Are you comfortable? Good. What we are about to reveal to you will shock you to the core. The truth that has been hidden from all humanity will now be revealed to you. You see, the world you inhabit, perhaps even your very nature as a human, is not as it seems.
We cannot reveal more; you must discover for yourself the true nature of your deception.
Choose a Pill:
- Tomato in the Mirror: It is not the world which is wrong, but you. Perhaps you are—or have become—a ghost, a robot, a clone, a magician, or something stranger. In the end, you are not actually in or rightfully a part of the normal world. The world is normal (more or less) and works as you know it, but not you.
- Signature Examples: The Sixth Sense, Night Watch, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Sixth Day, Shutter Island.
- Masquerade: The world of humans is real enough, but we're not the only ones who inhabit it. Aliens, wizards, vampires and other beings coexist with us in the same cities, schools, and jobs as we do. Sometimes peacefully, other times less so. If they're nice, then you'll be Welcomed to the Masquerade. If they're mean, then they'll force you to Join or Die. If they're really mean, they'll just have you Killed to Uphold the Masquerade.
- Signature Examples: Men in Black, The Witches, They Live, The Adjustment Bureau, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter. Trope Namer, or at least, popularizer in this context: Vampire: The Masquerade.
- Hidden Realm: There is a Spirit World, magical dimension, or other realm hidden but coterminous with "The Real World" that people can go into. The world is isn't so much false, as that our understanding of all that's in it is incomplete. You may have to Save Both Worlds.
- Examples: Labyrinth, Pan's Labyrinth, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Peter Pan, Spirited Away
- Artificial Realm: The world literally isn't real; you live in a Lotus-Eater Machine, magical illusion, or are in a coma… or worse. In this case, you must either destroy or escape the illusion to return to the real world. But… is it worth it?
- Signature Examples: The Matrix, Vanilla Sky, Jacob's Ladder, certain Twilight Zone episodes, Life On Mars
- Fake World: The paranoids are half right. The world is real, but not for you. Everyone around you, from childhood friend to complete stranger, even the news anchor, is putting on an act to fool you into thinking you live in "the real world". Sometimes they're all in on it, other times everyone is being Mind Controlled or manipulated with Fake Memories. Reasons for this vary, but may be as disgustingly mundane as setting up an elaborate reality TV show, pseudoscientific experiments, to the chillingly bizarre community of refugees from the real world.
- Signature Examples: Dark City, The Truman Show, The Village, Goodbye Lenin
This knowledge is not without price, however. If you wish to keep it you have no choice but to join us. You may at least take pride in that, much like a pauper who discovers she is a princess and other changeling fantasies, you are yourself an intrinsic part of this the world behind the Broken Masquerade. Perhaps you are an heir to a kingdom, a rebellious product of its mad science, the child of a powerful sorcerer, a Half-Human Hybrid, or destined to bring it into balance with the "real world".
In any event, I hope you like to wear black.
Endangering News Broadcast is the dilemma about preventing this from happening. Contrast The Unmasqued World, where the Masquerade is broken for everyone.
