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Affair Letters

181 statements
34 feature instances
24 referencing feature instances

Affair Letters	type	FeatureClass
Affair Letters	label	Affair Letters
Affair Letters	page	AffairLetters
Affair Letters	comment	Alice and Bob are having a Secret Relationship of some sort, and as part of it, they exchange letters. The nature of these letters is romantic, erotic, or both. They are labeled as from one party and to the other, containing both Alice and Bob's names, and maybe a kiss mark. They may even include the date. In old times, the letters were handwritten, though nowadays emails and texts are more likely. Thanks to the Rule of Drama, having written evidence of their affair is going to get messy. This can go down a few different ways. Blackmail: Charlie knows—or at least suspects—that the letters exist, and actively seeks them out to use as blackmail against Alice and Bob. Revenge: Alice and Bob are exes, and Alice threatens to use their letters as blackmail against Bob. In this situation, Alice usually has less to lose from their exposure than Bob—perhaps Bob was cheating on someone while she was single. Alternatively, it may be a Taking You with Me scenario, where Alice is willing to take the backlash from the letters if it means hurting Bob. Alice may be a Woman Scorned. Accidental: Charlie stumbles across the letters by accident. Usually Charlie is not the person Alice and Bob really don't want to know—Charlie tends to be a third, unrelated party of some sort. Now Charlie is the Secret-Keeper, or the Secret Secret-Keeper. Charlie has to decide whether or not to tell someone. If Alice and Bob know Charlie knows, they will beg, bribe, and threaten Charlie not to tell. Charlie will likely find that Keeping Secrets Sucks. People may try to Destroy the Evidence, often by burning it. A common add-on is that these are letters document a long-ago affair that either makes the paternity of a baby conceived around that time questionable, or outright proves that it's not the child of the presumed father. This trope requires a Secret Relationship of some sort. It may be Queer Romance, Maligned Mixed Marriage, Uptown Girl, or more than one of the above. Compare Love Letter Lunacy—a different kind of love letter drama—and Love Letters in general. Also see Affair Hair and Lipstick Mark for other types of evidence of affairs.
Affair Letters	fetched	2023-10-19T19:29:52Z
Affair Letters	parsed	2023-10-19T19:29:52Z
Affair Letters	processingComment	Dropped link to FemmeFatale: Not an Item - FEATURE
Affair Letters	processingComment	Dropped link to ImpliedTrope: Not an Item - FEATURE
Affair Letters	processingComment	Dropped link to TheBlackAdder: Not an Item - UNKNOWN
Affair Letters	processingUnknown	TheBlackAdder
Affair Letters	isPartOf	DBTropes
Affair Letters / int_261c8d3f	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_261c8d3f	comment	A Paternity example in The Simpsons: In "Homer's Paternity Coot", a frozen mailman is discovered and his letters are finally delivered; one of them is a letter from a Mason Fairbanks, whom Homer's mother Mona cheated with, causing him to doubt if Abe really is his father.
Affair Letters / int_261c8d3f	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_261c8d3f	featureConfidence	1.0
The Simpsons	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_261c8d3f
Affair Letters / int_302f8e34	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_302f8e34	comment	My Girl: Inverted Trope; it is Youko's unsent letters to Masamune that confirm that she loved him from a distance for the last 5 years of her life.
Affair Letters / int_302f8e34	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_302f8e34	featureConfidence	1.0
My Girl (Manga)	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_302f8e34
Affair Letters / int_308b58ce	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_308b58ce	comment	A Pocket Full of Rye: Adele Fortescue was having an affair with one Vivian Dubois. She kept his letters in her desk, in what the police thought was a rather obvious secret drawer.
Affair Letters / int_308b58ce	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_308b58ce	featureConfidence	1.0
A Pocket Full of Rye	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_308b58ce
Affair Letters / int_4512381d	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_4512381d	comment	Walker: In "Don't Fence Me In," Walker discovers his mother, Abeline, was in a relationship with another man when he finds letters from the boyfriend.
