History Main / TheWalrusWasPaul

->''[[ContinuityNod I told you 'bout the walrus and me, man]]''
->''[[HoYay You know that we're as close as can be, man]]''
->''[[{{Troll}} Well, here's another clue for you all;]]''
->''[[TropeNamer The walrus was Paul!]]''
-->-- TheBeatles, "Glass Onion"

Sub-trope of MindScrew where the creators are intentionally ''trying'' to confound explanation. Whether they're poking fun at the fans' tendency to [[EpilepticTrees explain and]] [[WildMassGuessing codify everything]], trying to express that RealLife doesn't always have clear-cut answers, or simply more interested in evoking a mood than communicating a specific message, they'll make the weirdest, most [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]] work they can.

When adding examples, remember that the authors need to have ''stated'' their intent to dish out a MindScrew (quotes are good here). Subjective guesses and theories go in 'normal' MindScrew.

Often used to subvert [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?~=], by means of not having ''any'' deeper meaning. Compare [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?~=], where it's merely "throw some meaning at a wall and hope it sticks", and CriminalMindGames, when this is done in-story to throw the pursuers off-track. Contrast TheChrisCarterEffect. See also ShrugOfGod and TeasingCreator.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]
* ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': like many 'deep' anime series -- was put together to promote differing interpretations and discussion. Ikuhara Kunihiko once admitted flat-out that he and the rest of the production team hadn't really kept track of the symbolism in show and the film because they thought the point was for people to interpret it in their own way. They didn't want {{Word of God}} to narrow the fans' focus, embracing something many directors often forget: past a certain point, [[DeathOfTheAuthor meaning is ascribed to a series by the viewer, not the creator]].
* ''SerialExperimentsLain'' was supposed to be this once exported, but the creator was dismayed to discover that foreigners interpreted it pretty much the same way the Japanese audience did.
* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'': {{Word of God}} stated numerous times that this work was generally designed with MindScrew first, plot second. This became more and more apparent in later episodes with all of the symbolism and Freudian imagery splattered all over the place in such ambitious and disjointed fashion, mainly in the form of jump cuts.
* ''AbenobashiMahouShoutengai'': Most notable since the moment you're getting used to the whole thing and are beginning to see a message and understand it, the whole thing is screwed over in the last five minutes, and the conclusion ends up being the exact opposite of what you've been expecting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]
* DavidLynch's works are explicitly this. So much to the point where if anyone on the set of ''InlandEmpire'' asked him what's the plot/symbolism/whatever, he'd quote a passage from an Asian text that basically meant, "We make our own meanings."
-->"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."
* "If you understood ''[[TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey 2001]]'' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise more questions than we answered." -- ArthurCClarke
** "So you'd go out and buy the book, which explains everything in straight-forward sci-fi terms."
*** Which completely destroys the film for those of us more interested in metaphysics than science fiction.
* Certain of DavidCronenberg's films, particularly ''{{Videodrome}}'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''eXistenZ''.
* The Tokyo driving sequence in Andrei Tarkovsky's film ''Solaris''/''Solyris''. This four minute black-and-white sequence consists solely of Burton and his son driving aimlessly through 70's downtown Tokyo.
* ''ASeriousMan'' aggressively and deliberately pursues this trope, to the befuddlement of viewers and critics everywhere. Some argue that several of the CoenBrothers' other films, particularly ''TheBigLebowski'', exhibit this as well.
** TwoWords: ''BartonFink''.
* Subverted by ''DonnieDarko'', which features a director's cut that explains every possible ambiguity in the original film.
** Which more than a few people couldn't understand either. DoubleSubversion?
** Possibly played straight in ''SouthlandTales'', though.
* According to the director of ''Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday'', the infamous [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment beard shaving scene]] was there just to provoke the confused, conversation-sparking reaction that it did.
* The clearest statements anyone has ever got from QuentinTarantino himself and his collaborators regarding the contents of the mysterious glowing suitcase in ''PulpFiction'' all unequivocally agree that the whole thing was just there ''for the sake'' of providing a mystery. WordOfGod stated:
-->"Originally the briefcase contained [the] diamonds [from ''ReservoirDogs'']. But that just seemed too boring and predictable. So it was decided that the contents of the briefcase were never to be seen. This way each audience member would fill in the blank with their own ultimate contents. All you were supposed to know was that it was 'so beautiful.' (from an interview for Roger Ebert's "Questions for the Movie Answer Man").
* ''{{Inception}}'' is clearly designed to provide ammunition for numerous different interpretations of the ending (and the whole film).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]
* ''The {{Illuminatus}}! Trilogy'': RobertAntonWilson has said the whole point was to pile up enough conspiracy theories so that no one could be sure what was 'true' by the end.
* JamesJoyce said something to the effect of "This ought to keep the professors busy for a hundred years" after publishing either ''{{Ulysses}}'' or ''FinnegansWake''.
** And damn it all to ''hell'', the old bastard was right!
* ''ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' gets this way toward the end, with the LemonyNarrator outright admitting that there are no straight answers and we must keep on questioning.
* This is a major theme of ThomasPynchon's ''TheCryingOfLot49''. A woman finds a piece of graffiti on a bathroom wall that prompts her to investigate what is either an AncientConspiracy, an elaborate hoax by her dead ex, or her own desire to be a detective.
* Similar to the Joyce examples (and it may have helped inspire them) is the second part of Goethe's ''Faust''. The poet said in a letter to a friend toward the end of his life that all he had left to do was "wrap a few mantle folds around it so that it may remain an altogether evident riddle." Much earlier than that, he poked fun at his scholarly interpreters for their "[[EpilepticTrees allegorizing]] of this dramatic-humorous nonsense [the witch's arithmetic of ''Faust'', Part I], which has never gone very well. [[MagnificentBastard One should indulge in such jokes more often when one is young]]." As the icing on the cake, he once summed up the ethos of this approach in a single sentence: "[[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible The more incommensurable a work of art, the better]]." In the scholar's defense, since the play begins and ends in heaven, one can hardly blame them for their EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory-style intellectual acrobatics.
* I once failed an English test for basing the entirety on the note written by MarkTwain for ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''.
-->PERSONS
-->attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
-->persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
-->persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
-->By Order Of The Author,
-->Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
** You are my hero.
* The Notes at the end of ''TheWasteLand'', which aren't necessarily as helpful as one might like. Easy to imagine TSEliot having a chuckle at the expense of the critics.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* The ending to ''ThePrisoner''.
** Patrick [=McGoohan=] wanted people to scratch their heads and cudgel their brains out trying to understand the final episode. He did too good a job -- apparently disgruntled or just plain confused fans showed up at his house demanding to know what it was all about...
* In the final "dream" episode of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Season 4, JossWhedon placed a weirdo with cheese on his head spouting nonsense lines. Although the rest of the episode is heavy with symbolism, he specifically wanted something in each dream sequence that meant absolutely nothing whatsoever. Of course, [[http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=5318 this doesn't stop fans from trying to explain it anyway]].
* ''TwinPeaks'', which despite its apparent MythArc, was simply DavidLynch making things up as he went along.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]
* TheBeatles: "I Am the Walrus", natch. Reached an art form with "Glass Onion", the source for the TropeNamer, which consists almost entirely of cryptic ShoutOuts to the group's earlier songs.
** It should be mentioned that in the ''MagicalMysteryTour'' movie where the song was performed on camera, the walrus was John, not Paul. The hippo was Paul.
*** [[FinalFantasyIX Hippaul, huh?]]
** It's safe to say it's not just "I Am the Walrus", but half the songs John Lennon wrote. His quote pretty much proves it: He was so fed up with fans trying to find hidden allusions in their songs that he decided to write a completely nonsensical one -- namely, "I Am the Walrus". Lennon allegedly said, "Let's see the fuckers figure that one out" after finishing it. Which, [[FanDumb in an ironic twist]], [[MisaimedFandom was still searched for "clues"]].
*** "Come Together" has the same origin.
** After making a particularly good point during a TV interview in regards to The Beatles' waning popularity among teeny-boppers, John Lennon looked directly into the camera and said "Isn't that right, Harry?". Who's Harry? He doesn't exist. John randomly chose the name to keep the audience guessing.
** Veruca Salt parodied/homaged the "Glass Onion" example in the bridge to "Volcano Girls" -- "Well here's another clue if you please/ the Seether's Louise", referring to a member of the band and the song "Seether", which had lyrics that were often debated over by fans. It was probably just meant as a tongue in cheek reference to interpretations rather than an actual mindscrew though, as they'd already said in interviews that "the Seether" was a personification of anger.
* {{Don McLean}}, when asked what the meaning of ''American Pie'' was, said something like, "It means I never have to work again."
** There is ''one'' thing mentioned in the song that's definite, "the day the music died", which refers to the plane crash that killed Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper. ''That'', more than anything, is why this song has been picked to death, much like how Gary Larson making one of the {{cow tools}} look kind of like a saw drove about half the newspaper readers in the country absolutely nuts.
* The art-rock group {{Music/Tool}} pretty much runs off of this. They put a huge emphasis on personal interpretation of the imagery used in their songs, to the point where they ''never release official lyrics with their albums''.
** Not to mention their early endorsement of lachrymology, a fabricated philosophy that was basically psychobabble.
** Radiohead shares a similar philosophy and has been to known to not release lyrics.
* "The Bewlay Brothers" from ''[[DavidBowie Hunky Dory]]''.
* BobDylan, when asked what his songs were about, replied "Oh [[{{Henway}} some are about three minutes, some are about five minutes]]."
-->'''Interviewer:''' What's your message?\\
'''Dylan:''' ''{mortally offended}'' What's my ''message?'' ''{brandishes mercury light}'' "Keep a cool head and always carry a light bulb!"
* Much of composer Erik Satie's music poked fun at the idea that music needed to serve some grand purpose or be consciously ''about'' anything.
* Carly Simon has given so many utterly contradictory hints over the years as to who the subject of "You're So Vain" is that it has become impossible for anyone who knows the facts to avoid suspecting her of this trope. (No, [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/13316/66997 the latest rumor isn't true either]], so don't even bother posting it. Like I said, she changes her answer to a different clue, each just as incompatible with the others, every decade or so.) The likeliest explanation of the song is that she originally wrote it without intending it to be about any actual, existing, specific man, and was as delighted as she was surprised by all the endless speculation and debate, so she decided to take the misconception that the song refers to someone in particular and run with it for as long as she could, just to fuck with our heads. Indeed, everything about her behavior on the matter has suggested child-like prankishness.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: VideoGames]]
* ''SilentHill''. Even the stuff that's AllThereInTheManual doesn't help anyone make sense of the series. It's not meant to. Even the fans' most cherished theories have never received any confirmation more solid than a [[ShrugOfGod shrug]] or an inconclusive SureWhyNot from the producers.
** There was a ''hole'' here. It's gone now.
** Maybe it moved to Guatemala?
* ''The Mirror Lied'' A complete and deliberate Mind Screw. To quote the author: "''It has no defined story by me, that's certain -- but its point is to be on the extreme end of the scale as far as ambiguity goes, for the sake of a possibly refreshing experiment of interpretation for some.''"
* Arguably ''{{Killer7}}'', or basically any other game by Suda51.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: WesternAnimation]]
* ''AeonFlux'' messes with your head constantly, and Peter Chung has gone out of his way not to explain anything, in hopes that the viewers will derive their own meanings.
** This approach eventually backfired badly on him, though. The plot of the film, almost universally considered [=~DarthWiki/So Bad It's Horrible~=] had its genesis in the scriptwriters' own interpretation of the {{mind screw}}iest episode of the series.
* Pretty sure this is the ''only'' thing ''12ozMouse'' is.
* ''AquaTeenHungerForce'' does this with its characters. Other than their personalities and virginity, nothing about them mentioned in any episode is canon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Other]]
* The whole basis of {{Dada}}.
[[/folder]]
----

* Urban legends, contests, misinformation and EpilepticTrees aside, the clearest statements anyone has ever got from QuentinTarantino himself and his collaborators regarding the contents of the mysterious glowing suitcase in ''PulpFiction'' all unequivocally agree that the whole thing was just there ''for the sake'' of providing a mystery. If they ever had an actual object in the suitcase in mind, it was a whimsical afterthought. WordOfGod stated: "Originally the briefcase contained [the] diamonds [from ''ReservoirDogs'']. But that just seemed too boring and predictable. So it was decided that the contents of the briefcase were never to be seen. This way each audience member would fill in the blank with their own ultimate contents. All you were supposed to know was that it was 'so beautiful.' No prop master could come up with something better than each individual's imagination. Then somebody had the bright idea (which I think was a mistake) of putting an orange lightbulb in there. Suddenly what could have been anything became anything supernatural. Didn't need to push the effect. People would have debated it for years anyway..." (from an interview for Roger Ebert's "Questions for the Movie Answer Man").

