History Main / GenreDeconstruction

*** ''Might'' really be, anyway -- there are plenty of brilliant real-world soldiers who don't have a hint of her epic dysfunction.
*** True, but [[AnythingThatMoves most don't go around sleeping with anything that doesn't move quickly enough]].
*** You obviously haven't ever encountered the "flyboy" stereotype or any of the TruthInTelevision behind it.

* ''MetalGearSolid'' deconstructs action films. The setup is simple; a terrorist attack on a government nuclear warhead disposal facility occurs and a legendary mercenary is brought back to stop it. However, all the characters are so unbelieveably screwed up ''precisely by the character traits that they'd plausibly need in order to do what they do'' and the plot gets very complicated very quickly. Unfortunately, [[MisaimedFandom not all members of the fandom saw the deconstruction; they instead thought the game was the ultimate action film and wanted to be Solid Snake...]]

** It should be noted that, except for Metal Gear Solid 2, the series was somewhat affectionate in its dismantling of said tropes. At the end of the day, the heroes find a reason to justify their personal suffering and the battles they just fought.

* ''ShinMegamiTensei'' came before there was a {{Mons}} genre to deconstruct, and its vision of the genre was more or less ignored by {{Pokemon}}, the TropeCodifier. Then Atlus decided to take a hard look at {{Pokemon}}, and in ''DevilSurvivor'' they gave a lot of more or less ordinary people the ability to summon creatures with the power to destroy the world. These ordinary individuals with the power of gods at their fingertips promptly turned those gods to fighting each other...and not in nonlethal sport fights, but in mortal combat for their ideals and simply for personal gain. Pikachus look a lot less cute and cuddly when [[ShockAndAwe Zio magic]] can graphically fry a human to a crisp.

* [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15660_ultimate-war-simulation-game.html This article]] from Cracked.Com proposes an ultra-realistic war game. That is, you spend two hours pushing across a map to destroy a nuke silo only to find out later it was an orphanage, complete with celebrities decrying the attack. Public Support rises and falls depending on entirely arbitrary factors, mission objectives change frequently and without warning, the cool superweapons kill 100 soldiers because the contractors cut corners, etc.

**** [[FridgeLogic How is Moblie Suit Gundam a deconstruction of the Super Robot genre when it's a [[RealRobot Real Robot]] show?]]

* ''NowAndThenHereAndThere'' deconstructs the old anime stock plot of TrappedInAnotherWorld. It starts the typical baisic premise of "OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent meets MysteriousWaif and gets whisked off to a world locked in a great crisis." And then shows how relevant an OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent would be in such a situation (not at all), how traumatizing it would be for someone from a peaceful society like late twentieth/early twenty first century Japan to be suddenly trapped in the middle of a war zone (extremely) and how likely it would be for anyone from that world including the waif that brought him there in the first place to even lift a finger for a naive and clueless outsider, much less form a {{Nakama}} or harem around him (not very).
*** The original Gundam series could count as a deconstruction of the SuperRobot genre too. To even begin to be able to pilot the Gundam, Amuro already had a strong background with electronics, and the Gundam's manual. His early battles shook him greatly, and Char kicked his ass easily in their early fights, despite being in the less advanced Zaku 2.

* ActionRPG ''MetalWalker'' deconstructs the empty overworld found in many RPGs. Besides your character and a select few NPCs with {{Mons}}, no one is outside, even in towns--because [[KillerRobot killer robots]] populate the landscape, even right outside buildings. Since you yourself are attacked very frequently, you can imagine why defenseless humans don't go out...

* The first arc of ''TheTwelveKingdoms'' takes a look at the typical TrappedInAnotherWorld ChanglingFantasy, rolls its eyes, and then goes to show what would ''really'' happen if you tossed an insecure OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent into a hostile fantasy country with the expectation of saving and eventually ruling it: a complete nervous breakdown.

