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"Think of it this way: if Russo was managing the local Pizza Hut, you'd order a pizza and they'd deliver a newspaper. Sure, it was a surprise, but it didn't make much sense, nor did you want to order from them again. But it sure fooled you, didn't it?"
— R.D. Reynolds on Vince Russo's writing style, from the book Wrestle Crap
A good Twist Ending is surprising, and seems to come out of left-field at first. You're shocked at first, but then you look back and realize that that's what they were building to all along. It takes a great writer to pull off believable twists on a regular basis.
That doesn't stop less-than-great writers from trying, however.
The Shocking Swerve is a kind of twist made just to have a twist. There's little-to-no rhyme or reason involved, no Foreshadowing, and no way that the viewer could have ever seen it coming. They just pulled it out of nowhere due to a misguided desire to "shock" the viewer. Characters may be derailed, subplots may be ruined, and generally everything that's occurred so far will be thrown out the window, just to pull off this twist. Most Shocking Swerves are also Wall Bangers. However...
Contrast The Untwist, where the plot twist is ruined by making it too obvious, so that the audience confuses it for a Red Herring.
See also Xanatos Roulette, Outer Limits Twist, Mandatory Twist Ending and Ass Pull.
- Former WCW and WWF writer Vince Russo loved to put these into his shows. He also loved to use wrestling insider lingo (in this case, "swerve" meaning "plot twist") in his shows. When this combined with WCW play-by-play commentator Tony Schiavone's irrational exuberance, it resulted in Tony often declaring, "This is the most shocking swerve ever!", thus resulting in a whole mess of "most shocking swerves". Russo's most notorious "shocking swerve" was making actor David Arquette (yes, the deputy from the Scream movies who's now married to Courtney Cox) the WCW champion after a fluke victory. Now writing for TNA, the Internet Wrestling Community have near-collectively decided that the Shocking Swerve is in fact more shocking when it doesn't happen. There are a number of recappers out there who can predict down to individual promos as to when the shockers happen.
- When David Arquette went on to make a Face Heel Turn, "shocking" wasn't sufficient; Tony proclaimed it to be the ultimate swerve.
Other examples:
Anime and Manga
- For some viewers, Code Geass R2 Turn 21, where it's revealed that Marianne (who for most of the series had been painted as practically a saint) not only fully supports her husband's Instrumentality plan, but she's committed multiple Kick The Dog moments herself, including using her Geass to possess a young girl after her death, and not particularly caring about the Mind Rape her daughter went through. And that's only one of the plot twists thrown into this episode.
- In Bleach, Yammy going from #10 to the #0 Espada certainly qualifies for this, especially since The Espada ranks go from 1 to 10, and of all the surviving Espada, Yammy had the worst combat performance. He arguably still does, even with his "ultimate" released form.
- Mayuri and Szayel Aporro battle each other entirely through this tactics that they reveal on the spot without any prior indication (Szyael's ability to impregnate his opponent, Nemu surviving said impregnation and being full of poison, and Mayuri being able to self-destruct his out-of-control bankai).
- In the Zanpakuto filler arc, Muramasa, a zanpakuto claims to have killed his master and that he wants to liberate all zanpakutos from their owners, but it's revealed that he actually wants to free his master, Kouga Kuchiki. Byakuya's apparent Heel Face Turn is also revealed to be as a result of wanting to kill Kouga himself.
- In Naruto, the revelation that Itachi killed the Uchiha Clan under Konoha's orders, and spared Sasuke out of love counts, although the revelation recasts many of Itachi's previous actions in a new light and helps explain some of his decisions. Two scenes that would have hinted at Itachi's true nature (a flashback in which he cries while leaving the scene of the massacre- a memory Sasuke said he repressed- and another in which he warns Naruto of the possibility that Sasuke could be manipulated) are not shown until after The Reveal.
- Excel Saga's Ilpalazzo]] abandoning his dreams of conquest to fall down a hole with Excel. Doubles as Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming.
- To be fair, it was the emergency escape route.
- Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle lives for this. Basically, every plot point after Acid Tokyo qualifies. They even sneak a couple into the epilogue.
- Because of this series, xxxHolic periodically suffers as well. It's tends to be fine when left alone, though.
- School Days (manga only) Kotohona & Sekai abruptly going Axe Crazy in the last chapter with virtually no foreshadowing at all, just to shock the reader at the story having one of the game's few bad endings as opposed to the majority of happy endings. Note this occurs only in the Manga, the Anime does a much better job of building up Kotohona & Sekai's gradually decreasing mental stability making it much more a Twist Ending.
