FEATURE: What is the difference between a trope and a cliche?

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

By now, you've probably visited the amazing timesuck that is TV Tropes. If you haven't, here's their summary of that difference, from the home page:

Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite." In other words, dull and uninteresting.

( And you don't want to be dull, do you? )