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Author: NemuruMaeNi

Jun 18th 2014 at 5:21:47 AM

^^^ Wrong point.

^^ Google says there's a book by the name of "[[http://www.amazon.com/Shirokuma-Kotodake-Kangaeruna-Kyuniomosirokunaru-Shinrijyutsu/dp/4101299927 Shirokuma no koto dake wa kangaeruna! Jinsei ga kyuni omoshirokunaru shinrijutsu]]" (approx. "Just don't you go thinking of polar bears! Psychology tricks for life to suddenly become interesting"). It obviously refers one way or the other to the thing discussed here. But "polar bears" is the first word in the title, and with the amount of context-dependant particles there, you can't avoid processing the word properly before you get the general idea of what the directive is. In English you technically can, with sufficient discipline and dedication, you can even [[NoSell no-sell]] the surprise effect and refuse to process the word anywhere near properly ''(He said not to think of something starting with "elephan" (sic), hmm -- let us think profoundly of heat transfer issues in сontinuous stirred-tank reactors then)''. There's also the problem of what it means ''to think about something'' in general. ''I'm thinking of bulky african animals with trunks and big flappy ears. [[OrphanedEtymology What's an "elephant" you've been talking about?]] I'm not thinking of any "elephants"?'' Forgone/handwaved, I know.

The arguably fluid surprise attack in natural English syntax could be viewed as adding to the impact helping promote the pattern, but it turns into "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law Ex post facto law]]" in natural Japanese and there the impact is nullified. Trying to get the surprise across will dash the natural aspect. So it's better not focus on such things much.

The more I think about it, the more trope candidate looks pretty absurd and/or avoidable anyway, and I'd say it belongs to StupidityTropes. One can only hope that most creators have got more or less savvy of how minds might work -- that would explain why there's so little examples of straight "Don't think about X... A-ha!". (the kind of dumbed down rendition compared to what most examples follow, maybe to the point of examples contradicting the trope candidate description).