** There is ONE thing mentioned in the song that's definite, "the day the music died", which refers to the plane crash that killed Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper. ''That'', more than anything, is why this song has been picked to death, much like how Gary Larson making one of the cow tools look kind of like a saw drove about half the newspaper readers in the country absolutely nuts.

* This is a major theme of ThomasPynchon's ''TheCryingOfLotFortyNine''. A woman finds a piece of graffiti on a bathroom wall that prompts her to investigate what is either an AncientConspiracy, an elaborate hoax by her dead ex, or her own desire to be a detective.

* The Tokyo driving sequence in Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris/Solyris. This four minute black-and-white sequence consists solely of Burton and his son driving aimlessly through 70's downtown Tokyo.

Often used to subvert [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?~=], by means of not having ''any'' deeper meaning. Compare [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?~=], where it's merely 'throw some meaning at a wall and hope it sticks', and CriminalMindGames, when this is done in-story to throw the pursuers off-track. Contrast TheChrisCarterEffect. See also ShrugOfGod and TeasingCreator.

* ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': like many 'deep' anime series - was put together to promote differing interpretations and discussion. Ikuhara Kunihiko once admitted flat-out that he and the rest of the production team hadn't really kept track of the symbolism in show and the film because they thought the point was for people to interpret it in their own way. They didn't want {{Word of God}} to narrow the fans' focus, embracing something many directors often forget: past a certain point, [[DeathOfTheAuthor meaning is ascribed to a series by the viewer, not the creator]].

* AbenobashiMahouShoutengai: Most notable since the moment you're getting used to the whole thing and are beginning to see a message and understand it, the whole thing is screwed over in the last five minutes, and the conclusion ends up being the exact opposite of what you've been expecting.

* The Notes at the end of TheWasteLand, which aren't necessarily as helpful as one might like. Easy to imagine TSEliot having a chuckle at the expense of the critics.

** It's safe to say it's not just "I Am the Walrus", but half the songs John Lennon wrote. His quote pretty much proves it: He was so fed up with fans trying to find hidden allusions in their songs that he decided to write a completely nonsensical one - namely, "I Am the Walrus". Lennon allegedly said, "Let's see the fuckers figure that one out" after finishing it. Which, [[FanDumb in an ironic twist]], [[MisaimedFandom was still searched for "clues"]].

** Veruca Salt parodied/homaged the "Glass Onion" example in the bridge to "Volcano Girls" - "Well here's another clue if you please/ the Seether's Louise", referring to a member of the band and the song "Seether", which had lyrics that were often debated over by fans. It was probably just meant as a tongue in cheek reference to interpretations rather than an actual mindscrew though, as they'd already said in interviews that "the Seether" was a personification of anger.

** There was a HOLE here. It's gone now.

* ''The Mirror Lied'' A complete and deliberate Mind Screw. To quote the author: "''It has no defined story by me, that's certain - but its point is to be on the extreme end of the scale as far as ambiguity goes, for the sake of a possibly refreshing experiment of interpretation for some.''"

* Pretty sure this is the ONLY thing ''12ozMouse'' is.
* AquaTeenHungerForce does this with its characters. Other than their personalities and virginity, nothing about them mentioned in any episode is canon.

----
<<|AnimeTropes|>>
<<|AnimeGenres|>>
<<|{{Literature}}|>>
<<|MusicTropes|>>
<<|ShowGenres|>>

WHY DON'T YOU LOVE THE WALRUS

->''[[ContinuityNod I told you 'bout the walrus and me, man]]''
->''[[HoYay You know that we're as close as can be, man]]''
->''[[{{Troll}} Well, here's another clue for you all;]]''
->''[[TropeNamer The walrus was Paul!]]''
-->-- TheBeatles, "Glass Onion"

Sub-trope of MindScrew where the creators are intentionally ''trying'' to confound explanation. Whether they're poking fun at the fans' tendency to [[EpilepticTrees explain and]] [[WildMassGuessing codify everything]], trying to express that RealLife doesn't always have clear-cut answers, or simply more interested in evoking a mood than communicating a specific message, they'll make the weirdest, most [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]] work they can.

When adding examples, remember that the authors need to have ''stated'' their intent to dish out a MindScrew (quotes are good here). Subjective guesses and theories go in 'normal' MindScrew.

