Abuse Tropes

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In a work of fiction, there will be two people, most likely in a close relationship with each other, as parent and child, siblings, friends, or romantic partners. But, unfortunately, one is abusing the other partner, either emotionally, financially, physically, sexually, or a combination of some or all of these. The person may also be required to be in a certain place or institution, such as a school, that they have no choice but to be in, making them perfect captives for the abusive staff member(s) who work(s) there. Sadly, abuse is all too common in Real Life and is a very serious and terrible thing. There are a significant number of works that recognize this and treat it as such, but there are also those who downplay abusive behavior and even portray it as funny or even romantic.

For information on how abuse and abusers present themselves in Real Life, consult our handy Abuse page in the Useful Notes section. However, because of how sensitive of a topic abuse is, a lot of the tropes in this index are No Real Life Examples, Please!. To look up characters who have been or are on the receiving end of abuse, consult This Index Has Had a Hard Life.

Not to be confused with Loophole Abuse.

See also A Tortured Index, Child Abuse Tropes, Dirty Social Tricks, Parental Issues, Sexual Harassment and Rape Tropes, and Threatening Tropes.

Tropes:

• Abuse Discretion Shot: Abuse is not fully shown onscreen.
• Abuse Escalation: The abuse worsens over time.
• Abuse Mistake: Something innocent is mistaken for abuse.
• Abusive Monster Metaphor: A monster's behavior serves as a metaphor for abuse.
• Abusive Offspring: When children abuse their parents.
  • Self-Made Orphan: When children kill their parents.
• Abusive Parents: People who are abusive towards their children.
  • Abusive Alien Parents: Extraterrestrials are shown to be abusive to their offspring.
  • Archnemesis Dad: Villainous fathers are more often abusive.
  • Evil Matriarch: Villainous mothers are more often abusive.
    • Wicked Stepmother: Abusive stepmothers (or stepfathers).
  • Hilariously Abusive Childhood: A character is shown to have an over-the-top abusive childhood for Black Comedy.
  • Loving Parent, Cruel Parent: One parent is loving, the other is abusive or violent.
  • Offing the Offspring: Someone kills their own child or children.
• Abusive Personality Shift: A previously caring person becomes abusive to their loved ones.
• Affair? Blame the Bastard: Taking out your anger from your spouse's infidelity on the bastard child born of said infidelity.
• All Abusers Are Male: The work only shows male characters as being guilty of abuse.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Someone gets abused by everyone else just for being different.
• All Take and No Give: An unequal and parasitic relationship, where one person receives all the benefits while giving back nothing.
• Babysitter from Hell: A babysitter who is abusive or incompetent.
• Bad Bedroom, Bad Life: A character, often a kid with an abusive family, has a horrible bedroom as a result of their horrible life.
• Bad Boss: A character is shown to be evil by the way they mistreat their own minions and followers.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: A character is shown to be evil by having them be cruel to animals.
• Bedlam House: A psychiatric hospital that is effectively a Hellhole Prison for the patients, doing nothing to make them any less crazy.
• Beg the Dog: A character seeks help from someone he would normally abuse or disrespect.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension (in extreme cases)
• Big Brother Bully: A character who picks on their younger sibling.
• Bigot with a Badge: A racist cop or other law enforcement officer who doesn't change.
• Boarding School of Horrors: A boarding school that is abusive to its students.
• Bunker Woman: A woman is kidnapped and held somewhere contained, usually a bunker, usually by a man.
• Cain and Abel: Sibling rivalry turns into bitter hatred with murderous intent.
• Callously Casual Cheating: Someone blatantly cheats on their partner, often just to cause them pain.
• The Chain of Harm: An abused character starts abusing someone weaker than them which continues the cycle.
• Child Abuse Is a Special Kind of Evil: Child abuse is seen by everyone as a terrible, monstrous crime.
• Cigarette Burns: Putting out a cigar/cigarette on someone else, often as a form of abuse or torture.
• Closet Punishment: A parent punishes their child by locking them in a closet.
• Contraception Deception: Lying about birth control to manipulate or control one's partner is reproductive abuse.
• Creepy Clingy Caretaker: An assigned guardian or carer grows abusively obsessed with their ward.
• Cuckold: A husband who spinelessly lets his wife cheat on him.
• Dark and Troubled Past: May involves a character having suffered some kind of abuse in their past.
• Daycare Nightmare: A daycare center with poor management and/or abusive caretakers.
• Desperate Abuser Apology: An abuser tries to get a victim of theirs to come back by apologizing.
• Destroy the Abusive Home: A character destroys the home they grew up in and were abused.
• Destructive Romance: A very unhappy and horribly abusive love relationship.
• Diabolical Dog Catcher: Animal control officers who abuse any animal unlucky enough to encounter them.
• Disability Exploitation: A character exploits someone's disability to hurt them or get something they want.
• Doesn't Mind a Beating: A character doesn't protest being beaten up by a friend or love interest.
• Domestic Abuse: Someone abuses their spouse.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Parents use Corporal Punishment on their children as a method of punishment.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Female abusers and male victims are not treated as seriously as male abusers and female victims.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: A military commander who frequently yells at the soldiers he's in charge of.
• Drunk with Power: When given power, a person will abuse their underlings.
• Elder Abuse: Abusing an old person, especially .
• Ending the Abuse: The successful breaking of an abusive relationship, however the means.
• Exploiting the Ignorant: A character abuses someone by taking advantage of their ignorance.
