Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?
Yesterday you took out a whole army of war clanks
That was a small army
. This is a big spider
A seemingly invulnerable character reveals that they are deathly afraid of X
... therefore, X
is certainly going to be a recurring obstacle, no matter how unlikely
. The Trope Namer
is a line in Raiders of the Lost Ark
, reminding us that Indiana Jones
hates snakes when he discovers that the Well of Souls is crawling with them.
A subset of Fatal Flaw
. Fear of Thunder
(also known as brontophobia), Spiders Are Scary (arachnophobia)
, Afraid of Blood
(hemophobia), Afraid of Doctors
(iatrophobia), and Afraid of Needles
(trypanophobia) are specific sub-tropes of this.
This is common in horror/sci-fi stories dealing with a "master of fear" (such as Freddy
, or the Scarecrow
), in which the monster uses his powers to guess his victim's worst fear
, and then use it against him/her to make them a quivering heap
. Enemies who know about this weakness are prone to use Flaw Exploitation
and as a way of coercing the hero
. It can also overlap with The Dreaded
. If an innocuous object causes fear that renders someone helpless, it may overlap with Weaksauce Weakness
. Also compare Absurd Phobia
, where an unusual (and usually non-plot relevant) fear is Played for Laughs
As you can imagine, Truth in Television
. Compare Primal Fear
for examples where common phobias are gleefully exploited in horror fiction. No personal examples, please. Not to be confused with Reptiles Are Abhorrent
, but it helps to explain it some.