Often used to subvert [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?~=], by means of not having ''any'' deeper meaning. Compare [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?~=], where it's merely 'throw some meaning at a wall and hope it sticks', and CriminalMindGames, when this is done in-story to throw the pursuers off-track. Contrast TheChrisCarterEffect. See also ShrugOfGod and TeasingCreator.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]
* ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': like many 'deep' anime series - was put together to promote differing interpretations and discussion. Ikuhara Kunihiko once admitted flat-out that he and the rest of the production team hadn't really kept track of the symbolism in show and the film because they thought the point was for people to interpret it in their own way. They didn't want {{Word of God}} to narrow the fans' focus, embracing something many directors often forget: past a certain point, [[DeathOfTheAuthor meaning is ascribed to a series by the viewer, not the creator]].
* ''SerialExperimentsLain'' was supposed to be this once exported, but the creator was dismayed to discover that foreigners interpreted it pretty much the same way the Japanese audience did.
* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'': {{Word of God}} stated numerous times that this work was generally designed with MindScrew first, plot second. This became more and more apparent in later episodes with all of the symbolism and Freudian imagery splattered all over the place in such ambitious and disjointed fashion, mainly in the form of jump cuts.
* AbenobashiMahouShoutengai: Most notable since the moment you're getting used to the whole thing and are beginning to see a message and understand it, the whole thing is screwed over in the last five minutes, and the conclusion ends up being the exact opposite of what you've been expecting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]
* DavidLynch's works are explicitly this. So much to the point where if anyone on the set of ''InlandEmpire'' asked him what's the plot/symbolism/whatever, he'd quote a passage from an Asian text that basically meant, "We make our own meanings."
-->"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."
* "If you understood ''[[TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey 2001]]'' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise more questions than we answered." -- ArthurCClarke
** "So you'd go out and buy the book, which explains everything in straight-forward sci-fi terms."
*** Which completely destroys the film for those of us more interested in metaphysics than science fiction.
* Certain of DavidCronenberg's films, particularly ''{{Videodrome}}'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''eXistenZ''.
* The Tokyo driving sequence in Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris/Solyris. This four minute black-and-white sequence consists solely of Burton and his son driving aimlessly through 70's downtown Tokyo.
* ''ASeriousMan'' aggressively and deliberately pursues this trope, to the befuddlement of viewers and critics everywhere. Some argue that several of the CoenBrothers' other films, particularly ''TheBigLebowski'', exhibit this as well.
** TwoWords: ''BartonFink''.
* Subverted by ''DonnieDarko'', which features a director's cut that explains every possible ambiguity in the original film.
** Which more than a few people couldn't understand either. DoubleSubversion?
** Possibly played straight in ''SouthlandTales'', though.
* According to the director of ''Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday'', the infamous [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment beard shaving scene]] was there just to provoke the confused, conversation-sparking reaction that it did.
* Urban legends, contests, misinformation and EpilepticTrees aside, the clearest statements anyone has ever got from QuentinTarantino himself and his collaborators regarding the contents of the mysterious glowing suitcase in ''PulpFiction'' all unequivocally agree that the whole thing was just there ''for the sake'' of providing a mystery. If they ever had an actual object in the suitcase in mind, it was a whimsical afterthought. WordOfGod stated: "Originally the briefcase contained [the] diamonds [from ''ReservoirDogs'']. But that just seemed too boring and predictable. So it was decided that the contents of the briefcase were never to be seen. This way each audience member would fill in the blank with their own ultimate contents. All you were supposed to know was that it was 'so beautiful.' No prop master could come up with something better than each individual's imagination. Then somebody had the bright idea (which I think was a mistake) of putting an orange lightbulb in there. Suddenly what could have been anything became anything supernatural. Didn't need to push the effect. People would have debated it for years anyway..." (from an interview for Roger Ebert's "Questions for the Movie Answer Man").
* ''{{Inception}}'' is clearly designed to provide ammunition for numerous different interpretations of the ending (and the whole film).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]
* ''The {{Illuminatus}}! Trilogy'': RobertAntonWilson has said the whole point was to pile up enough conspiracy theories so that no one could be sure what was 'true' by the end.
* JamesJoyce said something to the effect of "This ought to keep the professors busy for a hundred years" after publishing either ''{{Ulysses}}'' or ''FinnegansWake''.
** And damn it all to ''hell'', the old bastard was right!
* ''ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' gets this way toward the end, with the LemonyNarrator outright admitting that there are no straight answers and we must keep on questioning.
* This is a major theme of ThomasPynchon's ''TheCryingOfLotFortyNine''. A woman finds a piece of graffiti on a bathroom wall that prompts her to investigate what is either an AncientConspiracy, an elaborate hoax by her dead ex, or her own desire to be a detective.
* Similar to the Joyce examples (and it may have helped inspire them) is the second part of Goethe's ''Faust''. The poet said in a letter to a friend toward the end of his life that all he had left to do was "wrap a few mantle folds around it so that it may remain an altogether evident riddle." Much earlier than that, he poked fun at his scholarly interpreters for their "[[EpilepticTrees allegorizing]] of this dramatic-humorous nonsense [the witch's arithmetic of ''Faust'', Part I], which has never gone very well. [[MagnificentBastard One should indulge in such jokes more often when one is young]]." As the icing on the cake, he once summed up the ethos of this approach in a single sentence: "[[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible The more incommensurable a work of art, the better]]." In the scholar's defense, since the play begins and ends in heaven, one can hardly blame them for their EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory-style intellectual acrobatics.
* I once failed an English test for basing the entirety on the note written by MarkTwain for ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''.
-->PERSONS
-->attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
-->persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
-->persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
-->By Order Of The Author,
-->Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
** You are my hero.
* The Notes at the end of TheWasteLand, which aren't necessarily as helpful as one might like. Easy to imagine TSEliot having a chuckle at the expense of the critics.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* The ending to ''ThePrisoner''.
** Patrick [=McGoohan=] wanted people to scratch their heads and cudgel their brains out trying to understand the final episode. He did too good a job -- apparently disgruntled or just plain confused fans showed up at his house demanding to know what it was all about...
* In the final "dream" episode of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Season 4, JossWhedon placed a weirdo with cheese on his head spouting nonsense lines. Although the rest of the episode is heavy with symbolism, he specifically wanted something in each dream sequence that meant absolutely nothing whatsoever. Of course, [[http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=5318 this doesn't stop fans from trying to explain it anyway]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]
* TheBeatles: "I Am the Walrus", natch. Reached an art form with "Glass Onion", the source for the TropeNamer, which consists almost entirely of cryptic ShoutOuts to the group's earlier songs.
** It should be mentioned that in the ''MagicalMysteryTour'' movie where the song was performed on camera, the walrus was John, not Paul. The hippo was Paul.
*** [[FinalFantasyIX Hippaul, huh?]]
** It's safe to say it's not just "I Am the Walrus", but half the songs John Lennon wrote. His quote pretty much proves it: He was so fed up with fans trying to find hidden allusions in their songs that he decided to write a completely nonsensical one - namely, "I Am the Walrus". Lennon allegedly said, "Let's see the fuckers figure that one out" after finishing it. Which, [[FanDumb in an ironic twist]], [[MisaimedFandom was still searched for "clues"]].
*** "Come Together" has the same origin.
** After making a particularly good point during a TV interview in regards to The Beatles' waning popularity among teeny-boppers, John Lennon looked directly into the camera and said "Isn't that right, Harry?". Who's Harry? He doesn't exist. John randomly chose the name to keep the audience guessing.
** Veruca Salt parodied/homaged the "Glass Onion" example in the bridge to "Volcano Girls" - "Well here's another clue if you please/ the Seether's Louise", referring to a member of the band and the song "Seether", which had lyrics that were often debated over by fans. It was probably just meant as a tongue in cheek reference to interpretations rather than an actual mindscrew though, as they'd already said in interviews that "the Seether" was a personification of anger.
* {{Don McLean}}, when asked what the meaning of ''American Pie'' was, said something like, "It means I never have to work again."
** There is ONE thing mentioned in the song that's definite, "the day the music died", which refers to the plane crash that killed Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper. ''That'', more than anything, is why this song has been picked to death, much like how Gary Larson making one of the cow tools look kind of like a saw drove about half the newspaper readers in the country absolutely nuts.
* The art-rock group {{Music/Tool}} pretty much runs off of this. They put a huge emphasis on personal interpretation of the imagery used in their songs, to the point where they ''never release official lyrics with their albums''.
** Not to mention their early endorsement of lachrymology, a fabricated philosophy that was basically psychobabble.
** Radiohead shares a similar philosophy and has been to known to not release lyrics.
* "The Bewlay Brothers" from ''[[DavidBowie Hunky Dory]]''.
* BobDylan, when asked what his songs were about, replied "Oh [[{{Henway}} some are about three minutes, some are about five minutes]]."
-->'''Interviewer:''' What's your message?\\
'''Dylan:''' ''{mortally offended}'' What's my ''message?'' ''{brandishes mercury light}'' "Keep a cool head and always carry a light bulb!"
* Much of composer Erik Satie's music poked fun at the idea that music needed to serve some grand purpose or be consciously ''about'' anything.
* Carly Simon has given so many utterly contradictory hints over the years as to who the subject of "You're So Vain" is that it has become impossible for anyone who knows the facts to avoid suspecting her of this trope. (No, [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/13316/66997 the latest rumor isn't true either]], so don't even bother posting it. Like I said, she changes her answer to a different clue, each just as incompatible with the others, every decade or so.) The likeliest explanation of the song is that she originally wrote it without intending it to be about any actual, existing, specific man, and was as delighted as she was surprised by all the endless speculation and debate, so she decided to take the misconception that the song refers to someone in particular and run with it for as long as she could, just to fuck with our heads. Indeed, everything about her behavior on the matter has suggested child-like prankishness.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: VideoGames]]
* ''SilentHill''. Even the stuff that's AllThereInTheManual doesn't help anyone make sense of the series. It's not meant to. Even the fans' most cherished theories have never received any confirmation more solid than a [[ShrugOfGod shrug]] or an inconclusive SureWhyNot from the producers.
** There was a HOLE here. It's gone now.
** Maybe it moved to Guatemala?
* ''The Mirror Lied'' A complete and deliberate Mind Screw. To quote the author: "''It has no defined story by me, that's certain - but its point is to be on the extreme end of the scale as far as ambiguity goes, for the sake of a possibly refreshing experiment of interpretation for some.''"
* Arguably ''{{Killer7}}'', or basically any other game by Suda51.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: WesternAnimation]]
* ''AeonFlux'' messes with your head constantly, and Peter Chung has gone out of his way not to explain anything, in hopes that the viewers will derive their own meanings.
** This approach eventually backfired badly on him, though. The plot of the film, almost universally considered [=~DarthWiki/So Bad It's Horrible~=] had its genesis in the scriptwriters' own interpretation of the {{mind screw}}iest episode of the series.
* Pretty sure this is the ONLY thing ''12ozMouse'' is.
* AquaTeenHungerForce does this with its characters. Other than their personalities and virginity, nothing about them mentioned in any episode is canon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Other]]
* The whole basis of {{Dada}}.
[[/folder]]
----
<<|AnimeTropes|>>
<<|AnimeGenres|>>
<<|{{Literature}}|>>
<<|MusicTropes|>>
<<|ShowGenres|>>

WALRUS

->''[[ContinuityNod I told you 'bout the walrus and me, man]]''
->''[[HoYay You know that we're as close as can be, man]]''
->''[[{{Troll}} Well, here's another clue for you all;]]''
->''[[TropeNamer The walrus was Paul!]]''
-->-- TheBeatles, "Glass Onion"

Sub-trope of MindScrew where the creators are intentionally ''trying'' to confound explanation. Whether they're poking fun at the fans' tendency to [[EpilepticTrees explain and]] [[WildMassGuessing codify everything]], trying to express that RealLife doesn't always have clear-cut answers, or simply more interested in evoking a mood than communicating a specific message, they'll make the weirdest, most [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]] work they can.

When adding examples, remember that the authors need to have ''stated'' their intent to dish out a MindScrew (quotes are good here). Subjective guesses and theories go in 'normal' MindScrew.

Often used to subvert [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?~=], by means of not having ''any'' deeper meaning. Compare [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?~=], where it's merely 'throw some meaning at a wall and hope it sticks', and CriminalMindGames, when this is done in-story to throw the pursuers off-track. Contrast TheChrisCarterEffect. See also ShrugOfGod and TeasingCreator.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]
* ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': like many 'deep' anime series - was put together to promote differing interpretations and discussion. Ikuhara Kunihiko once admitted flat-out that he and the rest of the production team hadn't really kept track of the symbolism in show and the film because they thought the point was for people to interpret it in their own way. They didn't want {{Word of God}} to narrow the fans' focus, embracing something many directors often forget: past a certain point, [[DeathOfTheAuthor meaning is ascribed to a series by the viewer, not the creator]].
* ''SerialExperimentsLain'' was supposed to be this once exported, but the creator was dismayed to discover that foreigners interpreted it pretty much the same way the Japanese audience did.
* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'': {{Word of God}} stated numerous times that this work was generally designed with MindScrew first, plot second. This became more and more apparent in later episodes with all of the symbolism and Freudian imagery splattered all over the place in such ambitious and disjointed fashion, mainly in the form of jump cuts.
* AbenobashiMahouShoutengai: Most notable since the moment you're getting used to the whole thing and are beginning to see a message and understand it, the whole thing is screwed over in the last five minutes, and the conclusion ends up being the exact opposite of what you've been expecting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]
* DavidLynch's works are explicitly this. So much to the point where if anyone on the set of ''InlandEmpire'' asked him what's the plot/symbolism/whatever, he'd quote a passage from an Asian text that basically meant, "We make our own meanings."
-->"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."
* "If you understood ''[[TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey 2001]]'' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise more questions than we answered." -- ArthurCClarke
** "So you'd go out and buy the book, which explains everything in straight-forward sci-fi terms."
*** Which completely destroys the film for those of us more interested in metaphysics than science fiction.
* Certain of DavidCronenberg's films, particularly ''{{Videodrome}}'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''eXistenZ''.
* The Tokyo driving sequence in Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris/Solyris. This four minute black-and-white sequence consists solely of Burton and his son driving aimlessly through 70's downtown Tokyo.
* ''ASeriousMan'' aggressively and deliberately pursues this trope, to the befuddlement of viewers and critics everywhere. Some argue that several of the CoenBrothers' other films, particularly ''TheBigLebowski'', exhibit this as well.
** TwoWords: ''BartonFink''.
* Subverted by ''DonnieDarko'', which features a director's cut that explains every possible ambiguity in the original film.
** Which more than a few people couldn't understand either. DoubleSubversion?
** Possibly played straight in ''SouthlandTales'', though.
* According to the director of ''Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday'', the infamous [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment beard shaving scene]] was there just to provoke the confused, conversation-sparking reaction that it did.
* Urban legends, contests, misinformation and EpilepticTrees aside, the clearest statements anyone has ever got from QuentinTarantino himself and his collaborators regarding the contents of the mysterious glowing suitcase in ''PulpFiction'' all unequivocally agree that the whole thing was just there ''for the sake'' of providing a mystery. If they ever had an actual object in the suitcase in mind, it was a whimsical afterthought. WordOfGod stated: "Originally the briefcase contained [the] diamonds [from ''ReservoirDogs'']. But that just seemed too boring and predictable. So it was decided that the contents of the briefcase were never to be seen. This way each audience member would fill in the blank with their own ultimate contents. All you were supposed to know was that it was 'so beautiful.' No prop master could come up with something better than each individual's imagination. Then somebody had the bright idea (which I think was a mistake) of putting an orange lightbulb in there. Suddenly what could have been anything became anything supernatural. Didn't need to push the effect. People would have debated it for years anyway..." (from an interview for Roger Ebert's "Questions for the Movie Answer Man").
* ''{{Inception}}'' is clearly designed to provide ammunition for numerous different interpretations of the ending (and the whole film).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]
* ''The {{Illuminatus}}! Trilogy'': RobertAntonWilson has said the whole point was to pile up enough conspiracy theories so that no one could be sure what was 'true' by the end.
* JamesJoyce said something to the effect of "This ought to keep the professors busy for a hundred years" after publishing either ''{{Ulysses}}'' or ''FinnegansWake''.
** And damn it all to ''hell'', the old bastard was right!
* ''ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' gets this way toward the end, with the LemonyNarrator outright admitting that there are no straight answers and we must keep on questioning.
* This is a major theme of ThomasPynchon's ''TheCryingOfLotFortyNine''. A woman finds a piece of graffiti on a bathroom wall that prompts her to investigate what is either an AncientConspiracy, an elaborate hoax by her dead ex, or her own desire to be a detective.
* Similar to the Joyce examples (and it may have helped inspire them) is the second part of Goethe's ''Faust''. The poet said in a letter to a friend toward the end of his life that all he had left to do was "wrap a few mantle folds around it so that it may remain an altogether evident riddle." Much earlier than that, he poked fun at his scholarly interpreters for their "[[EpilepticTrees allegorizing]] of this dramatic-humorous nonsense [the witch's arithmetic of ''Faust'', Part I], which has never gone very well. [[MagnificentBastard One should indulge in such jokes more often when one is young]]." As the icing on the cake, he once summed up the ethos of this approach in a single sentence: "[[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible The more incommensurable a work of art, the better]]." In the scholar's defense, since the play begins and ends in heaven, one can hardly blame them for their EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory-style intellectual acrobatics.
* I once failed an English test for basing the entirety on the note written by MarkTwain for ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''.
-->PERSONS
-->attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
-->persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
-->persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
-->By Order Of The Author,
-->Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
** You are my hero.
* The Notes at the end of TheWasteLand, which aren't necessarily as helpful as one might like. Easy to imagine TSEliot having a chuckle at the expense of the critics.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* The ending to ''ThePrisoner''.
** Patrick [=McGoohan=] wanted people to scratch their heads and cudgel their brains out trying to understand the final episode. He did too good a job -- apparently disgruntled or just plain confused fans showed up at his house demanding to know what it was all about...
* In the final "dream" episode of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Season 4, JossWhedon placed a weirdo with cheese on his head spouting nonsense lines. Although the rest of the episode is heavy with symbolism, he specifically wanted something in each dream sequence that meant absolutely nothing whatsoever. Of course, [[http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=5318 this doesn't stop fans from trying to explain it anyway]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]
* TheBeatles: "I Am the Walrus", natch. Reached an art form with "Glass Onion", the source for the TropeNamer, which consists almost entirely of cryptic ShoutOuts to the group's earlier songs.
** It should be mentioned that in the ''MagicalMysteryTour'' movie where the song was performed on camera, the walrus was John, not Paul. The hippo was Paul.
*** [[FinalFantasyIX Hippaul, huh?]]
** It's safe to say it's not just "I Am the Walrus", but half the songs John Lennon wrote. His quote pretty much proves it: He was so fed up with fans trying to find hidden allusions in their songs that he decided to write a completely nonsensical one - namely, "I Am the Walrus". Lennon allegedly said, "Let's see the fuckers figure that one out" after finishing it. Which, [[FanDumb in an ironic twist]], [[MisaimedFandom was still searched for "clues"]].
*** "Come Together" has the same origin.
** After making a particularly good point during a TV interview in regards to The Beatles' waning popularity among teeny-boppers, John Lennon looked directly into the camera and said "Isn't that right, Harry?". Who's Harry? He doesn't exist. John randomly chose the name to keep the audience guessing.
** Veruca Salt parodied/homaged the "Glass Onion" example in the bridge to "Volcano Girls" - "Well here's another clue if you please/ the Seether's Louise", referring to a member of the band and the song "Seether", which had lyrics that were often debated over by fans. It was probably just meant as a tongue in cheek reference to interpretations rather than an actual mindscrew though, as they'd already said in interviews that "the Seether" was a personification of anger.
* {{Don McLean}}, when asked what the meaning of ''American Pie'' was, said something like, "It means I never have to work again."
** There is ONE thing mentioned in the song that's definite, "the day the music died", which refers to the plane crash that killed Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper. ''That'', more than anything, is why this song has been picked to death, much like how Gary Larson making one of the cow tools look kind of like a saw drove about half the newspaper readers in the country absolutely nuts.
* The art-rock group {{Music/Tool}} pretty much runs off of this. They put a huge emphasis on personal interpretation of the imagery used in their songs, to the point where they ''never release official lyrics with their albums''.
** Not to mention their early endorsement of lachrymology, a fabricated philosophy that was basically psychobabble.
** Radiohead shares a similar philosophy and has been to known to not release lyrics.
* "The Bewlay Brothers" from ''[[DavidBowie Hunky Dory]]''.
* BobDylan, when asked what his songs were about, replied "Oh [[{{Henway}} some are about three minutes, some are about five minutes]]."
-->'''Interviewer:''' What's your message?\\
'''Dylan:''' ''{mortally offended}'' What's my ''message?'' ''{brandishes mercury light}'' "Keep a cool head and always carry a light bulb!"
* Much of composer Erik Satie's music poked fun at the idea that music needed to serve some grand purpose or be consciously ''about'' anything.
* Carly Simon has given so many utterly contradictory hints over the years as to who the subject of "You're So Vain" is that it has become impossible for anyone who knows the facts to avoid suspecting her of this trope. (No, [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/13316/66997 the latest rumor isn't true either]], so don't even bother posting it. Like I said, she changes her answer to a different clue, each just as incompatible with the others, every decade or so.) The likeliest explanation of the song is that she originally wrote it without intending it to be about any actual, existing, specific man, and was as delighted as she was surprised by all the endless speculation and debate, so she decided to take the misconception that the song refers to someone in particular and run with it for as long as she could, just to fuck with our heads. Indeed, everything about her behavior on the matter has suggested child-like prankishness.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: VideoGames]]
* ''SilentHill''. Even the stuff that's AllThereInTheManual doesn't help anyone make sense of the series. It's not meant to. Even the fans' most cherished theories have never received any confirmation more solid than a [[ShrugOfGod shrug]] or an inconclusive SureWhyNot from the producers.
** There was a HOLE here. It's gone now.
** Maybe it moved to Guatemala?
* ''The Mirror Lied'' A complete and deliberate Mind Screw. To quote the author: "''It has no defined story by me, that's certain - but its point is to be on the extreme end of the scale as far as ambiguity goes, for the sake of a possibly refreshing experiment of interpretation for some.''"
* Arguably ''{{Killer7}}'', or basically any other game by Suda51.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: WesternAnimation]]
* ''AeonFlux'' messes with your head constantly, and Peter Chung has gone out of his way not to explain anything, in hopes that the viewers will derive their own meanings.
** This approach eventually backfired badly on him, though. The plot of the film, almost universally considered [=~DarthWiki/So Bad It's Horrible~=] had its genesis in the scriptwriters' own interpretation of the {{mind screw}}iest episode of the series.
* Pretty sure this is the ONLY thing ''12ozMouse'' is.
* AquaTeenHungerForce does this with its characters. Other than their personalities and virginity, nothing about them mentioned in any episode is canon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Other]]
* The whole basis of {{Dada}}.
[[/folder]]
----
<<|AnimeTropes|>>
<<|AnimeGenres|>>
<<|{{Literature}}|>>
<<|MusicTropes|>>
<<|ShowGenres|>>

Just kidding. Paul was actually a LOLRUS.

->''[[ContinuityNod I told you 'bout the walrus and me, man]]''
->''[[HoYay You know that we're as close as can be, man]]''
->''[[{{Troll}} Well, here's another clue for you all;]]''
->''[[TropeNamer The walrus was Paul!]]''
-->-- TheBeatles, "Glass Onion"

Sub-trope of MindScrew where the creators are intentionally ''trying'' to confound explanation. Whether they're poking fun at the fans' tendency to [[EpilepticTrees explain and]] [[WildMassGuessing codify everything]], trying to express that RealLife doesn't always have clear-cut answers, or simply more interested in evoking a mood than communicating a specific message, they'll make the weirdest, most [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]] work they can.

When adding examples, remember that the authors need to have ''stated'' their intent to dish out a MindScrew (quotes are good here). Subjective guesses and theories go in 'normal' MindScrew.

Often used to subvert [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?~=], by means of not having ''any'' deeper meaning. Compare [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?~=], where it's merely 'throw some meaning at a wall and hope it sticks', and CriminalMindGames, when this is done in-story to throw the pursuers off-track. Contrast TheChrisCarterEffect. See also ShrugOfGod and TeasingCreator.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]
* ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': like many 'deep' anime series - was put together to promote differing interpretations and discussion. Ikuhara Kunihiko once admitted flat-out that he and the rest of the production team hadn't really kept track of the symbolism in show and the film because they thought the point was for people to interpret it in their own way. They didn't want {{Word of God}} to narrow the fans' focus, embracing something many directors often forget: past a certain point, [[DeathOfTheAuthor meaning is ascribed to a series by the viewer, not the creator]].
* ''SerialExperimentsLain'' was supposed to be this once exported, but the creator was dismayed to discover that foreigners interpreted it pretty much the same way the Japanese audience did.
* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'': {{Word of God}} stated numerous times that this work was generally designed with MindScrew first, plot second. This became more and more apparent in later episodes with all of the symbolism and Freudian imagery splattered all over the place in such ambitious and disjointed fashion, mainly in the form of jump cuts.
* AbenobashiMahouShoutengai: Most notable since the moment you're getting used to the whole thing and are beginning to see a message and understand it, the whole thing is screwed over in the last five minutes, and the conclusion ends up being the exact opposite of what you've been expecting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]
* DavidLynch's works are explicitly this. So much to the point where if anyone on the set of ''InlandEmpire'' asked him what's the plot/symbolism/whatever, he'd quote a passage from an Asian text that basically meant, "We make our own meanings."
-->"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."
* "If you understood ''[[TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey 2001]]'' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise more questions than we answered." -- ArthurCClarke
** "So you'd go out and buy the book, which explains everything in straight-forward sci-fi terms."
*** Which completely destroys the film for those of us more interested in metaphysics than science fiction.
* Certain of DavidCronenberg's films, particularly ''{{Videodrome}}'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''eXistenZ''.
* The Tokyo driving sequence in Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris/Solyris. This four minute black-and-white sequence consists solely of Burton and his son driving aimlessly through 70's downtown Tokyo.
* ''ASeriousMan'' aggressively and deliberately pursues this trope, to the befuddlement of viewers and critics everywhere. Some argue that several of the CoenBrothers' other films, particularly ''TheBigLebowski'', exhibit this as well.
** TwoWords: ''BartonFink''.
* Subverted by ''DonnieDarko'', which features a director's cut that explains every possible ambiguity in the original film.
** Which more than a few people couldn't understand either. DoubleSubversion?
** Possibly played straight in ''SouthlandTales'', though.
* According to the director of ''Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday'', the infamous [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment beard shaving scene]] was there just to provoke the confused, conversation-sparking reaction that it did.
* Urban legends, contests, misinformation and EpilepticTrees aside, the clearest statements anyone has ever got from QuentinTarantino himself and his collaborators regarding the contents of the mysterious glowing suitcase in ''PulpFiction'' all unequivocally agree that the whole thing was just there ''for the sake'' of providing a mystery. If they ever had an actual object in the suitcase in mind, it was a whimsical afterthought. WordOfGod stated: "Originally the briefcase contained [the] diamonds [from ''ReservoirDogs'']. But that just seemed too boring and predictable. So it was decided that the contents of the briefcase were never to be seen. This way each audience member would fill in the blank with their own ultimate contents. All you were supposed to know was that it was 'so beautiful.' No prop master could come up with something better than each individual's imagination. Then somebody had the bright idea (which I think was a mistake) of putting an orange lightbulb in there. Suddenly what could have been anything became anything supernatural. Didn't need to push the effect. People would have debated it for years anyway..." (from an interview for Roger Ebert's "Questions for the Movie Answer Man").
* ''{{Inception}}'' is clearly designed to provide ammunition for numerous different interpretations of the ending (and the whole film).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]
* ''The {{Illuminatus}}! Trilogy'': RobertAntonWilson has said the whole point was to pile up enough conspiracy theories so that no one could be sure what was 'true' by the end.
* JamesJoyce said something to the effect of "This ought to keep the professors busy for a hundred years" after publishing either ''{{Ulysses}}'' or ''FinnegansWake''.
** And damn it all to ''hell'', the old bastard was right!
* ''ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' gets this way toward the end, with the LemonyNarrator outright admitting that there are no straight answers and we must keep on questioning.
* This is a major theme of ThomasPynchon's ''TheCryingOfLotFortyNine''. A woman finds a piece of graffiti on a bathroom wall that prompts her to investigate what is either an AncientConspiracy, an elaborate hoax by her dead ex, or her own desire to be a detective.
* Similar to the Joyce examples (and it may have helped inspire them) is the second part of Goethe's ''Faust''. The poet said in a letter to a friend toward the end of his life that all he had left to do was "wrap a few mantle folds around it so that it may remain an altogether evident riddle." Much earlier than that, he poked fun at his scholarly interpreters for their "[[EpilepticTrees allegorizing]] of this dramatic-humorous nonsense [the witch's arithmetic of ''Faust'', Part I], which has never gone very well. [[MagnificentBastard One should indulge in such jokes more often when one is young]]." As the icing on the cake, he once summed up the ethos of this approach in a single sentence: "[[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible The more incommensurable a work of art, the better]]." In the scholar's defense, since the play begins and ends in heaven, one can hardly blame them for their EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory-style intellectual acrobatics.
* I once failed an English test for basing the entirety on the note written by MarkTwain for ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''.
-->PERSONS
-->attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
-->persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
-->persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
-->By Order Of The Author,
-->Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
** You are my hero.
* The Notes at the end of TheWasteLand, which aren't necessarily as helpful as one might like. Easy to imagine TSEliot having a chuckle at the expense of the critics.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* The ending to ''ThePrisoner''.
** Patrick [=McGoohan=] wanted people to scratch their heads and cudgel their brains out trying to understand the final episode. He did too good a job -- apparently disgruntled or just plain confused fans showed up at his house demanding to know what it was all about...
* In the final "dream" episode of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Season 4, JossWhedon placed a weirdo with cheese on his head spouting nonsense lines. Although the rest of the episode is heavy with symbolism, he specifically wanted something in each dream sequence that meant absolutely nothing whatsoever. Of course, [[http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=5318 this doesn't stop fans from trying to explain it anyway]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]
* TheBeatles: "I Am the Walrus", natch. Reached an art form with "Glass Onion", the source for the TropeNamer, which consists almost entirely of cryptic ShoutOuts to the group's earlier songs.
** It should be mentioned that in the ''MagicalMysteryTour'' movie where the song was performed on camera, the walrus was John, not Paul. The hippo was Paul.
*** [[FinalFantasyIX Hippaul, huh?]]
** It's safe to say it's not just "I Am the Walrus", but half the songs John Lennon wrote. His quote pretty much proves it: He was so fed up with fans trying to find hidden allusions in their songs that he decided to write a completely nonsensical one - namely, "I Am the Walrus". Lennon allegedly said, "Let's see the fuckers figure that one out" after finishing it. Which, [[FanDumb in an ironic twist]], [[MisaimedFandom was still searched for "clues"]].
*** "Come Together" has the same origin.
** After making a particularly good point during a TV interview in regards to The Beatles' waning popularity among teeny-boppers, John Lennon looked directly into the camera and said "Isn't that right, Harry?". Who's Harry? He doesn't exist. John randomly chose the name to keep the audience guessing.
** Veruca Salt parodied/homaged the "Glass Onion" example in the bridge to "Volcano Girls" - "Well here's another clue if you please/ the Seether's Louise", referring to a member of the band and the song "Seether", which had lyrics that were often debated over by fans. It was probably just meant as a tongue in cheek reference to interpretations rather than an actual mindscrew though, as they'd already said in interviews that "the Seether" was a personification of anger.
* {{Don McLean}}, when asked what the meaning of ''American Pie'' was, said something like, "It means I never have to work again."
** There is ONE thing mentioned in the song that's definite, "the day the music died", which refers to the plane crash that killed Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper. ''That'', more than anything, is why this song has been picked to death, much like how Gary Larson making one of the cow tools look kind of like a saw drove about half the newspaper readers in the country absolutely nuts.
* The art-rock group {{Music/Tool}} pretty much runs off of this. They put a huge emphasis on personal interpretation of the imagery used in their songs, to the point where they ''never release official lyrics with their albums''.
** Not to mention their early endorsement of lachrymology, a fabricated philosophy that was basically psychobabble.
** Radiohead shares a similar philosophy and has been to known to not release lyrics.
* "The Bewlay Brothers" from ''[[DavidBowie Hunky Dory]]''.
* BobDylan, when asked what his songs were about, replied "Oh [[{{Henway}} some are about three minutes, some are about five minutes]]."
-->'''Interviewer:''' What's your message?\\
'''Dylan:''' ''{mortally offended}'' What's my ''message?'' ''{brandishes mercury light}'' "Keep a cool head and always carry a light bulb!"
* Much of composer Erik Satie's music poked fun at the idea that music needed to serve some grand purpose or be consciously ''about'' anything.
* Carly Simon has given so many utterly contradictory hints over the years as to who the subject of "You're So Vain" is that it has become impossible for anyone who knows the facts to avoid suspecting her of this trope. (No, [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/13316/66997 the latest rumor isn't true either]], so don't even bother posting it. Like I said, she changes her answer to a different clue, each just as incompatible with the others, every decade or so.) The likeliest explanation of the song is that she originally wrote it without intending it to be about any actual, existing, specific man, and was as delighted as she was surprised by all the endless speculation and debate, so she decided to take the misconception that the song refers to someone in particular and run with it for as long as she could, just to fuck with our heads. Indeed, everything about her behavior on the matter has suggested child-like prankishness.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: VideoGames]]
* ''SilentHill''. Even the stuff that's AllThereInTheManual doesn't help anyone make sense of the series. It's not meant to. Even the fans' most cherished theories have never received any confirmation more solid than a [[ShrugOfGod shrug]] or an inconclusive SureWhyNot from the producers.
** There was a HOLE here. It's gone now.
** Maybe it moved to Guatemala?
* ''The Mirror Lied'' A complete and deliberate Mind Screw. To quote the author: "''It has no defined story by me, that's certain - but its point is to be on the extreme end of the scale as far as ambiguity goes, for the sake of a possibly refreshing experiment of interpretation for some.''"
* Arguably ''{{Killer7}}'', or basically any other game by Suda51.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: WesternAnimation]]
* ''AeonFlux'' messes with your head constantly, and Peter Chung has gone out of his way not to explain anything, in hopes that the viewers will derive their own meanings.
** This approach eventually backfired badly on him, though. The plot of the film, almost universally considered [=~DarthWiki/So Bad It's Horrible~=] had its genesis in the scriptwriters' own interpretation of the {{mind screw}}iest episode of the series.
* Pretty sure this is the ONLY thing ''12ozMouse'' is.
* AquaTeenHungerForce does this with its characters. Other than their personalities and virginity, nothing about them mentioned in any episode is canon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Other]]
* The whole basis of {{Dada}}.
[[/folder]]
----
<<|AnimeTropes|>>
<<|AnimeGenres|>>
<<|{{Literature}}|>>
<<|MusicTropes|>>
<<|ShowGenres|>>

THE WALRUS

->''[[ContinuityNod I told you 'bout the walrus and me, man]]''
->''[[HoYay You know that we're as close as can be, man]]''
->''[[{{Troll}} Well, here's another clue for you all;]]''
->''[[TropeNamer The walrus was Paul!]]''
-->-- TheBeatles, "Glass Onion"

Sub-trope of MindScrew where the creators are intentionally ''trying'' to confound explanation. Whether they're poking fun at the fans' tendency to [[EpilepticTrees explain and]] [[WildMassGuessing codify everything]], trying to express that RealLife doesn't always have clear-cut answers, or simply more interested in evoking a mood than communicating a specific message, they'll make the weirdest, most [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]] work they can.

When adding examples, remember that the authors need to have ''stated'' their intent to dish out a MindScrew (quotes are good here). Subjective guesses and theories go in 'normal' MindScrew.

Often used to subvert [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?~=], by means of not having ''any'' deeper meaning. Compare [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?~=], where it's merely 'throw some meaning at a wall and hope it sticks', and CriminalMindGames, when this is done in-story to throw the pursuers off-track. Contrast TheChrisCarterEffect. See also ShrugOfGod and TeasingCreator.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]
* ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': like many 'deep' anime series - was put together to promote differing interpretations and discussion. Ikuhara Kunihiko once admitted flat-out that he and the rest of the production team hadn't really kept track of the symbolism in show and the film because they thought the point was for people to interpret it in their own way. They didn't want {{Word of God}} to narrow the fans' focus, embracing something many directors often forget: past a certain point, [[DeathOfTheAuthor meaning is ascribed to a series by the viewer, not the creator]].
* ''SerialExperimentsLain'' was supposed to be this once exported, but the creator was dismayed to discover that foreigners interpreted it pretty much the same way the Japanese audience did.
* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'': {{Word of God}} stated numerous times that this work was generally designed with MindScrew first, plot second. This became more and more apparent in later episodes with all of the symbolism and Freudian imagery splattered all over the place in such ambitious and disjointed fashion, mainly in the form of jump cuts.
* AbenobashiMahouShoutengai: Most notable since the moment you're getting used to the whole thing and are beginning to see a message and understand it, the whole thing is screwed over in the last five minutes, and the conclusion ends up being the exact opposite of what you've been expecting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]
* DavidLynch's works are explicitly this. So much to the point where if anyone on the set of ''InlandEmpire'' asked him what's the plot/symbolism/whatever, he'd quote a passage from an Asian text that basically meant, "We make our own meanings."
-->"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."
* "If you understood ''[[TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey 2001]]'' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise more questions than we answered." -- ArthurCClarke
** "So you'd go out and buy the book, which explains everything in straight-forward sci-fi terms."
*** Which completely destroys the film for those of us more interested in metaphysics than science fiction.
* Certain of DavidCronenberg's films, particularly ''{{Videodrome}}'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''eXistenZ''.
* The Tokyo driving sequence in Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris/Solyris. This four minute black-and-white sequence consists solely of Burton and his son driving aimlessly through 70's downtown Tokyo.
* ''ASeriousMan'' aggressively and deliberately pursues this trope, to the befuddlement of viewers and critics everywhere. Some argue that several of the CoenBrothers' other films, particularly ''TheBigLebowski'', exhibit this as well.
** TwoWords: ''BartonFink''.
* Subverted by ''DonnieDarko'', which features a director's cut that explains every possible ambiguity in the original film.
** Which more than a few people couldn't understand either. DoubleSubversion?
** Possibly played straight in ''SouthlandTales'', though.
* According to the director of ''Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday'', the infamous [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment beard shaving scene]] was there just to provoke the confused, conversation-sparking reaction that it did.
* Urban legends, contests, misinformation and EpilepticTrees aside, the clearest statements anyone has ever got from QuentinTarantino himself and his collaborators regarding the contents of the mysterious glowing suitcase in ''PulpFiction'' all unequivocally agree that the whole thing was just there ''for the sake'' of providing a mystery. If they ever had an actual object in the suitcase in mind, it was a whimsical afterthought. WordOfGod stated: "Originally the briefcase contained [the] diamonds [from ''ReservoirDogs'']. But that just seemed too boring and predictable. So it was decided that the contents of the briefcase were never to be seen. This way each audience member would fill in the blank with their own ultimate contents. All you were supposed to know was that it was 'so beautiful.' No prop master could come up with something better than each individual's imagination. Then somebody had the bright idea (which I think was a mistake) of putting an orange lightbulb in there. Suddenly what could have been anything became anything supernatural. Didn't need to push the effect. People would have debated it for years anyway..." (from an interview for Roger Ebert's "Questions for the Movie Answer Man").
* ''{{Inception}}'' is clearly designed to provide ammunition for numerous different interpretations of the ending (and the whole film).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]
* ''The {{Illuminatus}}! Trilogy'': RobertAntonWilson has said the whole point was to pile up enough conspiracy theories so that no one could be sure what was 'true' by the end.
* JamesJoyce said something to the effect of "This ought to keep the professors busy for a hundred years" after publishing either ''{{Ulysses}}'' or ''FinnegansWake''.
** And damn it all to ''hell'', the old bastard was right!
* ''ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' gets this way toward the end, with the LemonyNarrator outright admitting that there are no straight answers and we must keep on questioning.
* This is a major theme of ThomasPynchon's ''TheCryingOfLotFortyNine''. A woman finds a piece of graffiti on a bathroom wall that prompts her to investigate what is either an AncientConspiracy, an elaborate hoax by her dead ex, or her own desire to be a detective.
* Similar to the Joyce examples (and it may have helped inspire them) is the second part of Goethe's ''Faust''. The poet said in a letter to a friend toward the end of his life that all he had left to do was "wrap a few mantle folds around it so that it may remain an altogether evident riddle." Much earlier than that, he poked fun at his scholarly interpreters for their "[[EpilepticTrees allegorizing]] of this dramatic-humorous nonsense [the witch's arithmetic of ''Faust'', Part I], which has never gone very well. [[MagnificentBastard One should indulge in such jokes more often when one is young]]." As the icing on the cake, he once summed up the ethos of this approach in a single sentence: "[[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible The more incommensurable a work of art, the better]]." In the scholar's defense, since the play begins and ends in heaven, one can hardly blame them for their EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory-style intellectual acrobatics.
* I once failed an English test for basing the entirety on the note written by MarkTwain for ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''.
-->PERSONS
-->attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
-->persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
-->persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
-->By Order Of The Author,
-->Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
** You are my hero.
* The Notes at the end of TheWasteLand, which aren't necessarily as helpful as one might like. Easy to imagine TSEliot having a chuckle at the expense of the critics.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* The ending to ''ThePrisoner''.
** Patrick [=McGoohan=] wanted people to scratch their heads and cudgel their brains out trying to understand the final episode. He did too good a job -- apparently disgruntled or just plain confused fans showed up at his house demanding to know what it was all about...
* In the final "dream" episode of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Season 4, JossWhedon placed a weirdo with cheese on his head spouting nonsense lines. Although the rest of the episode is heavy with symbolism, he specifically wanted something in each dream sequence that meant absolutely nothing whatsoever. Of course, [[http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=5318 this doesn't stop fans from trying to explain it anyway]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]
* TheBeatles: "I Am the Walrus", natch. Reached an art form with "Glass Onion", the source for the TropeNamer, which consists almost entirely of cryptic ShoutOuts to the group's earlier songs.
** It should be mentioned that in the ''MagicalMysteryTour'' movie where the song was performed on camera, the walrus was John, not Paul. The hippo was Paul.
*** [[FinalFantasyIX Hippaul, huh?]]
** It's safe to say it's not just "I Am the Walrus", but half the songs John Lennon wrote. His quote pretty much proves it: He was so fed up with fans trying to find hidden allusions in their songs that he decided to write a completely nonsensical one - namely, "I Am the Walrus". Lennon allegedly said, "Let's see the fuckers figure that one out" after finishing it. Which, [[FanDumb in an ironic twist]], [[MisaimedFandom was still searched for "clues"]].
*** "Come Together" has the same origin.
** After making a particularly good point during a TV interview in regards to The Beatles' waning popularity among teeny-boppers, John Lennon looked directly into the camera and said "Isn't that right, Harry?". Who's Harry? He doesn't exist. John randomly chose the name to keep the audience guessing.
** Veruca Salt parodied/homaged the "Glass Onion" example in the bridge to "Volcano Girls" - "Well here's another clue if you please/ the Seether's Louise", referring to a member of the band and the song "Seether", which had lyrics that were often debated over by fans. It was probably just meant as a tongue in cheek reference to interpretations rather than an actual mindscrew though, as they'd already said in interviews that "the Seether" was a personification of anger.
* {{Don McLean}}, when asked what the meaning of ''American Pie'' was, said something like, "It means I never have to work again."
** There is ONE thing mentioned in the song that's definite, "the day the music died", which refers to the plane crash that killed Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper. ''That'', more than anything, is why this song has been picked to death, much like how Gary Larson making one of the cow tools look kind of like a saw drove about half the newspaper readers in the country absolutely nuts.
* The art-rock group {{Music/Tool}} pretty much runs off of this. They put a huge emphasis on personal interpretation of the imagery used in their songs, to the point where they ''never release official lyrics with their albums''.
** Not to mention their early endorsement of lachrymology, a fabricated philosophy that was basically psychobabble.
** Radiohead shares a similar philosophy and has been to known to not release lyrics.
* "The Bewlay Brothers" from ''[[DavidBowie Hunky Dory]]''.
* BobDylan, when asked what his songs were about, replied "Oh [[{{Henway}} some are about three minutes, some are about five minutes]]."
-->'''Interviewer:''' What's your message?\\
'''Dylan:''' ''{mortally offended}'' What's my ''message?'' ''{brandishes mercury light}'' "Keep a cool head and always carry a light bulb!"
* Much of composer Erik Satie's music poked fun at the idea that music needed to serve some grand purpose or be consciously ''about'' anything.
* Carly Simon has given so many utterly contradictory hints over the years as to who the subject of "You're So Vain" is that it has become impossible for anyone who knows the facts to avoid suspecting her of this trope. (No, [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/13316/66997 the latest rumor isn't true either]], so don't even bother posting it. Like I said, she changes her answer to a different clue, each just as incompatible with the others, every decade or so.) The likeliest explanation of the song is that she originally wrote it without intending it to be about any actual, existing, specific man, and was as delighted as she was surprised by all the endless speculation and debate, so she decided to take the misconception that the song refers to someone in particular and run with it for as long as she could, just to fuck with our heads. Indeed, everything about her behavior on the matter has suggested child-like prankishness.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: VideoGames]]
* ''SilentHill''. Even the stuff that's AllThereInTheManual doesn't help anyone make sense of the series. It's not meant to. Even the fans' most cherished theories have never received any confirmation more solid than a [[ShrugOfGod shrug]] or an inconclusive SureWhyNot from the producers.
** There was a HOLE here. It's gone now.
** Maybe it moved to Guatemala?
* ''The Mirror Lied'' A complete and deliberate Mind Screw. To quote the author: "''It has no defined story by me, that's certain - but its point is to be on the extreme end of the scale as far as ambiguity goes, for the sake of a possibly refreshing experiment of interpretation for some.''"
* Arguably ''{{Killer7}}'', or basically any other game by Suda51.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: WesternAnimation]]
* ''AeonFlux'' messes with your head constantly, and Peter Chung has gone out of his way not to explain anything, in hopes that the viewers will derive their own meanings.
** This approach eventually backfired badly on him, though. The plot of the film, almost universally considered [=~DarthWiki/So Bad It's Horrible~=] had its genesis in the scriptwriters' own interpretation of the {{mind screw}}iest episode of the series.
* Pretty sure this is the ONLY thing ''12ozMouse'' is.
* AquaTeenHungerForce does this with its characters. Other than their personalities and virginity, nothing about them mentioned in any episode is canon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Other]]
* The whole basis of {{Dada}}.
[[/folder]]
----
<<|AnimeTropes|>>
<<|AnimeGenres|>>
<<|{{Literature}}|>>
<<|MusicTropes|>>
<<|ShowGenres|>>

IS NOT THE WALROS

->''[[ContinuityNod I told you 'bout the walrus and me, man]]''
->''[[HoYay You know that we're as close as can be, man]]''
->''[[{{Troll}} Well, here's another clue for you all;]]''
->''[[TropeNamer The walrus was Paul!]]''
-->-- TheBeatles, "Glass Onion"

Sub-trope of MindScrew where the creators are intentionally ''trying'' to confound explanation. Whether they're poking fun at the fans' tendency to [[EpilepticTrees explain and]] [[WildMassGuessing codify everything]], trying to express that RealLife doesn't always have clear-cut answers, or simply more interested in evoking a mood than communicating a specific message, they'll make the weirdest, most [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]] work they can.

When adding examples, remember that the authors need to have ''stated'' their intent to dish out a MindScrew (quotes are good here). Subjective guesses and theories go in 'normal' MindScrew.

