Misused: Shocking Swerve

Shocking Swerve is supposed to be when a plot twist comes out of nowhere with no foreshadowing, and contradicts what's already been established and is impossible In-Universe.

Yet a lot of the examples ignore the last part, only listing plot twists that had no foreshadowing - which would be {Ass Pull, and other examples just use it to complain about any plot-twist that the troper doesn't like.

Wick Check:

• Adaptational Alternate Ending: Potholed to part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Shrug of God: Potholed to "surprised everyone", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Sudden Downer Ending: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Take Me Instead: Potholed to "by", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Ten Little Murder Victims: Potholed to "Judy lied", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Wham Episode: Used at the end of a sentence as part of the page description, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• AbortedArc.Professional Wrestling: Potholed to "revealed", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• ComicStrip.Mary Worth: Potholed to "WHAT?!", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• DethroningMoment.Once Upon A Time: Potholed to "revealed", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Funny.Todd In The Shadows One Hit Wonderland 2012: Potholed to "and he is awful and I hate him.", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Headscratchers.Hannibal: Potholed to "she is .", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Headscratchers.The Cabin In The Woods: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Horrible.Live Action Films: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• JustForFun.The Universal Genre Savvy Guide: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• ManBehindTheMan.Live Action TV: Potholed to "sudden knowledge", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• NightmareFuel.Penguindrum: Potholed to "NO ONE COULD SEE THAT COMING", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Pantheon.Pantheon Wrestling Federation: Potholed to "Implausible Plot Twists", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• PlayingWith.Fauxshadow: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Recap.Angel S 05 E 15 A Hole In The World: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Recap.Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia S 08 E 03 Wedding Massacre: For some reason it's being treated like a trope, rather than a YMMV reaction. And even then it's not being used correctly, as it just says that one character started ranting out-of-the-blue.
• SeasonalRot.Live Action TV:
  • Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
  • Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• TearJerker.Halloween 2018: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• TomatoSurprise.Literature: Potholed to "little to nothing to do with the rest of the book", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• Trivia.St Elsewhere: Zero-Context Example that just says The twist ending. It's also in the wrong section.
• WMG.Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Rebellion: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• WebAnimation.Rooster Teeth Animated Adventures: For some reason it's being treated like a trope, rather than a YMMV reaction. Reading the example it appears to be misuse, as it just mentions one character talking about how he knew someone who dropped their keys into a sewer drainage hatch and somehow ended up losing part of their finger when they reached into get the keys.
• WebVideo.Brandons Cult Movie Reviews: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• WebVideo.DX: Potholed to "this was never hinted at throughout the game", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• WorseThanItSounds.TV Tropes: Defines it as A twist no one sees coming, which is closer to Ass Pull as it doesn't mention the impossible part.
• YMMV.Armageddon 2001: Correct.
• YMMV.Berserk 1967: It just says The Reveal of the killer and specifically the final murder. Without actually specifying what those are.
• YMMV.Cardfight Vanguard: Doesn't mention the impossibility factor.
• YMMV.Detroit Become Human: Potholed to "poor storytelling choices", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• YMMV.Dragon Ball Super:
  • Possibly correct. It's mentioned that the twist goes against everything established about the character prior, but it doesn't go into how it goes against everything established, and also says that the character wanted it to appear that way.
  • Doesn't mention the impossibility factor.
  • Doesn't mention the impossibility factor, and mentions that there was some subtle foreshadowing.
  • Doesn't mention the impossibility factor.
  • Doesn't mention the impossibility factor, however it does mention that the reveals opens up a lot more questions than answers.
• YMMV.Far Cry 5: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• YMMV.Fire Emblem Fates: Doesn't mention the impossibility factor.
• YMMV.Happy Birthday To Me: Doesn't mention the impossibility factor, although the line does mention the twist causes "certain Fridge Logic moments".
• YMMV.Impact Wrestling:
  • Zero-Context Example; just says that they're used so frequently that their no longer shocking and are just often senseless.
  • Okay it's just this really long Wall of Text that I literally can't read, so I'm just gonna post it:

