you are looking at the picture you probably get what the joke is.

If not , don't worry , they made Jack black say "great , its not like we are on a goddamn desert!".

The joke is funny regardless but i think It couldve been better without It.

Meg (Family Guy) - In Seahorse Seashell Party, Meg finally has the guts to stand up to her family for their mistreatment of her, only to realize they cannot function without the "lightning rod". She apologises to her family for standing up, accepts her role as the punching bag for the family, and they all hug in the end.

Hughie (The Boys) - In Season Four Finale, Annie gets angry at him for being assaulted by a shapeshifter impersonating her; even the episode treats it like it was Hughie's fault. But then he apologizes, forgives her anger and blame, then Annie forgives him back and jokingly tells him to get tested for STDs, and Hughie is delighted for that, and the show portrays this as a noble thing to do, emphasizing him as the heart of the team. What's worse is Hughie was the victim of another assault case before, and he lost his dad recently. Yes, Annie's mind wasn't all right as she was freed from being kidnapped for many days by that same shapeshifter, but still...

To borrow Billy Butcher's quote: "Where's your f###ing rage!? Your self-respect??"

NOT this trope: Historical pieces set in times in which people actually didn't know better. Ie, something set in the 18th century referencing Miasma theory (as it wasn't yet debunked), a cowboy drama set in the 19th century when people still thought you should suck venom out of a snakebite.

Examples OF this trope:

Friends [The one with the Jellyfish] Someone gets a jellyfish sting and they treat it by peeing on it. DO NOT DO THIS!!!! This was set in the 90s.

Little Clowns of Happy Town: They sing a song about what to do when someone's drowning. At one point, they raise questions - ie, if you can't find a life-preserver or a raft. They say "Then go in yourself". I don't need to explain why this is a bad idea, right? This was set in the 80s - even THEN they should know better.

"You have to wait 24-48 hours before reporting them missing", shown in King of the Hill: This is a common myth - the only reason I posted King of the Hill is that Luanne was told this by a police officer. In reality? You should not assume you have to wait 24-48 hours. These are the most crucial - especially for children, seniors, and in the cases of mental health.

24: Torture works and is effective. Do I really need to explain this?

I don’t hate the “you’re special” message, just the execution of portraying it through giving everybody else super awesome powers.

Mirabel - Encanto: Love the movie. And I just recently rewatched Encanto and enjoyed all the messages a lot more than I did the last time. But Mirabel was treated so dirty throughout the movie, man. Not getting a power made some villagers treat her like shit. Her grandmother blamed her for all of the family’s problems (which Mirabel had to fix). And the craziest part to me is that not getting a power meant she wasn’t given her own bedroom, therefore had to share a room with her younger cousin. Hopefully they at least built her one when they rebuilt the house because not getting a super power means you’re SoL and have to sleep in a nursery.

Lloyd - Ninjago: I used to be a huge Ninjago fan. To not get into a long tangent on all the weird changes they made for the movie, I’ll just focus on Lloyd’s lack of powers. He had powers in the tv show (and was the most powerful among his friends). But he didn’t in the movies so that he could be told he’s the color of life or some shit.

Another gripe with the special powerless people are that their job is to be the leader of said powerful people, like that removes the sting of not getting to create lightning, or have super strength or something of the like.

Edit: I’m not including Midoriya from My Hero Academia because he got powers through most of the series.

Edit 2: Tooooons of comments about me “missing the point” of Encanto. No, I haven’t. The first sentence I wrote literally explains that. I just don’t like when “they have super powers but you don’t” specifically is used as their vehicle for portraying such message. It’s as simple as that.

The Chameleon - Kung Fu Panda 4

She wants to steal the skill of every kung fu master in history because she was rejected from training in academies because she was too small. This is despite the fact we’ve seen Praying Mantises, Snakes and even Chickens become highly skilled fighters.

Russ Cargill - The Simpsons Movie

Springfield is the most pollutive city in America, so his plan is to permanently quarantine the area from the rest of the world. When that fails his nuclear option (no pun intended) is to bomb the city with an explosive. His plan to curb pollution is to bomb a city with an active nuclear power plant.

Evelyn Deavor - Incredibles 2

I’ve talked about her to death so I’ll make this quick. She wants to make superheroes illegal, however they were already illegal when her plan begins so she was working on a plan to make them doubly illegal I guess. If she genuinely did nothing all movie she would’ve got exactly what she asked for.

Disclaimer: the first example shown is actually outdated as when I bought this game the developers listened to the feedback and made the final level accessible to all difficulties.

I'm not talking about locking cutscenes, achievements and other non-gameplay content. I'm talking about games not allowing the player to progress unless they choose a specific difficulty.

