Exactly What I Aimed At/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Someone shoots and seems to miss, but actually hits an off-screen target that causes a chain reaction.

  • Straight: The Lone Gunslinger shoots over the shoulder of his opponent...into the water heater behind him, which explodes and kills him.
  • Exaggerated: The Lone Gunslinger shoots backwards over his own shoulder. The bullet ricochets around the room and careens into the water heater.
  • Downplayed: The gunslinger gives his opponent Just a Flesh Wound, disarming him, and when he's accused of missing says that he prefers not to kill people.
  • Justified: The villain is wearing armor that prevents bullets from penetrating the skin, but the armor isn't powerful enough to withstand...say... the debris falling on it from the shelf that was just shot out.
  • Inverted: The Lone Gunslinger kills his opponent with a bullet right between the eyes;

The Lone Sidekick: Nice shot!
The Lone Gunslinger: ...I meant to shoot the boulder down and pin him...

  • Subverted:
    • We see the Lone Gunslinger notice a precarious boulder behind the opponent. He fires a bullet over their shoulder...and it harmlessly lodges itself in the wall.
    • Or...

Lone Gunslinger: *Shoots*
Black Hat: Hah! You missed!
Gunslinger: It wasn't you I was aiming at!
Black Hat: [long pause] ...so what were you aiming at?
Gunslinger: Um... the chandelier. I guess I missed that too?

  • Double Subverted: Beat. Then the wall collapses on the opponent's head.
  • Parodied: A giant bomb reading "Warning! Do not shoot!" is strapped to the villain's back.
  • Deconstructed: The gunslinger is so confident in his skills that he refuses to directly shoot his enemies. This of course eventually leads to him missing one and getting himself killed.
  • Reconstructed: The gunslinger is so confident in his skills that he refuses to directly shoot his enemies, and his supernaturally Improbable Aiming Skills mean he can pull this off. The overconfident Gunslinger Wannabe who tries to emulate him dies within seconds.
  • Zig Zagged: The Lone Gunslinger shoots over the shoulder of his opponent... Into the water heater behind him, which explodes, but it's too far away to do any damage. A few moments pass, and then the structural damage causes the roof to collapse. Except for the section above the Gunslinger and his opponent. However, the liquor cabinet gets torn down from the wall, and the heavy glass bottles fall down towards the Gunslinger's opponent. He notices it in time, and sidesteps. The liquor starts flowing along the sloped floor, and eventually reaches a tipped over candle. The candle isn't lit. The other candle in the candle holder is, though, causing the building to ignite. The gunslinger's opponent takes a quick look at the slowly spreading flames, and starts walking in the opposite direction, towards the exit. He slips on the water spilled by the water heater, and knocks himself unconscious.
  • Averted:
    • The Lone Gunslinger misses.
    • Alternatively, The Lone Gunslinger Just Shoots Him.
  • Enforced: Executives tell the writer that the Lone Gunslinger can't actually shoot the villains.
  • Lampshaded: "Ha! You missed! Meaning something even worse is about to happ--"BOOM!
  • Invoked: The villain knows the Gunslinger's flair for the dramatic and gives his Hannibal Lecture directly underneath a large, swaying Falling Chandelier of Doom. Unbeknownst to our hero, the chandelier's specially reinforced.
  • Defied: The villain realizes what the gunslinger was aiming at, and steps aside before it can fall on him.
  • Discussed: "Now, watch out. If that guy seems to intentionally miss you, run away from your spot as fast as you can."
  • Conversed: "The hero always seems to miss, doesn't he?"

Back to Epic Fail. Ha! That's Exactly What I Aimed At!

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