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Bertie Wooster: Why is it, do you think, Jeeves, that the thought of the "little thing" my Aunt Dahlia wants me to do for her fills me with a nameless foreboding? Jeeves: Experience, sir? — Jeeves And Wooster
The exact opposite of Genre Blindness. A Genre Savvy character doesn't necessarily know they're in a story, but they do know of stories like their own and what worked in them and what didn't. They know every Simple Plan is doomed to failure from the start and instead of participating, sit back and wait to get in their "I told you so", or even a " We Could Have Avoided All This". They can spot someone being controlled by The Puppet Masters from a mile away ( usually). They're more likely to listen when they catch someone in a compromising position who sputters "It's Not What It Looks Like!". They can tell fairly early that that strange old man who's offering free lollipops is probably best avoided. And they've seen enough Horror movies to know that when there's an ax murderer on the loose, the last thing you want to do is either split up, boink your significant other, or investigate strange noises in the Sinister Subway. They know how to avoid getting a bad rank on the Sorting Algorithm Of Mortality.
The Genre Savvy live to hang lampshades, give Aside Glances, and say, " You just had to say it, didn't you?" right after use of a Tempting Fate Stock Phrase. Their exasperation with the sheer stupidity of the entire universe usually makes them a Deadpan Snarker. They are likely to be told that This Is Reality or just ignored, and likely to be the one who always wanted to say that. A useful person to have around if you get Trapped In TV Land.
They will often try to take advantage of tropes, either to fail embarrassingly (often because they're actually Wrong Genre Savvy), or to achieve remarkable feats to everyone else's astonishment.
Genre savviness sometimes occurs when The Man Who Knew Too Little discovers that his situation is real. This is a Justified Trope in situations where the character was initially recruited for their knowledge of the genre. ( Galaxy Quest, The Last Starfighter, Three Amigos!) It can also be justified through experience—hopefully, after going through dozens of Lets You And Him Fight scenarios a superhero will eventually see them coming and start trying to avoid them ahead of time.
Like playing with the Fourth Wall, having one or more Genre Savvy characters is indicative of Post Modernism.
The most extreme, who know what Genre Blindness is and that they're supposed to be, remain Contractually Genre Blind. On the other hand, when they're incorrect in their assumptions on what they're supposed to be, they're of the Wrong Genre Savvy persuasion.
When a villain instead says "screw that!" and dodges every trope and Idiot Ball that comes their way, they are Dangerously Genre Savvy. When they don't, it's Death By Genre Savviness. When characters are just Genre Savvy enough to accept the premises of the story, they are Functional Genre Savvy. Compare with Medium Awareness.
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Examples
Anime and Manga
- Inuzuka Koushi from Sumomo Mo Momo Mo is the only person who sees the lunacy of an underground martial arts war, constantly quoting the various laws they are breaking.
- The title character of Suzumiya Haruhi sees everything in terms of TV and anime tropes, even where they might not otherwise have been. She borders between being a wrong and being an accurate Genre Savvy. Since she is an all-powerful Reality Warper with unstoppable willpower, she actually makes herself become accurate.
- Koizumi himself is a Genre Savvy character too, using it to his advantage to convince Haruhi of certain things. Sometimes it does work, sometimes it backfires at him.
- Kyon also is a pretty Genre Savvy guy, usually expressing it with snarky remarks.
- Normally, Kyoko in Maison Ikkoku tends to think the worst of Godai when it comes to other women. The exception being schoolgirl Ibuki Yagami, who has an (unreturned) crush on Godai-sensei. Nothing that she tries fazes Kyoko the least (Godai isn't so lucky). Kyoko's late husband was one of her teachers and she knows that story inside and out.
- Akira of School Rumble is the only one who actually understands the Love Dodecahedron, even using that knowledge to manipulate people. As demonstrated in the Beach Episode, where a naked Harima winds up grappling a bikini-clad Eri, not only is Akira fully aware that it's Not What It Looks Like instead of jumping to the obvious conclusion, she is also capable of explaining in great detail exactly what happened.
- Konata of Lucky Star is Genre Savvy to the point of being a trope-fixated Cloudcuckoolander. She recognizes tropes and conventions... but never seems to be able to tell which actually apply to her own genre. Sometimes she gets it right, but other times, she applies tropes that are spectacularly wrong for her situation, referencing Dating Sim event flags or deciding the dentist sounds like a classic mecha anime.
- Houshakuji Renge from Ouran High School Host Club is an Otaku example. All of the other main characters (except Haruhi), as well, to the extent of deliberately playing up their specialized bishonen stereotypes to please their customers.
- In Mahou Sensei Negima, the "library girls", quite understandably, read a lot of books... which means they're quite willing to accept the idea that their teacher is secretly a wizard. In particular, Paru (Saotome Haruna, herself supposed to be an amateur manga artist!) is all too willing to participate in cliche storylines.
Paru: But mostly I want to help because IT SOUNDS LIKE A BLAST!
- But then, one character is Genre Savvy enough to freak out when she realizes that she's in a Love Triangle, and those never end well... (especially not in Japanese literature!)
- In a curious and almost tragic use of this trope, Ako expresses her lack of self-confidence and feeling of being "ordinary" by saying she's literally "just a supporting character". Negi, of course, tries to reassure her that she is important... but in the context of the manga as a whole, she's exactly right about her lack of importance. At least so far...
- Shows up a lot in Hayate The Combat Butler, which has No Fourth Wall. Almost everyone is Genre Savvy about the fact that they're in a shounen anime/manga and what that usually entails. Key word: usually.
- The trick is, they don't know they're in a parody.
- Most of the characters in Genshiken are major, major otaku and therefore genre savvy, but share Konata's affliction of being unable to tell exactly what kind of anime they're in. Most of the guys seem to visualise life as a dating sim, and beat themselves up about it when they realise it.
- Zola in BlueDragon. In the second episode, after she effortlessly destroys several dozen enemy robots, the remaining ones begin combining into a single much larger robot. Zola notes that it would be stupid of her to wait for them to finish, and successfully attacks before the Transformation Sequence is finished.
- Dio Brando of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure gets into Dangerously Genre Savvy territory, as he usually does not take chances when it comes to his known weaknesses (he's a vampire, after all). For example, instead of throwing one knife (which he knows the hero can block), Dio stops time and throws about 10 to 20 knives in succession so that he can't possibly block them all. And, just to be really, really sure, he drops a steamroller on him. Is it any wonder that this guy is one of the most beloved anime villains of all time?
- Keima of the The World Only God Knows manga is an internet-famous genius when it comes to Dating Sims, so when Hell has a problem with evil spirits hiding inside schoolgirls—where making them fall in love is the only way to exorcise them — they call him. And despite Keima's dislike of real girls, it works.
- Simon of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann becomes rather Genre Savvy in the last two arcs, recognising that they've always snatched victory at the last second from the jaws of defeat merely by being sheer bloody-minded Determinators, in stark contrast to Rossiu who thinks things like "plans" and "logic" have any effect in a universe governed by the Rule Of Cool. Kamina has the same mindset before Simon, but this is less to do with being Genre Savvy than it does Kamina being the kind to charge in without a plan. Fanboys try to ignore all the times this didn't really work.
- Tomoyo Daidouji from Cardcaptor Sakura is pretty much the result of making the camera person and the costume designer a major character.
- Ikki Tousen is basically "Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, Gender Flipped and as a High School AU". Well, the teenage fighters know they're the reincarnations of these heroes, and several of them use such knowledge to their advantage as they fight their ways in the story, searching for a way to either fulfill or screw their fates.
- In Kannagi, Akiba Meguru, being a "self-conscious akiba-freak", is Genre Savvy to the extreme, even recognizing that Mikuriya Jin for what he is:
'If this is a comic, you are the main character!'
- This editor was initially puzzled by one fight towards the beginning of Yu Yu Hakusho. Kurama squares off against the first of the four Saint Beasts, a rock demon which is able to melt into the stone all around them and come out from any direction (there ought to be a trope page for that). Kurama is able to predict which part of the walls, floor, or ceiling the demon is about to pop out of every single time, which he eventually reveals is due to his rose whip blanketing the room in a sweet scent—he knows where the demon is because of his foul odor. But that still didn't explain how he knew the first time the demon exploded out of the ceiling at him, before he brought out the rose whip. It was only after multiple viewings that I caught his remark immediately after dodging that attack:
Kurama: Same old trick.
Comics
- Ambush Bug is not only extremely Genre Savvy, he also loves breaking down the Fourth Wall, and the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Walls, just in case.
- As a result of his numerous adventures and encountering just about every being in the Marvel universe (and then some), Spider-Man is teeming with Genre Savvy. At times, he sarcastically expresses boredom at how redundant and predictable his life can be.
