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Ira Kane: Snag it and put it in the bucket Harry Block: Oh, no. I seen this movie; the Black Dude Dies First. You snag it.
Happens when a character knows that a trope is about to happen, either due to being Genre Savvy or because someone is trying to invoke it, and then actively attempts to avert it, subvert it, or invert it.
The character might succeed, or might fail. The point is that the character is attempting to avoid a straight run of the trope.
Compare Reality Ensues (which this may sometimes lead to).
Contrast Invoked Trope, Exploited Trope, Discussed Trope.
Not to be confused with a simple Averted Trope, that has no prompting from any characters.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
Comic Books
Fan Works
- Reconciliation seems to be headed toward the Netorare Genre at first glance; Hanako, after her Bad Ending, has isolated herself from Lilly and Hisao out of guilt for eight years. During this time, Lilly and Hisao have gotten together, and Hanako still has feelings for Hisao. The twist that forces Hanako out of her self-imposed isolation, however, is Lilly calling her to inform her of Hisao's death.
- In Ace Combat The Equestrian War, a rookie griffon soldier named Slip almost pulls a Screw This, I'm Outta Here, but he seems to know what happens to deserters in war stories, so he decides to keep fighting. Shortly after this sudden bout of courage, he's killed.
- There's a subversion of a defied trope in Calvin and Hobbes: The Series: both times Dr. Brainstorm refutes Enemy Mine, he ends up playing it straight.
- Despite being played straight before, Part 3 - Twilight of Turnabout Storm defies Talking to Himself: The Judge refuses to talk to Doctor Whooves as he's afraid it might cause a time paradox.
Film
Literature
- Done in It's Kind of a Funny Story, where the main character Craig refuses the possibility of heroin, because "If I were doing heroin, then I'd be a depressed teenager on heroin. I didn't need to be that cliché."
- In Maskerade, once a series of murders begin happening at an opera house, the first thing they do is put extra guards on the giant chandelier, to keep it from being dropped on anybody.
- The Screwtape Letters plays with, but ultimately defies the Deal with the Devil trope. Screwtape explains that it's fallen out of favor ever since Hell made the strategic switch from promoting Satanism to promoting atheism, which is seen as a safer bet.
- The Warhammer 40000 novel Grey Knights notes that the Inquisition defies Never Found the Body in the case of Ghargatuloth; they sent the Grey Knight expedition down to Khorion IX instead of simply calling Exterminatus on it because they needed eyes on the ground to see him die.
- The short story Another End Of The Empire
by Tim Pratt features the Evil Overlord Mogrash who is told the following prophecy:
"A child dwells in the village of Misery Chin, in the mountain provinces to the east. If allowed to grow to manhood, he will take over your empire, overthrow your ways and means, and send you from the halls of your palace forever."
- In the Myst novel, Atrus comes across one of the infamous D'ni puzzle-locks and tries to decipher it in the standard Myst Only Smart People May Pass fashion. His father Gehn picks up a blunt instrument and smashes it open.
- Cassandra Truth is defied in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by Professor Kirke. When Peter and Susan tell him they think Lucy is lying about discovering a portal to Narnia in the old wardrobe, the professor suspects she's actually telling the truth (after all, he knows quite a lot about Narnia) and convinces them to trust her.
Live Action TV
- Mixing this up a bit with Memetic Badass, there's an LJ icon with Spy Daddy from Alias that reads, "I am five steps ahead of you. I kill you in step four."
- Buffy stabs Dracula again when he tries to resurrect, and then reminds him she's still there when he tries again.
- Doctor Who, "Utopia":
The Master: Now then, Doctor! Ooh! New voice! ... Anyway, why don't we stop and have a nice little chat where I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me — I don't think!
- Hannah Montana: Miley is Genre Savvy enough to check for feet under the stalls before talking about her Secret Identity with Lilly in the ladies' room.
- Firefly
- After being defeated, The Dragon declares We Will Meet Again. Mal promptly kicks him into an engine intake.
