Characters who prove to be Wrong Genre Savvy in Fan Works.
- Avenger of Steel: Clark Kent bases his knowledge of magic on Harry Potter, but that's not how magic actually works. For example, when he visits magical areas like the Sanctum and Kamar-Taj, he assumes cell phones won't work (they do), like how they don't work in Hogwarts.
- The Boys Vs The MCU
is exactly what it says in the title. When Billy Butcher, Hughie, and Annie find themselves in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Billy immediately starts from the assumption that the Avengers are just as corrupt as the 'heroes' he's familiar with; he concludes that Stark funds the Avengers just to make more money from the publicity, Hulk was originally deliberately created to be a villain, the reports of SHIELD being infiltrated by HYDRA were faked to allow the Avengers to act autonomously, and Thanos's army was a set-up to give the Avengers greater control and get rid of the Accords. Ultimately Billy concedes that the Avengers are genuine when he has a chance to confront Zemo and General Ross and confirms that they aren't the victims he assumed they were, particularly when military records confirm that Ross was responsible for the Hulk. Billy is finally forced to confront the Avengers when he attempts to break Zemo out of prison, followed by an aborted attack by Homelander that ends with Thor pinning him down with Mjolnir, proving to Billy that these heroes are exactly what they seem to be. - The Bridge: Humanity's Stand: Taiyou watched a lot of action movies as a kid and tends to assume people like members of the Global Defense Force will think and behave like her movies' clichéd heroes. Miki Saegusa irritably tells her that this is real life and they are a lot smarter and more pragmatic than that.
- In The Dragon and the Butterfly, Hiccup thinks that Casita is more sinister than it really is, and repeatedly shows reluctance to enteriong their home under the assumption that it would someday eat him. Though in his defense, the building was initially hostile to him due to thinking he was a threat.Mirabel: Hiccup, come on!
Hiccup: I dunno, what if I go inside and it... eats me or something?
Mirabel: Casita's a house, Hiccup. It can't eat you.
Hiccup: How do you know? It's magic, it could eat someone! - The Faith Chronicles sees the SGC basically use this against the Watcher's Council after the Council abduct Faith, who SG-1 have recently learnt is Sam Carter's daughter who was abducted at birth by the Council and her death faked. Since the Council rely on magic and don't know what Carter actually does, the SGC rescue Faith by calling in a favour from Thor of the Asgard so that he confronts the Council as they are preparing to execute Faith using his holographic god disguise, Thor declaring that Faith is his charge and ordering them to leave her alone in future. The result is so effective that Tara calls Faith afterwards to mention that her mother must be a very powerful witch to have invoked Thor himself in that manner, although she also advises that Sam avoid such powerful magics in future.
- Fate/Gamers Only: Blackbeard nearly gets hit by a cannonball because he assumes Talking Is a Free Action, citing it and not interrupting a transformation sequence as a common anime trope. Rikku (who herself is the actual Genre Savvy) points out that isn't a very smart course of action.
- Jaune Arc, Lord of Hunger: Jaune Arc had watched a movie that claimed the Grimm are Living Motion Detectors, so you can avoid them by standing still. When he is confronted by an Alpha Beowolf, he follows the movie's advice and stands still. The Beowolf gives a Quizzical Tilt before attacking him and forcing him to run.Jaune: [thinking] Curse you movies! Why would you lie to me!?
- Maria Campbell of the Astral Clocktower:
- Maria is a reincarnate from Bloodborne, so she assumes that Aristocrats Are Evil. In canon it was implied that her "bastard" half-noble status was just a sad case of Mistaken for Cheating, but here she is firmly convinced that she is a Child by Rape and thinks her mother was lucky to be allowed to live. A few more mistaken assumptions later and she thinks Katarina is her half-sister, and works hard to keep her mother from meeting Duke Claes because she thinks it would be traumatic. She also thinks the world is far darker than it is, but considering in this fic the world is the future of Dark Souls, she's not that far off... but the fact remains that she's in an otome game.
