Ambiguous Situation: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
{{quote|''He's so beautiful, and he's a wise man''
''He brings the change - angel in human shape''
''He's the solitary angel''
 
''And he's not from heaven sent''
 
''He tries to bring the peace to the world''
He's the solitary angel
''He brings salvation and he brings love''
And he's not from heaven sent
He brings salvation and he brings love|'''[[Blutengel]]''', [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}5IM2doq-_9I singing] about a character that might be a [[Big Good|human]], [[Crystal Dragon Jesus|vampire]] or [[Satan Is Good|devil]].}}
He tries to bring the peace to the world
He brings salvation and he brings love|'''[[Blutengel]]''', [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IM2doq-_9I singing] about a character that might be a [[Big Good|human]], [[Crystal Dragon Jesus|vampire]] or [[Satan Is Good|devil]].}}
 
The art of playing mutually exclusive tropes at the same time, by making [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|the situation itself ambiguous]] so the viewers/readers can't know for sure what's going on. While this trope can come into play unintentionally, for example as a side effect of [[Faux Symbolism]], it's normally intentionally played by the authors. This can be done to make the story more interesting in general, as a way of [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]], or simply to appeal to several audiences at the same time - each of them likely to interpret the situation in whatever way they are most familiar with.
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Only add examples where the alternatives are reasonable. If needed, make an argument for why it's a viable interpretation. Also, don't add situations that are only temporarily ambiguous: If the situation is clarified after a little while then it is not an example.
 
Please note that pretty much ANY''any'' situation in fiction can theoretically be [[Sarcasm Mode]] or [[Unreliable Narrator]]. So only add such examples if you have a good argument for why the option is relevant.
 
Supertrope to [[Ambiguously Gay]] and [[Ambiguously Evil]]. Compare [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]] for another kind of uncertainty. Contrast [[Epileptic Trees]], which are conclusions that viewers draw when they don't limit themselves to information objectively present within the work. Also see [[Cryptic Conversation]].
 
{{Unmarked Spoilers}}
'''Warning''':Spoilers Herecannot be spoilers. Unmarked spoilersavoided, since they are often vital parts of the analysis.
 
{{noreallife|we'd be here all day.}}
 
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
 
== [[Anime]] ==
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' has quite a bit of this, ''partly'' resulting from that [[Rule of Symbolism]] mentioned in the trope description. The most notable example would be the final scene of ''End of Evangelion'', where the true meaning of Asuka's words remains up to viewer interpretation.
* At the end of the first season of ''[[Haruhi Suzumiya]]'' (which in chronological order would be the sixth episode) it is left very vague as to whether {{spoiler|Haruhi recreated the world or not}}. Kyon and Koizumi don't know either. There is really no way to know for sure, only that the events surrounding the moment when it would have occurred, if it did, really did happen.
** Multiple explanations for various happenings are also presented. For example, Koizumi claims that Haruhi created the espers and either attracted time travelers and aliens or created them, while Mikuru says that Koizumi is lying and that the residents of the future have their own goals. Nagato refuses to say what the IDTE thinks because neither she nor the previous two have the slightest bit of proof that they can show to Kyon and any of the three could easily lie to him. Another big ambiguity that is touched on occasionally but never truly addressed is whether Haruhi is a god or not. One of the early theories that Koizumi presented, a large number of fans assume it to be the case, but even Koizumi himself doesn't know if it's true or not.
* ''[[5 Centimeters per Second]]'': Is the woman that Takaki passes at the railway crossing in the third act really Akari? The fact that she doesn't wait to acknowledge him despite getting her memory jogged a short time ago by {{spoiler|finding the letter she had intended to pass to him years ago}} is suspicious, and invites speculation that it could have been a doppelganger or Takaki's hallucination instead. Official artbook ''A sky longing for memories'' unhelpfully uses the phrase "the woman" rather than explicitly confirming or denying that it's her, further muddying the waters. The manga has {{spoiler|an apparition of young Akari appear and wave goodbye at Takaki after the latter has turned his back rather than try going after the woman}}, but whether this is even meant to confirm that the woman is Akari after all or is merely symbolising Takaki's finally giving up on the pursuit of Akari is also debatable. The number of divergences the manga has from the film also call into question how much stock should be put in this even if the former is the correct interpretation.
 
== [[ComicsComic Books]] ==
* ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' has an open-ended ending where Rorschach's journal is seen lying in a pile of papers and reports in the ''New Frontiersman'', and a hand is seen reaching for the pile. The significance of the journal is that Rorschach uses it to expose Ozymandias for the murders of The Comedian and Moloch, which could potentially lead to an investigation that would expose Ozymandias. However, spoiler: the journal only exposes the murders of The Comedian and Moloch, and does not actually expose the squid monster ending, as Rorschach was not aware of the squid monster when he submitted the journal. And an underground newspaper may find it hard to expose a man as rich and powerful as Ozymandias.
 