- When Mal fought Niska's new Dragon, Zoe tells the crew to stand back because This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself. Mal, who's very badly injured and exhausted (and even died during torture at one point), knowing how poor shape he's in and how much he's struggling, immediately yells that it really isn't, allowing the gang to open fire on his opponent, taking him down and saving Mal's life.
- When Mal and Zoe are being held for questioning by local authorities, Jayne makes a bid for power, knowing the rest of the gang don't really have the ability to control him without Mal and Zoe there. However, prior to his take-over bid, he was ranting about leaving those idiots behind instead of rescuing them while Simon was patching up his injuries. Guessing that Jayne was serious about taking over, that no-one would be able to control him and that he wouldn't want to rescue Mal and Zoe, Simon pre-empts Jayne's Appeal to Force moment by secretly injecting him with a general anaesthetic instead of a painkiller. When Jayne attempts to take control of ship, he keels over unconscious instead. The rest of the crew (including Mal and Zoe when they learn what happened) are immensely relieved by Simon's foresight.
- The X-Files: In the Myth Arc episode "Tunguska", Mulder travels to Russia and takes Russian American Alex Krycek with him, defying Language Barrier. Never mind that Krycek is his nemesis and Chew Toy (especially in this episode). He's a former FBI agent who collaborated with the shady secret government organization, but his language skills proved quite useful. He later ratted Mulder out since Krycek had connections to every shady organization on the show.
Video Games
- Left 4 Dead has one of the guys who write the the saferoom graffiti proclaim that "WE ARE THE REAL MONSTERS". The guy underneath him says "No, that's the zombies".
- Evil Dead: Hail To The King was a straight up Resident Evil clone with an Evil Dead look, including the puzzles (though, thankfully, most were much less obtuse and nonsensical than RE). However, in the latter part of the game, Ash, in a cutscene, reads the plaque on a door. After noting the overly complicated puzzle mechanism required to open it, and just shoots the door open with his boomstick in the game's Crowning Moment of Funny.
- In Freedom Fighters, you can prevent soviet reinforcements from coming in by blowing up the bridges their armored transport cars cross, and blowing up the helipads supplying assault and transport helicopters.
- Dragon Age II presents this in the guise of one of the final Take a Third Option choices. A player actively seeking to achieve some sort of compromise between two factions is rewarded with a rather large "boom".
- In Portal 2, the Final Boss defies Boss Arena Idiocy by studying the recordings of how you defeated the previous boss and deliberately setting up the arena to avoid those same mistakes. The trope is then zig zagged by having the boss make a new set of glaringly obvious mistakes.
Wheatley: "I took the liberty of watching the tapes of you killing her, and I am not going to make the same mistakes. Four-part plan is this: One, no portal surfaces. Two, start the neurotoxin immediately. Three, bomb-proof shields for me, leading directly into number four: bombs, for throwing at you. You know what, this plan is so good that I'm going to give you a sporting chance and turn off the neurotoxin. I'm joking, of course. Goodbye."
- And taken further at the end: "PART FIVE! BOOBY TRAP THE STALEMATE BUTTON!"
- Unfortunately for Wheatley, he failed to defy the final Crowning Moment of Awesome trope: Chell opening a portal right under him, with the other side on the surface of the moon.
- Belle defies a Sadistic Choice in Kingdom Hearts II. Xaldin kidnaps her and takes the rose that can lift Beast's curse, forcing Beast to choose which he'll give back. Although Beast chooses for Belle to be safe, she elbows Xaldin, saving herself and the rose.
- Baldur's Gate II: Irenicus: "No, you'll warrant no villain's exposition from me."
Web Comics
- A rare example of a double-defiance: this
Irregular Webcomic! strip.
- The DM of DM of the Rings will not tolerate Off the Rails when he can help it. Only twice do the players pull it off.
- Least I Could Do does this with an old classic:
Noel: No he didn't. I beat the shit out of him with a smile on my face.
- Tarquin from The Order of the Stick is so Dangerously Genre Savvy that he hands out guidelines on defying tropes to his guards. They work.
Elan: Will I ever see you again?
