Follow TV Tropes

Following

This Might Be an Index

Go To

"I think I thought I saw you try. But that was just a dream."

So, this is an index of ambiguity—

Not so fast! We don't have any idea what this could be! But we do know it has nothing to do with They Might Be Giants. And that it's not to be confused with the Ambiguity Index.

It could be:


  • Ambiguous Clone Ending: It's left ambiguous whether a person is the real deal or if they've been replaced by a duplicate.
  • Ambiguous Criminal History: A character is implied to have committed a serious crime in the past, but it's never given context.
  • Ambiguous Ending: The work ends on an uncertainty.
  • Ambiguous Gender: It is difficult to tell what gender a character is.
  • Ambiguous Gender Identity: Somebody may or may not be trans and not transitioned.
  • Ambiguous Innocence: Somebody could be actively scary or creepy or not.
  • Ambiguous Robots: It is difficult to tell whether something is a robot or not.
  • Ambiguous Situation: Any event where it's unclear what happened.
  • Ambiguous Syntax: The phrasing of a sentence allows for more than one interpretation of what the sentence means.
  • Ambiguous Time Period: The work takes place in the past or future, but it's unclear when exactly.
  • Ambiguously Absent Parent: Somebody has one or both their parents not present, and it's unclear as to why.
  • Ambiguously Bi: A character is hinted but not outright stated to be bisexual.
  • Ambiguously Brown: A character has dark skin, but it's not clear if it's to indicate their ethnicity or if they simply have a tan.
  • Ambiguously Christian: A character celebrates Christian holidays and/or makes references to God and/or Christian afterlives, but they're never confirmed (or denied for that matter) to actually be Christian.
  • Ambiguously Evil: A character of unknown moral alignment is subtly implied to possibly be evil.
  • Ambiguously Gay: A character is hinted but not outright stated to be gay.
  • Ambiguously Human: A character appears to be human but has certain odd characteristics and quirks that hint they might actually be something that isn't human.
  • Ambiguously Jewish: A character is played by a Jewish actor and/or displays stereotypes about Judaism but isn't directly stated to be or not be Jewish.
  • Ambiguously Related: It's not clear whether or not certain individuals are related.
  • Ambiguously Trained: A character shows signs of having either been in the military or had a job in law enforcement, but it's never confirmed.
  • The Big Bad Shuffle: There are multiple antagonists who could qualify as the Big Bad, but it isn't clear which one is the true main antagonist.
  • Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: A season finale ends with it being ambiguous who lived and died.
  • Bolivian Army Ending: The story ends with the characters at the mercy of someone about to kill them and no clarification on whether or not the enemy successfully killed them.
  • Cartoon Creature: A character is most likely some sort of anthropomorphic animal, but it is unclear what species they are supposed to be.
  • Church of Saint Genericus: A place of worship (church, synagogue, temple, etc) is left ambiguous as to what denomination or religion it is for.
  • Cliffhanger: Ending an episode/chapter/season/etc with one or more characters in danger (the ambiguity is that it's unknown at the time how/if they'll get out of danger).
  • Comic Sutra: A sex act is mentioned, but it is not known how it is performed.
  • Cow Tools: Tools with unclear purposes.
  • Crapsack Only by Comparison: A place that seems like a Dystopia only to one character or group of characters because they're used to better places.
  • Cryptic Conversation: All or most of what one particular character says is cryptic.
  • Cuckoo Nest: A character is convinced they're in an asylum and the events of the work were just hallucinations, making it (sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently) ambiguous as to what's real.
  • Diabolus ex Nihilo: A baddie who appears out of nowhere and it's unknown where they came from or why.
  • Did They or Didn't They?: It's left ambiguous whether or not a couple have consummated their relationship.
  • The Ending Changes Everything: Sub-trope of Ambiguous Ending. At the end, it's unknown which events of the story were real and which were imaginary/faked situations/etc.
  • Enigmatic Minion: An antagonist (not the Big Bad) whose actual agenda is left a mystery.
  • Epileptic Trees: Fan theories; the audience making up their own hypotheses as to what really happened in a work.
  • Fan-Disliked Explanation: A YMMV for when an ambiguity is resolved, but the audience dislikes the resolution.
  • Fanon Welding: A work that is considered to be set in the same universe as another work by most fans.
  • Faux Adventure Story: A story promises adventure but doesn't deliver.
  • Fight Unscene: Characters fight, but all or most of the fight is left unseen, so it's ambiguous as to exactly how they fought unless it's revealed through dialogue.
  • Flip-Flop of God: The work's creator keeps changing their mind in regard to information not revealed in the work itself.
  • Gainax Ending: Sub-Trope of Ambiguous Ending — an ending makes no sense at all.
  • Implied Love Interest: A character acts like a love interest, but it's unknown if they're really in love.
  • Inexplicably Awesome: A character who is awesome, bizarre, and never to be explained.
  • Last-Second Joke Problem: A new problem crops up at the end of a story that's just meant to be funny rather than lead to the next act.
  • Left Hanging: An uncertainty that's a serious part of the plot remains ambiguous.
  • Luke, I Might Be Your Father: Because the mother had sex with more than one man at the time of conception, it's unknown who the child's true father is.
  • Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: A father is unsure if their child is truly theirs.
  • Master of the Mixed Message: One character is definitely in love with another, but it's unknown how the other person feels about the love interest.
  • Maybe Ever After: It's left vague whether the romance arc ends with the couple staying together.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: A supposedly supernatural event has reasonable and logical explanations, but it is also hinted that the event may have been genuinely supernatural.
  • Mind Screw: Something is so surreal/symbolic that it makes no sense.
  • Mockspiracy: It's ambiguous as to whether a conspiracy theory is true or not, but it leans heavily towards "not true".
  • Mockstery Tale: One or more characters try to solve a mystery but then the mystery turns out to be nonexistent, unimportant, or unsolvable and it turns into a Psychological Thriller (or a "Shaggy Dog" Story in more comedic media).
  • Multiple-Choice Future: There are several possible futures and it's unknown which will happen.
  • Multiple-Choice Past: A character has multiple contradictory origin stories, the true origin being unclear.
  • Mysterious Mercenary Pursuer: A villain sent to kill or kidnap the protagonist who is well-known for killing/kidnapping people professionally, determined, and mysterious in at least one way.
  • Mysterious Past: A character's backstory is extremely vague and seldom mentioned.
  • Mysterious Purple: The color purple used to characterize or code things as mysterious, ambiguous, or enigmatic.
  • Never Found the Body: A person who appeared to die is speculated to still be alive because their corpse was never found.
  • No Ending: The story ends with the main plot unresolved.
  • Non-Specifically Foreign: A character is established to not be a native inhabitant of the setting, but it isn't explained what their specific nationality is.
  • Noodle Implements: A person plans to achieve a goal with the use of items of unclear function.
  • Noodle Incident: Characters mention an unseen past event without clarifying the full details involving it.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: A horror element whereby the threat isn't actually seen, and the audience is left horrified imagining what said threat might look like.
  • Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation: It's not made clear what a character does for a living.
  • The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: A mysterious group that seem to be working behind the scenes and who comment cryptically on things that happened.
  • Or Was It a Dream?: A character appears to have dreamed it all, but it's then implied that what they allegedly dreamed about had actually happened.
  • Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: A god/demon/angel/etc. whose gender is unknown.
  • Our Hero Is Dead: Seemingly killing the protagonist as a Cliffhanger.
  • "Rashomon"-Style: A story is narrated differently by different characters and they can't all be right, so it's ambiguous who's right.
  • Riddle for the Ages: Something mysterious happens and it's never explained how.
  • A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma: Something is described as three mysteries within one another.
  • Santa Ambiguity: A work leaves it ambiguous whether or not Santa Claus exists in the setting.
  • Schrödinger's Butterfly: In a story about dreams, it's ambiguous whether some things were real or dreamed up.
  • Shrug of God: Either due to indifference or not being sure themselves, the creator of a work chooses not to confirm a detail regarding canon and elects to simply let the fans come to their own conclusions.
  • Silent Whisper: We don't know what one character whispered to the other.
  • The Spook: An individual whose background and motivations are not known.
  • The Stinger: A scene that plays after the credits.
  • Take Our Word for It: The characters spend an awful lot of time talking about how scary, funny, gruesome or whatever something is, but we never actually see it.
  • Taken During the Ending: A character/object is taken away at the end of the story for a purpose, leaving it ambiguous on what's going to happen next.
  • That Mysterious Thing: A character mentions something while describing it in a way that we don't know exactly what the thing they're talking about is. Even the person describing it may not know.
  • Through the Eyes of Madness: A horror trope where we don't know whether something is real or a hallucination or even if hallucinations are even a possibility.
  • Uncertain Doom: A character is last seen in a situation where they may have been killed, but it's not clear whether they survived or not.
  • Unknown Rematch Conclusion: The conclusion to a final rematch between two characters is never shown.
  • Unreliable Narrator: It's hinted that the narrator may not be telling the complete truth, if they were even honest to begin with.
  • The Un-Reveal: We never find out what the big secret is.
  • Unreveal Angle: Using the position of the camera for an Un-Reveal.
  • Unspecified Apocalypse: The Apocalypse happened, but exactly how is unexplained.
  • Urban Legend Love Life: Whether a character has as many conquests as they claim is unclear.
  • Vague Age: It's not clear how old a character is supposed to be.
  • Vague Hit Points: It's not clear how many hit points a character has.
  • Vague Stat Values: It's not clear what the quantity of a stat is, or how much it's changed.
  • Where the Hell Is Springfield?: It's ambiguous where the story takes place.
  • Wild Mass Guessing: The place on this wiki to post fan theories.
  • World of Mysteries: A whole setting consisting of vague hints and unsolved mysteries.


Is it the end of this page, or is it actually just the beginning?

Alternative Title(s): They Might Be An Index, Vagueness Index

Top