alt title(s): Subverted; Subversion
In other words, the story does not trick the player, it is the player that tricks himself.
Tropes live in the minds of the audience. When a screenwriter successfully builds an expectation that a trope is coming, then wrests the situation into a very new shape, invalidating the expectation and surprising the viewer, you have a
Subverted Trope.
This is one method of leveraging a trope to give a story texture. It certainly isn't the only way.
A subversion has two mandatory segments. First, the expectation is set up that something we have seen plenty of times before is coming, then that set-up is paid off with something else. The set-up is a trope. The "something else" is the subversion. It is a deliberate act on the part of the characters,
as though they are expecting the trope.
To put this another way, a trope of the form "X are often Y" is not subverted by every X you can think of that isn't Y. If someone is murdered and there's a butler around, but he didn't do it, that's not automatically a subversion of
The Butler Did It. But if the writer makes it
look like a typical example of
The Butler Did It, then reveals he didn't,
that's a subversion.
A full comparison would go something like this: A car chase is in progress and a car is driving towards a
pane of glass.
- If the car drives through the pane of glass, it's played straight.
- If the car misses the pane of glass, it's subverted.
- If the car misses the pane of glass but something else causes the glass to be broken, it's a double subversion.
- If the car hits the glass, the glass remains intact, and the car shatters, it's inverted.
- If there is no pane of glass at all, it's averted.
Conclusion: when posting examples, remember that just
not doing a trope isn't the same thing as
subverting it.
Unfortunately, most tropers tend to forget that.
Bear in mind that, just as
Tropes Are Not Bad, subversions are not automatically good, or witty, or clever, or original; conversely, don't hesitate to add a subversion (that's actually there) just because you think the work is inane and stupid.
Meta Trope Intro compares this with many other ways that a trope can be used.
See also
Discredited Trope,
Dead Horse Trope,
Double Subversion.
Examples
Every trope page has 'subverted in...' somewhere on it.
Please, apply the
Wiki Magic!
Anime
- Pokemon: An extra delicious instance of subverting a trope one created, in one episode of Pokemon Pikachu is defeated by a mere Magikarp, despite the fact that Pikachu defeats its superpowered evolved form, Gyarados, regularly. MagikarpPower indeed.
- Cross Game: A beautiful girl is attacked by three delinquents. But lo, a hero arrives! With but three mighty punches he decks the villains, saving the girl. Noticing her injured hand he gentlemanly offers to provide medical treatment at his conveniently nearby home...
Wait a minute... we've seen this hero before. Gasp! He was part of the gang of delinquents- It's an
Invoked Trope!
Oh dear, what will happen to the beautiful innocent girl now. Will our onlooking heroine warn her in time?!
Wait... what is the beautiful innocent victim doing now? She's got her cell phone out! She's calling the police! "That was extortion they tried to commit- the police need to know about it." The "delinquents" flee, revealing the truth.
- Watchmen: Adrian Veidt is set up to be the ultimate in Ambiguously Gay, with all of the preening attention to his own physical appearance and lack of fighting ability that is associated with that trope. Then somebody tries to shoot him, and he responds by picking up an eight-foot-tall floor lamp and using it to bash the gunman into a fountain, then climbing in after him and demanding to know who sent him while shaking and choking him. Subverted even further when we find out that Veidt hired the assassin himself as a red herring, and when Veidt proceeds to beat the everloving crap out of Nite Owl and Rorschach simultaneously, and then proves his skill further by catching a bullet.
Music
.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons is the master of the subverted trope. One example of many is in the episode Monty Can't Buy Me Love, where Cue The Flying Pigs is subverted when Mr. Burns and Smithers enter a book store:
Burns: Books and cocoa in the same store? What's next, a talking banana?
Burns: Of course not. The very notion of a talking banana is absurd. But still....
- In Vino Veritas is subverted in the episode Mountain of Madness, where a park ranger enters a cabin and finds it full of partying employees from the nuclear plant.
Ranger: Hey, what is going on here? Who are you people? This is a lookout post. Where is Ranger Mc Fadden?
Drunk: I was just happy to see so many nice people!
Ranger: Quiet, you drunk. Where is Ranger Mc Fadden?
The camera then moves a step to the side, revealing a straight-laced ranger with glasses:
Ranger Mc Fadden: Right here sir, behind the drunk.
- A third example, also from Monty Can't Buy Me Love, is when Mr. Burns, Homer et al have finally found the Loch Ness monster, who proves impossible to subdue. Finally Mr. Burns walks toward the monster with a stern look in his face. We expect an epic fight where Mr. Burns is revealed as a Badass Grandpa handing out an unexpected ass-kicking - but instead the scene cuts to the team's helicopter in the air, with Nessie tied up and swinging below. Mr. Burns explains to the admiring team:
Burns: I was a little worried when he swallowed me, but ... well, you saw the rest.
- Family Guy: Peter launches himself across town with a catapult. We cut to a guy talking about how he's finally set up these dominoes in exactly the way he wanted... next to the good china... and his hemophiliac newborn son... and how now he's going to place this priceless Faberge egg on the floor... when Peter lands outside the window and tells him how nice his things are.