** However, some actually do manage to come off well. One of the best examples of this going right was the big reveal of Bully Ray being the leader of the Aces & Eights after him winning the heavyweight title. At the time, it seemed like a very Russo-esque swerve for the sake of shock value, since in storyline, Bully had been married to Brooke Hogan and was a firm Face and constant opponent of the Aces & Eights for several months and as such, his Face–Heel Turn was fairly crapped on by the fans. But then two weeks later on Impact, Bully was in a number of monologue segments that had him walking through story arcs and seemingly unrelated events over the past nine months that laid out his master plan from start to finish, showing that the whole plan had a rather astonishing level of thought put into it, even covering Wes Brisco's Gut Check challenge several months prior to the big payoff that had nothing to do with the ongoing Aces & Eights storyline... until it was revealed that D'Lo Brown, who later was revealed as the club V.P., had filled in as a Gut Check judge following an injury to Al Snow and voted to bring Brisco in. Not only that, but Brisco's opponent, Garrett Bischoff, was also later shown to be an Aces & Eights member, making the entire series of events one where a TNA executive had wormed his way onto the judging panel to vote in a new member of his rogue faction after a tryout match where he was the first one to beat an existing TNA wrestler, who was also a member of said faction who arguably took a fall to make his new comrade-in-arms look good. Events like this and many more were shown and explained in what is probably the most in-depth and drawn-out wrestling storyline in the past few years. And just in case people were wondering how far ahead the angle was thought up, Devon posted this.

• YMMV.Kantai Collection: Misuse, just says that a character was killed-off after the previous two episodes had been relivatively lighthearted. Doesn't mention anything about a lack of foreshadowing or it being impossible.
• YMMV.Keiki: Just says that according to the work's creator, the revelations just came about because the story happened to run into Halloween. But the example doesn't actually mention what the revelations are.
• YMMV.Kira Kira Precure A La Mode: Doesn't mention the impossibility factor.
• YMMV.Mercy Thompson: Not sure. It talks about how one character is revealed to have romantic feelings towards another character, after prior books had depicted the two as having a like-father-and-daughter relationship. So I guess the twist does contradict prior events, but I'm not sure if it does so in a way that's impossible in-universe.
• YMMV.Nyan Neko Sugar Girls: Just says that more and more terrible things continue to happen to one character, until they die in the Grand F Inale.
• YMMV.Scooby Doo On Zombie Island: Doesn't mention the impossibility factor.
• YMMV.Sherlock S 04 E 03 The Final Problem: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• YMMV.Shut In: They don't say whether the twists contradict anything else in the movie, but they do seem to create massive plotholes and fridge-logic, so... maybe.
• YMMV.Skins: Potholed to "horrible", doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.
• YMMV.The Hateful Eight: Doesn't mention the impossibility factor. And in-fact mentions that there was some foreshadowing that creates an excellent Rewatch Bonus.
• YMMV.The Rise Of Skywalker:
  • Maybe, it does contradict the previous movie and had zero-foreshadowing, but technically it's not impossible in-universe.
  • Again does technically contradict a character’s motivation, but the handwave they give is in-line with the character's other motivations... so?
• YMMV.Vampires Suck: Used as part of a sentence, doesn't give enough context to whether it's being used correctly.

So tallied up that's:

• Potholed to part of sentence, doesn’t give enough context: 28.1%
• Used as part of sentence, doesn’t give enough context: 26.3%
• Treated as a trope, and misused: 3.5%
• Zero Context Examples: 7.0%
• Doesn’t mention the impossible part: 19.30%
• Correct: 1.8%
• Maybe: 8.8%
• That one Wall of Text: 1.8%
• Other Misuse: 3.5%

Edited by Anddrix on Feb 17th 2021 at 11:39:30 AM

Opening.

This was heavily misused in the old days. It's already been reined in a tiny bit, but as seen in the OP, misuse still exists.

Perhaps a rename should help with clarity.

Part of the problem is that this was created as "twist inserted just so there would be a twist" (as the Wayback Machine shows), and the change to the current definition of "twist that contradicts existing facts" was, to our recollection, not exactly done officially.