- In the MC2 universe, Genre Savvy is yet another skill Peter passes on to his daughter May. Much of the witty banter that goes down during her fights consist of describing the comic book tropes they're supposed to be following.
- Spider-Man routinely teams up with Wolverine. During their section of the latest Marvel Team-Up series, Peter makes a quip about the fact that they start brawling every time they meet. Every time. Even though they have teamed up many times and know each other socially. And they were most likely teammates on The Avengers at the time. This may stem from their intense mutual dislike of one another, made clear in their first encounter, but still...
- In Paradise X Saga, Peter Parker (now a cop), demonstrates a ridiculous level of Genre Saviness when he deduces the Guardians of the Galaxy's motivation with a two-word reply:
Peter Parker: I know you guys are gettin' ready to go back to the 30th century an' all, but I've been wonderin' — Where's Nikki? Vance Astro: "Nikki" who? Peter Parker: Oh wait, I know this one too. You're the guardians before Nikki joined the team, right? You haven't even won your war in the future yet, right? Earth's still in danger? So you're looking for a way to... let's see... no, not clone, don't even say the word "clone"... No, you want to mutate and empower the people of Earth so that they can defend themselves against some alien invaders, right? An' that's why you're here. (cue Vance and Star Hawk's totally shocked faces) Peter Parker: (absolutely nonchalantly) Really, it's not that hard... when you're doing this as long as I have, it's kind of difficult to be surprised by a twist like that anymore.
- In an issue of Marvel Adventures, at the end of a Lets You And Him Fight Spidey says, "It was a textbook superhero misunderstanding battle. Happens all the time! Luckily, this is the part where we make up for it by working together to stop her."
- Likewise, Deadpool displays a similar amount of Genre Savvy, though for a different reason — because of the inoperable brain tumor that ultimately, through Super Science, lead to his healing factor, he also has No Fourth Wall.
- And then there's Rick Jones, whose genre-savviness is given a name: "Comics Awareness" (as opposed to buddy Captain Marvel's "cosmic awareness".)
- The comic Zombies Calling by Faith Erin Hicks is built around the main character being savvy to the "rules" of zombie movies.
- The new Star Trek comic book series, which picks up the adventures of the crew right after the last episode of the original series, has the characters showing they've gained some Genre Savvy.
- After being stunned and thrown in a cell, McCoy is surprised to see Kirk pull a small phaser out of his boot and blast the door. McCoy asks when he started carrying a hidden weapon. "You get knocked out and thrown into a cell enough, you start to take precautions."
- After returning to the ship at the end of another issue, Kirk asks Spock how he knew to adjust the shields in anticipation of an attack. Spock replies by giving the percentage of times the ship has been attacked after losing communications with Kirk.
- The DCU's Infectious Lass. For example: "That's what we learned in the future about team-ups. First you fight..."
- In Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen, Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias, declares that he is not a villain from a Republic Films serial and therefore will not explain his plan.
- He did explain his plan, though... 35 minutes after it was put into motion.
- In The Sandman, when Morpheus and John Constantine enter a house haunted by renegade dreams, Constantine recalls what happens to people in horror movies when they split up. He asks Morpheus for reassurance that they'll stick together.
- Morpheus is possibly one of the most genre savvy entities in the whole universe. As the Prince of Stories, he knows that life literally imitates art (and vice versa) and is more than capable of controlling it.
- In Marvel's current Incredible Hercules series, Hercules is aware that as a figure of myth, he is trapped in endlessly repeating patterns that he cannot escape from, as they are a part of his essential being. Of course, he also routinely has flashbacks to assorted contradictory incidents, which he accepts with equanimity, as these are also part and parcel of being 'mythic'.
- This would mildly backfire at one point, when Hercules was presented with a situation of comparing his recent partners to companions in the past, such as individual Argonauts. When he comes to who Amadeus Cho is like... "No idea."
- This later came up when he gave a thumbs up to Amadeus for "scoring" with the Amazonian princess, without knowing that Amadeus had found out that the (main) reason for her interest was due to him being Hercules' eromenos...
- There was a Justice League storyline where they were fighting adversaries with some sort of time-skipping teleportation powers, and as usual the JLA were scattered across the world dealing with different problems. This exchange happens:
Flash: I wish Batman were here.
Plastic Man: Batman? Isn't this fight kind of beyond his means? Wouldn't he just slow us down?
Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner): Heh, listen to the other new guy. We need Batman to explain what the hell's going on!
- In Avengers: The Initiative issue 21, Gorilla Girl and Batwing have the following conversation:
Batwing: Where are you headed, Gorilla Girl?
Gorilla Girl: Home. I asked them to put me in the reserves, and they did.
Batwing: But you did such a good job against the Skrulls!
Gorilla Girl: Yeah, Batwing... and I came out alive, which is practically a miracle. I turn into a gorilla, I'm black, I'm female, and nobody's ever heard of me. I might as well have "Cannon Fodder" stamped on my forehead. You can keep pushing your luck if you want, but I'm getting out while I'm still in one piece. Vaya con dios, kids.
- The Amory Wars/Coheed and Cambria storyline's villain, the Trimage Wilhelm Ryan, sort of does this when addressing his robotic general, Mayo Deftinwulf:
"There is no room for mistakes, Mayo — nor young ones' vendettas!"
- Unfortunately, Claudio Kilgannon still survives, and goes out on a vendetta to kill Trimage Ryan.
- Used in Uncanny X-Men #254 when an alien fleet is about to attack Earth in a parody of DC Comics' Invasion!. When an alien fleet is about to attack Earth, a nameless researcher turned up the fact that Earth has fought off Skrulls and Badoon, repelled attacks from Galactus multiple times, is the home to Galactus's herald and the Phoenix, etc. His conclusion: "We're doomed!" They are.
- It's possible this idea has been done more than once; please add any other examples.
Fan Works
Films
- Pretty much the entirety of the Scream franchise is based on the characters being Genre Savvy, to the point that they make comments like "I know what happens to the black dude, and I'm getting out of here." Randy Meeks was a veritable fountain of knowledge about how to survive a horror movie.
- Until he found a giant Idiot Ball and turned his back to a dangerous area. This is actually the weakness of the films. Most deaths were from Idiot Ball incidents.
- The film Hot Fuzz plays off one of the characters' detailed knowledge of action cop films.
- Played for endless laughs within the Austin Powers trilogy, particularly any scene with Dr. Evil and his son.
- Subverted in the Mortal Kombat film, in which Liu Kang refuses to bow to a "mere beggar" whom his grandfather identifies as the god Raiden. Liu's grandfather begs Raiden's forgiveness and explains that America and too much television has made him crass — yet, not two minutes later, Raiden asks Liu to attack him and Liu promptly gets trounced. This troper concludes that Liu has, in fact, not been watching enough television.
- Goes double for just about everyone in Not Another Teen Movie. Several scenes featured characters taking a moment to stand around describing the quirks and apsects of their character portrayal with great detail.
Ricky Lipman: I am not going to let you hurt Janey again. Okay? Besides, I love her.
Jake: Well, so do I.
Ricky Lipman: (slight pause) Yes, but I'm the best friend, and I have been in front of her face the whole time, and she just... hasn't really realized it yet, but she will.
Jake: Well, I'm the reformed cool guy, who's learned the error of his ways. She's gonna forgive me for my mistakes, and realize that I really love her.
Ricky Lipman: (pause) Dammit, that's true.
- Let's not forget the "slow clap" rules.
- Or:
- Pretty much all of Galaxy Quest. When the characters realize they're in a real space battle, they try to use sensible, real-life tactics, and fight the tendency to act like the characters they play — which backfires, because they're much more effective once they start acting their parts. The Plucky Comic Relief is the most Genre Savvy of the bunch, leading to him being convinced he's doomed because he used to play a Red Shirt...
- The plot of Lady In The Water revolves around the characters realizing that they've stumbled into a Fairy Tale. This gets subverted when things go horribly awry because they're acting out the wrong roles in the story.
Harry Farber: This is precisely the moment where the mutation or beast will attempt to kill an unlikable side character. But, in stories where there has been no prior cursing, violence, nudity or death, such as in a family film, the unlikable character will escape his encounter, and be referenced later in the story, having learned valuable lessons. He may even be given a humorous moment to allow the audience to feel good about him. This is where I turn to run. You will leap for me, I will shut the door, and you will land a fraction of a second too late. (He turns to run and immediately gets killed.)
- One of the few good things about Independence Day was a scene during the initial attack on the alien ships. As soon as Will Smith's character sees their missiles exploding at some distance from ship with a special effect he immediately yells "They have shields!" and everyone knows what he's talking about.