Affair Letters / int_4512381d	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_4512381d	featureConfidence	1.0
Walker	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_4512381d
Affair Letters / int_50cb8af5	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_50cb8af5	comment	The Vision of Escaflowne: A Paternity example, where Princess Millerna finds letters between her late older sister Marlene and Allen Schezar confirming that her son Prince Chid is actually Allen's and was conceived before she married the Duke of Freid. For worse, Millerna herself has feelings for Allen, making all of this even more awkward.
Affair Letters / int_50cb8af5	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_50cb8af5	featureConfidence	1.0
The Vision of Escaflowne	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_50cb8af5
Affair Letters / int_629cd094	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_629cd094	comment	In the Return to Ostagar expansion of Dragon Age: Origins, you can find in King Cailan's camp letters between him and Empress Celene of Orlais revealing that he plans to divorce his wife Anora and marry her. If you have Loghain, Anora's father, in the party when you find this he's incensed by this and calls them, respectively, a "cheating bastard" and "bitch."
Affair Letters / int_629cd094	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_629cd094	featureConfidence	1.0
Dragon Age: Origins (Video Game)	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_629cd094
Affair Letters / int_6c39a620	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_6c39a620	comment	Ascendance of a Bookworm has a subverted accidental version. Rozemyne assumes that this is what she has found when she stumbles upon a secret correspondence between the deceased man who previously occupied her current job and a woman. It results in her keeping the letters secret from her mentor when she shouldn't, as the woman is actually a cherished relative of the deceased who causes many problems later on, in part because Rozemyne's mentor didn't know they were in contact with each other.
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Affair Letters / int_6c39a620	featureConfidence	1.0
Ascendance of a Bookworm	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_6c39a620
Affair Letters / int_72262aee	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_72262aee	comment	In the infamous Avatar: The Last Airbender comic How I Became Yours, Zuko's Unwanted Spouse Mai finds out that he has been cheating on her with Katara and that she's pregnant with his kid by finding Katara's letters to him. She then hides the letters to keep Zuko from finding out and sends Katara a basket with poisoned fruits; Katara eats some and ends up having a Convenient Miscarriage. Oh, and in the end Zuko finds the letters anyway.
Affair Letters / int_72262aee	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_72262aee	featureConfidence	1.0
Avatar: The Last Airbender	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_72262aee
Affair Letters / int_7680545c	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_7680545c	comment	The Nanny: Subverted in "Schlepped Away". Fran mistakenly thinks that her mother Sylvia is cheating with the butcher when she finds a love letter stashed in a packet of meat. It turns that Sylvia just flirts for lower prices, with Fran's father Morty's blessing, no less.
Affair Letters / int_7680545c	featureApplicability	-0.3
Affair Letters / int_7680545c	featureConfidence	1.0
The Nanny	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_7680545c
Affair Letters / int_7e8e0bdb	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_7e8e0bdb	comment	A Paternity example: In the Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Search comic, Zuko finds letters from his mother Ursa to her former lover Ikem to that seem to indicate his father wasn't actually Fire Lord Ozai. His father actually is Ozai, but Ursa wrote this specifically to see if her letters were being intercepted—which they were—and even though Ozai knew it was a lie, he decided to treat Zuko like he wasn't his son anyway just to spite Ursa. Zuko destroyed the letter afterwards
Affair Letters / int_7e8e0bdb	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_7e8e0bdb	featureConfidence	1.0
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Search / Comicbook	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_7e8e0bdb
Affair Letters / int_877eac68	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_877eac68	comment	The Familiar of Zero: Narrowly averted Blackmail version. While young, Prince Wales of Albion and Princess Henrietta of Tristain fell in love and she at one point sent him a letter declaring her eternal love. Reconquista wanted to get hold of the letter as its contents would prevent Henrietta's marriage to the Germanian Empire and the military alliance of the two nations. Henrietta predicted this and sent Lousie and Saito to retrieve it first.
