History Main / DeconstructedTrope

* DeconstructedTrope/AnimatedFilm

* DeconstructedTrope/AnimatedFilm

** It's not the earliest, as we also have the story about Pyramus and Thisbe, which basically is "Romeo and Juliet" in ancient Babylon.

** TheCommissionerGordon is deconstructed at BatmanNoMansLand: Sarah Essen explains that Gordon tried to get a [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere job outside]] Gotham City when No Man's Land was declared, [[RealityEnsues but had been laughed at because he couldn't keep his city safe without the help of a]] VigilanteMan. She warns the officers to not speak about Batman around him anymore.

* ''ImAMarvelAndImADC'' deconstructs TheCape tendencies of Superman, where he spends his time remembering back when righteous heroes were idolized, fully aware that his [[ThinkNothingOfIt nobility]] and [[InvincibleHero incredibly overpowered persona]] are frowned upon by current comic book fans, who want a hero that's full of faults so they're more relatable. [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy Lex Luthor]] tries to use this to convince Superman into writing Marvel out of history. Without Marvel making flawed superheroes, everyone would still idolize the perfect, heroic good guys of yesteryear. The interesting thing about this deconstruction is that it essentially says that comics need Superman because he does still act as a standard, and that the entire basis of Marvel heroes is that they're trying to be like Superman, so without Superman, there's nothing to strive for.

* The BluesTraveler song "Hook" is

* ''Y: The Last Man'' is, among other things, a very thorough deconstruction of the male sexual fantasy of being the last man on earth.

* Creator/BertoltBrecht's ''Mother Courage and Her Children'' deconstructs the idea that [[WarIsGlorious war can ever be beneficial to a nation]], by showing how the children are all killed because of their own best traits (courage, honour and compassion respectively).

* ''RomeoAndJuliet'' is possibly the earliest example of why FakingTheDead isn't a good idea.
* The fate of Ophelia in ''{{Hamlet}}'' is a sad deconstrution of ItsNotYouItsMyEnemies.
** ''{{Hamlet}}'' itself is a deconstruction of the revenge-tragedy genre that was extremely popular in the decades before the play was written (Shakespeare had contributed to the trend himself with ''Theatre/TitusAndronicus''). Hence, Hamlet's constant deliberation over his actions -- the play has the structure of a revenge tragedy but, unlike other plays in the genre which tend not to question the motivations of their heroes, it's very serious about the moral and theological consequences of seeking vengeance.

* The works of Gustav Mahler could be viewed as deconstructions of Romantic era music, particularly his later symphonies. His 6th symphony, for example, takes apart the idea of the "Heroic" symphony that Beethoven codified in his 3rd. In Mahler's version, the hero is not quite so successful. He then went on to parody himself and his critics alike in his 7th symphony.

It should be noted that a deconstruction doesn't ''have'' to be DarkerAndEdgier than its source. If a negative trope is taken apart and shown to not necessarily be as bad as it's generally made to look, that's a LighterAndSofter deconstruction. Also, just because the trope is taken in a darker direction, it doesn't mean it's been deconstructed. Tropes darkened unrealistically don't provide the meaningful insight that a deconstruction is supposed to. For more examples of what a deconstruction is not, see {{NotADeconstruction}}.

It should be noted that a deconstruction doesn't ''have'' to be DarkerAndEdgier than its source. If a negative trope is taken apart and shown to not necessarily be as bad as it's generally made to look, that's a LighterAndSofter deconstruction. Also, just because the trope is taken in a darker direction, it doesn't mean it's been deconstructed. Tropes darkened unrealistically don't provide the meaningful insight that a deconstruction is supposed to.

* LilB is a deconstruction of HipHop at large.

* ''Series/{{Noob}}'' deconstructed ApplianceDefenestration when a computer thrown out a window by a player with HairTriggerTemper killed someone and had him end up in jail.
** It also gave MistakenForBadass a quite realistic treatment, with the mistaken character never figuring out the situation due to sheer idiocy and the person conviced that he is more than he seems ending up loosing all credibility in the eyes of anyone that is not his [[UndyingLoyalty devoted student]].

* Franchise/{{Batman}}'s PapaWolf and his BerserkButton of "killing a couple in front of their son" was deconstructed when pursuing a criminal who had shot and killed a couple, leaving the boy in a state of shock. Batman naturally is bent to get the criminal. [[spoiler: It turns out that ''the boy'' had shot and killed his parents while the criminal was just nearby. Batman's BerserkButton made him chase after the wrong person.]]

** TheCommissionerGordon is deconstructed at BatmanNoMansLand: Sarah Essen explains that Gordon tried to get a [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere job outside]] when No Man's Land was declared, [[RealityEnsues but had been laughed at because he couldn't keep his city safe without the help of a]] VigilanteMan. She warns the officers to not speak about Batman around him anymore.

Alternately, the trope can be used in a manner that differs greatly from its usual context. For example, many characters in comedies display behavior that, while played for laughs in the show, would be construed in real life as evidence of some form of mental problem--{{Yandere}}s, {{Hard Drinking Party Girl}}s, and {{Lovable Sex Maniac}}s, to name a few. A more serious show might play with these tropes by presenting identical characters as unstable or even dangerous.