I'm not against games mocking the player for choosing low difficulty. That can be pretty funny sometimes, assuming the game is still playable.

I feel like the worst part about this trope is how deceptive it actually is. When I pick the difficulty for a game, I want to play a game at that difficulty. And the game wastes the players time by forcing them to play higher difficulty after finishing.

Platypus Reclayed - due to community feedback, this feature was removed, and the final level is now accessible to everyone. Considering that the game substantially increased in difficullty this was especially painful. I'm glad devs realised that though.

Cuphead - not only simple mode prevents your progressing and is not accessible on final bosses, it also straight up doesn't allow you to experience some phases. Which means it cannot even be used to practice the bossfights, unlike some other incarnations of this trope.

The Binding Of Isaac: Fiend Folio - calling "Super Easy mode" a "difficulty" is a little bit of a stretch as it plays more like a minigame than a variation of the base game. And it's so short you can't even complain about your time being wasted.

Undertale - reverse trope: the "hard difficulty" ends prematurely. This one works because it's: a) the mode is very quick, b) is NOT treatet like a hard mode for the base game c) the reversal of this trope is actually pretty unique IMHO.

Eve’s Pregnancy (Invincible: The Viltrumite War) Eve is one strongest and most versatile heroes earth has to offer and her powers of matter manipulation could easily turn the tide in the coalition’s favor (and that’s not even getting into her unbounded state) so to make sure the war has some actual stakes, the had mark get her pregnant which resulted in her losing her powers forcing her to sit on the sidelines for the entire arc.

Sending Hulk to space (Marvel: Civil War) one of the main issues of the writers of the Civil War event faced when coming up with it was the fact there’s a shit tone of Uber powerful heroes whose which ever side they’d join would just automatically win, namely Thor and Hulk, luckily for Thor he’s been dead for a while due to a previous event in his own comic, but what about Hulk you ask? Well apparently before the whole civil war thing even started, the 5 smartest heroes on earth (Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Mr.Fantastic, Black Bolt, and Professor X) all decided "Hey, you know one of our best friends who has helped us through multiple crises and has been shown to be able to be far more than just a mindless monster? Let’s drug him and send him into space because we’ve arbitrarily decided he’s too dangerous to be around NOW."

Goku’s Heartvirus (Dragon Ball: The Future Timeline) The point of Android/Cell Arc was the fact as soon as Goku died everything went to shit, so going back in time and saving Goku before he dies is our heroes only option, and yeah by multiple creator statements, games what if scenarios and characters in story themselves if Future Goku Survived he would’ve put belt to the androids, avoiding the bad future we have now.

Family Guy, Season 10 Episode 2, Seahorse Seashell Party:

This episode is infamous. With whole Griffin family trapped inside the house during a storm, Meg decides to finally gather the courage to confront her family about how horribly they treat her. However, this causes the family to break down emotionally and start fighting with each other. Meg decides that her family needs one person to direct all of their abuse at in order to not destroy each other. She apologizes to her family and everything returns to status quo.

Malcolm In The Middle, Season 4 Episode 7, Malcolm Holds His Tongue:
Malcolm realizes that his life is much better if he does not speak every insult or complaint that comes to his mind. His relationship with his parents and coach greatly improve due to him actually acting politely and cooperatively with those around him, even when he disagrees with them. Then, Malcolm spits up blood during a basketball game and it is revealed that holding back all of his endless complaints and insults caused Malcolm so much stress it gave him a peptic ulcer. Now with the knowledge that his attempt to be more civil resulted in him getting injured, Malcolm returns to his old ways of insulting and complaining at everyone in his life.

Edit:
Just to clarify one thing, I do understand that often a character’s flaws are necessary to drive the story forward, especially for episodic comedies like the two examples I listed. But I don’t want the characters to ever be given an excuse for their flaws. If the character holds on to their bad habits, that should be because the character is flawed, not because the plot contrived a way to excuse the action.

Dr. Robert "Rocket" Romano from ER
Ah yes let me scream at the ground and not even try to move so we can get this cinematic shot with 7 camera angles

Randy from The Raft Creepshow 2
"I gotta make the oil slick monster look fast by building up to run and rocking back and forth"

This is the trope where in the beginning the story implies that power/heroism isn't born it's made through hard work and right choices. Only to later go "Nah turns out this character was born special from a special family"

Rey Skywalker - Star Wars

Terry McGinnis - Batman Beyond

Naruto - Naruto

Mulan - Live action Mulan

1. Torturing a decent couple (Home Sweet Home Alone) – In this remake, the kid tries to defend his home from intruders, like in the usual Home Alone films. However, unlike the original movie, where the intruders are actual criminals trying to rob the house and attempted to harm a child several times, here they are a sympathetic, desperate couple trying to retrieve their stolen property so they can afford to keep their house. They are basically decent people, so watching them being tortured (and some of the methods are quite extreme) is far more painful and not funny even in the slightest. It also doesn’t help that the kid in this movie is a massive brat, and some of the reactions from the couple feel more realistic.

