This trope needs to be deconstructed/parodied

I want to deconstruct/parody Bondage Is Bad. Ideas?

Wonder Woman.

Play it straight and for all the tragedy it's worth. Make the message be, "Once you've broken them, they will be happy with you forever!"

That's more deconstructing Bastard Boyfriend or Rape Is Love, not Bondage Is Bad.

I thought that would be reconstructing those tropes.

No, playing them for tragedy is more Deconstruction.

I thought a Deconstruction was where a trope gets played as Realistically as possible. Playing it for tragedy more along the lines of Rule of Drama, though deconstructions can have tragedies.

edited 30th Dec '10 9:29:14 PM by EldritchBlueRose

Oh, if we're going by Real Life, then are we going by the whole SSC rules or are we just winging it? Because winging it would probably end up playing the trope straight since someone could get hurt.

Go with this; as a subplot, write a relationship that includes bondage...play it as a normal, healthy part of the couple's sex life. Then they break up, and the woman uses it against the man as evidence for "abuse".

• Because traditionally men abuse women and not the other way around, the other characters would buy the woman's story easily.
• Because bondage is usually associated with perversion, it only lends credence to her claims.
• Have everyone view her as an innocent victim, when she's just a vindictive ex-wife out to stick her husband in a sensitive place.

Note: this is based on a real-life event that took place in the 1990s; during divorce proceedings a woman used her husband's interest in bondage to make an "abused spouse" claim, with the intent of claiming a larger divorce settlement. In America, some states have "at-fault" divorce law, meaning that if one of the parties can be proven to be the cause of the separation, the other party gets a disproportionately large settlement.

Eventually the guy was able to prove that the play was consensual, but it wasn't easy and others haven't been so lucky.

A suggestion you might want to play with, if you are interested in using common perception as a plot hook.

All you have to do to deconstruct any trope is add a stupid antagonist that believes the trope in question and will take it to absurd extremes.

So just put in a guy trying to "save this poor girl" who just participates in SSC BDSM. So he goes into a homicidial rage trying to kill her boyfriend and and et cetera.

You could also simply have your protagonists suspect a character of wrongdoing just because they're kinda kinky, only to have them vindicated.

& I kinda like both of those.

For parody, how about a race of evil bondage demons seeking to add a bit of spice and variety to humanity's collective sex lives... whether they want it or not?

Hell, it could be the next Reefer Madness!

^wouldn't that just be reinforcing the belief?

I suppose I could have an Anti Villain Protagonist / Anti-Hero whose motivation is that his wife used their consensual bondage to frame him for abuse, causing him to lose everything, which leads him to seek revenge on her. Except that when he does, everyone thinks that he's seeking revenge because he's a sadist, and not because his wife actually wronged him.

Not really. Playing an absurd premise utterly straight in order to send it up is one of the classic forms of comedy. See also: Doctor Strangelove, Airplane, and the like.

Playing off Iaculus' suggestion: They intent to spice up the lives of humans, but they end up in the house of a Casual Kink couple. Then it turns out that the couple if far beyond what the demons had in mind. And now they're stuck with them. And then portray the couple as normal and friendly outside their sex life.

Another idea I had: The Hero lives in a culture that thinks Bondage Is Bad, and discovers that they're a masochist. They just want to be normal, and know that society would think they're deviant if they knew. So The Hero gets the pain center removed from their brain, and winds up going insane because they've removed that part of themself.

Sounds very much like a certain story from XXXenophile.

I think I'm going to go with my first idea. Y/N? Suggestions?

Does it count if you're doing in it in a fanfic currently, or does it have to be one you wish other people would do? And is it possible to deconstruct a trope and not realize you're doing it until later? Because I think I kind of have that with one of my next-gen Harry Potter fanfics, mainly the In the Blood and Generation Xerox tropes. Mainly because I did intend to have An Aesop (double one) of "don't base your identity solely off of a family member or your family background" and "don't assume people are clones of their parents." Mainly because I don't like how next-gen fanfics often make the kids be personality clones of their parents, and I mess with that in these ways:

• Scorpius Malfoy hates looking like Draco and is desperate to prove he's different from the other Malfoys, unfortunately, there are some people who bully him because they hate the Malfoys in general, and he also causes problems for himself because he WON'T SHUT UP about how he hates his "evil father" and how he hates himself and his appearance (mainly because it makes him an obvious target for teasing and some others who might otherwise side with him think he's annoying because of it).
• Rosie Weasley worries about living up to Hermione and is thus neglecting to work on abilities that SHE has that are different from Hermione's (she's a hands-on learner rather than a memorize the book person like Hermione, for one thing, but no one has taught her that so she doesn't understand why she can't memorize the books as well as Hermione can and doesn't realize that there are things she's good at that Hermione isn't).
• James Potter is even more arrogant than his namesake because he assumes that he's entitled to the same hero worship that his dad gets because he's Harry Potter's son and thus he assumes he's entitled to do things like steal stuff from his family and teachers and that everyone would automatically want to worship him and if they don't they're missing out. He's on a downward spiral that'll probably end up with him being expelled from Hogwarts if he doesn't realize he's James, not Harry, and that he's his own person and can't just cling to his dad's status.

The ones who don't base a major piece of their identities off of either imitating or rebelling against a family member are portrayed as being more well-adjusted or at least happier, at least in general. There are other characters who are clearly related to canon characters and who even strongly resemble them, but they have their own identities and don't assume they deserve their relatives' glory and/or hate or worry about living up to their relatives, although those characters certainly have flaws/problems of their own. It's kind of a "what kind of people would realistically assume they're like their parents" and what happens if you try to live up to a heroic parent, like in Rosie's case. I'm not exactly sure if it counts as a deconstructed trope, but it kind of sounds like one, at least, since it's kind of a "this is what happens when you have this trope!" warning.

edited 20th Mar '11 12:16:54 PM by Rainbow

I don't know if I can help as I had only watched the movies but a deconstructed trope is mroe than being aware of a trope but rather is show the realistic consequences of the trope in question.

As I said, it may not truly count as a deconstruction and be more in the vague Playing with a Trope category. I just mentioned it because I don't like the thing where next-gen kids in fanfics act like clones of their parents so I ended up at least messing with the idea in my fanfic.

edited 20th Mar '11 12:21:45 PM by Rainbow

I hate those fics too but I think I might have soemthing for you. Since you are mostly on playing with a trope, why don't try some subversions, inversions or aversions? Like the deconstruction article says, you could try and use the opportunity to address some of the fridge logic behind these types of fics. You could play the tropes so straight that it collapses or you could subvert the expectations on what you would normally find in these types of fics. In these types of fics, the OC character in question is the child/relative of the characters in question and develop into a carbon copy of their parents. One thing you could do is give them a different personalities from their parents or explore the ramifications of having such characters as their parents.

We all have parents and they are not perfect, try giving them a realistic parent/child relationship. Think how of the relationship you have with your parents or the parents of your friends. Try to picture what would an adult Harry, Hermione and Ron would be like. Did you say you wanted to subvert Generation Xerox? Try to have the kids strive to be as different or even better than their parents. Explore the ramifications of living under the shadow of their parents especially after Voldemort's defeat or how the reputations of their parents could affect in their daily lives. These are my two cents on the matter, you could someone else who could but I hope these may help.

edited 20th Mar '11 6:23:08 PM by G.G.

I'm not sure I really understand what this discussion is about anymore. We seem to have drifted rather off-topic.