If an entire genre gets this treatment (which usually happens over the course of an entire story), then it's an example of GenreDeconstruction, and they belong in that article, not here. Deconstructed Tropes occur in {{Deconstruction}}s, but they can just as easily appear in straight examples of a genre, or even in {{Reconstruction}}ist works.

* This can sometimes happen ''within'' a fandom, such as the FurryFandom. The "New Found Form" series is about mysterious runed artifacts which just happen to turn people into sexy animal-hybrid hermaphrodites[[hottip:*:usually]], because, as RuleThirtyFour says, some people like that sort of thing. One writer came up with [[http://nequ.deviantart.com/art/New-Found-Frost-195081193 "New Found Frost"]] and turned the story into Lovecraft-influenced psychological horror, telling the tale of a fallen-from-wealth Russian family forced to choose between their humanity and dying in their snowbound house. And that author does this sort of thing all the time.

* The ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehog comics produced by Archie has a deconstruction of BoringInvincibleHero. After failing to beat Sonic after so many years, [[spoiler:Dr. Eggman is driven insane, unable to comprehend how Sonic does it]]. He regains control once he realizes that ''something'' was enabling Sonic to win all those times, akin to an unpredictable chaotic factor in every experiment. Specifically, that Sonic has absorbed so much Chaos Energy, and had so many transformations, that he's become an embodiment of chaos.

* ''ImAMarvelAndImADC'' deconstructs TheCape tendencies of Superman, where he spends his time remembering back when righteous heroes were idolized, fully aware that his [[ThinkNothingOfIt nobility]] and [[BoringInvincibleHero incredibly overpowered persona]] are frowned upon by current comic book fans, who want a hero that's full of faults so they're more relatable. [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy Lex Luthor]] tries to use this to convince Superman into writing Marvel out of history. Without Marvel making flawed superheroes, everyone would still idolize the perfect, heroic good guys of yesteryear.
** The interesting thing about this deconstruction is that it essentially says that comics need Superman because he does still act as a standard, and that the entire basis of Marvel heroes is that they're trying to be like Superman, so without Superman, there'd be nothing to strive for.

* ''LifeSucks'' deconstructs every vampire trope it can get its hands on (and its fangs sunk into), and towards the end it lists them off as it does so. The main thrust of it is that most vampire stories portray ordinary humans as mindless cattle and vampires as [[{{Ubermensch}} liberated beings]] that can do whatever the hell they want, whereas the protagonist is enslaved both by the rules necessary to uphold TheMasquerade, and by the older vampire who sired him and can kill him at will. It also touches on just how alienating the inability to go out in sunlight can be, how humiliating it is to steal from blood banks (and how dehumanizing it is to obtain blood more directly), and how [[CharmPerson the ability to charm and enslave humans]] is tantamount to rape, with an ultimate message that [[SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped nobody should ever want to be a vampire]]. Whew!
* ''{{Irredeemable}}'' deconstructs FaceHeelTurn by exploring reasons behind superhero making such decision as well as consequences of world's greatest protector turning into the bad guy - Plutonian's entire life was full of experiencing fear, mistrust and alienation, followed by a nasty case of SamaritanSyndrome [[spoiler: and a disaster he unintentionally caused which turned his best friend against him and which he himself considers his MoralEventHorizon]] and his rampage basically brings [[ApocalypseHow Type I Apocalypse]]. Its SpinOff series, ''Incorruptible'' does the same with HeelFaceTurn - Max Damage turns into a good guy because of cold logical calculation that with all the damage Plutonian did ''and'' typical threats any superhero universe faces, without somebody taking his place humanity would be at the edge of extinction, rather than PowerOfLove or PowerOfFriendship. He also has no idea how to be a hero, aside doing opposite of what he was doing before (He is however GenreSavvy enough to gather several people to be his [[MoralityPet Morality Pets]] and teach him).
* {{Batman}}'s PapaWolf and his BerserkButton of "killing a couple in front of their son" was deconstructed when pursuing a criminal who had shot and killed a couple, leaving the boy in a state of shock. Batman naturally is hellbent to get the criminal. [[spoiler: It turns out that ''the boy'' had shot and killed his parents while the criminal was just nearby. Batman's BerserkButton made him chase after the wrong person.]]

* It's almost the entire purpose of Marvel's ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}''. The characters are meant to be real kids who just happened to live in a superhero universe. The results of them gaining superpowers and fighting supervillains is fearing for their very lives everyday and trying to avoid actual superheroes by seeing them as the same as their supervillain parents in how immature their viewpoints are. Gert even gets into an intellectual argument with Spider-Man on his "With Great Power" philosophy.

* ''{{Exalted}}'' deconstructs just about every single trope that can be attributed to Heroism. If an Exalt is a hero, expect him to eventually steps on everyone even as he believes that he's doing the right thing. He's a Hero, he believes he's a hero, he won't listen to anyone who says otherwise, and he's got more than enough firepower to blow the world to smithereens.

** Not to mention his last play ''When we dead awaken'', where Ibsen partly deconstructs ''himself''!