2. Foxy getting lobotomized (Chicken Little) – This is one of the most infamous cases of this and the karmic overkill trope. During an alien attack on Earth, she gets kidnapped and lobotomized by them, and her entire personality is rewritten from a nasty tomboy into a giggling girly girl. When the aliens are appeased and prepare to depart Earth, they offer to change her mind back, but one of Chicken’s friends, Runt, refuses, saying they like her better this way, and then he begins dating her. This is all treated lightheartedly as comeuppance for her bullying, but in reality, it is quite horrifying.

Game of Thrones (Season 8)

Imagine a fantasy show spending seven years hyping up an apocalyptic, unstoppable army of ice zombies, only to have them wiped out in a single, anti-climactic battle halfway through the final season. With the supernatural threat gone, the writers speedrun the political plot. A major hero whose entire arc was about liberating the oppressed randomly burns a city of innocent people to the ground because she heard some bells ringing. Another main character throws away years of a beautifully written redemption arc just to go die under some falling bricks with his abusive sister. To top it off, they crown a guy as king purely because "he has a good story," even though his plotline was so boring he was literally written out of an entire previous season.

Homestuck

This was a massive, incredibly complex webcomic that ran for seven years. Late in the story, the author basically wrote himself into a corner. To fix it, he gave the main character "retcon" powers, which literally erased years of actual character development from the main timeline just to force a solution. The most agonizing part was using this timeline-erasure to resurrect a highly controversial character (Vriska). Instead of leaving her beautifully tragic death alone, she comes back just to hijack the entire plot, sideline the rest of the cast, and aggressively steal the spotlight for the final battles. After 8,000 pages of text-heavy reading, the actual ending is just a flashy music video with no dialogue, leaving fans watching alternate versions of the characters cross the finish line instead of the ones they actually spent years getting attached to.

Star vs. the Forces of Evil

This was an upbeat animated show about a magical teen princess. The writers desperately wanted a romantic endgame for her and her best friend, but the way they got there was essentially multiversal omnicide. To stop a villain, the main character unilaterally decides magic is the root of all evil and destroys it entirely. By doing this, she casually commits mass genocide against every purely magical being in the multiverse. It also triggers a massive apocalyptic event that violently crashes different dimensions together into a chaotic hellscape. But the show frames this horrific, mass-extinction catastrophe as a sweet, triumphant ending just because two teenagers get to hold hands in the rubble.

Mass Effect 3

You spend well over a hundred hours across three massive sci-fi video games carefully agonizing over who lives, who dies, and shaping the political landscape of the entire galaxy. The entire franchise was heavily marketed on the promise that your specific, personal choices mattered. Then, in the literal last ten minutes of the final game, a holographic ghost child pops up, tells you none of your previous decisions actually meant anything, and forces you to pick between a red, blue, or green laser beam. All three choices basically just give you the exact same ending cutscene with a different color filter slapped over it.

How I Met Your Mother

For nine whole years, audiences watched a sitcom framed entirely around a dad telling his kids the incredibly long, meticulous story of how he met their perfect mother. The writers even dedicate the entire 22-episode final season to a single weekend for his two best friends' wedding, proving why they work as a couple. Then, in the two-part finale, they hit the undo button. The best friends get divorced almost instantly, the titular Mother is abruptly killed off by a nameless disease after barely being on screen, and the kids basically tell their dad, "You actually just want to hook up with Aunt Robin." It invalidated a decade of story just so the creators could use a pre-recorded ending they filmed back in season 2.

Dexter

This was a show about a serial killer who works for the police and only targets other murderers. After eight seasons of watching him narrowly evade the law, the ending absolutely refuses to give him a dramatic showdown, let him finally get caught, or face any actual justice. Instead, he unplugs his own sister from life support, dumps her body in the ocean like she's one of his random kill-of-the-week victims, and drives his boat into a hilariously awful CGI hurricane. He somehow survives this, abandons his young son to be raised by another serial killer in a different country, and the final shot reveals he faked his death to exile himself to the woods and become a miserable, silent lumberjack.

1. The beginning of Fargo begins with it saying it's based on a real crime. That is a crock of shit lol.
2. The movie is saying that Balto did all the work and was a hero. In reality, it was a dog named Togo who ran the longest stretch (350+ miles) whereas Balto ran the final 53 miles.
3. Another example is Dahmer where it glorifies him and downplays his actions.