Bullet Holes and Revelations: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

[[Gun Struggle|Two characters are struggling for a gun.]] There's brawling, rolling, clenching... Suddenly they both stop with identical looks of shock on their faces after the gun goes off, and the viewer is left to ponder for several seconds which one of the characters was shot, usually with a headfake in the direction of it not being the character who was actually injured. It can be fatal, or not. It can also be a knife or other small weapon. Extra points if it occurs right before a commercial break which leaves you hanging.

 

Compare [[Bait and Switch Gunshot]]. See also [[Framed for Heroism]]. The [[Single-Stroke Battle]] is the Eastern version of this. This is a specific kind of [[Mortal Wound Reveal]].

 

* [[Egregious]]ly used in ''[[Saint Seiya]]''. The jarring part is that enemies, or the heroes themselves can go on like nothing happens for a while and then humongous holes or cracks will appear on the downed Saint/General/Spectre's cloth/scales/surplice.

* Not quite this trope, as there was no struggle for a gun, but the ending for ''[[Code Geass]]'' season 1 was kinda like that: {{spoiler|Lelouch}} and {{spoiler|Suzaku}} in a [[Mexican Standoff]], fading screen and sound of gunshot. Viewers are left to guess who shot whom.

** The end of ''Gundam Seed Destiny'' more clearly uses this trope.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

** Inquisitor Heldane manipulates "the pawn" mentally. Plentiful [[Red Herring]]s point to {{spoiler|Rawne}}, but it's not him.

** In ''Straight Silver'', we are told that Muril whirled about, and a knife struck to the heart, but {{spoiler|not until many scenes later do we know that Cuu killed her, and not she Cuu}}.

* Happens in ''[[Star Wars/Allegiance|Allegiance]]''. [[La Rone]] is snidely accused of disobeying orders by an ISB officer who then pulls a blaster on him. [[La Rone]] instinctively wrests it away, the officer pulls out a holdout blaster, there is a "soft flash, a muted blast" - and the officer falls dead. [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!]]. Stormtrooper combat training doesn't cover ISB officers playing threat games.

** Also happens in the ''[[X Wing Series]]''. Corran is rescued from Imperials by an old enemy's lover and then taken to that old enemy, who has her remove his blaster. The enemy levels a blaster at Corran, "the whine of a single blaster shot filled the hangar and the bolt tinted everything with the color of blood", and then the enemy crumples because his lover shot him. She'd gone through a slow [[Heel Face Turn]] that culminated here.

* ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]'': This happens when Rick brings a gun to school. {{spoiler|After shooting Jimmy in the back, which turns him into a paraplegic, Rick and Sean wrestle for the gun and a news report reveals that Rick died.}}

* ''[[Los Hombres De Paco]]'': Played with when Sara and Alison are struggling for a gun while Sara's relatives look on from a live camera feed via computer. The camera cuts to them as two gunshots ring out from the computer, and it's unclear who, if anyone, was injured. We later see that {{spoiler|Alison is alive, but shot in the shoulder. For the next twenty minutes it is unclear if Sara is alive or dead, but all seems to be fine when she shows up for her elopement with Lucas. Until halfway through the ceremony, when it's revealed that she's been shot in the stomach. [[Secret Stab Wound|She toughs it out]] in order to finish the wedding, but then collapses after the priest pronounces them man and wife}}.

* In the season 2 finale of ''[[Nip Tuck]]'', {{spoiler|Adrian and Ava}} are close together and we hear a stabbing noise, {{spoiler|Ava}}'s shocked look and bloody hands, but the reveal shows that {{spoiler|Adrian stabbed himself so that Ava would never leave him again}}.

* Episode 20 of ''[[The Flash]]'', "Good Night Central City," involved an inventor (Bill Mumy) being pressured by his cousin into using his sleep-inducing invention to commit robberies. When the cousin proved willing to kill with the device, Mumy rebelled and tried to stop him, they wrestled over a gun, and the gun went off between them. There was a suspenseful pause... and at this exact moment in the original April 4, 1991 broadcast of the episode (at least on the East Coast), CBS cut away to a special report in which Dan Rather spent the rest of the hour reporting on a minor and ultimately harmless heart flutter that had been suffered by then-President George H. W. Bush. As a result, the suspenseful moment was never resolved, at least until the show went into reruns. In fairness, though, it was easy to guess which character must have died.

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Casey and Andy]]'', {{spoiler|the climax to the "Mountain of the Mages" arc involved evil sorcerer Kasem appearing to stab Jenn...only for the next comic to reveal that he was the one stabbed, by the supposedly [[Evil Chancellor]].}}

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

[[Category:Just for Pun]]

[[Category:Infauxmation Desk]]