- A similar, yet inverted instance came up in the (also) much maligned 2005 War of the Worlds film. Near the end, when the alien tripods are going a little nutty, Tom Cruise's character yells at a soldier who can't hear him in the panic: "Look at the goddamned birds!" (best line in the film, yo.) Sure enough, the soldiers pick up on their lack of shields and proceed to bring them down with their anti-tank missiles.
- In Mystery Men, Mr. Furious insists — correctly — that Lance Hunt is actually superhero Captain Amazing, and that it's only by wearing or removing a pair of glasses that he is able to switch his identity. Unfortunately, his colleagues are not quite so savvy, and this leads to many frustrating arguments in which they insist that Hunt can't be Amazing because "He wouldn't be able to see."
- Peter Venkman in the Ghostbusters movies and cartoons, in addition to being the more street-smart (if Book Dumb) Ghostbuster, also tends to display some genre savviness. In the second movie in particular, he's savvy enough to realize that ranting and raving about a demonic painting attempting to possess a baby at midnight on New Year's Eve is only going to make them look crazy to the psychiatrists at the asylum where they have been instituted, and so goes along with events in a calm and rational manner until someone wises up to let them go and deal with it. It's a matter of some frustration to him that his colleagues don't seem to have realized this.
- Preacher in Deep Blue Sea at one point exclaims, "Ooh, I'm done! Brothers never make it out of situations like this! Not ever!" Ironically, perhaps, he's one of only two survivors at the end of the movie.
- Interesting to note, originally he died and Saffron Burrows character lived, but test audiences disliked her character so much (reportedly screaming "DIE BITCH!" at the screen) and liked his so they re-shot the ending.
- In Last Action Hero, Danny Madigan, the kid from the real world, having seen so many action movies, knows all the clichés and plot devices when he winds up inside one. Jack Slater, the fictional Hollywood action hero who lives in the movie, refuses to believe him, suffering from Genre Blindness.
- This is partially subverted later in the film, where Slater reveals that several of the observed tropes were intentionally set up by him to look good.
- Slater shows flashes of Savvy. For example, he always shoots his closet every time he arrives home, because there are always goons hiding in there. It's cost him a fortune in doors over the years.
- Danny shows a mix of Genre Savvy and Genre Blindness when he thinks that he can't be killed while chasing the bad guy on his bike because he's a main character. He suddenly realizes that he's the funny sidekick, seconds before being propelled through the air and flying in front of the full moon in an obvious reference to E.T.
- John McClane in 2007's Live Free or Die Hard turns out to be pretty Genre Savvy: for example, at one point he asks whether there's some sort of "Henchmen 'R' Us" where the Big Bad gets all of his Mooks from. But then, he has been through roughly the same plot three times before, with only the details changed, so you'd be a bit worried if he hadn't spotted a pattern.
- Nick Cannon's character in the Day of the Dead remake
 . Could also be considered Death By Genre Savvy, as someone dies moments after he says this (but it's a teaser, so that's up for debate)
- Genre savviness abounds in the 1985 film Rustler's Rhapsody, a parody of The Western that spoofs everything from its stock characters to clean-cut "singing cowboys" like Gene Autry to gritty "spaghetti westerns".
- In fact, the film nearly crosses over to Dangerous Genre Savvy territory. The main character routinely uses the tropes of the Western genre to his advantage, though he does get caught off guard in the beginning of the film when it gets colorized and therefore darker and edgier. The bad guys keep losing because they're the bad guys, so they wisely decide to hire a good guy cowboy who happens to be a lawyer. Turns out that said lawyer cowboy is not a good guy because, "I'm a lawyer, you idiot!"
- The Operative in Serenity shows an awareness of genre conventions while fighting Mal. In his own words, "Nothing here is what it seems. He is not the plucky hero, the Alliance is not some evil empire, and this isn't the grand arena."
- Also, "I am of course wearing body armor. I am not a complete moron!"
- Unfortunately he fails to realize that Inara is not a helpless Damsel In Distress.
- One person in Diary of the Dead was Genre Savvy enough to suggest that people could survive the Zombie Apocalypse from watching how he and his party had survived.
- Not forgetting that characters were making a horror movie using some classic tropes and then lampshading them when they happened for real.
- When a zombie starts causing trouble in The Return of the Living Dead some men, armed with the knowledge that Night Of The Living Dead was based on a true event, feel they know how to handle zombies. Unfortunately for them, Night Of The Living Dead was based on a true event, but only very loosely, and the zombies in The Return of the Living Dead were completely different from the ones they saw in the movies.
- Eddie Valiant, in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, had a special kind of Genre Savvy. His past dealings with Toons gave him insight on how they worked, and allowed him to manipulate multiple situations to his advantage, such as using the Duck Season Rabbit Season trick to get Roger to take a drink. Judge Doom had similar abilities, allowing him to capture Roger at one point, by tapping "Shave and a Haircut" in a bar Roger is hiding in, knowing that Roger's old-school humor style wouldn't let him not finish the line.
- In the film Jeepers Creepers, the heroine runs down the Creeper with her car and skids to a halt a short distance away. When her passenger asks if it's dead, she says, "They never are." Then proceeds to throw it into reverse and run the creature over several more times.
- Still doesn't work, mind you.
- Jack Sparrow.
- Many of the recurring characters in Kevin Smith's films seem to be genre-savvy. One glaring example is Azrael from the film Dogma, who, as his plan for the destruction of all reality comes together, is asked how he did it and what he needs to do by the imprisoned good guys. Azrael's response:
- Smith in The Matrix Revolutions, specifically near the end of his climactic brawl with Neo. Even though Smith — thanks to the Eyes of the Oracle™ — can see how the fight will end, he still thinks Neo might be tricking him into defeat when the protagonist gets up to offer himself as the sacrificial lamb one final time.
- Jentee of Magical Legend Of The Leprechauns seems perfectly aware that the circumstances around him are a romantic tragedy waiting to happen — to the degree that when the protagonists in love come to him for help, he suggests that committing suicide might persuade their warring families to resolve their differences. Turns out he's right.
- In Time Bandits, Kevin, at least, knows what's up when they meet Robin Hood. He even tries to explain to the dwarves afterwards that of course Robin is going to hand out the treasure they stole to the poor.
- Ash knows that, just because a Deadite is down, doesn't mean it's dead.
Ash: It's a trick. Get an axe.
- In Road to Morocco, Hope and Crosby try the old "pat-a-cake" routine (used to great success in the series' earlier films) on the villain's henchmen, only to get clobbered:
Bing: Yessir, Junior, that thing sure got around.
Bob: Yeah, and back to us!
- Jim in 28 Days Later candidly points out why driving into a dark tunnel after a zombie outbreak is a stupid idea:
- Pretty much the entire point and struggle of Stranger Than Fiction revolves around the lead character (who hears a voice narrating his life) trying to figure out what kind of story he's in. If it's a comedy, he'll live; if it's a tragedy, he'll die.
- In the film Stay Tuned, a TV addict played by John Ritter buys a TV set from the Devil, and he and his wife end up Trapped In TV Land. Every show is a hellish parody, and all of them are specifically designed to kill them. At one point, he and his wife end up as animated mice being hunted by a robot cat. After finally getting some respite, he starts to wonder what a "real" cartoon mouse would do... and promptly orders a robot dog from the ACME company. It arrives immediately, and chases away the robot cat.
- Nero in Star Trek, thanks in large part to the research he did about the Enterprise and Kirk in his own timeline. Granted, once he destroyed Vulcan and completely altered the timeline, all bets were off.
- M in Quantum of Solace shows a good bit of genre savvy-ness herself. To wit, this scene, where she recognizes a Bond One-Liner:
M: Ask him about Slate.
Tanner (to Bond, over a cell phone): She wants to know about Slate.
Bond: Slate was a dead end.
Tanner (to M): He said it was a dead end.
M: Damn it! He killed him.
Literature
- Terry Pratchett's Discworld features quite a few characters like this, thanks to the Theory Of Narrative Causality. Several of the witches, especially Granny Weatherwax, have a feel for "stories", and can use them to their own ends if they have to. Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is pretty Genre Savvy when it comes to tropes of detective stories and police procedurals. Malicia from The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents is either too Genre Savvy, or not savvy enough. She insists on always seeing things in terms of stories, ranging from fairy tales to Kid Detective novels like Tom Swift, The Hardy Boys, and The Famous Five (she even claims at one point that four kids and a dog is "the right number for an adventure"). Furthermore, she has trouble in coping with subversions and exceptions, and always makes herself out to be the main character of the "story". Rincewind the Wizzard [sic], meanwhile, is very much aware of Finagle's Law and similar narrative conventions that keep his life interesting. He hates them.
