Follow TV Tropes


Serial Escalation

Go To
Wait 'til you see the centuple one. Fun fact: 

"Kara, when I started living this life it was just me and I was going up against human threats. That I can handle. Then it was the metahumans and I can handle that. And now I learned that there are multiple Earths and I was brainwashed aboard an alien spacecraft."

Some series push themselves up and over the top, surpassing the bar they just set themselves a few episodes ago. Then they do it again. And again. And again.

This isn't meant to be confused with the buildup to season finales or a plot climax, but rather a consistent escalation in events that always exceeds what a viewer would expect. When this is done well, a new Moment of Awesome is, at any given moment, just around the corner. When done poorly, what would constitute as a Moment of Awesome can feel ordinary, or even absurd.

Not to be confused with Up to Eleven, where a series, group, or artist make a point of topping whatever was the latest, greatest thing (including if it was their own thing). To make a Serial Escalation is to create an enormous stack of such occurrences, generating a series of events that top the prior consecutively.


For events that are impossible, go to Beyond the Impossible.

Related to Sequel Escalation.

Compare Troperiffic, Exaggerated Trope, Logical Extreme, Lensman Arms Race, Sorting Algorithm of Evil, Power Creep, Mid-Season Upgrade, and Next Tier Power-Up.

Works with their own pages



    open/close all folders 

  • Destroy the Godmodder:
    • The game started out as a silly Minecraft-themed forum game with little story beyond a Random Events Plot. Then, in DTG2, the series slowly evolved into the large-scale conflict with intricate plotlines, illustrations, and proper roleplaying that it is known for today.
    • In-universe, the Godmodder perpetuated this. In the first game, he was attacking a small Minecraft server. At the start of the second, he traps every Minecraft player on a server. Now, an inter-universal team of bigger villains overshadows him, and they may not even be the biggest bad of the game.

  • During the Transformers toy line's original run in the 1980s, Hasbro tried to top a number of their own gimmicks. For example, in 1985, Hasbro introduced the Triple Changers — toys that had three transformation modes (one robot mode, and two vehicle modes) instead of the usual two. In 1987, they introduced Sixshot — a toy that had SIX transformation modes!


How well does it match the trope?

Example of:


Media sources: