History Main / WrongGenreSavvy

* ''PerdidoStreetStation'' includes an adventuring party straight out of ''DungeonsAndDragons''. Since they're in the CrapsackWorld of a Mieville novel, they all die pretty quickly.

**** This often comes about due to the insanity systems of such systems can be resisted by characters who lack the mental prowess to [[GoMadFromTheRevelation comprehend the horrors]] they face, making such characters a FearlessFool. As a result, intellectual investigators tend to go mad while the dumb combat-centric characters survive, [[Scrub arguably undermining the game]].

* The entire cast of ''TheWestingGame'' seems to think they're in a murder mystery story with a fabulous inheritance as the prize to the winner. [[spoiler: Only Turtle ever realizes they're ''not''.]]

* The titular character of ''SuzumiyaHaruhi'' hopes to meet aliens, time-travelers and espers, experience super-natural mysteries and expose [[AncientConspiracy ancient conspiracies]]. Since she is a RealityWarper, it actually ''does'' happen all around her, but [[LockedOutOfTheLoop she doesn't notice]]. One could put it so that she ''makes'' herself an accurate GenreSavvy.

* In ''PuniPuniPoemi'' the titular character is convinced (apparently correctly) that she is the main character -- and her voice actress. In the final scene the show's director (who is also a character) reveals that the main character is apparently [[spoiler:her love interest]].

* ''{{Stranger than Fiction}}'' is a unique case, where the title character realizes he's in a story after he starts hearing his own narration. He seeks out help to try and become GenreSavvy, and correctly deduces that in the context of his narrator's story, he's in a [[spoiler: tragedy]], which is ironically WrongGenreSavvy as the meta-story (the movie about the story about a man who hears his own narrator, i.e. the movie you're watching) is actually a [[spoiler: comedy]].

* The titular ''RemingtonSteele'' is a classic movie buff, and every case he and Laura Holt solve together reminds him of a classic movie. Often the wrong one...

* The {{Pokemon Fanfic}} LatiasJourney features an RPGEpisode where at one point they get quized by a skeleton, and this happens:

->'''Skeleton:''' WHAT IS THE WIND SPEED OF A SWELLOW?\\
->'''Phanphy:''' Wait! I saw this on TV once! I know the answer! Is it a Hoennese Swellow or an Orrean Swellow?\\
->'''Skeleton:''' HOENNESE.\\
->'''Phanphy:''' No, you were supposed to say you didn't know, then fall off a cliff.\\
->'''Skeleton:''' YOU WATCH TOO MUCH TV.\\

If a character in a series that has a FourthWall thinks mainly in terms of tropes, you've probably got a character who's WrongGenreSavvy. Even if you're correct about being in a story, it's possible for you to guess wrong about your role in the story, the genre of the story, or where on the various sliding scales your story is. Any way you spin it, it's still a common way of subverting Genre Savviness.

** Shortly afterward WilWeaton gets his arm cut off because one of the survivors is acting like its a zombie movie, and thinks a bite means infection... the catgirls don't work like that.

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* In StarWars, Obi-Wan is extremely GenreSavvy when he tells Anakin that AristocratsAreEvil. Too bad he's applying this trope - and that of GodSaveUsFromTheQueen to Padme instead of anyone else... say, Palpatine? Padme is in fact an example of TheHighQueen and probably the most moral character in the whole Star Wars universe.
* An identical scenario happens in ''{{Arsenic and Old Lace}}'' where the theater critic describes in great detail and mocks what happens to the stupid unsuspecting victim characters in the play; inadvertently giving the BigBad ideas.

** There's also [[{{Disgaea 3}} Mao]], who firmly believes in the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality and thinks that becoming a hero will make him [[BoringInvincibleHero impossible to defeat.]] While this would make sense in any other game, this is ''{{Disgaea}}''.

* In the little-known Z-grade movie ''Creature,'' which is largely a ripoff of ''{{Alien}}'', someone says they remember seeing an old movie (specifically, ''The Thing From Another Planet'') where they tried to stop the monster from killing everyone with an electrified forcefield. Not too effective against ''this'' monster.

** For example, statting up a political operative... in a combat heavy scenario. Or stating up a character who does nothing but combat... in a scenario all about political maneuvering. Or either... in a CosmicHorrorStory scenario.

** For example, stating up a political operative... in a combat heavy scenario. Or stating up a character who does nothing but combat... in a scenario all about political maneuvering. Or either... in a CosmicHorrorStory scenario.

**** You could leave the empty shell from the last time you fired it for just such an occaision

* {{Cracked}}s ''[[http://www.cracked.com/blog/new-york-a-soft-look-at-hard-lives/ Infiltrating a Gang Based on My Knowledge of West Side Story]]''.

-->'''Frank''': You mean the movie lied?

* The entire cast of ''TheWestingGame'' seems to think they're in a murder mystery story with a fabulous inheritance as the prize to the winner. [[spoiler: Only Turtle ever realizes they're ''not'', and thus manages to solve the ''real'' puzzle -- a fairly simple one disguised by extreme misdirection -- and win the inheritance by realizing the "victim" had faked his own death and they were supposed to find his fourth SecretIdentity.]]

* In the ''{{Torchwood}}'' episode "Countrycide," the team investigates a series of killings by predatory aliens. They don't know that [[spoiler:aliens had nothing to do it. A clan of cannibalistic SerialKillers committed the murders.]]

* ''Lost'': Although Hurley usually fills the role of the GenreSavvy, he sometimes ends up wrong as well -- after the cast ends up 30 years into the past, he tries to operate on the assumption that their time travel works similar to the ''BackToTheFuture'' rules. He is, however, wrong, their case being a StableTimeLoop and YouAlreadyChangedThePast. Other characters have some trouble explaining this to him.

** There's also [[{{Disgaea 3}} Mao]], who firmly believes in the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality and thinks that becoming a hero will make him [[BoringInvincibleHero impossible to defeat.]] While this would make sense in any other game, this is ''{{Disgaea}}'', SoYeah.

** Twoflower is arguably another Discworld example; he thinks he is in a conventional heroic fantasy setting, which Discworld, um... [[WorldHalfEmpty is not]]. Luckily for him, everyone around him is more GenreSavvy.