The Grovel
One character has hurt or betrayed another, usually their love interest. Perhaps their love learned that they only started dating because of The Bet, or perhaps the offender accuses the other of cheating. In any case, they are now in a Second Act Breakup.
Eventually, however, the offender decides that they cannot live without their love interest or learns that they were horribly mistaken about them. But how to make it up to them? How to convince them to take you back? By groveling, an act of apology so sincere the love interest will have to forgive you. This may take the form of a long speech but occasionally circumstances call for something more drastic to prove they have really changed.
The offender is usually male and the forgiver usually female, but not always.
When done well, this trope provides drama and emotional catharsis for the audience. Debts have been repaid, sins have been forgiven, and the couple will now live Happily Ever After.
When done poorly, this trope can be seen as demeaning or emasculating the offender. The penalty is too harsh for the crime, and his apology is too extravagant for such a minor offense. It may have the hidden moral that you have to debase yourself to find love.
On the other side of poorly done, this trope can make the forgiver appear weak. If reparations have not been made, a simple apology may be letting the offender off too easily. In real life, the Domestic Abuse cycle often consists of abuse - apology - abuse, which may imply that the abuse will continue.
This trope is common in romance novels and romantic comedies.
Anime and Manga
- Several times in Hayate the Combat Butler, Hayate thinks he has done something to make Hinagiku angry with him and he invokes this trope in an attempt to smooth things over. This usually suprises her, both because he hasn't done anything of the sort and she would have forgiven him instantly anyway.
- Taken even further when he actually begins to grovel for something that actually does anger her, along with the fact that he'd even tried to hide it, but then she makes a statement that confuses him, and then helps him correct the mistake.
Film
- The Truth About Cats and Dogs ends with a rare example of the female lead grovelling to her male Love Interest.
- In Never Been Kissed, Josie poses as a high school student and falls in love with her teacher Sam. When it's revealed that she's actually a 25-year-old investigative reporter, she prints an apology in her paper and tells him to meet her at the baseball stadium if she accepts. Then she waits there with the whole town watching to see if she'll be accepted or rejected.
- In 10 Things I Hate About You, after getting Kat so royally pissed off at him that she won't speak to him, Patrick is instructed to "sacrifice yourself on the altar of dignity and even the score." Patrick opts for a marching-band-assisted rendition of "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" in the middle of her soccer practice which nets him detention. However, she forgives him and helps him get out of detention.
- The Will Smith vehicle Hitch has a particularly Egregious example, following his love interest flipping her lid and publically breaking up with him due to completely false information supplied by a Smug Snake whose reputation she was well aware of. After refusing to take her back after she later comes by to apologise, the climax becomes him chasing the woman to apologise for not accepting her apology.
- In The Blues Brothers, Jake Blues delivers one of these (in the form of a Hurricane of Excuses) to the fiance he left at the altar. She forgives him and they kiss passionately - only for him to then drop her in the mud and run off again.
Literature
- In A Civil Campaign, Miles offered Ekaterina her dream job just to keep her close to him. When she learns the truth, she runs away and he sets out to write the best damn apology letter ever, sealed in his own blood. Nothing like a determinator bent on groveling better than anyone else has ever groveled. 17 drafts! (One of them was in verse.)
- In Demon Blood, Deacon kneels before Rosalie and offers her his services and anything he owns if she will just give him a second chance to prove his worth to her. The fact that he's willing to offer convinces Rosalie he's changed.
- Twice in The Parasol Protectorate.
- In Soulless, Lord Maccon treats Miss Tarabotti in a way that is considered a sign of high respect and romantic interest in his native culture, but in the culture they're both currently living in it's the height of rudeness.
Professor Lyall: You have behaved, I would go so far as to say, badly. I suggest a well-crafted apology and an extended session of abject groveling.
Lord Maccon: I am not a groveler!
Lyall: It is possible to learn many new and interesting skills in one lifetime.
Maccon: *after consideration* Grovel, you say?
Lyall: Grovel, my lord.
- In Blameless, after Lord Maccon publicly accuses Alexia of cheating on him, he prints a retraction and apology in the newspaper.
- When Betsy turns temporarily evil in Undead and Unappreciated, she attacks her friends. Afterward she tries to grovel but she gets sidetracked into an argument over how much of the possession was her fault.
Betsy: Hmm, my groveling wasn't going quite the way I planned.
- In Haunted, Kristof issues Eve an ultimatum: stop trying to communicate with the living or he'll leave her, because he can't be with someone who's slowly destroying herself like that. He catches her red-handed and sadly walks away. Later Eve realizes she's thrown away the one good thing in her life in pursuit of an unreachable goal. She goes to him with a simple yet sincere, "I fucked up."
Web Comics
- Referenced in the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic The Graphvella, with a series of figures showing the integrity of romantic relationships before and after "man humiliates self in charming and expensive manner".
Web Original
- When Ivy, a superhero from the Global Guardians PBEM Universe, royally ticked off her girlfriend, she caused every brush covered hill in the Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley to suddenly sprout red roses shaped into the message, "Please forgive me Clarice I love you". The City of Los Angeles fined her $5000, but Clarice forgave her.