- It's even the whole basis of the plot in Witches Abroad. The stories want to be told, whatever the effects on their players. Lily is arranging the city of Genua along the lines of these stories. The toymaker will be a jolly, red-faced man who whistles while he works if he knows what's good for him. The servant girl will marry the prince, with the help of her fairy godmother, whoever has to get hurt along the way.
- "... Exactly one in a million?"
- Perhaps the most obvious example (and subversion) of this comes from the Guards! Guards! novel, when Vimes has just confronted the hidden villain of the story. The villain, (using the title of the book) summons several mooks to take Vimes into custody. However, the mooks, despite Vimes having no weapons and just standing there, show extreme hesitation. When the villain demands an explanation, they indicate they know what happens in situations like this: the likelihood is that if they try to take Vimes into custody, he will kill them all by engaging in swashbuckling clichés such as performing somersaults or swinging off chandeliers (the villain points out, somewhat hysterically, that there are no chandeliers in the room at all.) It actually takes Vimes' assurances that he will not do so and would not know how to do so if he tried before the mooks actually take him prisoner.
- Also inverted in Discworld with Moist Von Lipwig, who knows very well how things are supposed to go... and plays the part of the hero, because he knows that the innate genre savviness of the public will view him as a hero if he does. As a con artist, taking advantage of what people expect to see is his major skill.
- Rule One.
- Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver horde in The Last Hero are confronted by Captain Carrot. They're about to fight him when they realise that's there's only one of him and nine of them, and that he's trying to save the world. All experienced heroes who have spent decades winning against incredible odds, that naturally see that the fight can only go one way and back down.
- This is pure genius considering that the Horde took advantage of that very trope themselves in their first appearance in Interesting Times (though it didn't end quite the way you might think).
- The Patrician has wearily recognised the pattern of supernaturally powered fads running riot over his city (Soul Music, Moving Pictures) etc., but interestingly when he says so in The Truth he's actually being Wrong Genre Savvy, because the fad in that book — newspapers — isn't supernatural and doesn't fade away like the earlier ones.
- Johnny and Kirsty in Only You Can Save Mankind. Of course their genre awareness is actually influencing the setting to some degree.
- Princess Cimorene of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles is fairly genre savvy, as are most of the characters to one extent or another. She just refuses to conform to type.
- In the 1932 book Cold Comfort Farm, a satirical novel about a young woman who goes from the city to live with her backward relatives on the titular farm, Flora Poste has read all sorts of novels about young women who go from the city to live with their backward relatives on farms. She thus correctly guesses that they'll have names like Seth, Amos, and Judith, identifies Aunt Ada Doom as "the Dominant Grandmother Archetype", and keeps an eye peeled for subversions and exceptions.
- In the Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries by Dorothy Leigh Sayers, characters discourse at length about how their situations would be different if they were in a detective story.
- Similarly, most Agatha Christie books contain at least one line where a character exclaims that "It's just like a detective novel!" and several suspects in various mysteries show nervousness because they're the least likely character to do it and hence, if it were a mystery novel, the one most likely to be fingered. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it isn't.
- Mercedes Lackey's 500 Kingdoms series uses this idea — indeed, it is central to its premise. The idea is that the world in governed by a mysterious force called "The Tradition" which forces peoples' lives to follow traditional story tales, like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc. The main characters are either Godmothers or are being helped by Godmothers to achieve the story's end — or to change the story from one with a fair amount of deaths to one with a happy ending. As such, all Godmothers need to know what story they are in and, preferably, numerous other stories they can try and manipulate.
- The characters of the Harry Potter series seem to have some degree of this. The kids have discovered that any danger in Hogwarts will inevitably be attracted to Harry (this is attributed to him being The Chosen One) and that every Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher will end up lasting a single year. It has also been noted that Harry has a "saving people thing", which Voldemort has used to his advantage. However, they do not seem to notice that most plot points get wrapped up at the end of each school year.
- Hermione gets quite Genre Savvy in the last book, notably bringing her Bag Of Holding to a wedding of all places. Even though it's being held outside the very house she's staying. Good thing she did though...
- Ron experiences an accidental moment of Genre Savvy, but insisting they don't say Voldemort's name, because it just "doesn't seem like a good idea" (paraphrasing). Turns out saying the name identifies them to Voldemort's minions and makes them easily capturable.
- Sergey Lukaynenko's Rough Draft and its sequel Final Draft are practically dripping with genre savvy. Characters frequently reflect on how the events of the story follow certain genre conventions. Sometimes their observations foreshadow the actual outcome, sometimes they turn out to be wrong and other times their realization of what genre convention they wound up facing comes too late to do any good.
- In one of the early chapters, the main character meets up with a science fiction writer (a thinly-veiled Lukyanenko stand-in) in order to try to figure out the solution to his decisively supernatural problem. The writer winds up explaining how various Russian science fiction authors would resolve it, ending with his own take (which didn't match the actual ending of the novels.)
- Catherine Morland in the Jane Austen novel Northanger Abbey is very savvy about her preferred genre — "horrid" Gothic novels. Unfortunately for her, the story she's actually in is a Regency romance. Hilarity Ensues
- Many characters in John Ringo and Travis Taylor's Into The Looking Glass series of novels are perfectly aware they've been thrown into a science fictional situation. In the second novel, Vorpal Blade, being science fiction fans is seen as a useful characteristic for the new Space Marines and officers flying the first human starship, the captain of which takes a giddy delight in being able to give orders like "Ahead Warp 1" and "Engage warp drive".
- In the sequel Claws That Catch this is taken to a slightly surreal extreme when some conflicts between various alien technologies cause them to hallucinate that they are anime characters. One of the main characters laments the fact that he is clearly a secondary character since as anime characters the hero is clearly identifiable.
- The Artemis Fowl books have a strong "action movie" sensibility — several of the characters are fans of action movies and are shown to compare their own experiences with the genre.
- Peter Pevensie demonstrates a degree of Genre Savvy in CS Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, particularly when — after Edmund suggests the robin they are following might be leading them into a trap — he observes that in all of the stories he has read, robins are creatures of good.
- Edmund also has a Genre Savvy moment or two near the beginning of Prince Caspian, drawing upon his knowledge of adventure stories for ideas on how he and his siblings can get by after they find themselves in an unpopulated wilderness.
- He has another in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader when they are considering what has happened to the man whose armor they have found; it is explicitly cited that he reads mysteries.
- Subverted in The Dumas Club by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Rare book finder Lucas Corso has read enough to recognize a trope when he sees one and insists on following them until he can nab the Big Bad. He's mostly right but the Big Bad is someone completely different than he suspected.
- Happens a lot in K.A. Applegate's Everworld series, about four young adults thrown into a world in which everything from all the mythologies in the history of the world co-exists. Odds are at least one of them will know enough about whatever figure they encounter to know how to deal with them. They still don't believe Cassandra, though.
- The online blogiform novel Ultimate Dream is pretty much defined by its Genre Savvy Deadpan Snarker narrator, who relentlessly mocks the clichéd Role Playing Game of the title, which plays like a catalogue of The Grand List Of Console Role Playing Game Cliches. She continues mocking the clichés even after she and her friends get sucked into the gameworld. The subsequent discussions with the game characters attempts, in several cases, to justify several of the clichés. The Big Bad is Dangerously Genre Savvy, while The Man Behind The Man is aware of the genre's limitations and indeed tries to enforce them.
- All of the Animorphs are at least somewhat Genre Savvy, as Tobias, Jake and Marco are all fans of science fiction and comic books, Ax loves soap operas and Rachel at least watches Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but they're much more likely to assert that This Is Reality and just use it for jokes.
- In The Lord of the Rings, most of the good guys are pretty Genre Savvy, since legends are a major form of entertainment in Middle Earth. In "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol," Sam wonders if he and Frodo have reached a part of the story that the audience won't want to hear. Frodo, however, rightly points out that it's the dark, scary parts that keep people interested.
- Parodied in Mark Twain's The Story of a Good Little Boy, in which the protagonist longs to be the hero of a Sunday school book and goes around trying, unsuccessfully, to do all the right things: taking in a stray dog, getting a job with only a signed tract as a reference, etc. The main thing that bothers him is that all decent Sunday school book heroes die so he'll never get to see the book he's in.
- Joe Hill's short story Best New Horror involves an editor who slowly realizes that he's wound up in a situation that conforms to horror genre specifications. He finds this oddly exhilarating.
- John Dickson Carr's detective Dr. Gideon Fell is well aware that he's in a detective novel.
- In Through The Looking Glass, Alice's familarity with Mother Goose leads to Genre Savviness. She knows that the king has promised to send all his horses and men to help Humpty Dumpty, and she awaits the crow with great anticipation, to break up the fight.
