History Main / SequencingDeception

* Played with in ''VideoGame/SecondSight'' where the narrative seems to alternate between the present and flashbacks into the past. The order of events is correct, but the 'flashbacks' are actually the present, while the 'present' is actually flash''forwards'' into a possible future.

* ''Literature/SoImASpiderSoWhat'': One of the biggest twists in the entire series, but obvious when you think about it. All of the reincarnators were born at the same time, so everything happening to Kumoko, active from the moment she is born, is happening over a decade before everyone else, who had to actually grow up. The deception is further augmented due to Julius, Shun's elder brother, being a dead ringer for Shun during Kumoko's time.

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks!

'''Since this trope is usually associated with reveals, all spoilers in the examples below will be unmarked. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned!'''

** Every episode in the first three seasons consists of flashbacks to the life of that episode's centric character before they landed on the island. The Season 3 finale appears to depict a DarkestHour in the life of the ''de facto'' protagonist Jack, which in the end turns out to be flash-''forward'' to after he and five other survivors managed to escape the Island. Flash-forwards to this aftermath became the norm in Season 4.

** An episode that appears to be a flashback is actually a flash forward.
** An episode that appears to be a flash-forward featuring two characters is actually a flashback for one and a flash-forward for the other.

* ''WesternAnimation/KizaziMotoGenerationFire'': In the "Hatima" short, it first looks like that the plot is going back and forth between a battle in the FishPeople underwater settlement and a young woman on the surface who is studying the Hatima right as the battle is happening. It then turns out that the human segment is actually depicting the forgotten origin story of the FishPeople, who were all ill or disabled people who considered transforming into one to be a reasonable price to pay to be cured, only to find out that the other humans didn't agree.

* ''Anime/SoImASpiderSoWhat'': One of the biggest twists in the entire series, but obvious when you think about it. All of the reincarnators were born at the same time, so everything happening to Kumoko, active from the moment she is born, is happening over a decade before everyone else, who had to actually grow up. The deception is further augmented due to Julius, Shun's elder brother, being a dead ringer for Shun during Kumoko's time.

* ''Anime/SoImASpiderSoWhat'': One of the biggest twists in the entire series, but obvious when you think about it. All of the reincarnators were born at the same time, so everything happening to Kumoko, active from the moment she is born, is happening over a decade before everyone else, who had to actually grow up. The deception is further augmented due to Julius, Shun's elder brother, being a dead ringer for Shun during Kumoko's time.

* At the end of the first part of ''[[ComicBook/StarWarsTagAndBink Tag and Bink Are Dead]]'', the two protagonists are on board the Death Star, disguised as Imperial soldiers (with helmets hiding their faces). Darth Vader shows up, informing that Rebel ships are incoming and orders them to follow him. The next scene shows, apparently, Tag and Bink fighting in the battle of Yavin as Vader's wingmen, then dying when the Death Star is blown up. However, the beginning of the second part reveals that these were just two random Imperial Soldiers; Tag and Bink [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere ran off]] as soon as Vader turned his back, and by luck they escaped the Death Star in time. Then the author, Creator/KevinRubio, makes [[CreatorCameo a brief appearance]] and [[BreakingTheFourthWall comments on the trick.]]

* ''Film/OceansTwelve'': There was a segment where we see Ocean's team and a rival thief both trying to steal a MacGuffin, but find out that the rival got there much earlier and the Macguffin is gone.
%% * ''Film/{{Memento}}''

* ''Film/{{Babel}}'': The four story threads appear pretty much concurrent. At the end, it turns out the subplot involving the deaf girl takes place about a week after the three others.
* In ''Film/KamenRiderTheFirst,'' there's a sub-plot of a man in a hospital and a girl who tries to befriend him (against his will) that seems to have nothing to do with anything. Slowly, she gets him to defrost, and we find she is ill as well and just likes making people happy. They plant flowers together near the end. We cut from that to the field where the two defeated [[NebulousEvilOrganization Shocker]] lieutenants have landed - it's the same one, and the flowers have grown, as the hospital scenes were in fact years go. The two generals, seeing the flowers, remember their true selves as the two from those scenes, just before dying.
* ''Film/EternalSunshineOfTheSpotlessMind'': The first scene, where Joel goes out to Montauk and meets Clementine, actually takes place ''after'' most of the events in the rest of the film, right after Joel's memories are completely erased.
* ''Film/MulhollandDrive'', in its last act (which [[MindScrew conflicts with much of what is shown before]]), does some rapid intercutting between scenes that take place before and after the second-to-last scene.
* ''Film/{{Arrival}}'' is dotted with flashbacks of protagonist Louise's backstory, raising her daughter who died of cancer at the age of twelve. Late in the film, she asks the heptapods [[WhamLine who the little girl is]] that she's been seeing in these visions -- they're actually flash-''forwards'' and the daughter hasn't been born yet; her grasp of the heptapod [[LanguageEqualsThought language]] has allowed Lousie to become a NonLinearCharacter like them.

* ''Literature/TheReader2016'' makes it seem like Lon and Mareah's studies are taking place at the same time as Sefia's quest. In actuality, they happened years before, and Lon and Mareah are Sefia's parents.
* ''Literature/TheFifthSeason'' follows three main characters- a girl named Damaya, a young woman named Syenite and a woman named Essun. It is eventually made clear that all three are the same person, in flashback. Somewhat played with in that it was always clear that the Damaya and Syenite segments took place in the past, as the city of Yumenes is destroyed in the Essun segments but still exists in the other plots. The exact temporal relationship isn't clear until later on however.

