This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Removed the goddamn rickroll at the top of the page. Pikeys...
This anonymous editor isn't exactly sure that the Portal example is a case of Briar Patching story-wise (gameplay-wise is another matter; you've probably grown to hate G La DOS enough by then to do the exact opposite of whatever she tells you anyway). When the Morality Core falls off, she seems honestly surprised and disturbed by it; after she makes her "reverse psychology" comment, she pauses like she's thinking and then tells you to go ahead touch it all you want (especially if it's a "raw sewage container"), and then appears to be honestly shocked once you incinerate it. Her reaction afterwards and her following psychopathic shift in character also don't seem all that premeditated - if she honestly knew what would happen if the core got destroyed, why would she say "I just figured out what that thing did" before trying to kill you?
- Maybe she's being sarcastic, since she knew all along? Comments like "that-aperture-science-thing-we-don't-know-what-it-does" sound fishy to me. She was also apparently about to unveil a nasty surprise for the player when she was allegedly interrupted by the core falling off, but doesn't follow up with it afterwards. Also, if the rest of the Cores can only be detached by gunfire, how could the Morality Core detach so easily without G La DOS's will?
- This not-anonymous troper would like to venture a third possibility; It's both. Consider; GLaDOS has, by this point, been firmly established as being barmier than a bakery. In addition, we know the Morality Core was installed to get GLaDOS to stop filling the Enrichment Centre with a neurotoxin. We can infer that perhaps the device was physically attached with some haste, and GLaDOS was probably not happy about this. It's not outside the realms of possibility that it wasn't attached properly, even if its effect was as it should have been. It's also possible that the Morality Core was DESIGNED to keep GLaDOS unaware of its true nature once it began to exert its influence, but now we're really getting into theoretical areas. At any rate, given how GLaDOS is flakier than a Cornish pasty at this point, it's possible that at first, she (it?) is genuinely unable to determine what the device does. She knows it's important though, hence her insistence the player leave it alone. But then she figures it out, and figures out what it does; Then she shifts to inviting the player to destroy it. As for how she didn't follow up her "surprise for you", it's entirely possible she forgot about it; Once again I stress this is an AI who is demonstrably dottier than a dice factory.
Removed:
- Lexx. Kai, upon realizing that a massive impact will counteract the damage he'd suffered earlier, gives an intentionally unpersuasive defense at his trial so that he'll be sentenced to death by being tossed out of a skyscraper."
- Subverted in the movie version of The Wild Wild West, where a captured Artemis Gordon asks that his method of execution is a gunshot to the heart which will do absolutely nothing since he's wearing a Schizo Tech bulletproof vest. The villain's response?
Dr. Loveless: Shoot him in the head.
- Subverted in Casey And Andy, where Satan tells a demon who's stolen her power to steal the rest of her evil energy. The demon assumes she's Briar Patching, then assumes that it's so obvious that she's Briar Patching she must not be and it really would be bad if her power got stolen...but this just turns her into a lightning-slinging angel.
It's not Reverse Psychology. Check the description: "Alice begs and pleads Bob not to take a certain course of action..." An intentionally unpersuasive defence is not begging and pleading as reverse psychology, 'asking' for a certain method of execution is definitely not reverse psychology, nor is 'telling' a demon to take your powers. They're interesting examples though, if anyone wants to match them to correct tropes and copy them in there. Editing of course for whether or not they are 'subversions' or otherwise of the new trope.
Also:
- The defendant in Monty Python's "Mass Murder Case" sketch uses this to reduce his sentence. Hilarity Ensues. (No, really, it does.)
If you check it out:
Mass Murder Case Sketch
It's flattery, followed by asking for the harshest punishment, as a form of Reverse Psychology, leading them to decline and give him the smaller sentence he wanted, rather than begging Not to get the sentence he really wants, and pretending he really fears it over everything else, as a form of Reverse Psychology. It's a subtle difference, both being Reverse Psychology, but not the same at all.