- Edith Nesbit's Melisande is a variation of Rapunzel set in a fairy tale world where everyone is Genre Savvy. For example, the king and queen deliberately refuse to hold a Christianing party, knowing what happened to the Sleeping Beauty. When all the fairies are furious that they weren't invited, and they want to curse the princess, the king points out that traditionally, only ONE of them can curse the princess.
- The whole point of Charles Stross's The Jennifer Morgue. The villain, a Dangerously Genre Savvy billionaire trying to take over the world, recognizes he's a living trope and creates a Xanatos Gambit by creating a magic spell that turns everything around him into a James Bond adventure, so that only a British agent conforming to the Bond stereotype would be in a position to stop him and save the world last the last moment. The plan is to then end the spell, making the agent an ordinary person again and so easily contained and killed, with no one else able to get there in time. Unfortunately for him, the British are even more Genre Savvy when the agent they send isn't really the Hero, he's the Bond Babe, acting as an initially oblivious decoy for his girlfriend who is the real Hero sweeping in at the last minute with commandos to save the day.
- In the comic mystery play Any Number Can Die, a wannabe detective urges a reluctant informant to tell him the name of the murderer, because otherwise she'll get killed and only have time to whisper him a cryptic clue. Sure enough, she gets shot, gives him a clue, and he says in frustration, This always happens in stories!
Mythology
- Older Than Dirt: The titular protagonist of The Epic Of Gilgamesh notably rejected the goddess Ishtar's advances because he knows how mortals sleeping with gods and goddesses always leads to tragedy. To make his point, he recites a list of the myriad tragic fates of Ishtar's lovers in other myths. (Not that scorning a goddess doesn't lead to tragedy anyway — it was a lose-lose situation.)
- (You'd think if he was really Genre-Savvy, he'd know that part too and decide that as long as he's screwed either way....)
Professional Wrestling
- As part of WWE wrestler Batista's Heel Face Turn, his entire gimmick became that he was Genre Savvy enough to see all the Heels' dirty tricks coming a mile away. (He turned after he overheard his faction plotting against him but played along up until the end.)
- On the episode of WWE Smackdown that aired the Friday before the Unforgiven 2008 Pay-Per-View, MVP and Shelton Benjamin attempted to interrupt HHH's show-opening promo. HHH then made a Genre Savvy speech about the usual course of events that take place during the show-opening promo, where the champion talks for a while about the upcoming Pay-Per-View, his opponents interrupt him and try to attack him, and the champion overcomes the opponents. However, HHH did wind up being attacked by a third opponent he didn't see coming (who could be said to have been Genre Savvy enough to notice how his presence wouldn't be cliche enough to notice).
- Triple H displayed his Genre Savvy once again on a Raw episode leading into WWE Wrestlemania 25. Randy Orton had declared his intent to have Triple H arrested for the assault and home invasion HHH had committed the week before, and then use his guaranteed Wrestlemania title shot to go after Edge's World Championship, rather than HHH's WWE Championship. Triple H came to the ring, allowed himself to be handcuffed, and then openly told Orton that this isn't how the story ends; that Orton needed to get revenge for Triple H having expelled him from Evolution and taken away his first championship after a mere 1-month reign, and all of this was just Orton posturing. After more goading from HHH, Orton finally agreed, had HHH released, and officially challenged him for his title.
- John Cena had a bout of this when he told the RAW general manager that if he said that Cena's current adversary has "the night off" it probably meant that said opponent was waiting to jump him backstage or interfere with his match at the end of the night. He was right.
- Pretty much any time that a wrestler manages to actually use an obvious way around the usual suspension of the laws of physics needed for some of pro wrestling's more elementary sequences (such as Irish whips that lead to almost "textbook" dodging), although these moments are usually played for laughs. Specific examples would be Samoa Joe in ROH casually walking out of the way of opponents jumping off of the top rope... same goes for Kevin Steen's reaction to Nigel McGuinness' rebound lariat off of the ropes.
Close Professional Wrestling
Live Action TV
- The main characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer are almost all Genre Savvy.
- Spike to Buffy in Blood Ties: "You'll find her, just in the nick of time. That's what you hero types do."
- Also note Buffy's staking of Dracula after he attempts to regenerate — "You think I don't watch your movies? You always come back."
- The sisters in Charmed hovered between Genre Savvy and pathetically, if not redundantly, Genre Blind.
- Castle in Castle is amazingly genre savvy, being a mystery writer in a crime show, and uses this to help the actual police. His partner pokes fun at this but it works.
- For a miniseries which purports to deconstruct fairytales, surprisingly few characters in The Tenth Kingdom seem to be Genre Savvy. Street smart Virginia certainly isn't, other than when she realizes that "everyone in this place is crazy!" Wolf only gets a few moments now and then, one of the most memorable being his knowledge of fairy tale endings: "We either live happily ever after or we get killed by horrible curses." (Another would be his explanation, after Prince gets turned to gold, that "things have a way of bouncing back here"... only to admit, when confronted by Tony, that he was "just saying that" and proceeding to tempt Prince with a stick with delicious snark.) The most truly Genre Savvy moment in the entire miniseries, surprisingly, comes from Tony, after the Blind Woodsman explains how they can obtain his magic axe... by guessing his name — except if they fail, he chops off Wolf's head:
Tony: What is it with you people? What kind of twisted upbringing did you have? Why can't you just say, "Oh, that'll be a hundred gold coins"? Why is it always "Not unless you lay a magic egg, or count the hairs on that giant's ass"?
- The Doctor, especially in his most recent incarnation. To a lesser extent, Martha Jones, his companion in Series Three; at least she knows about Time Travel Tropes, including the dangers of stepping on a butterfly or killing one's own grandfather.
- And in the revived series' third Christmas special, the entire population of London turns Genre Savvy — after two straight years of horrible disasters and alien invasions on Christmas, they evacuate the city en masse on December 25, certain that some cruel god is going to have it in for them again. Not surprisingly, they're right.
- The Master is Genre Savvy enough to state that he's not going to hang around telling the hero all his plans, though not enough so to just kill the heroes rather than keeping them around to gloat.
- This seems to be a racial trait unique to Tau'ri (Earthlings) on Stargate SG-1, while all of the aliens are hilariously Genre Blind (except when they've been exposed to enough of Earth's pop-culture):
- In one episode, the plan to attack the Big Bad's superweapon involves attacking in many small ships to hit the single, small target that is its only weak spot. Jack O'Neill points out that it's a stupid plan with ridiculously low odds of success and gets everyone who agrees with him to raise their hands, which most in the briefing eventually do... including Carter, who came up with it. And when a similar plan goes into effect in a later episode, Jack expresses disappointment that his call sign for the mission isn't "Red Leader".
- O'Neill and Teal'c have to get to the command center of Thor's ship, get prepared to fight off the Replicators to do it, only to find on opening the door that the room is literally crawling with them. For The Hero normally this is the point where they rush in, guns blazing, against incredible odds only to be forced out after a massive firefight. Jack's response is to mutter "To hell with that", close the door and go off to get a new plan.
- In another episode, Jaffa Master Bra'tac details the massive defenses between the team and the ship's Phlebotinum, which they will have to fight their way to... at the bottom of a large shaft that they are standing next to. O'Neill shrugs and drops several grenades down the shaft.
- Then switched around when O'Niell disparages at the guards preventing their escape and Bra'tac shows him a "real" grenade.
- During a briefing where Carter explains that an asteroid is heading towards Earth and will surely destroy it, O'Neill says in a stage whisper, "I've seen this movie. It hits Paris."
- Daniel Jackson is quite genre savvy in "The Tomb", one of SG-1's (thankfully) few attempts at horror. On seeing the redshirt — er, Russian military officer walk down the hall to confront the monster, he waxes sarcastic: "Yes, you go down the dark hallway alone and I'll wait here in the dark room alone."
- At one point, a character remarks, "we might as well be wearing red shirts!"
- The episode "200" was full of genre-savviness. Among other things.
- In another episode, O'Neill and Teal'c are trapped in a Groundhog Day Loop, and eventually take advantage of it for Hilarity Ensues. When they finally confront the person responsible, O'Neill asks him if his plan is to become "the king of Groundhog Day".
- Jack was rather disappointed when his suggestion of a name for Earth's first starship was rejected. He thought Enterprise was appropriate.
- Not just limited to the Milky Way Galaxy: on Stargate Atlantis, when trapped in a room with a pregnant woman, Sheppard informs her that she's probably going to go into labor because that's what always happens in movies. (Fortunately, it ends up not happening, though when later trapped on a ship in the next season it does.)