- In addition to the canon mistake where Katarina is still convinced that she is the villainess from the game she reincarnated into, there's a similar one in her vacation arc. She (correctly?) identifies it as what would be yuri DLC for the base game, and identifies all the various potential love interests among her cousins and their friends. However, she's convinced that Maria is going to swoop in at any moment to take up the romance arcs, and is rather confused when she doesn't. The author's notes imply that it was a Katarina-focused DLC from the start, even in the "original" where she really was the villainess.
- RWBY: Fate Disaster: Jason tries to bat away a magic blast with his sword, but is surprised when the blast explodes on contract. Medea (Lily) says magic blasts don't work like in the TV shows they have been watching.
- Emily from Sixes and Sevens thinks on how out of depth she feels when Michael explains the events surrounding HYDRA, Captain Rogers, and Dr. Erskine's formula to her.She's gotten used to a certain level of pulp fiction that her life has become since joining the SOE. But this was like an H. G. Wells story. What next, martians?
- Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K:
- When the Imperium of Man is transported into the Star Wars universe, they assume the Galaxy Far, Far Away is no different from their home galaxy where humanity constantly struggles for survival against Always Chaotic Evil aliens in a Crapsack World. In reality, they couldn't be further from the truth as the SW setting is far more optimistic than that; not only is humanity at large dominating, but the overwhelming majority of SW aliens are relatively friendly compared to the xenos from Warhammer 40,000. Basically, the Imperium thinks they're in a grimdark Military Science Fiction story as the anti-heroic protagonist faction fighting a Guilt-Free Extermination War to defend humanity, when they're actually the antagonistic Evil Empire in a more traditional, heroic Space Opera. This means that their genocidal attitudes towards non-humans, which might seem Necessarily Evil in a setting where Aliens Are Bastards like 40K, instead serve to establish how much of a Viler New Villain they are from the perspectives of the SW characters.
- Upon discovering the existence of the Galactic Republic, a galaxy-spanning democratic union where humans have peacefully co-existed with thousands of different alien races for over 25,000 years, the Imperium reacts with extreme skepticism and hostility because everything about the Republic seems way Too Good to Be True from their perspective. If this were a dystopian setting like 40K, the Imperials would be Properly Paranoid for thinking this and the Republic would probably turn out to be a crapsaccharine False Utopia. However, since this is in the more hopeful setting of Star Wars, the Imperials' suspicions are unfounded and they instead come across as Improperly Paranoid Absolute Xenophobes to everyone else.AFanWithTooMuchTime: If you were in the Warhammer 40K galaxy and you jumped in after a huge time skip or something, right, and you found suddenly that the galaxy was ruled by a 'republic' that had an army of slave human clones — like, if you saw that in Warhammer, it would be really grim and bad for the humans, and really terrible for everyone involved, and it would just be masking a horrible, horrible thing. And so, right now the Imperium is trying to unmask and understand the "horrible, horrible thing" that they have no doubt is there.
- What the Cat Dragged In: After Chloé ruins Blanche's dress and sends her crying, Tony tells Adrien it would probably be better if they left her alone for a bit to let her calm down. While this would be good advice in any realistic setting, in the world of Miraculous Ladybug not calming a person down fast enough will get them turned into a Monster of the Week courtesy of Hawk Moth — and sure enough, five seconds later Blanche crashes the party, now going by "the Seamstress" and out for Chloé's blood.
- Arkham Patient Sessions: For all that he does manage to help some villains turn their lives around, Hugo Strange is unable to make any meaningful change in Gotham because he thinks the world he lives in is supposed to be sane and rational and supers are an aberration, when it’s actually the other way around.
- We Just Want to Help You by Jeanne Hedge is a fic where a random fan of Bubblegum Crisis finds herself in the Tokyo of 2035, hurries over to offer to help Ms. Stingray... and gets tranqed and sent to the loony bin when it turns out she's not actually in Bubblegum Crisis, but a relatively close (but significantly divergent) Alternate Universe.
- In this fanfic, Tabii believes herself to be the Knight in Shining Armor rescuing her beloved Neil from his Domestic Abuser and taking him somewhere they can happily be together forever before engaging in lovemaking. The truth is that Tabii is Neil's Abhorrent Admirer who's actively kidnapped him and chained him to a bed, Max is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who is not remotely happy about Neil's disappearance and the so-called "lovemaking" is active rape (which the narrative completely demonizes, fully subverting Double Standard Rape: Female on Male) which effectively breaks Neil.
