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Author: oneuglybunny

Mar 5th 2013 at 6:18:46 PM

What's wrong with "Game Changer" for these purposes?  In most of the examples given so far, the course of the story to that point seemed to dead-end or stalemate.  Short of a DeusExMachina, something was needed to kick-start the heroes or the villains, some new element had to appear to break through the logjam.  And it happened!  Some wonderful new thing / new event / new clue jiggled the equation, and took the story out of the mud and back on the rails.

Angels Panty and Stocking were knocking down the ghosts of Daten City routinely.  Until Mayor Corset found the Hellsmonkey, that is.  Suddenly, there was a huge ghost in Daten City that could CurbStompBattle the Anarchy sisters.  That really changed the game, didn't it?

At one point of Marvel's {{The Secret Wars}}, Doctor Doom succeeded [[spoiler:in stealing the awesome powers of the Beyonder, becoming himself the most supreme supergod in the universe.]]  That sure made the game on the ersatz battleworld different, right?

Three times in Tolkien's {{The Hobbit}}, the dwarf party was captured: by the orcs of the Misty Mountains, by the giant spiders of Mirkwood Forest, and by the wood elves at the edge of the Lonely Plains.  Three times this should have spelt "game over" for the dwarves and their quest.  But Bilbo Baggins, the ButtMonkey of the party, attained a magic ring that *poof* ''un''captured the dwarves, and put the Lonely Mountain Quest back on track.  That li'l ring can really jiggle equations, huh?

Perhaps one way to regard "Game Changer" is that it's a PlotTwist that is credible enough to avoid the DeusExMachina stigma, and discrete enough that only a few characters are aware of it.  It does, however, get the story out of a rut and back on the road.  That sounds like a classic story-telling device to me, and isn't that the Soul of a Trope?