* ''Series/JonathanCreek'', episode ''Angel Hair'': Events that we think were recorded days in advance actually turn out to be happening live over a closed-circuit TV system rigged to look like a VCR. An exact inversion of the trope use in ''Saw II''.
* ''Series/{{House}}'' invokes this during the ''Three Stories'' episode. House is telling the medical students about three cases involving leg problems and each with its own diagnosis. At one point, the flashback scene shows House talking with his own staff about one case, then brings up one of the other cases -- only his team looks confused, and House reveals that that case didn't occur until three months later.
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' had a season 4 episode that used this effectively: the title itself, "Three Days of Snow," was already a hint.

* ''Series/OnceUponATime'':
** "Broken", the first episode of Season 2, alternates between events in Storybrooke, and the Enchanted Forest version of ''WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty''. Since Season 1 has primed the audience to think of Enchanted Forest scenes as flashbacks, and "What happened to the Enchanted Forest ''after'' the curse?" is not a question that's even been asked at this point, the lack of regular characters is not enough to clue the audience in that the scenes are happening simultaneously.
** Similarly, Season 7's "Is This Henry Mills" interweaves Adult Henry resisting the truth in Hyperion Heights with Young Henry finishing school back in Storybrooke (shortly before he leaves for the New Enchanted Forest, as seen in the season opener). Not until Roni tells Adult Henry that the reason nobody in Storybrooke knows they're missing is that the curse sent them back in time, does it turn out that Young Henry's graduation is happening ''now''. (This is the least of the chronological confusions in this season, but most of the others are explained as they come up.)

* Used to convey the impression that Amber and Ethan are [[https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/wakey-wakey waking up next to each other]] in ''Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}}'', before TheReveal that they are both waking up next to Mike. The [[https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/freud next strip]] continues alternating between the two scenes, but the last panel establishes the Ethan one happened first, and then Mike went back to Amber's room.
* The first four Acts of ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' concern four friends, all young teenagers, who begin playing the videogame ''Sburb'' on the same day. Things get very confusing from there, so much so that Act 5 ends with characters triggering a CosmicRetcon and jumping into a new universe. Act 6 begins with four new friends, all slightly older teenagers and obvious parallels of the comic's starting cast, starting their own game of ''Sburb''. One of the twists in this Act is that these four teens aren't even living in the same century: Jane and Jake are living in 2011, while Dirk and Roxy are living about four centuries later. They communicate like they're contemporaries via a chat client that can send messages backwards and forwards in time.

* The big twist in ''Series/ThePrisoner2009'' involves a series of flashbacks that turn out to be something rather more complicated.

* ''Film/{{Arrival}}'': The movie starts with Louise raising her daughter only for her to die at twelve years old, giving her quite a tragic backstory. Except it isn't a backstory - she actually hasn't been born yet and this sequence being at the beginning represents how the [[NonLinearCharacter heptapods]] allow her to know this will happen in the future.

** In ''Film/SawII'', there are two plot lines: the victims in the Nerve Gas House, and the police watching them on closed-circuit TV. It later turns out that the closed-circuit TV footage is recorded, and Eric's son is in fact in the same building in which he's watching the recordings. It's an interesting example since the characters have the same mistaken impression as the viewer -- to tragic effect.

* In ''Film/KamenRiderTheFirst,'' there's a sub-plot of a man in a hospital and a girl who tries to befriend him (against his will) that seems to have nothing to do with anything. Slowly, she gets him to defrost, [[spoiler: and we find she is ill as well and just likes making people happy.]] They plant flowers together near the end. We cut from that to the field where the two defeated [[NebulousEvilOrganization Shocker]] lieutenants have landed - it's the same one, and the flowers have grown, as the hospital scenes were in fact years go. The two generals, seeing the flowers, remember their true selves as the two from those scenes, just before dying.

A trope commonly seen in mysteries. Cut from Scene A to Scene B, or alternate between two scenes. Viewer assumes that B shortly follows A in the first case, and that both are occurring simultaneously in the second. In truth, there is a much larger gap, or [[AnachronicOrder the scenes do not occur in that order]].

* The ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' series manages to do this across games. The [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 second game]] initially presents itself as a direct sequel to the [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys1 first game]], with emphasis on a brand new restaurant with shiny new animatronics (known as the "Toy" animatronic line) replacing the original ones from the first game, who are in a state of disrepair and left in a maintenance room. The paycheck that the protagonist gets after completing the fifth night eventually reveals it's actually a ''prequel'', with the supposed new restaurant being later closed down to move to a small location, the "Toy" generation getting scrapped, and the original animatronics getting refurbished and used again.

** ''Film/SawIV'' plays a similar trick. The first scene is chronologically the last; everything else takes place ''during'' the previous film.

* The ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' series manages to do this across games. The [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 second game]] initially presents itself as a direct sequel to [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys1 the first game]], with emphasis on a brand new restaurant with shiny new animatronics (known as the "Toy" animatronic line) replacing the original ones from the first game, who are in a state of disrepair and left in a maintenance room. The paycheck that the protagonist gets after completing the fifth night eventually reveals it's actually a ''prequel'', with the supposed new restaurant being later closed down to move to a small location, the "Toy" generation getting scrapped, and the original animatronics getting refurbished and used again.

* The ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' series manages to do this across games. The [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 second game]] initially presents itself as a direct sequel to [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys1 the first game]], with emphasis on a brand new restaurant with shiny new animatronics (known as the "Toy" animatronic line) replacing the original ones from the first game, who are in a state of disrepair and left in a maintenance. The paycheck that the protagonist gets after completing the fifth night eventually reveals it's actually a ''prequel'', with the supposed new restaurant being later closed down to move to a small location, the "Toy" generation getting scrapped, and the original animatronics getting refurbished and used again.