Often used to subvert [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?~=], by means of not having ''any'' deeper meaning. Compare [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?~=], where it's merely 'throw some meaning at a wall and hope it sticks', and CriminalMindGames, when this is done in-story to throw the pursuers off-track. Contrast TheChrisCarterEffect. See also ShrugOfGod and TeasingCreator.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]
* ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': like many 'deep' anime series - was put together to promote differing interpretations and discussion. Ikuhara Kunihiko once admitted flat-out that he and the rest of the production team hadn't really kept track of the symbolism in show and the film because they thought the point was for people to interpret it in their own way. They didn't want {{Word of God}} to narrow the fans' focus, embracing something many directors often forget: past a certain point, [[DeathOfTheAuthor meaning is ascribed to a series by the viewer, not the creator]].
* ''SerialExperimentsLain'' was supposed to be this once exported, but the creator was dismayed to discover that foreigners interpreted it pretty much the same way the Japanese audience did.
* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'': {{Word of God}} stated numerous times that this work was generally designed with MindScrew first, plot second. This became more and more apparent in later episodes with all of the symbolism and Freudian imagery splattered all over the place in such ambitious and disjointed fashion, mainly in the form of jump cuts.
* AbenobashiMahouShoutengai: Most notable since the moment you're getting used to the whole thing and are beginning to see a message and understand it, the whole thing is screwed over in the last five minutes, and the conclusion ends up being the exact opposite of what you've been expecting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]
* DavidLynch's works are explicitly this. So much to the point where if anyone on the set of ''InlandEmpire'' asked him what's the plot/symbolism/whatever, he'd quote a passage from an Asian text that basically meant, "We make our own meanings."
-->"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."
* "If you understood ''[[TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey 2001]]'' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise more questions than we answered." -- ArthurCClarke
** "So you'd go out and buy the book, which explains everything in straight-forward sci-fi terms."
*** Which completely destroys the film for those of us more interested in metaphysics than science fiction.
* Certain of DavidCronenberg's films, particularly ''{{Videodrome}}'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''eXistenZ''.
* The Tokyo driving sequence in Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris/Solyris. This four minute black-and-white sequence consists solely of Burton and his son driving aimlessly through 70's downtown Tokyo.
* ''ASeriousMan'' aggressively and deliberately pursues this trope, to the befuddlement of viewers and critics everywhere. Some argue that several of the CoenBrothers' other films, particularly ''TheBigLebowski'', exhibit this as well.
** TwoWords: ''BartonFink''.
* Subverted by ''DonnieDarko'', which features a director's cut that explains every possible ambiguity in the original film.
** Which more than a few people couldn't understand either. DoubleSubversion?
** Possibly played straight in ''SouthlandTales'', though.
* According to the director of ''Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday'', the infamous [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment beard shaving scene]] was there just to provoke the confused, conversation-sparking reaction that it did.
* Urban legends, contests, misinformation and EpilepticTrees aside, the clearest statements anyone has ever got from QuentinTarantino himself and his collaborators regarding the contents of the mysterious glowing suitcase in ''PulpFiction'' all unequivocally agree that the whole thing was just there ''for the sake'' of providing a mystery. If they ever had an actual object in the suitcase in mind, it was a whimsical afterthought. WordOfGod stated: "Originally the briefcase contained [the] diamonds [from ''ReservoirDogs'']. But that just seemed too boring and predictable. So it was decided that the contents of the briefcase were never to be seen. This way each audience member would fill in the blank with their own ultimate contents. All you were supposed to know was that it was 'so beautiful.' No prop master could come up with something better than each individual's imagination. Then somebody had the bright idea (which I think was a mistake) of putting an orange lightbulb in there. Suddenly what could have been anything became anything supernatural. Didn't need to push the effect. People would have debated it for years anyway..." (from an interview for Roger Ebert's "Questions for the Movie Answer Man").
* ''{{Inception}}'' is clearly designed to provide ammunition for numerous different interpretations of the ending (and the whole film).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]
* ''The {{Illuminatus}}! Trilogy'': RobertAntonWilson has said the whole point was to pile up enough conspiracy theories so that no one could be sure what was 'true' by the end.
* JamesJoyce said something to the effect of "This ought to keep the professors busy for a hundred years" after publishing either ''{{Ulysses}}'' or ''FinnegansWake''.
** And damn it all to ''hell'', the old bastard was right!
* ''ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' gets this way toward the end, with the LemonyNarrator outright admitting that there are no straight answers and we must keep on questioning.
* This is a major theme of ThomasPynchon's ''TheCryingOfLotFortyNine''. A woman finds a piece of graffiti on a bathroom wall that prompts her to investigate what is either an AncientConspiracy, an elaborate hoax by her dead ex, or her own desire to be a detective.
* Similar to the Joyce examples (and it may have helped inspire them) is the second part of Goethe's ''Faust''. The poet said in a letter to a friend toward the end of his life that all he had left to do was "wrap a few mantle folds around it so that it may remain an altogether evident riddle." Much earlier than that, he poked fun at his scholarly interpreters for their "[[EpilepticTrees allegorizing]] of this dramatic-humorous nonsense [the witch's arithmetic of ''Faust'', Part I], which has never gone very well. [[MagnificentBastard One should indulge in such jokes more often when one is young]]." As the icing on the cake, he once summed up the ethos of this approach in a single sentence: "[[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible The more incommensurable a work of art, the better]]." In the scholar's defense, since the play begins and ends in heaven, one can hardly blame them for their EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory-style intellectual acrobatics.
* I once failed an English test for basing the entirety on the note written by MarkTwain for ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''.
-->PERSONS
-->attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
-->persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
-->persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
-->By Order Of The Author,
-->Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
** You are my hero.
* The Notes at the end of TheWasteLand, which aren't necessarily as helpful as one might like. Easy to imagine TSEliot having a chuckle at the expense of the critics.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* The ending to ''ThePrisoner''.
** Patrick [=McGoohan=] wanted people to scratch their heads and cudgel their brains out trying to understand the final episode. He did too good a job -- apparently disgruntled or just plain confused fans showed up at his house demanding to know what it was all about...
* In the final "dream" episode of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Season 4, JossWhedon placed a weirdo with cheese on his head spouting nonsense lines. Although the rest of the episode is heavy with symbolism, he specifically wanted something in each dream sequence that meant absolutely nothing whatsoever. Of course, [[http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=5318 this doesn't stop fans from trying to explain it anyway]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]
* TheBeatles: "I Am the Walrus", natch. Reached an art form with "Glass Onion", the source for the TropeNamer, which consists almost entirely of cryptic ShoutOuts to the group's earlier songs.
** It should be mentioned that in the ''MagicalMysteryTour'' movie where the song was performed on camera, the walrus was John, not Paul. The hippo was Paul.
*** [[FinalFantasyIX Hippaul, huh?]]
** It's safe to say it's not just "I Am the Walrus", but half the songs John Lennon wrote. His quote pretty much proves it: He was so fed up with fans trying to find hidden allusions in their songs that he decided to write a completely nonsensical one - namely, "I Am the Walrus". Lennon allegedly said, "Let's see the fuckers figure that one out" after finishing it. Which, [[FanDumb in an ironic twist]], [[MisaimedFandom was still searched for "clues"]].
*** "Come Together" has the same origin.
** After making a particularly good point during a TV interview in regards to The Beatles' waning popularity among teeny-boppers, John Lennon looked directly into the camera and said "Isn't that right, Harry?". Who's Harry? He doesn't exist. John randomly chose the name to keep the audience guessing.
** Veruca Salt parodied/homaged the "Glass Onion" example in the bridge to "Volcano Girls" - "Well here's another clue if you please/ the Seether's Louise", referring to a member of the band and the song "Seether", which had lyrics that were often debated over by fans. It was probably just meant as a tongue in cheek reference to interpretations rather than an actual mindscrew though, as they'd already said in interviews that "the Seether" was a personification of anger.
* {{Don McLean}}, when asked what the meaning of ''American Pie'' was, said something like, "It means I never have to work again."
** There is ONE thing mentioned in the song that's definite, "the day the music died", which refers to the plane crash that killed Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper. ''That'', more than anything, is why this song has been picked to death, much like how Gary Larson making one of the cow tools look kind of like a saw drove about half the newspaper readers in the country absolutely nuts.
* The art-rock group {{Music/Tool}} pretty much runs off of this. They put a huge emphasis on personal interpretation of the imagery used in their songs, to the point where they ''never release official lyrics with their albums''.
** Not to mention their early endorsement of lachrymology, a fabricated philosophy that was basically psychobabble.
** Radiohead shares a similar philosophy and has been to known to not release lyrics.
* "The Bewlay Brothers" from ''[[DavidBowie Hunky Dory]]''.
* BobDylan, when asked what his songs were about, replied "Oh [[{{Henway}} some are about three minutes, some are about five minutes]]."
-->'''Interviewer:''' What's your message?\\
'''Dylan:''' ''{mortally offended}'' What's my ''message?'' ''{brandishes mercury light}'' "Keep a cool head and always carry a light bulb!"
* Much of composer Erik Satie's music poked fun at the idea that music needed to serve some grand purpose or be consciously ''about'' anything.
* Carly Simon has given so many utterly contradictory hints over the years as to who the subject of "You're So Vain" is that it has become impossible for anyone who knows the facts to avoid suspecting her of this trope. (No, [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/13316/66997 the latest rumor isn't true either]], so don't even bother posting it. Like I said, she changes her answer to a different clue, each just as incompatible with the others, every decade or so.) The likeliest explanation of the song is that she originally wrote it without intending it to be about any actual, existing, specific man, and was as delighted as she was surprised by all the endless speculation and debate, so she decided to take the misconception that the song refers to someone in particular and run with it for as long as she could, just to fuck with our heads. Indeed, everything about her behavior on the matter has suggested child-like prankishness.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: VideoGames]]
* ''SilentHill''. Even the stuff that's AllThereInTheManual doesn't help anyone make sense of the series. It's not meant to. Even the fans' most cherished theories have never received any confirmation more solid than a [[ShrugOfGod shrug]] or an inconclusive SureWhyNot from the producers.
** There was a HOLE here. It's gone now.
** Maybe it moved to Guatemala?
* ''The Mirror Lied'' A complete and deliberate Mind Screw. To quote the author: "''It has no defined story by me, that's certain - but its point is to be on the extreme end of the scale as far as ambiguity goes, for the sake of a possibly refreshing experiment of interpretation for some.''"
* Arguably ''{{Killer7}}'', or basically any other game by Suda51.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: WesternAnimation]]
* ''AeonFlux'' messes with your head constantly, and Peter Chung has gone out of his way not to explain anything, in hopes that the viewers will derive their own meanings.
** This approach eventually backfired badly on him, though. The plot of the film, almost universally considered [=~DarthWiki/So Bad It's Horrible~=] had its genesis in the scriptwriters' own interpretation of the {{mind screw}}iest episode of the series.
* Pretty sure this is the ONLY thing ''12ozMouse'' is.
* AquaTeenHungerForce does this with its characters. Other than their personalities and virginity, nothing about them mentioned in any episode is canon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Other]]
* The whole basis of {{Dada}}.
[[/folder]]
----
<<|AnimeTropes|>>
<<|AnimeGenres|>>
<<|{{Literature}}|>>
<<|MusicTropes|>>
<<|ShowGenres|>>

Paul may have been the walrus.

But the walrus was not Paul.

Sub-trope of MindScrew where the creators are intentionally ''trying'' to confound explanation. Whether they're poking fun at the fans' tendency to [[EpilepticTrees explain and]] [[WildMassGuessing codify everything]], trying to express that RealLife doesn't always have clear-cut answers, or simply more interested in evoking a mood than communicating a specific message, they'll make the weirdest, most [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible incomprehensible]] work they can.

When adding examples, remember that the authors need to have ''stated'' their intent to dish out a MindScrew (quotes are good here). Subjective guesses and theories go in 'normal' MindScrew.

