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Deconstruction: Difference between revisions
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* The first generation of ''[[Gundam AGE]]'' presents itself as a deconstruction of a warrior [[The Messiah|Messiah]].
* ''[[Now and Then Here And There]]'' is a deconstruction of the [[Trapped in Another World]] story. The "other world" is a barren wasteland filled with genuinely fucked-up people in power, child soldiering and exploitation, no magic to speak of (except for Lala-Ru's power), and almost devoid of ''water''. Granted, {{spoiler|protagonist Shu ''does'' defeat the [[Big Bad]] against all odds and return home by the end, but the last scene is barely hopeful or uplifting.}}
* ''[[Strange Dawn]]''. The people of the other world are cute [[Super
* ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' starts out as a light-hearted [[True Companions]] / [[Gotta Catch Em All]] adventure story with some darkness around the edges and interesting sexual subtext. One-third of the way through, everything you thought you knew turns inside out and the most light-hearted elements become harbingers of the ugliest secrets. From there on out, the series proceeds to do everything it can to make your mind boggle, including introducing major unexpected [[Squick]] into what had once been [[CLAMP]]'s most popular and innocent pairing.
* The "Perfect GT-R" arc of ''[[Wangan Midnight]]'' has a beautiful deconstruction of street racing. Jun Kitami, who at this point has been portrayed as a reckless, heartless daredevil tuner, says point-blank that there are no winners or losers and that Koichi did exactly the right thing in giving up this senseless hobby so he could return to his wife. Given that ''the whole manga'' is about street racing, plainly admitting a truth like this took guts. Even better, this happens in the very first arc after the Devil Z and Blackbird are introduced.
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* The 1991 film ''[[The Dark Backward]]'' contains an animated sequence that deconstructs the ''[[Tom and Jerry (Animation)|Tom and Jerry]]'' cartoons: Tom's [[Captain Ersatz]] gleefully pursues Jerry's, hatchet in hand, and then cuts him in half with it (guts spill); then Spike's [[Captain Ersatz]] appears and blows the cat's brains out (literally) with a shotgun. The main character's mother laughs out loudly at this scene.
* A scene from ''[[The Mirror Has Two Faces]]'' shows Streisand's character deconstructing "[[Cinderella (Literature)|Cinderella]]", saying that she drove the prince nuts with her obsessive cleaning.
* The 2008 movie ''[[JCVD]]'' is a deconstruction of Jean-Claude Van Damme himself, as an out-of-luck delusional actor as opposed to the real-life moderately successful actor. [
* The Milla Jovovich version of ''[[Joan of Arc]]'' plays out the way the true story went until she is captured by the English, at which point it deconstructs the entire mythology surrounding Joan of Arc. In prison, she meets {{spoiler|(or better said, ''hallucinates'')}} a character (played by Dustin Hoffman) whose only function seems to be to question her calling from God.
* ''[[Saturday Night Fever]]'' harshly deconstructs America's hedonistic take on life in [[The Seventies]]. Sure, there were beautiful clothes, music, and lots of dancing, but there was a dark side to the life led by people like Tony and his friends. For example, Tony, who turns to hedonism as a way to cope with his own life as a low-class Brooklyn guy with a ''really'' [[Dysfunctional Family]], has no thought for the future (and the culture as a whole didn't either), and his friends are involved with [[Sex, Drugs and Rock And Roll|drugs, drinking, and casual sex]] which does cause them huge problems.
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== Literature ==
* ''[[The Warlord Chronicles]]'' by Bernard Cornwell does a combination of this and [[Demythtification]] in regards to the [[King Arthur]] legends.