- Similarly, Dr. (Meredith) Rodney McKay is a Star Trek fan to the point of Genre Savviness. He even says that Dr. Beckett is their Dr. McCoy, due to his views on Stargate travel (hint: it's McCoy's view on transporters). After an alien woman falls in love with Col. Mitchell, he exclaims "Oh God, he is Kirk!"
- Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell also displays genre savviness through memorized mission reports and old sayings (usually attributed to his Grandma). It seems to be a prerequisite for the series male leads to have quick wits and knowledge of tropes.
- Surprisingly enough, this even showed up in a Star Trek series (Deep Space Nine). Sisko, chasing the traitor Eddington, realizes that Eddington sees himself as a noble hero straight out of fiction. Sisko then arranges things, by intentionally playing the bad guy, so that Eddington's only option is to sacrifice his freedom in order to save innocent people.
- Sisko isn't the only one either; Dax (or at least Jadzia) occasionally has flashes of this, but usually only enough to get a good line in. Garak on the other hand seems to know he's trapped in a fictional world, usually using his savvy to poke fun at Dr. Bashir's chronic Genre Blindness. Which is even funnier because Bashir's main hobby for much of the later seasons is playing holographic recreations of not-quite-Bond novels, about which he is extremely Genre Savvy and Garak knows nothing...
- With extra bonus irony from Garak being an actual former intelligence officer.
- Of course the magic really happens when Garak and Sisko finally team up to bring the Romulans into the war with the Dominion. Best. Episode. Ever.
- Also the episode "A Fistful of Datas" in Star Trek The Next Generation. Deanna Troi has read enough Westerns to know that the villain will try double-crossing Worf during the prisoner exchange.
- The episode "Elementary, My Dear Data" has its major conflict come up because of Data, in the role of Sherlock Holmes in a holodeck story, veering past Genre Savvy straight into cutting straight to the ending by telling the first policeman he sees who the villain is and the crime because he already knew the story without doing any sleuthing; the resultant discussion over how Data could "enjoy" the exercise leads to the self-inflicted, ship-endangering mishap of the week.
- Space Cases: Commander Goddard, perhaps because he's the one with the most experience and has learned the rules of sci-fi tropes, i.e. "Which one is which? This always happens with Evil Twins!"
- Given a half-twist in Ashes To Ashes. Alex, having been Sam Tyler's psychologist in 2006, is very quickly convinced that she's hallucinating during a near-death experience, that she knows exactly what the rules of her imaginary world are, and that there will inevitably be some sequence of events that will allow her to wake up; rather than gradually assimilating into 1981, as Sam did to 1973, she seems almost to be trying to game her way out of it. Unfortunately, her assumptions tend to be less than infallible since she's working on the rules from Life On Mars, only some of which carried over to Ashes To Ashes.
- Much to the sadistic glee of Zippy and George, apparently.
- The Hybrids (the semi-humanoid computers of the Basestars) in Battlestar Galactica seem to be aware that they're on a TV show ("Throughout history, the nexus between man and machine has spawned some of the most dramatic, compelling, and entertaining fiction"). Also, Admiral Adama says in the episode "Revelations" that if they give the alliance with the rebel cylons any more time it will just fall apart again, and gives the order to jump with the Rebel Basestar to their mutual destination instead of sending a scouting party first.
- The Middle Man himself and his Side Kick Wendy are both Genre Savvy. As is potential Love Interest Tyler.
- The first episode of LA 7, aka S Club 7 in LA, entitled "Into the Unknown" has them lost in a forest in which group of film-makers disappeared, which sounded awfully familiar to them.
- Some (but not all) of the characters on Lost are Genre Savvy. Boone suspects he is a Red Shirt. Hurley and Charlie often question the wisdom of traipsing into a monster-inhabited jungle.
- On an episode, as Hurley and Charlie bury Ethan, Hurley says that he sees the situation ending badly, with Ethan becoming a zombie and chasing him and Charlie.
- Hiro Nakamura on Heroes. "You're telling us your plan? What kind of overconfident nemesis are you?"
- Though not Genre Savvy enough to just listen to the plan.
- Ando, too. Hiro travels to the future and sees Ando attacking him. He tells Ando, and Ando suggests that it could be a robot or a shapeshifter.
- In the Farscape episode "Twice Shy", Crichton and D'Argo take it for granted that the Distressed Damsel they've rescued will turn out to be a villain, and resolve to dump her on the first habitable planet they come to. However this turns out to be not so easy as she's actually a giant shapeshifting spider that feeds on emotions.
- In House, characters occasionally realize where they are in the script. Thus, Wilson sometimes points out that he's just provided House with his routine epiphany, while, in one episode, House complains that the epiphany went to somebody else.
- NCIS: "Tony, your dying words would be 'I've seen this film.'"
- The episode "Missing"
"Way to go, MacGyver! If that bomb were real, we'd be washing you off the streets of Baghdad right now! Never assume that a bomb timer is accurate! Bad guys watch movies, too."
- In one episode of Psych the characters realize they're surrounded by slasher movie cliches but then even more Genre Savvy Shawn figures out all the cliches are a set up, but then people do start dying.
- In The Worst Witch TV series, Miss Crotchet gains this toward the end of the third season. She says in the penultimate (aired) episode that even though she has only been at the school for a year, she knows how arguments go between the teachers. Miss Hardbroom will argue for a change in the treatment of the pupils, Miss Drill will argue in favour of the pupils, she will say something and get ignored, then Miss Cackle will enter the argument and everything will revert to status quo. However, things don't pan out like that in that episode.
Radio
- Bluebottle from The Goon Show has learned some Genre Savviness after being explosively deaded in most episodes — he seems to know that his appearance will always result in his deading, and has taken some fairly extensive steps to avoid it (such as leaving Neddie tied to a pile of dynamite in England, then going to the middle of a desert in America in about four seconds). Of course, it fails, but that's because he hasn't quite figured the finer points of the Rule Of Funny.
Tabletop Games
- The Imperial Guard of Warhammer 40000 are generally, despite the best efforts of Imperial propaganda, aware of just how expendable they are, meaning their morale is pretty poor.
- This is played all the way around to its logical extent in the form of the Death Korps of Krieg; The surface of their planet has been devastated by five thousand years of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare so they live underground, emerging only to fight "practice" battles on the surface, using the weapons and fortifications left over from the war. The survivors of all this are fanatically loyal troopers who never remove their gas masks and who will march into the breach, knowing that it's mined and that the enemy has set up deadly crossfires all over it, because that's what they do.
- The fact that they are clones helps.
- Being Genre Savvy also helps the Guard when fighting aliens. They do not listen to the propaganda (i.e., Ork fighters know all about the Blood Axes using camo and stealth, the 'nids being more then just mindless beast, the Tau having deadly fire power — well the propaganda is kinda right about them since Tau DO have poor eye sight and slow reaction time).
- Norin the Wary from Magic The Gathering is convinced that everything in the world wants to hurt him. This is more or less accurate.
- "The DM wouldn't send a monster that powerful against us! It has to be an illusion!"
Video Games
- Heroes Of Might And Magic IV includes a sympathetic undead king who gets his underling to draw up plans for invading a neighbouring kingdom — and them sends the plans to that kingdom, so they can fix the holes in their defenses. He explains that even though invading his neighbour would make him the most powerful ruler in the entire world, that would just mean everyone else would unite their forces to take him down.
- The protagonist's genre savviness is what jump-starts the plot in the FMV game Brain Dead 13. Teen computer ace Lance is sent to fix a computer at the home of Mad Scientist and brain-in-a-tank Nero Neurosis, and quickly identifies it as a typical mad scientist's lair. Dr. Neurosis flies into a rage after Lance refers to him as an "average villain", and he sics his homicidal toady Fritz on our hero.
- Almost all the characters in the Disgaea series, particularly Etna. Mao from the third game is dangerously so, concluding that the quickest method of kicking his dad off the throne and rule with his own iron fist is to actually become the hero of the game.
- In the Grand Theft Auto series, a pedestrian having a conversation about a nearby dead body will occasionally mutter "Don't worry, he'll respawn!" or something similar.
- Kyle Katarn (at least in Jedi Academy) is genre savvy, lampshading tropes such as the fact the console for opening a door is probably hidden in some room twelve floors up and that Luke Skywalker always senses a disturbance in the Force.
- He's like this to a lesser extent in Jedi Outcast, too. Never trust a bartender with bad grammar.
- He also finishes one of his mission objectives (disabling the Doomgiver's shields) during Glaek's monologue.
- In a lesser example, he always knows how to find keys.
- City Of Heroes has one involving the Trolls and the Tsoo: while interfering with a meeting between the two gangs, heroes will come across Mr. Ting, a Tsoo, complaining to the Troll leader, "Haven't you learned anything? When you kidnap people, capes show up."