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* The movie ''[[Cloverfield]]'' is an interesting example of this. The film acts as a deconstruction of giant monster movies, showing what it would be like to be a civilion in a giant monster attack. As such the monster's origin is left almost completely ambiguous because the characters themselves have no idea where it came from. The only thing that comes close to giving an idea about where the monster comes from is the ending which shows a large object falling from the sky into the ocean far off in the background. The fans and theorists are torn as to whether the object is the monster falling from space (meaning the creature would be an alien) or a piece of space junk, like a satilite, falling into the ocean and waking up the monster (which means the creature is an at least partially natural creature). Both explantions just raise more questions.
* [[John Carpenter]]'s ''[[The Thing (film)|The Thing]]'' is almost literally one situation after another full of plot threads that are never fully resolved and left to the viewer's interpretation. Who got to the blood? What happened to {{spoiler|Fuchs and Nauls}}, when were {{spoiler|Palmer, Norris, and Blair}} infected? Are {{spoiler|Mac and Childs}} infected or are they still human? To this day fans still debate on these questions and more.
* ''[[Happy Death Day]]'' originally had an ambiguous ending, where Tree is in the hospital, the movie ending with the wife of the professor she had been sleeping with sneaking in, dead set on revenge. The director had wanted it this way because it left the ending open, so if the movie was a flop, it meant Tree was [[Killed Off For Real]] and nobody would expect a sequel, but if it was a success, it would be a [[Sequel Hook]] with a second movie seeing her regenerate and revive yet again. However, test audiences didn't like it, as it cheated poor Tree out of a [[Earn Your Happy Ending|well-earned happy ending]], so it was changed. And a sequel ''did'' occur.
 
== [[Literature]] ==
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* ''[[A Simple Survey]]'' has a number of short stories that end before resolving the situation. For example, in one story humans have developed technology that lets them see into hell, and portrays it as a nice place. The narrator converses with a demon, who claims that her kind are too lazy to punish sinners, and invites him to enter hell. However, an angel intervenes and claims that it's an illusion, to trick people into going to hell willingly.
 
== [[Live -Action TV]] ==
* The sixth season of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' has an episode called "Normal Again", which follows the [[Cuckoo Nest]] trope: Buffy is injected with a poison that make her hallucinate... Or is it the other way around? According to a psychiatrist, who may or may not be a real person, she is in fact getting better: She has been sick all along, and now she's finally waking up from years of catatonic schizophrenia. So, the whole series is either [[This Is Reality]] or a mad [[All Just a Dream]] with a dash of [[The Schizophrenia Conspiracy]]. In the end, Buffy chooses her livelife in Sunnydale over her life in the mental institution, but the ending leaves it ambiguous whether or not the world she settled for is the real one.
* ''[[Law and& Order: Special Victims SVUUnit]]'' loves to leave stuff unresolved for the audience to ponder. Usually, it's on the simple level whether the guy is guilty or not (such as in the episode "Doubt"), but sometimes they take it to a much deeper level. The detectives just keep spawning new theories, and none of them either gets verified. For example, the episode "Slaves" features a husband, his wife, and their nanny/girlfriend/SexSlave[[Sex Slave]] Elena. They keep the relationship hidden...
** ''Either'' because Elena is in the country illegally, and also because her conservative aunt and other relatives would not approve of her living in a polyamorous relationship,
** ''Or'' because they have kidnapped Elena and held her against her will until [[Stockholm Syndrome]] set in.
** :So, it's pretty much [[Safe, Sane, and Consensual]], [[Polyamory]] and [[Casual Kink]] versus [[Complete Monster]] and [[A Match Made in Stockholm]]. The husband claims the first option, but that might just be [[From a Certain Point of View]] or even [[Blatant Lies]]. As for Elena, she never gets a voice in the matter. The kindnappingkidnapping theory is implied to be the correct one, but if it's actually verified then that happens ''after'' the episode is over.
*** :The only outright verification given for the [[Complete Monster]] viewpoint comes from the wife, and only AFTER''after'' she has been...
*** ::A. proven guilty of murdering Elena's aunt without her husband's knowledge or consent.
*** ::B. force-fed "oh, go ahead and blame it on your husband anyway" by the detectives as a [["Get Out of Jail Free" Card]].
* Much of ''[[Life Onon Mars]]'', British version, was highly unclear as to what was reality.
* ''[[Person of Interest]]'' episode 4, "Cura Te Ipsum": We never find out if Reese kills the serial rapist or lets him go.
* ''[[Lost]]''. True to its [[Gnosticism|gnostic]] roots, it eschews answers about the nature of the universe in favor of personal revelation according to the perspectives of the characters (''and'' the viewers). A close-up of eyes is a recurring visual motif, characters making a decision based on incomplete or outright fraudulent information pops up repeatedly, and questions like "Is the Light spiritual or scientific in nature?" "Is Jacob a god, a superpowerful conman, or a scientist who sets an experiment in motion and watches the results?" or "Do the Numbers really mean anything, or is Hurley mistaking coincidence for fate?" are never clarified, to the [[Broken Base|dismay of some fans]].
 