Comic Books
- The bulk of recent "big events" in comic books, such as Avengers Disassembled, House of M, and Civil War in Marvel Comics, and Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis in DC, have been focused on creating Shocking Swerves that often seem aimed specifically at tweaking or even outright insulting fans with any emotional attachment to long-term continuity.
- This isn't a new phenomenon by any means. The DC Comics Crisis Crossover Armageddon 2001 (back in 1991!) had a Mystery Villain called Monarch, who was originally meant to be the hero Captain Atom. The problem was that the foreshadowing for this was so obvious that fans figured it out well before the story was over and posted about it on the Internet. The DC brass, desperate to preserve the shock value, changed the ending at the last minute and had a completely different character, Hawk (one of the few characters who the story up to that point had explicitly said couldn't be the Monarch), Freak Out and turn evil even though it didn't make sense, because his series was getting cancelled anyway.
- When they reintroduced a "new" Monarch to be one of the villains in the latest DC's Crisis Crossover Final Crisis, they didn't even bother hiding his identity anymore - Captain Atom, natch.
- In Star Wars: Legacy, the revelation that Morrigan Corde is Nyna Calixte despite them looking completely different.
- Wookiepedia says that the authors were explicitly told not to drop any hints, so as not to ruin the "surprise".
- Grant Morrison's run on X-Men finishes with the reveal that the wise Eastern mentor character was actually Magneto, who then proceeds to go berserk and level Manhattan. And if you go back and read the previous issues, what the hell, it does fit. Sort of. It's still Grant Morrison.
- Of course, if you don't like this twist, worry not! In accordance with the editorial policy of "confuse the hell out of readers", this plot was almost immediately retconned away.
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic actually manages to have a revelation that's simultaneously a Shocking Swerve and The Unreveal. While many readers had guessed that Mad Scientist Demagol had switched places with Warrior Poet Rohlan Dyre (using the fact that as Mandalorians, both wear full body armor, to conceal the switch) as much as three years before it was explicitly revealed to have happened, no one predicted that Demagol's true identity was Antos Wyrick, Jarael's childhood mentor and the father of her nemesis Chantique.
Fanfic
- Happens in pretty much every chapter of Light And Dark The Adventures Of Dark Yagami. Past swerves include: Light's dad is trying to kill L! Light's dad works for L! Sayu stole Misa's death note! Takada is Naomi! L tried to kill Light's mum! The royal death note was fake! Dark has an everything note! Light has a twin sister! Part of the fun is trying to guess what ludicrous Ass Pull will happen next.
- Quoted above is the second-to-last paragraph of Doom Repercussions Of Evil, spoken by Cernel Joson (presumably, as he had been speaking on the radio before) after John Stalvern insists that he has to fight the demons. This contradicts Joson sending John out to fight the demons.
Film
- The two endings that didn't make the final cut of the thriller Joy Ride both had Rusty Nail being killed, but the ending that made it to theaters had him get shot numerous times by police, only to make yet another threatening CB call to the heroes just as the movie ends. Oh no, he's Not Quite Dead; he just posed a victim in his truck to get shot in his place! It would have made for a nice twist except for the fact that he had a live and unblindfolded hostage in his passenger compartment who would have seen the entire ruse being set up. Not only does she not tell the police about it, she's just as surprised as the rest of them when Rusty calls again. Hell, with a shocking twist like that, who needs logic?
- Likewise, the ending of the film Perfect Stranger (with Halle Berry and Bruce Willis) has the one character who could not possibly be the killer (Halle Berry's character) be the killer. This is why you don't let test audiences pick the ending.
- The death of Donnie at the end of The Big Lebowski. There is foreshadowing, but you have to look closely.
- Hint: watch when he sits down after failing to strike.
- At the end of the 2007 film The Mist, convinced that they are doomed to a gruesome death, the protagonist kills the other 4 members of his party (including his own child) with the last 4 bullets he has. About a minute later the army show up, along with thousands of survivors they have rescued. Some critics praised the director for making this bold nihilistic statement. Others thought it was a ridiculous and contrived ending which hurt the rest of the film.
- In the Ashley Judd/Morgan Freeman movie High Crimes, Judd's character spends the entire movie trying to clear her soldier husband of war crimes charges (with Freeman's help). Only to find at at the very end after they succeed in clearing him... Yeah, he did it. And then some. And then he tries to kill Judd because she knows about it. But she only knows - and not just suspects - because he tells her so.
- Titan AE's big revelation, in order to work, required the character in question to throw out everything his character had been established as, in every scene, right up until The Reveal.