• False Abuse Accusation: A character falsely accuses someone of having abused them, sometimes to the point of faking evidence.
• False Adultery Accusation: A person will accuse their partner of having an affair and fabricate evidence to blackmail them.
• Fetishized Abuser: A person who abuses their lover, but it's portrayed as romantic and/or sexy.
• Financial Abuse: Abusing a family member by using money to control them.
• Forced from Their Home: Someone kicks the resident out of their own home to get them out of the way.
• Forced Miscarriage: Forcing a pregnant woman to miscarry.
• Forced Overwork: Forcing someone else to work beyond what's reasonable and healthy for them.
• Fostering for Profit: Someone fosters a child purely for business.
• Gaslighting: Trying to drive someone crazy by making them believe that they are already insane.
• Gruesome Grandparent: When grandparents abuse their grandchildren.
• Handy Shortcoming: The thing a person was abused for ends up being the thing that's needed for the situation.
• Hates Defiance: The abuser hates being defied by other people.
• Henpecked Husband: A husband who submissively does everything his wife says can get into this territory if it goes too far.
• Honor-Related Abuse: Abuse that is committed in order to enforce a twisted code of personal honor/pride, and to punish those who are perceived to be violating it.
• Honor Thy Abuser: A character learns to forgive and respect their abusive relatives, usually their Abusive Parents.
• Horror Disguised As Play: Something monstrous — often abuse — is excused as a game to make sure the victim doesn't protest.
• If I Can't Have You…: Wanting to kill someone you're in love with just because they haven't returned your affections or have gone with someone else.
• Infertility Intolerance: A character is abused for being infertile.
• Intentional Heartbreaker: Toying with someone emotionally by dating them with full intent to dump them later.
• "Just Joking" Justification: Disguising verbal and/or emotional abuse as lighthearted jokes.
• Karmic Abuse: A character suffers abuse as a form of karma.
• Kichiku: Anime Fanspeak for a male Fetishized Abuser.
• Kichiku Megane: Anime Fanspeak for a male Fetishized Abuser who wears glasses to indicate that he is smart, sophisticated, and successful.
• Kiss-Kiss-Slap: Couples kissing before fighting each other.
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss: Couples fight before kissing each other.
• Left in the Storm: A character, often an abuser, leaves someone else to suffer in a storm.
• Lima Syndrome: An abuser shows empathy for their victim.
• Love Martyr: Staying with a person you love in spite of how horrible that person really is.
• Loving Abuser: Abusers who genuinely love the ones they abuse, and may even be abusing their loved ones out of a misguided attempt to care for them.
• Loving Bully: This person is only a bully to the person they have a crush on.
• Mad Love: Having an unhealthy obsession with someone who is uninterested and/or abusive.
• Manipulative Bastard: An abuser will often be this.
• Masochism Tango: A couple who frequently alternate between being affectionate and fighting.
• A Match Made in Stockholm: Two people become lovers after one abuses the other.
• The Neidermeyer: An insane military leader who treats his own troops as disposable.
• Nobody Likes a Tattletale: Children won't tell adults about their problems (especially bully problems) because they're scared of being labeled tattletales.
• Obscene OB-GYN: A gynecologist or a urologist takes advantage of their patients.
• Orphanage of Fear: An orphanage where the orphans are abused and tormented by the people who run the place.
• Parental Favoritism: Parents like one child more than the rest of their children.
  • The Un-Favourite: The parents' least favorite child who is ignored and neglected in favor of the other children.
• Parental Incest: Excepting cases of Surprise Incest, a parent having sex with their child is abuse.
• Parental Neglect: A parent who doesn't take care of a child.
• Pedophile Priest: A priest who sexually abuses children.
• Pimping the Lover: A character has their romantic partner pimp themselves out, often nonconsensually.
• P.O.W. Abuse: A prisoner of war is abused by their captors.
• Rescuing the Abused: Someone who has suffered any form of abuse is rescued from their situation.
• Romanticized Abuse: Abuse is made to look more attractive than it truly is.
• Sadist: A person who enjoys hurting people.
• Sadist Teacher: A teacher who loves tormenting their students.
• Second-Face Smoke: Blowing smoke into another person's face, especially to show dominance.
• Sex Slave: A person is enslaved for the purpose of forcing sex upon them, or for selling them into forced prostitution.
• Sexual Predator Boss: An authority figure sexually abuses their subordinates.
• Sink-or-Swim Mentor: Training someone by throwing them into danger.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: A character is harsh and mean, but actually depressed and fearful, usually the result of abuse.
• Stalking Is Funny if It Is Female After Male: When a woman stalks a man, it's cute and amusing. However, if a man stalks a woman, it's considered creepy.
• Teasing the Substitute Teacher: Students mistreat their substitute teacher.
• Tough Love: Treating your loved ones harshly in order to make them better.
• Training from Hell: Extremely tough training that may involve physical abuse.
• Treated Worse than the Pet: Someone's status in their family is so low that even animals are treated better or valued more than they are.
• Troubled Abuser: An abuser who has emotional problems that they need to address.
• Troubled Toybreaker: An abused, neglected or otherwise troubled child vents their anger by destroying toys.
• Tsundere (when she uses physical violence against her love interest)
• Weaponized Allergy: Exploiting someone's allergy against them.
• Whip of Dominance: Using a whip as a symbol of dominance, control, authority, or sadism.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: An abuser makes their victim feel like the abuse was their own fault.
• Would Harm a Senior: You're an old person? Too bad. I'm gonna beat you up anyway!
• Would Hit a Girl: A person is perfectly willing to hurt females.
• Would Hurt a Child: A person has no problem with hurting children.
• Yandere (when they don't respect their target of infatuation as a person)