Affair Letters / int_877eac68	featureApplicability	-1.0
Affair Letters / int_877eac68	featureConfidence	1.0
The Familiar of Zero	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_877eac68
Affair Letters / int_8c2f925c	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_8c2f925c	comment	In Weregeek Mark's girlfriend found the emails his and Sarah's Vampire the Masquerade LARP characters exchanged and—failing to understand that it was just part of a game to him—causing the end of their relationship.
Affair Letters / int_8c2f925c	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_8c2f925c	featureConfidence	1.0
Weregeek (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_8c2f925c
Affair Letters / int_8d80fb70	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_8d80fb70	comment	Klem: A handwritten note from Hugo, adressed to Kitty, in which he writes about "our passionate night together a few years ago", ends up in Marius's hands. The latter is furious at finding out his wife had an affair. Turns out the letter was actually written by Judith, note who either somehow knew about it or had a lucky guess, and was doing it to get revenge on Kitty not by any of the two people who had the affair, so it was an Invoked Trope.
Affair Letters / int_8d80fb70	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_8d80fb70	featureConfidence	1.0
Klem	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_8d80fb70
Affair Letters / int_8d814070	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_8d814070	comment	In an episode of MAS*H, Major Houlihan is very upset after receiving a passionate letter from her husband, Donald Penobscott, that's addressed to a woman named Darline. To add insult to injury, the letter mentions her as "a hard worker" and "sturdy". In the end, she decides to get back at him by sending him back an equally passionate letter addressed to a guy named Hank. The two divorce in a later episode.
Affair Letters / int_8d814070	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_8d814070	featureConfidence	1.0
MAS*H	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_8d814070
Affair Letters / int_91000781	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_91000781	comment	Cable Girls: Elisa finds the letter Francisco wrote for Lidia/Alba, it says "I will always love you, Alba". Obviously this is conclusive proof of some kind of affair
Affair Letters / int_91000781	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_91000781	featureConfidence	1.0
Cable Girls	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_91000781
Affair Letters / int_97862f2c	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_97862f2c	comment	If There Be Thorns: Jory finds a letter Chris wrote to Cathy in the attic. Unique for this trope, it's not who the letter is between that's the issue—it's the mention of Cathy being 13 at the time, when they'd told Jory they didn't meet until they were adults.
Affair Letters / int_97862f2c	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_97862f2c	featureConfidence	1.0
If There Be Thorns	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_97862f2c
Affair Letters / int_99c746c0	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_99c746c0	comment	Spiritfarer: When Astrid gets worried about where her husband Giovanni went, she gives Stella a suspicious letter she found in the mailbox, not wanting to read it. It's a love letter from Jennyfer, who invited him to her apartment at Oxbury.
Affair Letters / int_99c746c0	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_99c746c0	featureConfidence	1.0
Spiritfarer (Video Game)	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_99c746c0
Affair Letters / int_9d0a8dc8	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_9d0a8dc8	comment	Lies, Sisters and Wives: It turns out that Fredrik has a mistress who sends him letters. When he thinks that Jim has discovered his affair, he assumes he read the letters.
Affair Letters / int_9d0a8dc8	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_9d0a8dc8	featureConfidence	1.0
Lies, Sisters and Wives (Webcomic)	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_9d0a8dc8
Affair Letters / int_a61bda23	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_a61bda23	comment	Life Is Strange: Max and Chloe find love letters Rachel wrote to Frank in his RV. Chloe does not take it well, to say the least.
Affair Letters / int_a61bda23	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_a61bda23	featureConfidence	1.0
Life Is Strange (Video Game)	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_a61bda23
Affair Letters / int_a86661f2	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_a86661f2	comment	Rutherford Falls: Reagan finds letters denoting an affair involving Nathan's mother, that seems to prove Nathan illegitimate.
Affair Letters / int_a86661f2	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_a86661f2	featureConfidence	1.0
Rutherford Falls	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_a86661f2
Affair Letters / int_abe2e836	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_abe2e836	comment	And Then There Were None: General MacArthur figured out his wife Leslie was having an affair with his Number Two Arthur when he received the letter she'd sent her lover. He pulled a successful Uriah Gambit on Arthur during WWI, but the guilt caused him to retire early (and Leslie never recovered from her lover's death). This is why Judge Wargrave summoned him and other murderers to the island, since he wanted to kill them all as punishment for deaths that they got away with: he kills the General soon and rather swiftly, via hitting him on the head with a large rock.