- The forgettable film Lifeforce wanted a Tomato In The Mirror ending. It would have worked, too, if this didn't contradict the rest of the movie (and if the whole thing were more than an excuse for the female
stars main cast members to walk around mostly nude).
- Saw IV ended with the out-of-nowhere, completely unforeshadowed revelation that Hoffman was a Jigsaw apprentice. This actually hurt Saw V, as the producers apparently thought the best way to (presumably) respond to criticism about a clumsy twist ending is to have around seventy percent of the next movie dedicated to explaining it. Oh wait, it doesn't feel like a Saw movie now? Well, just throw in a "seemingly random group of people wandering through a maze of traps" plot which you've already done much better in Saw II!
- The So Bad Its Horrible movie Monster A Go-Go (you've seen it somewhere) is probably the worst offender out there. It featured a man who was turned into a radioactive giant. Near the end, people are going after the giant only to find out the man was found elsewhere, and the giant just disappeared like he never existed. So Yeah.
- The ending of Monty Python and the Holy Grail pretty much came out of nowhere. (See Theatre below.)
- Mark of the Vampire: The dead man was killed by a person who deliberately faked a vampire attack. The "vampires" were actors hired to trap that murderer. All the main characters (other than the killer) were in on the trap.
- The independent feature Bloodletting, about a woman who tracks down a serial killer so he can show her how to kill, has one of the most Shocking Swerves of Shocking Swerves: It turns out the supposed killer the girl tracks down was not the serial killer she was looking for at all, but a pathetically lonely guy who pretended to be the one she was after in order to make her stay. They both wind up dead, after the man has killed half a dozen people (when he had never killed before he met her, mind you).
- In Next, we find out that the last 40 minutes or so of the film, the main action of the movie, never actually happened; it was just a vision inside the main character's mind.
Despite violating everything we have been told about how the main character's powers work. Perfectly in line with a small comment made near the beginning of the film.
- The 1974 car chase movie Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry. They've got away! Oh, they crash and die.
- The revelation near the end of I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer that the killer is some vaguely demonic entity.
Literature
- Illuminatus, being a Mind Screw of the first degree, throws out any number of shocking swerves, among the most shocking the revelations that the three main female characters are all the same Tantrically-enhanced individual and that Hagbard Celine is one of the Illuminati Primi, and the entire story was a Xanatos Gambit on his part to eliminate the most negatively aligned Ancient Conspiracy groups claiming the name "Illuminati", in which he had joined to either alter or destroy it from the inside. And he's actually a member of an even more esoteric group that used to be called Illuminati, but switched its name due to the copy-cats into A∴A∴, which is not Argentum Astrum, despite of using Thelemic passwords.
- A lot of Jodi Picoult novels have sudden plot twists, many of which count as Shocking Swerves, but particularly notable is My Sister's Keeper; Anna spends most of the book fighting for the right to not give her kidney to her terminally ill sister after spending her life thus far as a walking donation bank. Near the end, after winning the court case, she's suddenly rendered comatose in a car accident. After some mourning, her parents turn off the life support and her sister gets the kidney anyway.
- Another example is the ending of Handle With Care: Picoult spends the whole novel setting up for Charlotte's losing her lawsuit. This makes the final verdict shocking, but not in the way Picoult intended.
- The ending of John Grisham's The Partner comes right out of the blue. After the main character's conspirator goes through all the effort to find and rescue him, she steals the money and disappears, even though she could have done so at any time.
Live Action TV
- In Bones, it was revealed in the third season finale that Zack was Gormogon's apprentice. The initial plan had been to slowly hint at it up until the big reveal, but the Writers' Guild strike threw a wrench in that plan.
- Guiding Light 2003, from actual YouTube video description: "Reva's stalker was supposed to be Jonathan, which is why Marah felt a bond with him online. This was scuttled by incoming hack Head Writer Ellen Weston, who made Alexandra the stalker which made little to no sense whatsoever."
- The later seasons of Alias suffered from this a lot. Season 4 reached an all-time low with the constant back-and-forth between both Arvin Sloane and Jack Bristow having either good intentions or hidden agendas/being untrustworthy/evil all along, to a point where you just want to yell at the TV screen "We've already been through this a few episodes ago, and the episode before that..."
- And let's not forget the "shocking" season 4 tacked-on epilogue. Six words: My name is not Michael Vaughn.
- House: Kutner's suicide. The fact that it is so unexpected makes it, in some ways, more true to life.