 
== [[Music]] ==
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* [[Modern Warfare]]: Both the villains, Khalid al-Asad and Imran Zakhaev, blame the west for their two countries' problems. While their actions are morally reprehensible, whether they're [[President Evil|power-mad dictators]] [[America Saves the Day|America is trying to save the world from]] or [[Knight Templar]]s [[I Did What I Had to Do|doing what they genuinely think they have to do to stop American imperialism]] is open to interpretation. Very much [[Truth in Television]]. The ambiguity even extends to the nuclear detonation—it's never confirmed [[Revision|in the first game]] who set it off: Zakhaev, al-Asad, a suicidal [[Mook]], the NEST team trying to diffuse it....
* Much to the [[Fandom]]'s [[Ending Aversion|chagrin]], ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'' ended with this trope. Beyond the presence of a [[Gainax Ending]], there is the apparent {{spoiler|explosion of the mass relays in every ending except Control, which would doom the entire galaxy, given that an exploding mass relay has shown to release energy on the scale of supernova}}, in addition to the enormous amount of [[Fridge Horror]] in the endings (see [[Inferred Holocaust]]). In fact, even in {{spoiler|the control ending, the Catalyst's dialogue seems to imply that controlling the reapers will eventually lead to [[And Then John Was a Zombie]], causing the reapers to return to destroy the galaxy and renew the cycle.}} Apparently, this was the desired effect of the endings, as the lead writer Mac Walters (allegedly) wrote, in [[ALLCAPS]] on a piece of note paper regarding the endings "'''[[Memetic Mutation|LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE]]'''."
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'': In an early chapter, Reynardine apparently [[Body Surf|attempts to possess Antimony]], which would have killed her. Much later, Coyote insists that trying to kill Annie would have been out of character for Rey, leading many readers to reinterpret the earlier scene as an elaborate attempt on Rey's part to fake his own death and go into hiding, rather than a genuine possession attempt. Tom Siddell has confirmed that he deliberately set up the scene so the fanbase would be divided on the issue. In a later chapter, {{spoiler|Reynardine admits (to a minor villain whom he then kills) that he was so desperate to escape his prison that he indeed was willing to kill Antimony, and says that he can never forgive himself for it.}}
* ''[[Homestuck]]''. The short version: A character who has the explicit ability to return from any death, except one that is either ''heroic'' ([[Heroic Sacrifice]]) or ''just'' (Die for their crimes), dies and does not return. Hardly any readers think this is a heroic death, but there's ambiguous evidence suggesting that it's not a just death either, and that the real reason the character doesn't return is because of a cosmic accident cheating them out of their revival.<ref>The longer, spoileriffic version:The character in question is Vriska, the comic's [[Base Breaker]] and reigning queen of [[Alternate Character Interpretation]]. She had committed many murders, was deliberately responsible for the creation of [[Big Bad|Bec Noir]], and was killed while leaving to fight Bec Noir--if Vriska had not been stopped, Bec Noir would have killed all her friends. However, Vriska's [[Freudian Excuse]], her eleventh-hour remorse over prior misdeeds, and her desire to reform may or may not have redeemed her enough that her death no longer qualified as just. Further complicating the matter, the simultaneous ([[Timey-Wimey Ball|for a given value of "simultaneous"]]) destruction of a magic clock, whose pendulum was swinging between ''heroic'' and ''just'', may or may not have interfered with the universe making the right ruling on the nature of her death. Death sure is confusing!</ref> [[Word of God|Word of Hussie]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110621013508/http://www.formspring.me/mspadventures/q/205977743303664796 has outright stated] that he intended for this to be ambiguous and divisive.
 
== [[Web Original]] ==
* Invoked in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v59b0iTRIs4 this episode of] [[Zinnia Jones]], about how different Christians interpret [[The Bible]] differently.
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[Family Guy]]'', Stewie is a [[Brainy Baby]] who can talk, but whether anyone in the cast other than Brian can understand what he's saying isn't made clear. This is even lampshaded in some episodes, like in n "E. Peterbus Unum" where a student in the distant future is watching the episode and asks his teacher, "So, can the family understand the baby, or... what's the deal with that?" Creator Seth MacFarlane claimed in an interview that they ''could'' understand him if they ''listened'', but choose to ignore him, usually just regarding what he says a "cute" although he later compared Stewie to Wile E. Coyote from ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' shorts. It seems to simply be a case of [[Depending on the Writer]].
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Ambiguous Situation{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Drama Tropes]]
[[Category:Psychology Tropes]]
[[Category:Philosophy Tropes]]
[[Category:Ambiguous Situation]]