*** The original Gundam series could count as a deconstruction of the SuperRobot genre too. To even begin to be able to pilot the Gundam, Amuro already had a strong background with electronics, and the Gundam's manual. His early battles shook him greatly, and Char kicked his ass easily in their early fights, despite being in the less advanced Zaku 2. Plus the Zeon's were generally good people, compared to the jackass members of the Federation. Although Gihren Zabi, was definitely evil, with his long-term plans for humanity being compared to those of AdolfHitler. By his own father no less!

*** It's Sequel, TheDarkKnightStrikesAgain, tries to deconstruct the AuthorOnBoard Political superheroes by turning GreenArrow into a Marxist, and TheQuestion into a hardcore libertarian who believes that "Ayn Rand didn't go far enough". [[YourMilageMayVary how well it works is for the reader to decide.]]

** Tokyo 3 is all but destroyed by the end of the series, and its populace is either dead or evacuated -- a sharp contrast to the likes of ''PowerRangers''.
*** I take it you've never seen Power Rangers RPM...
**** [[OlderThanTheyThink or Lost Galaxy]]

* The entire marvel comics Siege [[MetaPlot macro crisis]] was a DeconstructorFleet of the entire Marvel Comics universe, the ReedRichardsIsUseless trope and the idea of the superhero in general. It first starts with Avengers Dissembled showing what happens when you entrust the world to a set few ultra powerful humans, it then goes into House of M, proving what happens if the super humans took over. Civil war addressed the stupidity of having the government let walking a bombs blow themselves up in new York everyday while simultaneously showing how said government control plans would fail;. This is shown in the ''deliberate'' {{Flanderization}} of Captain America and Iron Man showing how both sides are pretty stupid. This was also exposited in the what if story arc when both sides find a balance and thus achieve peace. Dark Reign then deconstructed the entire "Lone Cop saves the world and get promoted" genre by showing exactly what would happen if said psychopaths were really appointed to such positions of power. Whilst Thor, Reed Richards and Iron Man's tenures as God, Guardian and Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. In each of their individual story arcs show hoe each quest to "fix" the world leads to disaster. Then the New Captain America saga had a brutal deconstruction of the Sidekick. The idea of power and potential is again brought up in The Hood's recent story showing what happens if all the d-listers in the universe eventually got together and actually ''applied'' their powers, while the Current Mighty Avengers show how these super teams affect the political climate. The Illuminati is in itself a deconstruction of large hero collaborations (and how they lead to failure i.e. the Secret invasion) and its counterpart "The Cabal" showed just how incapable a society of villains would be at functioning. All this is paralleled by the Annihilation series depicting exactly what kind of galaxy is filled with empires that invade and blow stuff up planets on a daily basis and exactly how disillusioned it makes charters. Seeing [[spoiler: Black Bolt]] turn to insanity was just further reconfirmation of what a world Cosmic Marvel is. The Nova Corps pretty much deconstructed all Space Cop tropes with its nigh-omnipotent run band of non sanctioned super soldiers and exactly how that would affect any political situation. The Decimation arcs in X-Men show exactly how humans would react to mutants if the odds were evened. And The Secret arcs show how exactly what being a ''real'' spy means and all the details it entails. And finally, Siege shows the reconstruction reveling that after all this Heroes are still heroes no matter what.

* ''{{Watchmen}}'' deconstructs the SilverAge SuperHero genre. The premise of the comic is exactly like any other SuperHero comic; some people put on strange costumes in order [[TheyFightCrime to fight crime]]. However, it didn't start with [[{{Superman}} an alien child coming to earth]] but rather with a bunch of off-duty cops wearing masks to counter mask-wearing criminals. Along the way, every trope associated with SuperHero comics of the time is {{deconstructed}}: ImpossiblyCoolClothes turn out to be [[strike extremely]] fatally impractical, [[AmericanPoliticalSystem politicians]] get involved and deputize and weaponize superheroes, these superheroes end up changing the course of history, and the main cast of SuperHero characters are all rather screwed up. Specifically...