- Satisfaction: Tippi being shot by loansharks going after her former client at his house. This also left quite a few plot points, such as her one-night-stand with Chloe's boyfriend unresolved.
- The "Who killed Colin McIver?" storyline on One Life to Live. There was only one person in town who couldn't possibly be the murderer: Nora because she was drugged by Colin. Guess who the killer turned out to be?
Professional Wrestling
- Probably the most infamous Shocking Swerve in the WWE was the "Higher Power" twist. To summarise: it was 1998, and Corrupt Corporate Executive Vince McMahon had made a Heel Face Turn. His son Shane had seized control of Vince's stable - "The Corporation" - and merged it with the Undertaker's pseudo-satanic stable "The Ministry" to form the super-stable "The Corporate Ministry", which was slowly taking over Vince's company. This forced Vince to make peace with all the people he had pissed off over the last year, most notably his arch-nemesis "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. A couple of months into the feud, the Undertaker began to hint at a "Higher Power" which he secretly served. Eventually, the Undertaker brought the black-cloaked Higher Power to the ring, who revealed himself to be... Vince McMahon!
- Vince's stated reason for going through with this impossibly-contrived Xanatos Roulette? To piss off Stone Cold Steve Austin. (What really makes it a Shocking Swerve is that, by this time, the Stone Cold vs. Vince McMahon feud had reached the end of its natural lifespan, and fans were hungering for something new. In the same way that the infamous Fingerpoke Of Doom incident in WCW pissed off fans for basically rehashing the stale New World Order plotline, this incident underscored the fact that the WWF was all about Vince McMahon. And it would arguably get worse from that point on.)
- To quote J.D. Dunn: "Okay, by "inherent absurdity" I mean, of course, Russonomics because the whole thing was rendered Stupid On Arrival when the Ministry and Corporation formed the Corporate Ministry and revealed that Vince was behind the kidnapping of his own daughter and her subsequent forced wedding to the Undertaker (and her rescue). So, Vince and Shane going at each other's throats here is all just a ruse, and Vince helping Austin retain the title is all just part of the con. To what end, you might be asking? Why would they go to all the trouble of tricking us into thinking they hated each other to the point where Vince was helping Austin retain his title? Why, to get the title off Steve Austin, of course."
- Vince being the Higher Power was actually the backup plan; it was originally supposed to be Mick Foley, which would have made total sense and given us a good feud, but Foley didn't want to make a heel turn without any buildup to it, so they went with the alternative.
- Not to mention that a week before the reveal. The Higher Power revealed his face to Austin. With Austin seen mouthing something along line of "You son of a bitch"
- This Troper had heard that Jake "The Snake" Roberts was going to be revealed as the Higher Power.
- This troper also remembers that there were even posts at the time on the the rec.sport.pro-wrestling (RSPW) newsgroup that wondered if Brian Pillman or Owen Hart, whose fatal accident was just weeks before, were actually Faking The Dead and would be the Higher Power. Yes
 really.
- The Montreal Screw Job would be, imho, the most shocking WWE/F swerve ever (assuming here that the definition of this trope is that it was certainly surprising, but not exactly what you wanted.)
- According to The Death of WCW, the "ultimate swerve" was received by WCW itself: just when things were looking bright again, with former executive Eric Bischoff in line to buy the company and ratings starting to creep back upward, suddenly all its programming was canceled and it was forced out of business. What a twist!
Theatre
- A rare example of this done effectively was in the Monty Python musical Spamalot!, which was essentially a retreading of the same old well-known jokes from the films and TV series. That is, until about halfway through the second half, when the characters, without warning, break into a song about the prevalence of Jews in the musical theatre business. It's the biggest and most spectacular number in the show, culminating in a giant illuminated Star of David descending from the ceiling. Many saw it as not only a gratuitous (and successful) attempt to shock the audience, but in doing so an attempt to remind the audience that Python was shocking in the 70s, and it's only because it was so popular that it is now considered safe and harmless.
- The original Holy Grail had a pretty out-of-the-blue surprise ending as well. After too much taunting the main characters charge at the french castle with an army of soldiers pulled from hammerspace... only to be broken up and arrested by the police investigating a death earlier in the movie, completely out of character. This ending came about partly for shock value and partly because they had run out of money, prompting one Python member to suggest in an exasperated manner, "Oh, let's just have them all get arrested".