Affair Letters / int_abe2e836	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_abe2e836	featureConfidence	1.0
And Then There Were None	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_abe2e836
Affair Letters / int_bf42e29d	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_bf42e29d	comment	In the Hitman (2016) mission "The World Of Tomorrow", 47 can find a love letter to Francesca De Santis from her lover Roberto. Her being an assassination target, 47 can use this knowledge to set up a fake rendezvous with a poisonous surprise.
Affair Letters / int_bf42e29d	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_bf42e29d	featureConfidence	1.0
Hitman (2016) (Video Game)	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_bf42e29d
Affair Letters / int_c7ff0090	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_c7ff0090	comment	The basis of the plot of The Last Letter From Your Lover. Jenny and Anthony wrote letters to each other throughout their relationship. While Jenny was amnesiac, her husband Lawrence found the letters chronicling her affair with Anthony and hid them in his study. When she confronts him about it, he lies that Anthony died in the car accident to throw her off. When Jenny tries to take flight with Anthony years later and misses him, she leaves the letters with the London Chronicle, which is where Ellie finds them decades later. In the present day, Ellie and Rory muse on the comparative ease of communicating with a lover now (texts and emojis).
Affair Letters / int_c7ff0090	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_c7ff0090	featureConfidence	1.0
The Last Letter From Your Lover	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_c7ff0090
Affair Letters / int_c931ab66	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_c931ab66	comment	In Like Water for Chocolate it looks like Gertrudis has a Chocolate Baby from cheating on her Colonel Badass lover Juan, until her sister Tita finds letters that showed their mother Elena had an affair with a mulatto man (a slur for half black and half white people), and that Getrudis was the result of such an affair. She shows Juan the letters and clears up Gertrudis' name.
Affair Letters / int_c931ab66	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_c931ab66	featureConfidence	1.0
Like Water for Chocolate	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_c931ab66
Affair Letters / int_cdae0b41	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_cdae0b41	comment	In the Forever (2014) episode "The Art of Murder" Gloria Carlisle attempts to burn these, but a large fragment with the signature of her artist lover at the bottom survived for Henry to find. Lampshaded by Jo.
Affair Letters / int_cdae0b41	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_cdae0b41	featureConfidence	1.0
Forever (2014)	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_cdae0b41
Affair Letters / int_cf5e589	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_cf5e589	comment	Evelyn Prentice: Evelyn wrote letters to Larry which he wants to use against her to blackmail her.
Affair Letters / int_cf5e589	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_cf5e589	featureConfidence	1.0
Evelyn Prentice	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_cf5e589
Affair Letters / int_d2e2ca76	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_d2e2ca76	comment	The George Lopez Show: In one episode, George and Angie find old, unopened letters that clue them in that both of them were cheating. Subverted; it turns out that Benny wrote both letters and planted them to screw with their heads.
Affair Letters / int_d2e2ca76	featureApplicability	-0.3
Affair Letters / int_d2e2ca76	featureConfidence	1.0
The George Lopez Show	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_d2e2ca76
Affair Letters / int_d564aa82	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_d564aa82	comment	A paternity example in The Nikolai Duology. The queen of Ravka wrote a bunch of love letters to Magnus Opjer with whom she was having an affair despite being married to king Alexander. This later causes some problems for her already rumored to be illegitimate son Nikolai (now the king of Ravka), when the rulers of Fjerda get their hands on the letters and use it to try to get Nikolai removed in favour of a cousin of former king Alexander who is more friendly towards Fjerda.
Affair Letters / int_d564aa82	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_d564aa82	featureConfidence	1.0
The Nikolai Duology	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_d564aa82
Affair Letters / int_dd07ec1b	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_dd07ec1b	comment	In The Great Houdinis, Harry has an affair with Daisy White. A medium obtains some of the letters exchanged and tries to use them against Harry during the congressional hearing.