Often used to subvert [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?~=], by means of not having ''any'' deeper meaning. Compare [=~What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?~=], where it's merely 'throw some meaning at a wall and hope it sticks', and CriminalMindGames, when this is done in-story to throw the pursuers off-track. Contrast TheChrisCarterEffect. See also ShrugOfGod and TeasingCreator.
----
!!Examples:

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]
* ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': like many 'deep' anime series - was put together to promote differing interpretations and discussion. Ikuhara Kunihiko once admitted flat-out that he and the rest of the production team hadn't really kept track of the symbolism in show and the film because they thought the point was for people to interpret it in their own way. They didn't want {{Word of God}} to narrow the fans' focus, embracing something many directors often forget: past a certain point, [[DeathOfTheAuthor meaning is ascribed to a series by the viewer, not the creator]].
* ''SerialExperimentsLain'' was supposed to be this once exported, but the creator was dismayed to discover that foreigners interpreted it pretty much the same way the Japanese audience did.
* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'': {{Word of God}} stated numerous times that this work was generally designed with MindScrew first, plot second. This became more and more apparent in later episodes with all of the symbolism and Freudian imagery splattered all over the place in such ambitious and disjointed fashion, mainly in the form of jump cuts.
* AbenobashiMahouShoutengai: Most notable since the moment you're getting used to the whole thing and are beginning to see a message and understand it, the whole thing is screwed over in the last five minutes, and the conclusion ends up being the exact opposite of what you've been expecting.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]
* DavidLynch's works are explicitly this. So much to the point where if anyone on the set of ''InlandEmpire'' asked him what's the plot/symbolism/whatever, he'd quote a passage from an Asian text that basically meant, "We make our own meanings."
-->"We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe."
* "If you understood ''[[TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey 2001]]'' completely, we failed. We wanted to raise more questions than we answered." -- ArthurCClarke
** "So you'd go out and buy the book, which explains everything in straight-forward sci-fi terms."
*** Which completely destroys the film for those of us more interested in metaphysics than science fiction.
* Certain of DavidCronenberg's films, particularly ''{{Videodrome}}'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''eXistenZ''.
* The Tokyo driving sequence in Andrei Tarkovsky's film Solaris/Solyris. This four minute black-and-white sequence consists solely of Burton and his son driving aimlessly through 70's downtown Tokyo.
* ''ASeriousMan'' aggressively and deliberately pursues this trope, to the befuddlement of viewers and critics everywhere. Some argue that several of the CoenBrothers' other films, particularly ''TheBigLebowski'', exhibit this as well.
** TwoWords: ''BartonFink''.
* Subverted by ''DonnieDarko'', which features a director's cut that explains every possible ambiguity in the original film.
** Which more than a few people couldn't understand either. DoubleSubversion?
** Possibly played straight in ''SouthlandTales'', though.
* According to the director of ''Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday'', the infamous [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment beard shaving scene]] was there just to provoke the confused, conversation-sparking reaction that it did.
* Urban legends, contests, misinformation and EpilepticTrees aside, the clearest statements anyone has ever got from QuentinTarantino himself and his collaborators regarding the contents of the mysterious glowing suitcase in ''PulpFiction'' all unequivocally agree that the whole thing was just there ''for the sake'' of providing a mystery. If they ever had an actual object in the suitcase in mind, it was a whimsical afterthought. WordOfGod stated: "Originally the briefcase contained [the] diamonds [from ''ReservoirDogs'']. But that just seemed too boring and predictable. So it was decided that the contents of the briefcase were never to be seen. This way each audience member would fill in the blank with their own ultimate contents. All you were supposed to know was that it was 'so beautiful.' No prop master could come up with something better than each individual's imagination. Then somebody had the bright idea (which I think was a mistake) of putting an orange lightbulb in there. Suddenly what could have been anything became anything supernatural. Didn't need to push the effect. People would have debated it for years anyway..." (from an interview for Roger Ebert's "Questions for the Movie Answer Man").
* ''{{Inception}}'' is clearly designed to provide ammunition for numerous different interpretations of the ending (and the whole film).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]
* ''The {{Illuminatus}}! Trilogy'': RobertAntonWilson has said the whole point was to pile up enough conspiracy theories so that no one could be sure what was 'true' by the end.
* JamesJoyce said something to the effect of "This ought to keep the professors busy for a hundred years" after publishing either ''{{Ulysses}}'' or ''FinnegansWake''.
** And damn it all to ''hell'', the old bastard was right!
* ''ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'' gets this way toward the end, with the LemonyNarrator outright admitting that there are no straight answers and we must keep on questioning.
* This is a major theme of ThomasPynchon's ''TheCryingOfLotFortyNine''. A woman finds a piece of graffiti on a bathroom wall that prompts her to investigate what is either an AncientConspiracy, an elaborate hoax by her dead ex, or her own desire to be a detective.
* Similar to the Joyce examples (and it may have helped inspire them) is the second part of Goethe's ''Faust''. The poet said in a letter to a friend toward the end of his life that all he had left to do was "wrap a few mantle folds around it so that it may remain an altogether evident riddle." Much earlier than that, he poked fun at his scholarly interpreters for their "[[EpilepticTrees allegorizing]] of this dramatic-humorous nonsense [the witch's arithmetic of ''Faust'', Part I], which has never gone very well. [[MagnificentBastard One should indulge in such jokes more often when one is young]]." As the icing on the cake, he once summed up the ethos of this approach in a single sentence: "[[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible The more incommensurable a work of art, the better]]." In the scholar's defense, since the play begins and ends in heaven, one can hardly blame them for their EveryoneIsJesusInPurgatory-style intellectual acrobatics.
* I once failed an English test for basing the entirety on the note written by MarkTwain for ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn''.
-->PERSONS
-->attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
-->persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished;
-->persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
-->By Order Of The Author,
-->Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
** You are my hero.
* The Notes at the end of TheWasteLand, which aren't necessarily as helpful as one might like. Easy to imagine TSEliot having a chuckle at the expense of the critics.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* The ending to ''ThePrisoner''.
** Patrick [=McGoohan=] wanted people to scratch their heads and cudgel their brains out trying to understand the final episode. He did too good a job -- apparently disgruntled or just plain confused fans showed up at his house demanding to know what it was all about...
* In the final "dream" episode of ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Season 4, JossWhedon placed a weirdo with cheese on his head spouting nonsense lines. Although the rest of the episode is heavy with symbolism, he specifically wanted something in each dream sequence that meant absolutely nothing whatsoever. Of course, [[http://www.whedon.info/article.php3?id_article=5318 this doesn't stop fans from trying to explain it anyway]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Music ]]
* TheBeatles: "I Am the Walrus", natch. Reached an art form with "Glass Onion", the source for the TropeNamer, which consists almost entirely of cryptic ShoutOuts to the group's earlier songs.
** It should be mentioned that in the ''MagicalMysteryTour'' movie where the song was performed on camera, the walrus was John, not Paul. The hippo was Paul.
*** [[FinalFantasyIX Hippaul, huh?]]
** It's safe to say it's not just "I Am the Walrus", but half the songs John Lennon wrote. His quote pretty much proves it: He was so fed up with fans trying to find hidden allusions in their songs that he decided to write a completely nonsensical one - namely, "I Am the Walrus". Lennon allegedly said, "Let's see the fuckers figure that one out" after finishing it. Which, [[FanDumb in an ironic twist]], [[MisaimedFandom was still searched for "clues"]].
*** "Come Together" has the same origin.
** After making a particularly good point during a TV interview in regards to The Beatles' waning popularity among teeny-boppers, John Lennon looked directly into the camera and said "Isn't that right, Harry?". Who's Harry? He doesn't exist. John randomly chose the name to keep the audience guessing.
** Veruca Salt parodied/homaged the "Glass Onion" example in the bridge to "Volcano Girls" - "Well here's another clue if you please/ the Seether's Louise", referring to a member of the band and the song "Seether", which had lyrics that were often debated over by fans. It was probably just meant as a tongue in cheek reference to interpretations rather than an actual mindscrew though, as they'd already said in interviews that "the Seether" was a personification of anger.
* {{Don McLean}}, when asked what the meaning of ''American Pie'' was, said something like, "It means I never have to work again."
** There is ONE thing mentioned in the song that's definite, "the day the music died", which refers to the plane crash that killed Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper. ''That'', more than anything, is why this song has been picked to death, much like how Gary Larson making one of the cow tools look kind of like a saw drove about half the newspaper readers in the country absolutely nuts.
* The art-rock group {{Music/Tool}} pretty much runs off of this. They put a huge emphasis on personal interpretation of the imagery used in their songs, to the point where they ''never release official lyrics with their albums''.
** Not to mention their early endorsement of lachrymology, a fabricated philosophy that was basically psychobabble.
** Radiohead shares a similar philosophy and has been to known to not release lyrics.
* "The Bewlay Brothers" from ''[[DavidBowie Hunky Dory]]''.
* BobDylan, when asked what his songs were about, replied "Oh [[{{Henway}} some are about three minutes, some are about five minutes]]."
-->'''Interviewer:''' What's your message?\\
'''Dylan:''' ''{mortally offended}'' What's my ''message?'' ''{brandishes mercury light}'' "Keep a cool head and always carry a light bulb!"
* Much of composer Erik Satie's music poked fun at the idea that music needed to serve some grand purpose or be consciously ''about'' anything.
* Carly Simon has given so many utterly contradictory hints over the years as to who the subject of "You're So Vain" is that it has become impossible for anyone who knows the facts to avoid suspecting her of this trope. (No, [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/13316/66997 the latest rumor isn't true either]], so don't even bother posting it. Like I said, she changes her answer to a different clue, each just as incompatible with the others, every decade or so.) The likeliest explanation of the song is that she originally wrote it without intending it to be about any actual, existing, specific man, and was as delighted as she was surprised by all the endless speculation and debate, so she decided to take the misconception that the song refers to someone in particular and run with it for as long as she could, just to fuck with our heads. Indeed, everything about her behavior on the matter has suggested child-like prankishness.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: VideoGames]]
* ''SilentHill''. Even the stuff that's AllThereInTheManual doesn't help anyone make sense of the series. It's not meant to. Even the fans' most cherished theories have never received any confirmation more solid than a [[ShrugOfGod shrug]] or an inconclusive SureWhyNot from the producers.
** There was a HOLE here. It's gone now.
** Maybe it moved to Guatemala?
* ''The Mirror Lied'' A complete and deliberate Mind Screw. To quote the author: "''It has no defined story by me, that's certain - but its point is to be on the extreme end of the scale as far as ambiguity goes, for the sake of a possibly refreshing experiment of interpretation for some.''"
* Arguably ''{{Killer7}}'', or basically any other game by Suda51.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: WesternAnimation]]
* ''AeonFlux'' messes with your head constantly, and Peter Chung has gone out of his way not to explain anything, in hopes that the viewers will derive their own meanings.
** This approach eventually backfired badly on him, though. The plot of the film, almost universally considered [=~DarthWiki/So Bad It's Horrible~=] had its genesis in the scriptwriters' own interpretation of the {{mind screw}}iest episode of the series.
* Pretty sure this is the ONLY thing ''12ozMouse'' is.
* AquaTeenHungerForce does this with its characters. Other than their personalities and virginity, nothing about them mentioned in any episode is canon.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Other]]
* The whole basis of {{Dada}}.
[[/folder]]
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<<|{{Literature}}|>>
<<|MusicTropes|>>
<<|ShowGenres|>>

*** You are my hero.

* Pretty sure this is the ONLY thing ''12oz Mouse'' is.

** It should be mentioned that in the Magical Mystery Tour movie where the song was performed on camera, the walrus was John, not Paul. The hippo was Paul.

'''Dylan:''' ''{mortally offended}'' What's my ''message?'' ''{brandishes mercury light}'' Keep a cool head and always carry a light bulb!"

*{{Don McLean}}, when asked what the meaning of ''American Pie'' was, said something like, "It means I never have to work again."
**There is ONE thing mentioned in the song that's definite, "the day the music died", which refers to the plane crash that killed Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and The Big Bopper. ''That'', more than anything, is why this song has been picked to death, much like how Gary Larson making one of the cow tools look kind of like a saw drove about half the newspaper readers in the country absolutely nuts.
*The art-rock group {{Music/Tool}} pretty much runs off of this. They put a huge emphasis on personal interpretation of the imagery used in their songs, to the point where they ''never release official lyrics with their albums''.
**Not to mention their early endorsement of lachrymology, a fabricated philosophy that was basically psychobabble.
**Radiohead shares a similar philosophy and has been to known to not release lyrics.
*"The Bewlay Brothers" from ''[[DavidBowie Hunky Dory]]''.
*BobDylan, when asked what his songs were about, replied "Oh [[{{Henway}} some are about three minutes, some are about five minutes]]."
*Much of composer Erik Satie's music poked fun at the idea that music needed to serve some grand purpose or be consciously ''about'' anything.