Cruel Twist Ending: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A [[Twist Ending]] that serves no purpose other than to be ''excessively cruel''.

 

 

Most common in [[Genre Anthology|genre anthologies]] with a darker tone than ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'': ''[[Tales of the Unexpected]]'', ''[[Tales from the Darkside]]'', ''[[Monsters]]'', ''One Step Beyond'', etc.

 

{{examples}}

* An awareness campaign about child dyslexia showed a young boy sitting listlessly through a prizegiving ceremony at school, aware that he hasn't done well enough in any of his classes to receive a prize. Suddenly, his name is called, and he discovers he's won a prize for art and design (the only subject that involves little reading and writing) - then finds out his prize is a book token.

 

* ''[[Paranoia Agent]]''. Just one example: {{spoiler|was it really necessary to ''kill'' Kozuka just to prove he wasn't [[Woolseyism|Shonen Bat/Lil' Slugger]]? Maybe, maybe not. But he would've committed suicide anyway.}} Have a nice day!

* Many episodes of ''[[Kino's Journey]]'' follow this. One episode where Kino helps a stranded group of people survive a harsh winter, we found out {{spoiler|they were slave traders who had eaten their previous haul and look to enslave Kino to make up for it.}} Another episode has Kino visiting neighboring countries who used to constantly be at war. When Kino asks how they achieved peace, {{spoiler|she finds the opposing countries have made their battles into a game in which both countries see who can slaughter the most inhabitants of an adjacent defenseless village.}} In another episode Kino finds a country so likable that Kino nearly breaks the three day rule of staying in one place, yet the townsfolk mysteriously refuse to let her stay longer. {{spoiler|When Kino leaves, the next day she wakes up to find the country destroyed by a nearby erupted volcano.}}

* The ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' OVA ''Legend of Kenshiro'' ends with this. The [[Big Bad]] who was thought to be dead turns out to be [[Crazy Prepared]] [[Taking You with Me|and in his last breath]] destroys the city Kenshiro was trying to save. In the final moments of the movie, Kenshiro is [[Kill'Em All|the only survivor]] and can't do much but [[Manly Tears|cry]] and [[Freak-Out|scream]].

 

* ''Tharg's Future Shocks'' from ''[[2000 AD]]'' typically end with these twists. Some of the more interesting ones include:

** A werewolf on a virtually eternal space flight to an off-world colony looking forward to feasting on everybody else on board whenever the spaceship passes a lunar body finding out the hard way that every passenger and crew member on the vessel is also a werewolf and was hoping to do the same thing (and Earth's space command post happy to know that they've finally figured out a way to get rid of all of the planet's werewolves).

* One issue of ''[[Star Wars Tales]]'' featured the story of a Jedi Master who ignored her orders to return to Coruscant at the start of the Clone Wars, having become embroiled in the pursuit of a Dark Jedi named Kardem, a serial killer who targets Twi'lek women and also murdered her secret lover. Eventually she comes face to face with Kardem and engages him in a lightsabre duel. As it transpires, {{spoiler|''she'' is the real killer, having caught her lover in the arms of a Twi'lek woman and murdered them both in a secret rage. She created the Kardem personality to reconcile her actions with her breach of the Jedi code, but it takes control whenever she encounters a female Twi'lek. The "Dark Jedi" she encounters is actually a Jedi knight dispatched by the council to bring her in. As soon as she kills him, she regains consciousness, assuming that Kardem has struck again and killed a Jedi knight, and resolves never to stop until the killer is brought to justice}}.

 

* In ''[[Time Masters]]'', a ragtag bunch of space travels are thrown back in time 60 years by an [[Omniscient Council of Vagueness]] made up of space aliens. {{spoiler|Turns out that the little boy, Piel, is actually one and the same with Silbad, the cheerful old man with them, and they just represent two different times in his life. Silbad has a [[Burial in Space]] all because the aliens felt it was right. Unnecessarily cruel?}}

 

* One arc of ''[[You Got Haruhi Rolled]]'' ends with {{spoiler|Emiri having joined the Anti-SOS Brigade, giving them enough strength to kill all of the good guys except for Kyon and his family, and dooming the entire world. And all because Kyon told Emiri to [[Be Yourself|Be Herself]].}} It's retconned away in the next chapter due to [[Negative Continuity]], but still... ''ouch''.