Affair Letters / int_dd07ec1b	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_dd07ec1b	featureConfidence	1.0
The Great Houdinis	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_dd07ec1b
Affair Letters / int_eef69f10	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_eef69f10	comment	Sherlock Holmes A Revenge version is the entire premise of the story "A Scandal in Bohemia"—Irene Adler is (allegedly) threatening to send a letter and photo from their affair to her ex-lover's new in-laws. A Blackmail version: Charles Augustus Milverton specializes in paying large amounts of money to servants in exchange for such letters, then demanding huge amounts of money from the people involved (mostly women) to prevent the incriminating letters being sent to the husbands. Another Blackmail version turns up in "Second Stain" - a spy uses an indiscrete letter once written by a woman now married to a minister to force her to steal important documents for him.
Affair Letters / int_eef69f10	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_eef69f10	featureConfidence	1.0
Sherlock Holmes	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_eef69f10
Affair Letters / int_f1d492d4	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_f1d492d4	comment	Chronicles of the Kencyrath An Accidental version: The famous courtesan Melissand is having an affair with the "virgin" wife of the richest man in the city. They exchanged letters, and they panic when Jame inadvertently steals those letters (which were hidden inside the object she meant to steal). A Blackmail version: In a backstory scene, we see how when she was young, Rawneth got let into Kinzi's room where she dug through her possessions until finding an old love-letter from Kinzi's lover Adiraina. Rawneth tries to blackmail Kinzi with it, though Kinzi shut her down.
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Affair Letters / int_f1d492d4	featureConfidence	1.0
Chronicles of the Kencyrath	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_f1d492d4
Affair Letters / int_f2041376	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_f2041376	comment	Charmed (1998): Piper learns about her mother's relationship with her whitelighter Sam when she finds love letters Sam had kept. This happens long after her mother's death, so there really isn't a reason to hide the relationship anymore; it mostly serves to highlight the Generation Xerox, since Piper is now in a relationship with her own whitelighter Leo. Infamously, it also by complete accident sets up the reveal a season and a half later that there is a fourth sister.
Affair Letters / int_f2041376	featureApplicability	1.0
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Charmed (1998)	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_f2041376
Affair Letters / int_f7ee5371	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_f7ee5371	comment	Accidental example: In About Schmidt, retired life actuary Warren Schmidt finds letters written by his co-worker Ray Nichols. Those letters implicate Ray having had an affair with Warren's late wife Helen. Warren furiously goes on a rampage to "correct" this situation by destroying all of Helen's belongings, throwing the letters back at Ray and finally giving him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
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About Schmidt	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_f7ee5371
Affair Letters / int_fda9c8b	type	Affair Letters
Affair Letters / int_fda9c8b	comment	In season 1 of Downton Abbey there's a Revenge version: Thomas and the Duke of Crowborough were lovers once, and Thomas—who's a big fan of blackmail—threatens the Duke, saying he'll show their letters. The Duke burns them before Thomas gets a chance, though.
Affair Letters / int_fda9c8b	featureApplicability	1.0
Affair Letters / int_fda9c8b	featureConfidence	1.0
Downton Abbey	hasFeature	Affair Letters / int_fda9c8b

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Evelyn Prentice / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Possession / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
The Favourite / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
The Great Houdinis / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
The Last Letter From Your Lover / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Tormented (1960) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
A Pocket Full of Rye / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Like Water for Chocolate / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
The Nikolai Duology / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Mars (Manga) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Mars (1996) (Manga) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
My Girl (Manga) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Forever (2014) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Klem / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Rutherford Falls / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Walker / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Walker (2021) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Hamilton (Theatre) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
The Massacre at Paris (Theatre) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Shadows of Doubt (Video Game) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Spiritfarer (Video Game) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Elements of Justice (Web Animation) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Lies, Sisters and Wives (Webcomic) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters
Weregeek (Webcomic) / int_d29d163f	type	Affair Letters

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