Video Games
- The truth behind Liquid Snake's possession of Revolver Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 4 is, to say the least, the only plot point in the series that succeeded in pissing off some fans of the series. Basically, it turns out at the end that you were never fighting Liquid and that Ocelot was using a combination of drugs, nanomachines, and hypnotherapy to make himself think he was Liquid for his most complex Xanatos Roulette to date. However, this not only cheapens Liquid's character, but effectively and retroactively turns the final boss fight into a big pile of... meaninglessness... by destroying all the previous epicness it portrayed, turning it into something completely impersonal and rendering the victory hollow.
- Your Milage May Vary with this one. After all, Ocelot is the only person to appear in all four of the "Solid" game. Also, don't forget that although gone by 4, canonically Liquid really did possess him in 2, although this is not entirely clear in 4 itself, making it a bit of a slap in the face.
- Crossing over with AssPull, Blood Knights in World of Warcraft originally stole their power from a god-esque being known as a Naaru. Throughout 70 levels of content this Naaru is shown as being tortured, desperately trying to escape while the Blood Knights become increasingly arrogant about their power, resort to more despicable acts (desecrating churches and murdering those who gained Light-based power "naturally") and so on. In the space of a SINGLE patch, suddenly the Naaru was retconned into allowing himself to be captured and was GIVING the power, while damn near every single Blood Knight makes an instant and jarring personality flip. None of this was hinted at or foreshadowed.
- Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty ends with previous villain Dr. Nefarious marching onto the screen and apparently being allied with the Zoni, without him ever having been mentioned or referenced in the Future saga beyond some IRIS computer trivia and Qwark's arena narration. The fact that Nefarious and his butler Lawrence were a smash hit in regards of comedy value may have something to do with it.
- Crossing over into Real Life, nobody expected Jack Thompson to come out in defense of Mass Effect's controversial so-called "full blown sex scenes" that appeared nowhere within the game.
- Xenogears has this in paced orders-of-magnitude; two nations are at war and level Fei's hometown, but those are being manipulated by humans living on a floating city Solaris in order to dig up and test technology from an ancient, destroyed civilization. Then it leaps up again with Fei and Elly continually reincarnating in an attempt to free God from a physical prison and destroy the wicked Demiurge who created humankind as organic components to repair his physical form. Whew!
- And there's more than that, those are just the main ones.
- It's a staple for the Mega Man series to have a Big Bad that would have to be behind everything in the game they appeared in. So, Mega Man X delivered a Shocking Swerve the fans weren't expecting: Sigma is not the Big Bad of X8, and instead he's a just a Xanatos Sucker.
- Bubble Bobble: According to what little information we are told, two bubble dragons have to rescue their human girlfriends. Turns out that those two bubble dragons are humans themselves (You Should Know This Already) and yet, in the True Ending, out of the Final Boss come the two protagonists' parents.
Webcomics
- For years, Maytag of Flipside would at least proposition anyone who wasn't actively trying to kill her, and a few people who were; meanwhile, her paladin Bernadette seemed more-or-less asexual, even toward her. During a Retool, it was revealed that the two of them were not only monogamous lovers, but had been all along, followed by a series of unconvincing, probably accidental "hints." Not only that, but Bernadette had, before the series started, been involved with a minor character whose only role on camera was to be killed by The Dragon, and left her for infidelity. Technically, she never saw Maytag cheat, but that's when this contributor packed up his Willing Suspension Of Disbelief and left.
- And in the most recent arc, a mage uses a magical truth spell that people can't help but reply to to try and ruin their relationship, wherein Maytag admits to infidelity and Bernadette admits to being relieved to hear it. Sure, sure, right.
- It was pretty probable that they were together from the start. It was also pretty obvious that Bern and Clairen were more than just friends in the past. Also, lastly, Bern knew Maytag was cheating the whole time. As for why she hasn't said something, we get to wait for the next comic.
- In Irregular Webcomic, the "Me" character announced he was going to permanently kill off a popular major character. The death was him. It may also have possibly been Gwen Stacey from Spider Man.
Web Original
- Mega64 has what may be one of the biggest example. The episode "What the Hell Happened to Mega64?" starts with one of Dr. Poque's college friends coming to see him. In the first five minutes their taken hostage by a mafia and the friend is killed, complete with blood splattering. The rest of the episode has Rocko, Derek and Shawn trying to rescue him. The episode ends with them learning the friend was the head of the Mafia. It's never really explained why he wants to kill Dr. Poque, why the Mafia were selling plush parrots, or how the friend is even alive. It gets even weirder when the friend is shot in the back by a guy wearing a sombrero, who then warps out. The creators said that it was a twist for the sake of a twist, and even the characters question it.
- Not to mention the Super Mario Brothers episode in which Shigeru Miyamoto himself shows up in the video out of nowhere.
Western Animation
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