Edited by wingedcatgirl on Mar 20th 2021 at 1:36:22 PM

Both definitions are kind of weird, admittedly.

And like

you kinda know there are authors out there inserting shoddy twists for the sake of having twists.

But trying to make a trope out of that is a minefield of complaining and speculation.

Yeah. I'm just surprised it wasn't named after Shyamalan, tbh. The wiki was a cesspool of Trope Namers back when, so I'm glad this one was spared from it. It's definitely a very complainy trope, though.

So is the current definition, but at least this one can sort of be observed objectively.

If this was originally made to complain about Shyamalan, then I'm also surprised it wasn't named after him.

Edit: This part of the old description (the last line before the "see also" section) explains a lot of the complaining:

Would we lose anything if we just cut this? Less than 2% of the examples are unambiguously correct in the wick check. We can move examples elsewhere, like Ass Pull and Twist Ending.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 20th 2021 at 4:22:22 AM

Wow. One correct example. This is a twist done badly and redundant with Ass Pull (the misuse) and Plot Hole (any correct examples).

Edited by Tabs on Mar 20th 2021 at 4:45:07 AM

I missed Plot Hole when mentioning places we can move examples to if we cut this.

I guess we could disambig it.

I found this sentence in the description of The Un-Twist (first sentence of the second to last paragraph, not counting the Sectionectomy warning):

So this is an X Meets Y entry that combines Twist Ending with Ass Pull.

Then there's this paragraph from Twist Ending (last paragraph before the spoiler warning; bolded for emphasis):

So this is indeed Twist Ending done badly.

I'm still in favor of cutting this (though a disambig would work, too).

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 20th 2021 at 7:00:41 AM

It has thousands of inbounds (probably a ton more from pre-2012), so cutting is probably not an option.

In that case, I'm now leaning toward disambiguating between Ass Pull, Twist Ending, and Plot Hole, and maybe also The Un-Twist.

Maybe we could also find other tropes on the Plot Twist index to add.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Mar 20th 2021 at 7:05:57 AM

Technically, disambiguating it is cutting it. Sure, the page remains, but the trope itself will be axed.

I'm aware.

The only difference in my mind is whether it produces a red link, but yes, disambig is a cut.

the above disambiguation targets

We should also use this opportunity for too look through each example to see if they actually qualify as an Ass Pull rather than “complaining about plot twists I don’t like”.

I'm going to assume the the "doesn't mention the impossibility part" are pretty much the Ass Pulls. So the entries like:

• WorseThanItSounds.TV Tropes: Defines it as A twist no one sees coming, which is closer to Ass Pull as it doesn't mention the impossible part.
• YMMV.Berserk 1967: It just says The Reveal of the killer and specifically the final murder. Without actually specifying what those are.
• YMMV.Kantai Collection: Misuse, just says that a character was killed-off after the previous two episodes had been relatively lighthearted. Doesn't mention anything about a lack of foreshadowing or it being impossible.
• YMMV.Mercy Thompson: Not sure. It talks about how one character is revealed to have romantic feelings towards another character, after prior books had depicted the two as having a like-father-and-daughter relationship. So I guess the twist does contradict prior events, but I'm not sure if it does so in a way that's impossible in-universe.
• YMMV.The Rise Of Skywalker:
  • Maybe, it does contradict the previous movie and had zero-foreshadowing, but technically it's not impossible in-universe.
  • Again does technically contradict a character’s motivation, but the handwave they give is in-line with the character's other motivations... so?

If we ignore the "Impossible" part which was unilaterally added half a year ago, a Twist Ending + Ass Pull combo seems like a valid YMMV page to have. Is there any reason to believe it's more complainy than Ass Pull?

According to the wick check, the overriding issue is sinkholes. What would be an appropriate measure against that?

Edited by eroock on Apr 2nd 2021 at 8:54:58 AM

Meaning that it's just something people pothole to complain about twists.

I think we're overdue for a crowner, but I'm not sure what to put on it. Cutting and disambiguating would be options, but did I miss anything?

Personally I always confuse this name with Shocking Moments, which I think covers the non-negative equivalent of "surprising turn of events."