- The Way the Fairy Tale Goes features Jeremie using fairy tale logic to state that his relationship with Aelita will never be able to progress pass friendship, since he isn't some strong, powerful hero. Little does he know he's in a cartoon where the most powerful member of the team is the one with the tech skills and that the princess has already decided she wants him. Ulrich is outright annoyed that Jeremie is completely oblivious to what is blatantly obvious to literally everyone else (though he manages to be sympathetic since he realizes it's just Jeremie's low self-esteem talking and is outright pissed at whoever put those ideas in his friend's head). And for an added bit of irony, there are many fairy tales where the princess's hand is won by someone whose greatest strength is either his good heart or sharp mind, traits Jeremie has in abundance, though Ulrich is admittedly unable to name any at the moment.Jeremie: We call her 'Princess' all the time. Think hard, Ulrich. What story do you know of had the fair princess's hand won by an intellectual?... I can't win her, Ulrich. I can help her, get her away from XANA and Lyoko by finding the anti-virus but I can't have her heart. It's not the way the fairy tale goes.
- Star Wars Forever: When investigating a Star Wars-themed serial killer, a chain of events lead to Henry Morgan having to pose as a Force spirit to talk the killer down, but his lack of experience with Star Wars causes Henry to quote other fictional ghosts from sources such as A Christmas Carol.
- In Kimberly T's Gargoyles series, at one point Anne Marsden- the new nanny to Alexander Xanatos- questions the reliability of the Steel Clan robots, recalling various films where such robots turned against the humans. Owen Burnett explicitly tells Anne that they aren't a "big-budget movie" and assures her that the Steel Clan have always adhered to their programming (even if they haven't always measured up to expectations).
- In A Thing of Vikings, King Mac Bethad and his court think that they're in a Game of Thrones-style grimdark setting of musical backstabbing and Disproportionate Retribution, not realizing that Hiccup and Berk are much more idealistic than that. To be fair though, they weren't previously wrong, and their beliefs and actions have served them well in helping them survive before. The issue is that with Hiccup and Berk entering the political landscape, the genre shifted and they haven't realised it.ATOV from the comment section: And on top of that, Macbeth has reasons to be paranoid. The Big Name in terms of Viking lords that Macbeth would be the most intimately familiar with? King Cnut. And to give just one example out of the many, many, many things that he did... In the 1020s, he's ruling from London, but he also controls Denmark, who are getting uncomfortable with an absentee king. So when Harthacnut is six years old, he appoints Harthacnut as his regent-king over Denmark. But a six-year-old is not really capable of being a king, right? So he turns to Ulf, his brother-in-law, the husband of his sister (Sweyn's father, btw), and says, "You can be his regent." So Ulf goes with his nephew to rule over Denmark and he fucks up. Olaf (Magnus and Wulf's father) and Anund Jacob (Olaf's brother-in-law) decide to raid Denmark while Cnut isn't looking, and Ulf uses the crisis to have the freemen of Denmark elect Harthacnut as King – without acknowledging Cnut's overlordship. So by appealing to the people anxious about Cnut being absent, he made a powerplay, because, as Regent, that would give him more power and authority. Cnut quickly found out, came to Denmark, demanded his son and brother-in-law's submission and got it. On Christmas Eve, he was playing King's Fist with Ulf, and then they started arguing with each other, and at Christmas morning mass, in the Church, Cnut had Ulf assassinated. And that is the pattern of behavior Macbeth knows of and expects from Norse kings.
- In Fool Me Thrice, Luan Loud is under the impression she's in a story where her family is going to be thrilled that after she chased after the moving van that supposedly had her possessions on it only to find out Lincoln pulled one over on her, she endured a massive Trauma Conga Line that left her brutalized and half-naked; turns out that they're horrified and all state they have her back, with her father calling the police on the people who beat her up and Lisa agreeing to veto Luan's check to the stunt doubles.