* Arguably, Boris Strugatsky's ''[[The Powerless of This World (Literature)|The Powerless of This World]]'' is a deconstruction of much of his own and his late brother's earlier works. Perhaps most prominently, "the Sensei", who is a [[The Obi-Wan|wise old mentor]] (a fairly typical character for many Strugatsky novels), turns out to have been not only a [[Trickster Mentor]], but also {{spoiler|the initiator of the [[Xanatos Gambit]] that dictated much of the plot and was aimed at [[Die or Fly|forcing the main character to unlock his full abilities]]}}. It succeeded, but not before making said main character a nervous wreck, inducing quite a [[Bittersweet Ending]] and causing much remorse to the mentor himself. Additionally, the topic of [
** ''[[Hard to Be A God (Literature)|Hard to Be A God]]'' deconstructs medieval chivalry, fantasy settings, the supposed glamour of royalty and nobility, and well-intentioned meddling by developed countries (in this case, civilizations: an idealist Commies [[In Space]] benevolent space-faring nation ideologically similar to ''[[Star Trek (Franchise)|Star Trek]]'''s Federation). The European 'Middle Ages' overlapped with the last century/centuries of the 'Dark Ages' for a reason: a [[Crapsack World]] is a given there.
* With ''A Companion to Wolves'', [[Elizabeth Bear]] and [[Sarah Monette]] do this to all [[Bond Creatures|bonded companion animal]] stories, especially [[Anne McCaffrey]]'s ''[[Dragonriders of Pern]]''.
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* The B plot of ''[[Community (TV)|Community]]'' episode [[Community (TV)/Recap/S1 E24 English As a Second Language|English as a Second Language]] is a deconstruction of ''[[Good Will Hunting]]'. Abed pulls a paraphrasing of Ben Affleck's "the best part of my day" speech from on Troy, to try to get him to 'use his gift' and become a plumber. The next day, Abed turns to find that Troy is no longer sitting next to him in class... but not because he's inspired and has dropped out, but because Troy has switched seats because he's offended that his best friend would actually think the prospect of him just leaving without a word would be the best part of his day. Turns out, that would actually be a really horrible and offensive thing to say to a friend, no matter how gifted.
* ''[[Ultraman Nexus]]'' is a deconstruction of the usual Kaiju and ''[[Ultraman]]'' shows. It shows what will happen if giant alien and monsters actually appear in real life and no, it isn't pleasant. This is why Nexus is considered [[Darker and Edgier]] than most Tokusatsu.
* Since its reboot in 2005, ''[[
* [[Kamen Rider Ryuki]], add some aspect of [[Mon]] to [[Kamen Rider]]. But the monsters have no loyalty to their masters and will eat them, should the contact card is destroyed. The same thing would occur if the monsters aren't well-fed, meaning you must continue fighting to feed your mons, even if you want to quit - and more mons you have, it's just harder to feed them all. Oh, there's another way to get around this, the mons also [[I'm a Humanitarian|eat humans]]. At least one rider is more than happy to lets his mon eat random people, it help cover his murder anyway.
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* [[Earthbound (Video Game)|The]] ''[[MOTHER]]'' [[Mother 3 (Video Game)|trilogy]] is a relatively early deconstruction of the conventions of the [[Eastern RPG]] genre, from the outside perspective of [[Shigesato Itoi|one]] who's a professional writer as opposed to a game designer.
* ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' is one of its own series. Rather than show a glamorized portrayal of criminal life like the previous games did, it portrays it realistically, with most of the characters being poor, sociopathic, psychotic, greedy, or otherwise unlikable. Even [[Player Character|Niko]] himself is a hypocrite.
* [[New Game
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim (Video Game)|The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim]]'', the "save the world from the world-eating [[Big Bad]] dragon Alduin" quest is deconstructed in a conversation with Paarthunax, leader of the Greybeards and {{spoiler|a good dragon, possibly the only one in existence.}} He asks if it isn't foolish to stop the apocalypse {{spoiler|if it's being done by someone whose job it is to do exactly that and thereby bring about the next world.}} Arngeir also poses these questions, but less in-depth. The story is, however, reconstructed later.
* ''[[Red Alert 3 Paradox]]'' is a [[Game Mod]] building a world around the scarce information of its source material, ''[[Command and Conquer]] [[Red Alert 3]]'' and plays out realistically what would happen if three major super powers go to all-out war, a US President is killed or what consequences it has when physics-defying technology is used large-scale and regularly. It's not nearly as idealistic as the original.
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[[Category:index]]
[[Category:Deconstruction]]
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