- Many of the NPCs in the game tend to be genre savvy: civilians will complain about they can't walk down the street without someone trying to snatch their purse, kidnap them, or try to use them in strange rituals. And some of the villains are equally savvy; at least one fragment of dialogue for a low-level gangbanger references the endless-loop purse tug-of-war animation with a "No, really! I actually got the purse!"
- The pamphleteer in front of City Hall will sometimes say things like "Burn Perez Park to the ground! It's full of monsters and impossible to find your way around!"
- In Army Of Two, neither Rios nor Salem are particularly fazed by being sent in on missions to retake aircraft carriers or blast their way past the entirety of the People's Liberation Army, and at the endgame, they take on practically all of the biggest PMC in the world without blinking. When confronting Psycho For Hire Phillip Clyde, they don't even act surprised at his stream of increasingly irrational descriptions of what he's going to do to their corpses.
- I Wanna Be The Guy forces the player of all people to be Genre Savvy as a requirement to progress past...well, to pretty much progress period. Unfortunately, this isn't the only thing needed to progress.
- It also invokes Death By Genre Savviness several times — primarily in the famous 'You jumped into a sword! You retard!' scene.
- Midna in The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess is rather genre savvy (half because she's The Imp + Deadpan Snarker; half probably to make up for how ridiculously obvious her predecessor, Navi's, hints were).
- Arthas, aka the Lich King, of "World Of Warcraft", as of the newest expansion, has displayed some unexpected genre-savviness, going so far in one early encounter as to deliberately murder your character, simply to prove a point about his own power, knowing full well you'll get right back up shortly and keep coming after him anyway.
- Rouge the Bat takes an abrupt turn to the Genre Savvy in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Lampshade Hanging everything from the convenient findability of the series' Green Rocks to the nonsensical dialects of space brigands.
- Henry of No More Heroes is made of this trope. He correctly identifies himself as main character Travis' mysterious foil and just goes on from there.
- Guillo of Baten Kaitos Origins displays genre-savviness throughout the game, questioning good guys who turn out to be villains, realizing when something has come "too easily," and knowing to run away before the inevitable "doomed to lose" boss fights.
- Zoey of Left 4 Dead is a prime example — as a college student, she's seen a lot of zombie movies, and often spouts out lines relating to their current situation. A good example happened recently in one of Dark's playthroughs: the group stumbled upon an abandoned cabin in a forest, and she said, "An empty cabin in the middle of the woods. I know how this movie ends."
- This troper particularly enjoyed her lines were she calls "Zombie Bulls**t" on the fact that the Infected are so darn fast.
- Tohsaka in Fate Stay Night, best exemplified by asking Caster if she made sure to check Kotomine's body for signs of advanced deadness. Naturally, his 'corpse' disappears and makes way for Lancer's Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- Guybrush Threepwood occasionally points out a trope during his adventures and tries to take advantage (generally by refusing to do something stupid).
Web Comics
- Elan, from The Order of the Stick, is a bit like Malicia in the Pratchett example, in that he suffers from being too genre savvy. The other members of the titular band of adventurers also tend to lack Genre Blindness, but Elan's the only one notable for occasionally needing some. Not that it doesn't occasionally work out for him.
- Really, one of the main points of The Order of the Stick is genre savviness. Try this comic page where even the stupid orc chieftain is hilariously genre savvy.
- Elan's mentor, a dashing sky pirate who helps him literally take a level in badass also displays Genre Savviness — hoping never to meet Elan again, lest he become The Obi Wan.
- Vaarsuvius recently displayed a blend of cynicism and genre-savviness by killing someone (Kubota) just because Elan is holding him prisoner, and V knows that Elan only takes major villains prisoner, and rationalizing it by explaining how the trial would have been a tedious 20- or 30-episode affair which would interfere with the bigger picture.
- More recently, our trusty wizard, when confronted with a silver-tongued imp, demonstrates that s/he knows what happens when you make a Deal With The Devil, regardless of its stature.
- Whilst all the characters are Genre Savvy to some extent, Elan is clearly more Savvy than the rest of them; unfortunately, his status as Cloud Cuckoolander means that the others are only inclined to dismiss his concerns in their moments of Genre Blindness, only to learn too late that they really should have paid attention.
- Cherry Blossomfeather, of RPG World, has an uncommon lack of genre blindness. While it's eventually justified, she's largely a way for the author to poke fun at RPG tropes.
- Contrast with Ardam from Adventurers! — he plays the same role in the comic, but eventually it's a subversion of Genre Savvy, as he finally realizes that no matter how nonsensical the rules of the world are, they're still the rules of the world, and it's irrational to go against them.
- Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer! of Girl Genius is largely aware of the conventions of the genre, and jumps into their application a bit too quickly at times.
- When Agatha (the heroine) meets him, he's being held captive by the Baron. His first words to her are "Ah, you must be the villain's beautiful daughter. Just in time." Or, if not, he assumes she's the "plucky lab assistant," and in any case, is going to rescue him and become his "spunky girl sidekick." Barring one minor incident, he persists in thinking of her as his sidekick no matter how much she protests. Later on, when they meet again, he tells Agatha that she's a hero by nature, which she denies — proving her own genre blindness, as even the cat understands her destiny.
- Agatha actually is Genre Savvy (except for her refusal to admit she's a hero), which she demonstrates by not releasing Othar:
Agatha: Look, no offense, but I've been around labs most of my life.
Othar: Oh?
Agatha: I'd rather not be the easily-duped minion who sets the insanely dangerous experiment free.
Or the hostage who ensures the smoothtalking villain's escape.
Othar: Er...
Agatha: I don't have any proof that you are really Othar Tryggvassen or even really human.
Othar: Ah...
Agatha: This girl sidekick job doesn't call for a lot of smarts, does it?
- And Lars' genre savvitude is enough to help infiltrate a castle.
- Ellie, in Okashina Okashi is familiar with manga tropes. But like Sugimoto, she's never the heroine of those stories.
- In this issue of Bitmap World, Cyan speculates on who her teacher may be, based on various Schoolteacher Tropes. After being reminded that she's not a character in a sitcom, she discovers her teacher is the Hippie trope.
- Sam Starfall in Freefall knows about genre conventions, and will set them up, but doesn't get the point of them.
- The two title characters in Stickman And Cube have No Fourth Wall, and thus know their tropes.
- Meji from Errant Story is quite up-to-date on her tropes. Among the more notable examples is her awareness of the dangers of Superpower Meltdown ("All the stories that starts like this ends with 'And then his head exploded...'") and her instant recognition of the sheer number of tropes involved in the backstory of the Amraphel siblings. Ellis, as well as several minor characters, also gets in on the action from time to time, but she's a step ahead of them — at one point, she deliberately invokes Deus Ex Machina. Literally 'invokes'...
- Read forward — It works...
- Sam Sprinkles, from Zebra Girl, is a former cartoon actor who is way too Genre Savvy for his own good, and has a tendency to get very, very mouthy with people over their role in the story.
- Considering he browbeats a character into a Heel Face Turn, mouthy doesn't even begin to cover it.
- All of the main characters of Sluggy Freelance are highly Genre Savvy, though normally only after they fall into one of the traps of the genre at the time. Best shown in this strip.
- Gordito in the fourth episode of The Adventures Of Doctor Mc Ninja.
Ben Franklin: But the excitement does get to you! I suppose this lifestyle isn't so bad.
Gordito: AH! DON'T! Dude, in "this lifestyle" if you say something like that, it's pretty much like pushing a "make the situation worse" button. It's the opposite of the one they have at the office supply store.
(helicopter shows up)
Gordito: SEE?! That's Schrodinger's helicopter right there.
Ben Franklin: You must mean "Murphy's Helicopter".
Gordito: I'm twelve.
Ben Franklin: Well it can only be more ninjas, and we've had no problem with those so far.
Gordito: Oh PLEASE keep talking!
- Knowledge Is Power: Em Jay is about to ask David to pretend to be her boyfriend, but remembering how poorly that goes in fiction, changes her mind.
- Miranda West of The Wotch seems pretty Genre Savvy, calling out Natasha Dahlet on her use of a villainous cliché and often pointing out some other clichés, like when she threatens to turn Anne into a newt.
- The latest arc of MSF High revolves around the fact that the "pocket-universe" in which the story takes place conforms to genre rules. This is exploited by many students most recently in the form of the "runner", an anime girl who will run everywhere eyes closed with an armload of books in the hopes of causing a romantic comedy style collision.
Western Animation
- This was the main shtick of Slappy Squirrel on Animaniacs, who, as an old hand at cartoons, was pretty Genre Savvy.