* ''{{Watchmen}}'' deconstructs the SilverAge SuperHero genre. The premise of the comic is exactly like any other SuperHero comic; some people put on strange costumes in order [[TheyFightCrime to fight crime]]. However, it didn't start with [[{{Superman}} an alien child coming to earth]] but rather with a bunch of off-duty cops wearing masks to counter mask-wearing criminals. Along the way, every trope associated with SuperHero comics of the time is {{deconstructed}}: ImpossiblyCoolClothes turn out to be extremely impractical, [[AmericanPoliticalSystem politicians]] get involved and deputize and weaponize superheroes, these superheroes end up changing the course of history, and the main cast of SuperHero characters are all rather screwed up. Specifically...

* WarrenEllis is currently working on a "thematic trilogy" for AvatarPress in which he deconstructs the superhero genre. ([[AuthorAppeal Yes, again]].) The first part, ''Black Summer'' shown us what would happen if superheroes were too human. The second part, ''No Hero'' show what would happen if they would find themselves above human laws. The third part, ''Supergod'' will show us what would happen if all superheroes would not be human, but similiar to [[{{Watchmen}} Doctor Manhattan]] in the way of thinking.

* Another interesting example by GrantMorrison is ''Fantastic 1234''. At first, it seems like a traditional deconstruction of superheroes by way of the Comicbook/FantasticFour, highlighting their worst aspects as they would be in real life; Ben Grimm is a self pitying misanthrope with a violent temper, Reed Richards is a emotionless autistic who seems to value his inventions more than his friends and family, Johnny Storm is a brooding Greaser whose tastes for fast cars and fast women can't fill the void inside of him, and Sue Storm feels she is trapped in a loveless marriage and is severely tempted to run off with Namor, who is presented as a coldblooded sexfiend willing to do anything to make Sue his own. However, it ends up being a subversion of such a deconstruction; Reed Richards has realised that Dr. Doom has been using a reality altering device to 'deconstruct' the Four and bring out the worst possible aspects of the four's personalities in order to destroy them and gain ultimate revenge on Richards. Richards builds his own variant of the machine to 'reconstruct' the Four and save the day, the point clearly being that the standard portrayal of the Four ''are'' their real personalities. In fact, for his arrogance Doom ends up being the one who's deconstructed, and rather painfully at that, where it is revealed that he is a lonely, pathetic man-child with a ridiculous speech pattern who is not even remotely on Reed Richard's level of genius and whose vendetta against the four is petty and stupid. Also, he seems to be going bald. Ouch.

* After all these superhero deconstructions, one might expect a super''villain'' deconsstruction. ''{{Wanted}}'' (the comic book, not the movie) is about an UnluckyEverydude who gets invited to join a society of supervillains known as "The Fraternity." It's a world filled with eccentric, costumed renegades who spend their days doing just as they please, with nothing to fear from law enforcement - and what they please is [[MoralEventHorizon decidedly unpleasant]]. WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds with a DarkAndTroubledPast comes under fire as the VillainProtagonist goes on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge against all the people who ever wronged him... including guys who made fun of him back in high school, and culminating in [[spoiler:killing his own father]]. And looming over it all is the [[RedRightHand death's-head visage]] of CompleteMonster Mister Rictus, who makes sure that we never forget the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin true face]] of HighOctaneNightmareFuel, or the consequences, both moral and aesthetic, of a life without concern for boundaries. In the end, it turns out that the only thing worse than ThisLoserIsYou is [[spoiler:This Loser Is Having Delusions Of Grandeur While Fucking You In The Ass]].

* ''NowAndThenHereAndThere'' deconstructs the old anime stock plot of TrappedInAnotherWorld. It starts the typical baisic premise of "OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent meets MysteriousWaif and gets whisked off to a world locked in a great crisis." And then shows how relevant an OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent would be in such a situation (not at all), how traumatizing it would be for someone from a peaceful society like late twentieth/early twenty first century Japan to be suddenly trapped in the middle of a war zone (extremely) and how likely it would be for anyone from that world including the waif that brought him there in the first place to even lift a finger for a naive and clueless outsider, much less form a {{Nakama}} or harem around him (not very).