- Humourously brought up in "Detective Decker’s Devil Dog", which opens with Lucifer having been cursed into the form of a dog by a witch. He “meets” Chloe when she is reassigned to the K-9 crime unit and Lucifer’s dog self becomes her partner, and after working together for months, Chloe witnesses Lucifer return to human form when he is injured in the final confrontation with Malcolm Graham. When Trixie learns of Lucifer’s transformation, she describes him as “a handsome prince that’d been turned into a doggie”, basically comparing the scenario to a Disney movie in the style of Beauty and the Beast, even though factors such as True Love's Kiss had nothing to do with Lucifer returning to his human form.
- The Amazing Spider-Man: True Purpose features Hank McCoy bringing the young Spider-Man into the future along with the original five X-Men in the belief that this will help other heroes get to know the wall-crawler better. When the present Spider-Man sees the time-travellers, his immediate response is to attack his other self assuming he's yet another clone, as Spider-Man is more familiar with cloning than time travel.
- Chloé's Lament: Chloé uses the reality-warping Wish to switch lives with Marinette, expecting a straight Role Swap AU wherein she gets to become Ladybug and lavish in everyone's praise of her heroics while Marinette is despised for being the Mayor's Spoiled Brat of a daughter. Unfortunately for her, she's actually in a Be Careful What You Wish For scenario wherein she's just created her own Self-Inflicted Hell: their roles may have changed, but their personalities remain the same. So Chloé retains her spoiled, self-centered and bullying ways without the protection that being the Mayor's daughter afforded her.
- Crimson and Noire plays this for drama with Alya. Despite Lady Noire being a superheroine, Alya immediately assumes that Bad Powers, Bad People is in play, and recklessly speculates on her blog about Lady Noire having some kind of dark past working for the villains, or only being kept in check by Crismon Beetle. This contributes to Lady Noire being a Hero with Bad Publicity. Though by chapter 34, Alya has come to realize how inaccurate she was in judging Lady Noir by comic book standards rather than seeing her as an actual human being.
- Feralnette AU:
- Alya believes that she's an Intrepid Reporter in the vein of Lois Lane, and that everything she does while Going for the Big Scoop is fine because Ladybug will always save the day. She's actually more of an Unwitting Pawn and Instigator of Doom whose Skewed Priorities complicate matters for Ladybug, Chat Noir, and all those around her. When she gets into trouble with her idol as a result, Alya convinces herself that she can only fix the problem by escalating her behavior rather than dialing it back.
- Alya also assumes that Marinette hasn't changed at all from the girl she met, and that she needs a Shipper on Deck to help her hook up with Adrien. The idea that Marinette no longer wants to continue pursuing him is completely lost on her, as is the fact that her meddling is further straining their broken friendship.
- Lila's convinced that she has more control of her 'partnership' with Hawkmoth than she actually does, fancying herself as a Manipulative Bitch who's managed to get the Big Bad dancing to her tune rather than a convenient pawn for the terrorist.
- Future Alix believes that there is One True Timeline — her own — and that her job as Bunnyx is to ensure every incarnation of reality perfectly aligns with her own. In reality, the Rabbit is meant to minimize their influence upon the infinite possibilities and permutations, and her treating other worlds as Expendable Alternate Timelines is doing far more harm than good.
- Alya runs into this in the Role Swap AU Fortune Favors the Brave. Being familiar with how American superheroes work, she naturally expects to be able to conduct her newfound duties as Chartroux in the exact same way. She's shocked at Plagg's insistence that she has to maintain her Secret Identity, dismissing the dangers of outing herself with Hawk Moth around; she's only swayed when he insists that she'll lose the Ring if she's exposed. She also labels Red Beatle her 'sidekick', clashing with him over their differing views on heroism, and neglects the civilian side of her life in her single-minded drive to track down Hawk Moth ASAP.
- The Karma of Lies:
- Adrien believes that the world runs on Protagonist-Centered Morality, much like what he's seen in his favorite series... and that what's more, he's The Chosen One around which the world revolves, making everything he does right by default. In reality, he's Obliviously Evil, selfishly letting Lila continue to con his classmates because he doesn't want to inconvenience himself by telling them something they don't want to hear.