- In the Teen Titans episode "Fear Itself", the Titans are investigating strange goings-on in their base after watching a horror movie. Starfire suggests they split up, but Beast Boy vehemently protests this plan:
Beast Boy: Did you not see the movie?! When you split up, the monster picks you off one by one, starting with the good-looking comic relief... me!
- Beast Boy's knowledge of tropes would come in handy again in the Trapped In TV Land episode.
- Due to being TV-holics, multiple characters on Family Guy are Genre Savvy.
- Kim, Ron, Shego, and Senor Senior Jr. are of the most Genre Savvy on Kim Possible. This however doesn't prevent from falling victim to Genre Tropes (or that they fall into the tropes as part of a 4th wall bending realisation that they have to do so to have a story), but does make for some great Lampshade Hanging afterwards.
- Bonnie also Genre Savvy when she ends up on missions, asking why Dementor hasn't simply set off his plan instead of gloating, and about how complicated that plan is as well.
- Avatar The Last Airbender:
- Sokka, The Smart Guy, is the first to spot Characters As Device like the Well Intentioned Extremist Jet and the Stepford Smiler Joo Dee. In one episode, after being suddenly awoken, he groggily mutters "Huh? Uh? What's going on? Did we get captured again?" and sure enough, Aang is captured and imprisoned within an impenetrable fortress in the very next episode. He is also aware that the team is a Weirdness Magnet, of the team's Fan Nicknames, of his status as Bad Ass Normal, and even of his own character ("Sokka, the Meat and Sarcasm Guy — it's pretty much my whole identity."). He also has a good grasp of Murphy's Law, "I've never not slept before! What if I fall asleep and something happens? And something ALWAYS happens!"
- Aang, for his part, somehow has pretty good knowledge of Indiana Jones tropes (Zuko, unfortunately, doesn't).
- Azula is Dangerously Genre Savvy.
- Flash from Justice League occasionally shows traits of this, as this quote from "The Brave and the Bold" demonstrates:
Flash: Usually when it's this empty, flesh eating zombies show up. Green Lantern: You watch too many horror movies... (interrupted by the sound of a brainwashed mob) Flash: Maybe you don't watch enough.
- The smooth, fast-talking Hades in Disney's Hercules, especially apparent within the syndicated series. Unfortunately, he is surrounded by Genre Blind, idiotic minions.
- Played straight and surprisingly seriously in The Incredibles. A former fan who was rejected as a sidekick by Mr. Incredible, Syndrome, used his Genre Savvy to master exotic new technologies with which he built a fortune as a weapon designer... and then decimated the ranks of the surviving superheroes. He even cuts himself off in the middle of "monologuing" when when Mr. Incredible nearly gets the drop on him.
- Syndrome's one moment of Genre Blindness is when he fails to realize the ultra-sophisticated robot he built is smart enough to wonder why it has to take orders. Also, at the very end, his non-breakaway cape. Seeing how many in-universe examples Edna could reel off, Syndrome should have known better. This may less an example of genre blindness than an example of death by genre savviness, considering that supers rarely die by jet-intake in ther comics or television series. Mainly because capes are usually very detachable and get torn, ripped off, etc.
- He also falls prey to Bond Villain Stupidity when he traps the entire family in the same escape-proof room so they can experience his moment of triumph via satellite TV after they've been captured. He even leaves a fully-fuelled rocket in his base so they can follow him in it. He seems to lose his Genre Savvyness as the movie progresses.
- In an episode of The Boondocks, where Robert is telling his grandchildren an obviously fake story of his ancestor Catcher Freeman, Riley's Genre Savviness ruins the story by pointing out all the bad action movie clichés and even predicting how the climax is going to be.
- Also happened in an episode of Legion of Super Heroes. Bouncing Boy is the 21st Century horror movie aficionado, so he warns them of the rules. And then, the disappearing of teammates begins, and:
- Surprisingly, the otherwise extremely dimwitted Fry from Futurama, to the point where tropes seem to be all he does understand. It's very heavily implied that this is from his near-constant intake of television, movies, etc.
- Michelangelo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fast Forward is so Genre Savvy that he was teaching tropes to a number of onlookers, particularly describing horror tropes.
- #21 and #24 from The Venture Brothers. In "The Lepidopterists", they are well aware that they posses the perfect combination of "expendable and invulnerable". Upon being sent off on a mission with #1, they remark that his cool professionalism marks him for death, while their bumbling incompetence will see them through to the end. Later, when they point out that #1's lack of a name makes him a Red Shirt, he reveals his name, only to have it dismissed as a device to make his impending death more emotional. Ultimately, he meets his fate when his impressive escape techniques draw the attention of Brock Sampson. #21 and #24 were pretending to be wax sculptures at the time. Ironically, or at least in a cruel twist of fate, in the season 3 finale, 24 stands near the Monarch's car when it suddenly explodes. He's killed in the blast as 21 unintentionally catches his burning head.
- If you're gonna mention The Venture Brothers you can't forget Dr. Venture, who spends half the time making sarcastic genre savvy comments. Brock does it a lot too, especially when they're in danger. Come to think of it, a great deal of the cast are.
- Hank and Dean notably aren't. They think they are, though, with all their presumed Hardy Boys style mysteries. This occasionally works out for them, one example is in the episode "Fallen Arches" when Triana Orpheus is kidnapped by the super villain Torrid and Dean thinks to run the hot water in the shower so the steam will reveal a message on the mirror.
- Subverted in this exchange from The Simpsons:
Lisa: This broom closet is not what it seems. It's a secret surveillance room guarded by a tiny evil robot!
Homer: Ugh. Is this gonna be like one of those horror movies where we open the door and everything's normal and we think you're crazy, but then there really is a killer robot and the next morning you find me impaled on a weather vane? Is that what this is, Lisa?
- Played straight when there's an episode where Homer becomes an opera star and someone is trying to murder him (long story). To protect him during an opera, Chief Wiggum orders the chandelier to be pre-crashed.
- Also, Lisa manages to apply it to real life in a somewhat rational fashion, as she plans to be a jazz musician who is unappreciated in her time but discovered as a genius decades later. "And I may or may not die young, I haven't decided yet."
- Also in a halloween special, Bart and Lisa are trapped in Itchy & Scratcy's universe and are inside a car about to be murdered. Bart uses his cartoon knowledge to draw an eject button, press it and escape.
- South Park makes regular use of this trope, most recently in "Pandemic", in which minor character Craig spends the whole episode complaining about how genre blind the main characters are. "Stanley's Cup" uses this trope heavily. Partially subverted in "Butt Out" in which smart-guy Kyle attempts, and fails, to convince the other major characters to not follow the show's formula for once.
- Or the episode "Canceled" when the boys realize they're in a rerun of the very first episode.
- Gwen from Total Drama Island tries to educate the other campers about the rules of horror movies only to be blatantly ignored... except by fellow horror-buff Duncan, who successfully becomes the Final Guy because of it.
- Hades from Disney's Hercules. After Hercules makes a deal that only appears to benefit Hades, Hades briefly stops to think about this, wondering if the deal actually has a downside or if it's too good to be true. Pity that greed and impatience win out over intelligence.
- In Gargoyles, Xanatos manages to restrain several of the gargoyle heroes, and sets up a deathtrap-like situation where a vat of poison will pour down upon them.
Xanatos: This is my first attempt at really cliched villainy. How am I doing?".
- On the whole, David Xanatos is clearly aware of what is expected from a cartoon villain, and sometimes comments on the clichés he's performing or avoiding. He still rarely achieves Dangerously Genre Savvy levels, since the methods by which he's foiled are usually relatively standard fare, even if he never admits defeat.
- The latest Strawberry Shortcake series paints Sour Grapes as slightly genre savvy, at least enough to know that any plan the Peculiar Purple Pieman tries to pull off against Strawberry is going to fail miserably.
- Pinky And The Brain: Brain has a Genre Savvy epiphany in "Megalomaniacs Anonymous".
Brain: The whole universe is playing a little cosmic joke! "We'll give Brain an obsession with taking over the world and then never let him succeed!" Hah-hah-hah-hah! Isn't it funny?!
Real Life
- To some extent, the "nicer form" (so to speak) of counterinsurgency can be said to require this to some extent, at least to avoid a Zero Percent Approval Rating.
- Murphy's Law, Finagles Law, Sturgeons Law and their many variants are all intended to be this, whether you agree depends on where you stand on the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism.
- Hell, everyone at this wiki may as well count. I mean, the idea on its own.
- But especially in the Wild Mass Guessing page sometimes. It's possible to become so savvy about the genre and the creator's themes and habits that you can predict certain revelations and plot points way before they happen.
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