Julio Scoundrél: Well, as an older mentor figure, the most likely scenario is that I'd return only to be randomly killed by an enemy of yours so that you can cradle my dying body while swearing revenge — so don't take it personally if I say I sincerely hope we never cross paths again.
- Axe Cop advices the families of crime fighters to hide in the bushes outside their house with guns every night to avert And Your Little Dog Too.
Web Original
- The point of the Evil Overlord List.
- In Linkara's "Extreme Super Christmas Special #1" review, the ghosts from A Christmas Carol show up. Linkara flatly tells them that he does not want to make a Yet Another Christmas Carol nor does he need to (he already loves Christmas and comic books), and tells them to promptly GTFO.
- And in the Nostalgia Critic's review of Babes in Toyland, the Ghost Of Christmas Future tries to do this with him, but the Critic defies it as well. The Ghost gets his revenge by making him review The Grinch next week.
- In Spoony's review of the Wing Commander movie, he takes one look at the cover (showing Matthew Lillard and Freddie Prinze Jr.) and shrieks in terror. He explains thusly: "You know that thing, you can't trust a book by its cover? Well fuck you! That's books, not movies!"
- Worm gives quite a few examples but notably invokes Carrie and then defies that route in the very first chapter.
- When Film Brain learns that M. Bison's plan amounts to an "evil property development scheme", he interrupts the OF COURSE! saying it doesn't deserve that joke.
- Part two of this video
on Mr Coat And Friends defied Previously On, noting that it was on the internet, and we could just watch part one.
- The hentai flash site Zone Archive had apparently been pestered to make a something related to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. So they did...however not what you would expect. After bringing up a shot of Pinkie Pie in Naughty Tentacles, selecting pretty much any of the animation options causes this to happen.
It speaks for itself.
Western Animation
- At the end of an episode of Darkwing Duck, he's forced to work with Quacker Jack, one of the regular villains, to stop a greater villain. When the greater villain is stopped, Quacker Jack asks if this is where they show the greater villain love and kindness, and he vows to mend his evil ways. Neither Quacker Jack, nor Darkwing think so. They just beat him down further.
- The Earthworm Jim episode "Hyper Psy-Crow" almost ends with a "Here We Go Again" ending (actually called that) after a Reset Button of the episode's events. Jim won't stand for it, and just drops a cow on Psy-Crow before he can enact his scheme again.
- Asami Sato from The Legend of Korra defies Clingy Jealous Girl and Green-Eyed Monster, as she never clings to her boyfriend Mako to spite Korra, and when she finds out about the kiss incedent betwen Korra and Mako, she mostly keeps her feelings to herself. Until it's time for her to confront Mako on it, and as she does so she makes a point of not hating Korra herself.
- In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "The Best Night Ever", the ponies are running away from the chaos they've caused at the Grand Galloping Gala and Rarity drops her glass slipper. Pinkie Pie lampshades the trope of The Girl Who Fits This Slipper and Rarity, who has no interest in meeting Prince Blueblood ever again, screams and crushes the slipper into shards.
- South Park:
- Attempted, but failed in "Butt Out". Kyle wants to just confess what they did to avoid the usual antics, and it doesn't work, instead turning into an I Am Spartacus moment.
- Done successfully in "Krazy Kripples". The main characters agree that they don't want to have any part in the episode's plot. They actually don't (letting secondary characters run the episode), and agree at the end that they're glad that they didn't get involved.
- In "Woodland Critter Christmas", Stan tries to defy a Gilligan Cut by arguing with the narrator. He fails.
- Raven from Teen Titans is aware of the Bad Powers, Bad People trope, and despite the fact that her powers come from her demon father she does her best to be a good gal. Jinx eventually does the same.
- In the Ben 10: Ultimate Alien finale, Vilgax defies the Demoted To Dragon trope by faking submission to Diagon, taking advantage on him to get rid of the third member of the Big Bad Ensemble and then Out Gambit his "master" by consuming him, thus remaining the final villain.
Real Life
- The United Nations was created to prevent a third World War.
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