All The Tropes:Not a Subversion: Difference between revisions

A TV Tropes [[Wiki Tropes|Wiki Trope]] involving the [[You Keep Using That Word|loose usage]] of the term "[[Subverted Trope|subversion]]".

 

People tend to label any series that merely completely avoids a certain trope as a "subversion," when in fact that's called an ''aversion''. It's only a ''sub''version if the work sets up the trope, creating an expectation that the trope will be used, and then does something else. It's an ''a''version when the genre itself sets it up.

 

Aversions hardly ever need to be noted. To quote [[Averted Trope]], unless the trope is so universal within a genre that exceptions truly stand out, there's not much point in listing an aversion on an ''examples'' list that serves to illustrate a trope's patterns and their prevalence. However, if works in a series make notable use of a trope, then aversion in later installments also become notable.

 

A ''slightly'' more subtle distinction; inverted tropes are sometimes incorrectly described as "subverted". An inverted trope is where the usual setup of the trope is in some way swapped: [[Gender Inverted Trope|sex-flipped versions]] are quite common, though by no means the only example.

 

A trope can of course be both inverted and subverted, if the viewer or reader is led to expect the straight version only to be given an inversion of some kind, but an inverted trope is not automatically also a subverted one: there needs to be a genuine attempt to suggest that the trope is going to be used straight to qualify as a "subversion".

 

Worse, occasionally a ''slight'' spin on the standard trope formula, such as the addition of a [[Justified Trope|justification]], is seized upon as a subversion by the occasional fan, perhaps because they don't want to acknowledge that a trope was played deadly straight [[Tropes Are Not Bad|to good effect]] in their favourite work.

 

 

 

Sometimes, when people talk of "Partial Subversion", they mean [[Downplayed Trope]], where the trope is still present, but to a much lesser degree.

 

Beware ye these abominable [[Weasel Words]] that refer to various methods of [[Playing with a Trope]]:

 

A ''real'' subversion plays off the expectation of a familiar trope being set up in the viewers mind. Subtle, even laudably creative, variants are not that. When a trope ''is'' subverted it's very, very obvious: there is no "somewhat."

 

Worst case scenario, the so-called "[[Subverted Trope|subversion]]" is actually [[Not an Example]] at all.

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* [[Hypocritical Humor|Partially subverted]] in TV Tropes Wiki, where the word subversion is often used to mean [[Averted Trope|aversion]], [[Satire, Parody, Pastiche|parody]], straight use in a comical context, etc.