- He also firmly believes that it's impossible for him to suffer any karmic backlash because, so far as he's concerned, he hasn't done anything wrong. Despite being constantly warned about the potential consequences of his actions (and inaction), he continues to insist that everything will work out the way HE wants in the end.
- Adrien also thinks that the existence of Ladybug's Miraculous Cure means that nothing that happens during akuma attacks actually matters, treating their battles as opportunities to goof around and have fun. He's completely taken aback upon learning that his father is going to be charged for everything he did as Hawkmoth, believing that since everyone who got killed was brought Back from the Dead, that means he shouldn't be charged with murder.
- When he's finally willing to expose Lila (once she's made it personal by betraying his trust), Adrien assumes that Honesty Is the Best Policy and that telling the whole truth will ensure he's believed. This means he blithely admits everything to the police — including that he knew she was conning his classmates the whole time and didn't do anything about it. In the eyes of the authorities, either he's blatantly lying in an attempt to frame Lila, or he's revealing something incredibly unpleasant about his character. Or both, if he's lying and doesn't see anything wrong with the scenario he's spinning.
- Marinette's classmates, meanwhile, mistakenly believe that all of the opportunities they've received are the results of them being Born Lucky, as opposed to her going out of her way to support and help them achieve their dreams. Lila exploits this by presenting herself as an even better-connected version of Marinette, leading them all to abandon her in favor of the new girl who's Too Good to Be True.
- Scarlet Lady: Lila Rossi initially assumes that the titular heroine is your standard, classical noble superheroine, spinning lies about being her best friend in order to cozy up to her new classmates. In reality, Scarlet Lady is a Nominal Heroine sliding towards Villain Protagonist, who immediately goes after and humiliates Lila out of spite. Lila only realizes what kind of person she's dealing with when Scarlet Lady refuses to engage with her Hostage Situation, blithely declaring that they can all just die. After all, they'll come back when she uses Miraculous Cure, so why bother saving them in the first place?
- Villain Of Your Own Story: This is one of Alya's Fatal Flaws:
- Firstly, Alya believes that she's smarter than Marinette, and that the reason Marinette never thought to use the Wish herself is because she's too 'scatterbrained' to realize the potential. In actuality, Marinette simply recognizes that Reality Warping Is Not a Toy, while Alya is dangerously impulsive.
- Alya also believes that she's protected by Protagonist-Centered Morality; everything will work out because she's meant to be a hero and is always right. She assumes that she's capable of avoiding Be Careful What You Wish For, but instead stumbles headlong into it due to her failure to consider how her Wish could be interpreted.
- Her Alternate Universe counterpart thinks that she's creating her own Super Hero Origin story by pretending to be a villain, and that her akumas are more like Anti-Heroes whom she's empowering to get revenge on those who wronged them. She's actually a self-absorbed Unwitting Pawn whose quest for power is being manipulated by her 'trusty sidekick' Adrien for his own ends.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Anthropology: Paul is quick to pick up that something's not right with the new girl in town who immediately buys multiple books on human history. However, his first guess is that he's in a science fiction story, and that she's a time traveler trying to play catch-up. He misses the clue in the last book she bought, about unicorns, until after the fact.
- My Little Pony: Totally Legit Recap: Since nearly all of the characters are a form of Fourth-Wall Observer, the Sirens in the recap for Rainbow Rocks are able to cleverly exploit this against Sunset. They make it clear that they're the antagonists of the movie, but convince her that they're the Alpha Bitch Girl Posse for Sunset's group to show up in a competition. Sunset, familiar with Equestria, had assumed them to be supernatural evils, and upon being told this decides against her initial plan of beating them with a crowbar to defeat them. Unfortunately, her first guess was right, because this is an Urban Fantasy movie.
- Pony POV Series: In the Dark World, Nightmare Granfalloon went along with Nightmare Eclipse/Paradox's plan to trap Discord in a "Groundhog Day" Loop because she read a bunch of time travel and time loop stories where a time loop simply resets everyone's memories, so she thought nobody would be hurt by this. It turns out a time loop actually erases the people who are not aware of the loop from existence and replaces them with new ones (Eclipse knew this and didn't care), so the only people who are unharmed are Eclipse's crew and Discord. Granfalloon doesn't take it well when she finds out the truth.