* The ''[[Powerpuff Girls]]'' fic ''Immortality Relapse'' which actually gave two cruel twists, one for the first story ''[[Immortality Syndrome]]'' and one for its own {{spoiler|The first comes midway though the story when Bubbles accidentally splashes some Antidote X on a revived Butch. This negates the murderous tendencies that came from being killed and revived when the Puffs were recreated. but Bubbles goes into shock when she realizes in the first story they managed to subdue Buttercup that way and Buttercup was trying to warn them before she was killed again in hopes of fixing the problem.}} But that pales in comparison to {{spoiler|The ending when it looks like they had stopped Boomer from activating his doomsday machine. But he remains alive long enough to turn it on and kill everyone on the planet. Some last minute actions by the Professor allowed Bubble to be revived but she now the last living being alone on Earth.}}

 

* The last survivor in ''[[Night of the Living Dead]]'' is mistaken for a zombie and shot dead.

** As is the last non-infected survivor in ''[[Cabin Fever (film)|Cabin Fever]]''. Hilariously, his last words are "I made it! I fucking made it!"

* While [[It Was His Sled| no surprise now]], the ending of ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'' was [[Luke, I Am Your Father| possibly the cruelest twist ending]] in film history, at the time.

 

* Many ''[[Goosebumps]]'' books end with this, although most of them are merely [[Twist Endings]].

* Ray Nelson's short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" (loosely adapted into the movie ''[[They Live!]]'') tells the story of a man who singlehandedly saves Earth from a huge alien conspiracy. Then he drops dead at eight o'clock the next morning thanks to an implanted hypnotic suggestion by the aliens.

* "Megan's Law" by Jack Ketchum has this ending. The story revolves around a concerned father turning vigilante when a convicted rapist/child molester moves to the town. Eventually, the father murders the guy - and then we discover the father himself is abusing his own daughter, he just didn't want any "competition" for her.

 

** "Tempests": In order to save a space colony, a man must figure out which of the two realities he's switching between are real, the [[Lotus Eater Machine|seemingly perfect one]] or the darker one. He makes the "right" choice - and we find out that ''both'' worlds are [[Lotus Eater Machine]]s. His real situation is much worse, he's cocooned by giant spiders and slowly being eaten, and as a result of his failure everyone presumably dies.

** "The Deprogrammers": A group of humans beat alien brainwashing and eventually manage to take down the [[Big Bad]] -- [[Batman Gambit|just as a rival alien had arranged]], as it turns out. Once they've done his dirty work for him, they're turned into ''his'' [[Brainwashed]] slaves.

** In "Fall from Grace", {{spoiler|it turns out that the patient which the team has saved is actually a [[I'm a Humanitarian|cannibal]] and a [[Serial Killer]]. He fled the hospital before the FBI agents who just arrived could catch him.}}

 

* In the second part of ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'s'' [http://www.l4d.com/comic/comic.php?page=43 comic for The Sacrifice ], Zoey discovers that the carrier gene which has allowed her to avoid the infection is passed on by the father. She then recalls that at the start of the zombie ordeal, {{spoiler|she killed her father after he was bitten, believing that he would turn into a zombie if she didn't kill him. However, her father actually had the same carrier and would have survived the infection if she hadn't killed him.}}

* ''[[Eversion]]'' fits this all too well. {{spoiler|That princess you're out to save? She's an Eldritch Abomination who will eat you alive in the bad ending. And in the good ending? Turns out you are the demons.}}

* ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'': So, you've built the [[Lost Superweapon|Crucible]], forced the arms of the Citadel open, and now you're ready to shut down the [[Eldritch Abomination|Reapers]] once and for all? {{spoiler|Guess what, the Citadel is an ancient AI that ''built'' the Reapers/Is the first Reaper, and now you're going to have to sacrifice Shepard and destroy the mass relays to stop the Reapers, no matter what ending you choose and no matter what choices you made [[Old Save Bonus|throughout the three games]].}}

 

* [[Sluggy Freelance|Torg's]] [[Stylistic Suck|"Greatest Comic Book of All Time"]]—Gunman Stan McKurt, the guy who shoots evil in the face, vows to kill anyone in order to keep the Gates to the City of the Damned shut. It turns out he's already inside the city and doesn't know it, because he can't read.

* The [[Platypus Comix]] story "Vess MacMeal Starring in: [[The More You Know]]!" has an ending evoking those of cautionary stories written during the [[Cold War]]. The comic traces the introduction of an electronic tablet called, "The Kimwon". As the tale progresses, the Kimwon develops new apps that do everything from streaming movies and TV shows, to scanning groceries, to synthesizing food. {{spoiler|These new apps eventually [[Ludd Was Right|take over all the Americans' jobs]].}} If that doesn't sound bad enough, it also turns out {{spoiler|the Kimwon was invented by North Korean [[Dirty Communists]] as part of Kim Jong Il's plan to [[Take Over the World]]}}. If ''that'' doesn't sound bad enough, {{spoiler|Kim Jong Il also reveals that [[Soylent Green|the Kimwon is made of people]]}}!