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60.240.68.47
topic
02:46:56 AM Mar 29th 2010
Regarding the following:

In Shutter Island, we find out that the main character is actually a patient of the island, playing a part in a complex role play in the hopes it will make him face his disease. It doesn't.

I got the distinctly opposite impression to the final conclusion of this, being that the protagonist has finally accepted the truth of his condition, but rather than live with the knowledge of what he has done, he "chooses" to undergo the lobotomy so that he won't have to.
jreno665
topic
08:49:13 PM Aug 23rd 2010
In the Atmosphere song "Yesterday", it appears at first that the narrator is speaking about a past lover who left him on bad terms, and couldn't reconnect with despite the long time they'd known each other. It is revealed at the end, however, that he is actually talking about his deceased father. And the song becomes awesome.
RTanker
topic
06:42:11 PM Mar 23rd 2011
Cut this:
* A variant occurs in Girl Genius, where Tarvek built a clank in the image of his sister Anevka. The clank was initially meant as a way for Anevka to interact normally with the world despite her condition. As her state worsened, the clank adapted and required less and less input from her. Eventually, the real Anevka died. The clank had gotten so good in imitating her that it never noticed her passing.
Because this is just a twist, not a Tomato Surprise. A Tomato Surprise is when a critical detail is left out that the audience might normally have been expected to be informed of from the beginning, such as, for example, that the story is not set on earth, or that a story that appears to be set in the distant past is actually occurring in the distant future, etc. There is no particular reason for the audience to expect to have been informed that Anevka had been Dead All Along. Why would we have expected to know that?
82.152.101.82
topic
06:45:05 AM Mar 25th 2011
The SC Conviction one shouldn't be here; it's pretty obvious what's going on.
209.163.133.242
topic
01:35:13 PM Apr 25th 2011
George Scithers was never the editor at Analog. He was the editor at Asimov's in the time frame discussed.
timeforgot
topic
12:00:02 AM May 14th 2011
I made some changes:

The endings to Fight Club and The Sixth Sense and Planet of the Apes feel like regular old twist endings to me. They're not in the same vein as Twilight Zone - The Eye of the Beholder - they don't dramatically reveal something every character knows. At the end of The Sixth Sense Malcolm is just as shocked as the audience.

So I went ahead and axed some examples, and removed this note:

"sometimes, [the twist] has been hidden from one character, so that subject will be just as surprised as we are."

And added this note:

"If the twist comes as a surprise to one or more protagonists, it probably doesn't fit this trope."
ACarlssin
10:05:28 PM Oct 30th 2011
If the twist surprizes both the reader and the protagonist, what trope is it?

I'd like to add the short story "A Man Who Had No Eyes" by Mac Kinlay Kantor. The plot, briefly, is this: It's about a blind beggar who tells how he became blind to a rich man. The beggar explains that he used to be able to see, but he worked in a chemical factory. One day there was a fire, and as everyone ran out, the beggar was knocked down and trampled by a larger man. He escaped in time to avoid being burned, but he was blinded by the chemical fumes. The twist ending is that his story is a lie. The rich man worked at the same plant, and he is the one who was knocked down and trampled by the beggar. The beggar then screams that it is unfair that he had gotten out in time but was blinded, while the man he knocked down was not only all right, but went on to become rich. The rich man then said, "I don't know what you're complaining about. I'm blind too." The twist comes as a surprise to both the reader and the protagonist.
Likely
10:37:59 AM Nov 19th 2011
edited by Likely
I would agree with timeforgot's narrow interpretation of this trope. In a typical Twist Ending, there is key information that is concealed from at least some of the characters (and the audience), which is then revealed, to the surprise of those characters (and the audience). When the twist is fundamental enough, The Ending Changes Everything. What distinguishes a Tomato Surprise is that there is NO surprising revelation to the characters involved, just to the audience. If any of the characters are just as surprised as the audience, it's just a vanilla Twist Ending.

I think the twists at the end of "A Man Who Had No Eyes" are a use of Unreliable Narrator with an extra And That Little Girl Was Me twist.
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