- Under the Northern Lights: Kol objects to Vigg bringing an entourage of guards and guides on the quest to find the Sampo on the grounds that it doesn't fit what happens in the heroic quests in sagas, since the hero is supposed to go on his journey alone or with a small group of boon companions. Celestia placates him by convincing him that the situation is more like a war epic, where the hero raises his army and marches off to ruin or glory.
- The Writing on the Wall: Everyone about the ancient tomb and the titular writing on the wall. They think that they're still in an Adventurer Archaeologist story with a fantasy bent, so the tomb is full of treasure and archaological goodies and the writing is empty threats intended to scare away superstitious would-be tomb raiders. It's actually a sci-fi horror story, the building is a containment facility for nuclear waste, and the writing on the wall is an accurate and deadly serious warning to anyone who would attempt to get in.
- In OSMU: Fanfiction Friction, Omar comes across a run-down shack occupied by an old woman known as The Morrigan, a Fortune Teller who, at first glance, seems malicious. He believes he's running on Hansel and Gretel logic and that the shack is made of candy, but it's not, and The Morrigan is actually quite kind.
- The Pokémon: The Series Fan Fic Latias' Journey features an RPG Episode where at one point they get quizzed by a skeleton, and this happens:Skeleton: WHAT IS THE WIND SPEED OF A SWELLOW?
Phanphy: Wait! I saw this on TV once! I know the answer! Is it a Hoennese Swellow or an Orrean Swellow?
Skeleton: HOENNESE.
Phanphy: No, you were supposed to say you didn't know, then fall off a cliff.
Skeleton: YOU WATCH TOO MUCH TV.
- In Describing The Series Via References, Mercury gives Emerald a What Is Evil? speech when she starts having doubts and questions whether or not they're the villains. In a story of Grey-and-Gray Morality, this would actually hold water, and as far as he's aware, that's how things are. But they aren't like that as, unknown to them, Cinder's boss, Salem, fully intends to bring about The End of the World as We Know It, which even in a world of greying morality would make someone's side objectively the villainous one.
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System: Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong
- Reflected in Shadow has Shen Qingqiu finally understanding his interference with the setting in which he was transmigrated means he cannot follow stallion novel logic, but needs to start thinking according Boys' Love rules.
- In Roulette Wheel Of Fate, Bingge still operates under stallion novel logic in the Scumbag System world, believing he can murder and rape as much as he wants because he will obtain his Lust Object at the end. Unfortunately for him, Shen Qingqiu bestowed the Protagonist Halo to Liu Qingge, turning the setting into a Dark Fantasy in which the ultimate goal is to slay the Demon Tyrant harassing the Love Interest: Bingge himself.
- Robert Baratheon from Bequeathed from Pale Estates openly compares himself to Aemon the Dragonknight, watching over his beloved lady's happiness and ensuring she won't suffer too much from being married to a man who doesn't deserve her. Except that Lyarra Martell finds his attention for her creepy and disgusting, knowing he's attracted to her because of her strong likeness to her late aunt (Robert's former betrothed). Actually, Robert is the only one to believe this - the entire royal court can see it, and find his behaviour abhorrent.
- You Were My Best Friend: Even though Bloom correctly identifies the place she's landed in as a magical land where fairies live, said faires are quite different from the Fair Folk of Earth's mythologies. As a consequence, security measures such as never giving her true name are rendered moot.
- All Alone: Rodney's reaction to Taylor's raising of the dead is to assume that she's the start of a zombie apocalypse. And he tells the internet, attracting Coil's attention. In reality, Taylor's undead retain their personalities (although they tend to be calmer than before), and are not under her control (except that they can't intentionally hurt her), nor are they infectious in any way. It's basically a story about Taylor's loved ones getting a second chance.He'd seen enough horror movies to know how not to react when zombies or Monsters from the Deep showed up. Smart people didn't stand around saying 'how interesting' and poking at the Eldritch Horror from Beyond the Stars.
